This week we were assigned another short exercise, this time to animate a character lifting up an object. Once again I decided to work in 3D, just so I have the option to play around with ease, as I mentioned in my post for last week’s exercise.

Lifting Animation

The aim was to animate a character lifting an object, keeping in mind the principles we have learnt up to now. These include:

• Weight
• Timing (this is what I probably struggle with most)
• Anticipation
• Balance
• Line of Action
• Silhouette
• Believability

There were a few recommended ways to approach this, such as getting into the character yourself and having someone record it. This makes sense and I probably should have made the effort to do that, although I did make sure to test out actions as I came to animating them.

The first mistake I noticed is the change in the box’s weight. In my build-up, the box appears heavier than in the actual lifting stage. I was trying to imagine it as a box of t shirts from work (a standard sized full box is usually about 23kg), which I think the initial weight was closer to. I certainly don’t lift the boxes quite as casually as my animation demonstrates.

Something else which wasn’t particularly successful, was my silhouette. Due to the large size of the box, a lot of the character was obscured from most angles during the lift. Towards the end, the box is shifted in one direction in order for my character to quickly get his hand underneath to support it. Since you can’t see the movements he makes with the other arm, it doesn’t really work.

You can see the animation below.

With this exercise, I started by putting in the key frames first, then adjusting the timing, then the in-betweens. I wasn’t sure if this was a good approach, so I didn’t push it too hard. Turns out this is a recommended approach to use, so I will continue to do so.

Our exercise for next week is to animate a ‘shift of mood’. This is without facial expressions; purely posture and body language. I need to decide on two emotions to convey. I’m thinking upset to angry. Or maybe excitement to embarrassment. Possibilities are endless.