CAGD 493 Week 3 Reflection - Christopher Coombs


    Hey everyone, it's Christopher! I want to thank all of my classmates for the great advice I received during the Wednesday evaluation of my very first walk cycle. Here is the progress that I have made so far on the leopard rig early this morning:


    As you can now tell, I managed to easily fix the problem I had with the tail during the presentation, and I lowered the body a bit to make it look more like they were sneaking. I've slowed down the walk just a touch, too, and reduced the tail sway, although these might not be too noticeable. I took Mark's advice from that day and lowered the leopard's head just like in the reference footage. As for today, I decided it'd be best to swing by Mark's office hours and see if there was any other way I could improve my animation. Fortunately, he suggested a lot of cool ideas. In the reference footage he showed me, as well as his tiger walk cycle animation, he noted that the front paws will typically extend forward roughly up to the nose in distance. Considering I recently lowered the body for my rig, the legs now have a lot more reach, so this should be no problem at all to fix. This would also be a good opportunity to mess around with the shoulder controllers more. Another issue he wants me to tackle is the head. While I did lower the head quite a bit, Mark says I should have the head bounce come from the chest controller rather than his neck. Lastly, he showed me how I can fix the front legs so that they no longer pause after every stride before lifting up. Again, I am very grateful for all the support from my classmates and teacher. I've learned quite a lot from all the advice. As for my next motion, I've just started working on the leopard's run cycle. Although I am probably going to spend the rest of this weekend refining the walk cycle, I at least wanted to get a rough block out for the run so that I'd have a solid foundation to build off for next week. Here is what I have for my basic blockout:


    That's all for now. Thank you for checking in on my progress! I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on the final result for my leopard's walk cycle.
                                                                                                           - Christopher Coombs

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