CAGD 493 Week 9 Reflection - Christopher Coombs

    Hello, this is Christopher Coombs, and welcome back to my weekly blog! This week, I've decided to deviate a bit from working on my routine quadruped animations. Poetically, my laptop was also tired of working with the leopard rig, and it actually broke down just one day after reanimating my last leopard animation. After finally getting the new laptop delivered and set up for my classes during the latter half of this week, I started looking for something new to animate. Not only did I want my next project to be a brief respite from the many weeks spent animating nothing but quadrupeds, but I also wanted to experiment with the concept of weight. Therefore, I was on the hunt for a character that looked heavy.

Fortunately, it didn't take long to find something really cool: 

    My goal for this week was to get this heavy machine to do a walk cycle. Finding references from the original Star Wars trilogy was pretty difficult, as the AT-STs were either too close to the frame, too far away, or the animation looked generally stiff in certain shots. Fortunately, I found some excellent references from some YouTubeclips of a video game I grew up playing:



Here's the blockout for the walk cycle I animated:


I wanted the head to look like the heaviest part, so I gave the AT-ST some side-to-side sway as it walked. After moving into spline and hours of revision, this is what I came up with by the end of this week:

    I was mostly satisfied with the blockout timing, so the remainder of my work focused on adding weight wherever I could. For many of the smaller moving parts, such as the weapons, eye flaps, and the big toe on each foot, I added some drag to make these parts feel lighter. The weapons on the AT-ST's arm also scan from left to right, searching for something to shoot. Another detail I added was making the fans on the back of the machine spin. To make the render extra pretty, I turned on shadows, anti-aliasing, and ambient occlusion, and set up some three-point lighting. 


As for how the head sways, while I like the way it lumbers back and forth, I'd hate to be the person inside controlling the mech and faceplanting against every wall. Perhaps I should reduce the sway a touch. Another issue I noticed only recently, as I'm writing this blog, is how the right foot is faster than the left. That is one of many things I'll need to adjust by the end of this coming week. Once I am done with this walk cycle, I'm likely gonna do one more animation with the AT-ST, having it interact with an upcoming mystery character. We'll see how this animation pans out first. 

That's all for now! I'll keep you posted on my progress with this walk cycle next week!
                                                                                                                               - Christopher Coombs 

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