CAGD 493 Week 10 Reflection - Christopher Coombs

     Hello, this is Christopher Coombs, and welcome back to the tenth iteration of my blog! On Wednesday of this week, I had the good fortune of presenting earlier than I usually do, all thanks to an open spot in the schedule. On that day, this is what I had to show for my work of the previous week:

 


Coming into that presentation, I was aware of issues such as one leg moving faster than the other, and that ludicrous drunken sway that the head of the mech does. I'd certainly hate to be in that cockpit. Even so, the class feedback, as always, exceeded my expectations. They helped me pinpoint a handful of new ways I could improve this animation. When I first animated this mech, I thought about human walk cycles, specifically how the passing and up poses were when the person stood at their tallest. However, Mark suggested that I should make the down poses, where the mech is furthest to the sides, the highest part of the mech's walk cycle. This advice contradicted what I knew about walk cycles, and when I checked my AT-ST references, they didn't seem to reflect this new advice. Even so, I wanted to see how it'd turn out, so I suspended my disbelief and spent this week reanimating my AT-ST.  Here is what the animation looks like now, following these adjustments: 

    Honestly, the change Mark suggested for my walk cycle worked out quite well. It certainly removes the human element from the walk cycle, making it feel more machine-like. Perhaps I should follow up with him next week and ask him more about the mechanics of creating a walk cycle in this manner. Another significant improvement I've made in this animation was fixing the movement of the cockpit. While it still sways from side to side, I managed to stabilize the head significantly by reducing its tilt. I wouldn't feel so afraid driving the mech around now. The guns received some changes as well. Keaton suggested that they shouldn't feel so loose, so I reduced their bounce considerably. It's still there, but now very subtle. He also suggested that I offset the movement of the arm guns so that it wasn't in sync with the movements of the legs, which I tweaked as well. After syncing the speed of the legs, I adjusted the timing for both of them so that they lift up slowly but come down quickly. To enhance the power of every stomp, I added some AT-ST sound effects to the walk. Lastly, I reduced the overall framerate it took to complete the walk cycle


That's all for now! Thanks for checking in, and I'll see you in next week's update!

                                                                                                           - Christopher Coombs

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