Weapon Cycles

Ladder Climb Cycle

Run & Jump Cycles

Walk and Jog Cylces

Reference Material

When I created the 11 Second club animations I didn't use much reference which is why I think the characters movements were not as believable as they could be. When planning my animations researched into reference materials.

This Youtube Channel has a variety of reference of different sizes of people:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvspTjApofA2Yg3i10gTdQ


For my final animations I decided to do some generic animations featured in games. I have chosen to take this approach because it will allow me to try a good variety of types of animations. I could have taken the League of Legends approach and create animations for a character I designed but I feel generic approach would be a good start considering this is the first time I have done 3D animation.

Rigs for games

I have been researching some free rigs that I may use for my animations.

The Abertay Grunt rig is an obvious one and the Digital tutors rig is also simple to use.

After some more research into rigs ive decided to use the Kila rig which is overall easy to understand and has a variety of controls for body movement and facial features.

The free Kila rig was made by Anthony Ward who has wrote some books on creating game characters.

Approach to animation

I've been looking into what is needed for game animations.
Main points:
- Overall believable, polished and accurate animations
- Cycled animation that can be smoothly looped
- Set pieces

-Fairly simple rig

Other things to consider:
-Using layered animation (shown in Skyrim)

Some of the technical research I've found:

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=22801&seqNum=7 - An article that outlines some important areas in game animation by George Maestri.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016323/Animation-methodology-for-Battlefield - a presentation on the animations used in battlefield 3 that shows how DICE approach there animation pipeline.

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=97447 – people’s opinions on what’s needed in animation. Some people feel that being good at general animation is the most important skill. You can then apply this knowledge to game animation.