Ident 3 - Animation

One more to go!

The start of the ident involved another wonderful bit of recycling. The initial walk is once again the basic walk from the first Ident. Hey, it's my animaiton? Why not re-use it? Only this time; I had DiscoverBot spotting the light switch and walking over to it. This actually created a few difficulties. It wasn't so much that I had to re-create a new walk cycle... but more that I had to do it at an unusual angle. All of the previous walks went straight across one direction. Thus; moving the feet was simply a case of lifting them up and pushing them in one direction. However, at this angle; I had to adjust the feet in both the x and y dimension; which made the process take a little bit longer than I hoped.

Nonetheless; a short while later and I had DiscoverBot standing next to the light switch.

Again, small details were vital when he tapped the switch. Tilts of the head, hand gestures and leaning helped make the movement look a lot more realistic. And yes, more acting was required!

The 'stun' was one of the trickier stances to model. After flicking the switch on; DiscoverBot had to flinch and freeze; waiting for something to happen. It took a few goes but this one seems to do the trick nicely.

This is my favourite bit! I loved how well the shrug came out! I didn't even have to act it several times and adjust it. A few movements and it was there! Don't think I could imrpove the shrug in any way. Really chuffed with that!

After walking off; DiscoverBot then starts to float off the ground and hover in the air. This actually took quite a bit of work; getting the floating motion to be consistent and naturalistic. Instead of just having to walk and move; DiscoverBot now had to move, swim and float as if he was in water! A lot more of a challenge than it seemed! To make matters worse... I couldn't even act it out! But a few guesses and a ton of tweaks soon created a decent animation.

The fish now make their appearance! And after the work spent making them (They did actually take quite a long time!), they swim on for a grant total of... well... not even a second. Nonetheless; I added bones to them and built in a nice swimming motion. Some think they need to be on the stage longer... but personally I feel thay do the job perfectly. Any longer and it might detract from the focus of the video (DiscoverBot!)

The end simply had DiscoverBot gently floating/drifting in the water (Really simple to do. Just set a movement over something like 50 frames and the motion will drift ever so slowly and take care of it for you!) Add to this a Discovery Channel sign gently floating down onto the stage and we're finished. As a nice little touch; I had the panel bouncing off of DiscoverBot's head. Why not?

And that's it ladies and gentlemen! The 3 idents complete and all set for viewing! I'm now going to see if I can get the videos uploaded for you lovely people to be able to view. They're quite big so I'm not too sure. Let's give them a shot anyway!

Onwards!