Blocked and Loaded!

This week I finished blocking my sequences! I finished my goal from last week of finishing blocking Sequence 3. The whole group is almost done with blocking the rest of their scenes too! We have only a couple more shots left to do before we can start on roughs!

During the week, I finished blocking out sequence 3, and I fixed parts of the scene to make it more realistic. One of the things that I did was fix the feet in some of the Finn and Rory shots. Some of it was just adjusting the feet,so they bend the right way, and the other big one was fixing Rory's foot that was previously disconnected from the body. There are still some parts toto fix stillbut that will be for when I do the rough animation pass.

The video above is my version of "Blocking Premium" for the latter part of Sequence 2 and the first part of Sequence 3. The images below are screenshots from the rest of Sequence 3.

These show off two things that I don't think I have mentioned or shown yet in my blogs. The first thing is the little stick guy highlighted in a minty green. That is the Motion Capture (Mocap) data that some of my other team members did last semester. My team members and I have been using the Mocap data to reference the movements for the scenes. We have the data for a good chunk of our shots, and it has been really helpful to figure out the movements and help with timing. Some shots don't have it, but it is enough that it helps the process go much faster. It is very similar to filming real-life references like we have seen other animators do.

The other thing is motion trails. I have not utilized these as much as I would like, but I am planning on double-checking a lot of the movements with the trails as I go on with the rough animation pass. The motion trails are the red and blue lines with grey squares on them. It helps visualize the motion and make sure it is smooth.

My plan for next week is to do the rough animation pass on Sequence 0 and start on Sequence 1. I don't want to give too much at once so I can actually make sure I complete my goal and potentially do more than what I said I would.

The team morale has been really high, and I honestly hope it continues as the semester continues, especially when everything else starts getting more stressful.