Topic 12: Walks With Personality

This week's topic is expanding on last week's by having us animate a walk style with personality that is based on a character from a film, tv show or video game. 

My Animation:

My animation is going to be based off Spider-Man from the 2018 video game of the same name. The video above gives a reference to his walk cycle. A major part of Spider-Man's walk cycle that makes it unique is his posture and speed. The posture Spider-Man has throughout his walk cycle is very straight, giving off a confident and authoritative look. Spider-Man's walk cycle is also slower than a typical walk cycle, this also adds to the authoritative nature of his walk. 

To start, I used the video of Spider-Man's walk cycle as a reference to block the key poses of the character's walk cycle.

I then set the tangents to auto to show movement between key poses. 

To finalise the animation I adjusted the keyframes to smooth out the movement of each body part. I made sure the arms and legs had a natural swing. I also payed close attention to the shoulder and hip movement of the character as they have prominent movement in Spider-Man's walk cycle.

Reflection: 

After completing this week's topic I have come to realise how changing elements of a walk cycle, such as the movement of the hips and shoulders, can add a lot of personality to a character. By using the video of Spider-Man's walk cycle as a reference I was able to identify what makes his walk cycle unique and use that to influence my character's walk cycle. This in turn gave my character more personality by making them look confident and authoritative, just like Spider-Man.