One of the main assignments at the end of last year was the character animation project. We were given the “Billy Bob” rig, a rig designed especially for the students by the lecturers, and asked to create both a 15 second short animation entitled “Something Unexpected” and a walkcycle. The brief was open to interpretation, resulting in quite a few crazy ideas, most of them involving the unfortunate demise of Billy!

I wasn’t too happy with my final result and I think it needs a lot more working on. Certain points aren’t smooth and the timing needs rethinking. One of my main problems was struggling to fit the idea I had within the 15 seconds. In the future I think a lot more planning is needed to make sure I’m not trying to squeeze my animation into the given time frame. There are plenty other things I would change too, but as they say – you can never truly finish an animation, so I guess I’m happy enough with it, especially considering it was my first character animation.

Let me know what you guys think – what else can I improve on?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQmHa_zuwxA&w=960&h=540]

Walk-cycle

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8y4lNXqUhw&w=960&h=540]

15 Second Animation