Week 9: Touch Ups & Timing

 This past week for Senior Portfolio I work on some minor fixes and worked on improving the shape of the motion trail on the COG. Some of the minor fixes I made were primarily on the form of the second punch. While I did experiment with a 'gut-punch' strike for the second form, the pose was too similar to the first one and lacked the contrast I needed.

Instead I decided to ultimately push the pose further with a smooth and more appealing punch to the upper body rather than an upper-cut. To do this, I lowered the COG a bit more and pulled the chest controller back for the curve.

Additionally, to get a better curve from the back view as well, I rotated the chest controller towards the left side to follow through with the swing of the arm. In the back view, you can also see that the COG doesn't align directly to the back of the foot, instead I made it so that the COG remains in aligned with the curve of the spine for a better pose.

In terms of timing for the poses, I opted to have the punches be closer in timing again and have a small delay between the punching sequence to the kick. I feel that this timing works better for the flow of the animation.

As for the kick, I worked on continuing to get rid of any 'muddied' movements that delay the flow of the swing. To do so, I removed extra keyframes on the swing back from the kick. I feel that in doing so, the follow through of the kick flows better visually. 

Looking at the playblast now, the second punch still needs some polishing as the punch doesn't actually land on the dummy. As I work on it this week, I also be adding some overlapping action on the arm swings so they flow as smoothly as the kick. 

From the side view, the COG seems to flow better in a more circular motion for the initial punch pose and the kick. I have attempted to get a similar movement for the COG for the pull back of the second punch but remained unsuccessful. I plan on working this a bit more for this week.

For the cameras, I was working on the order of the cameras for post, I found that working the cameras from punch to kick to full flowed better and in-line with the 180 degree rule. By editing and clipping this playblasts in this order, I was able to avoid the weird camera jarring I was dissatisfied with last week.

Overall, this week needs a few touch ups which will be done by Wednesday (10/30), if not Thursday (10/31) the latest for feedback. I aim to have some blocking done for a new animation for Sunday.