Week 4: Timing and Touch Ups

 This week for senior portfolio I tackled some touch ups on the main body animations, added facial animation, and reworked the timing of the walk cycle.

Using the critique I received, I had to change the IK controls on the chest to an FK/IK blend to counter animated the swing of the head. After decreasing the chest rotations, I used the FK neck controller to steady the head. After doing so, I used the paw controllers to put the front paws closer together.

Once those changes were made, I went ahead to start on a simple tongue animation after getting some reference clips from my dog. It was slightly different to what I had envisioned before. Rather than having the tongue loppy-sided and slightly swing from side to side, I went with a more 'pant-ing' movement from my reference. I also added a small bounce to the ear movement as Shibas are known for their characteristic straight and pointed ears.

After the animations were in place and cycling properly, I looked up videos on the hotkey to stretch out the keyframe timing on the graph editor. It turned out to use a combination of the scale took and a middle mouse click. After messing with the timing to slow down the walk cycle, some keys needed adjusting to accommodate to it. Most controllers worked as they had before the timing change, but the tail still needs more touch ups.

This upcoming week, I'll be fixing the tail movement and add some more offset on the the back legs. I hope to also get ahead on my second animation of a hop cycle using the same Jacko rig.