Arc exercise Lamp with added jump

This animation was one of my favourites so far. I liked the challenge of trying to get the smoothness of the curve as well as the rotation on the head and the characterisation in the lamp.  It was difficult to add realism and emotions to a character with no arms but it worked well. After manipulating the first part of the arc using the graph editor, I decided to try and recreate the Pixar style jump that is used by the lamp in the Pixar film opening credits. The anticipation of the action that is built up during the rotation helps to add to the story and the other little subtleties such as the slight movement on the antenna also work towards an effective animation. There is a sense of slow in and slow out as the head rotates and impacts with the ball and I am impressed with the way I managed to successfully get the body to come back on itself, although this was also only possible due to the rig.

The jump was very difficult and took many hours to do. The build up before the release was something that I looked at as I tried to incorporate a crouch before the elongated body frames after the lamp left the ground. Another subtlety is present in the curve of the base as it comes through the jump and lands with a squash feeling at the other side. This adds weight and power to the motion of the character and deals with the illusion of a stronger impact when it hits the ground The arc is interesting to look at, hence why I did a playblast from different angles and one where there is a clear arc visible with a comparison. The arc on the first half with the ball works effectively and it seems to be well timed. The jump, however has an issue in that the end half needs to be smoother and more curved. The arc seems to straighten and become more linear taking power from the jump when the jump itself would have easily built up more power from the prior release.

Overall though, this has been one of my most successful and favourite animations so far as I enjoyed working with this character and trying to manipulate the realism that is difficult to present in a limbless character. In the future I hope to use these skills to my advantage in creating better and more well constructed animations.    


THIS ANIMATION USES A RIG CREATED BY JASON THEAKER AND REFERENCES ANIMATIONS ALREADY CREATED BY HIM AS PART OF A LEARNING EXPERIENCE. I DO NOT OWN OR CLAIM TO OWN IT'S CHARACTERS