This is the part where an animator has to show their skills and make their art, it’s all in the detail as they say..
I split this task in four days as I was also writing the thesis paper, which has nothing to do with this project, so it might be a bit harder but t is also good to take my head of animating and focus on another research.
I decided to start by the beggining and not jump from shot to shot, so the walkcycle was first. Yes, a lot of walkcycles have been done before but none on a raptor, I did take a lot of time and he looks to happy to me and i haven’t been able to make him see less happy, I let it pass.
The key to animating the raptor is really the neck which is something I do struggle with as a lot of his personality and reaction comes from it. The tail is also a challenge, it is stiff and cannot move much or else it looks weird, even if it does not get in a lot of shots, I want to improve my skills on it, I will definitely need it.
After a few more tweaks I was happier with the shot and ready to move on to the next: a shot I forgot to include on the first camera sequencer playblast, where the seagull is peacefully flying.
Adding the seagull to the animation was out of my plans but it will be interesting to animate a bird, it is a good rig. I went looking for reference and found a video that helped understand the wings movement.
Also watching the birds short animation from pixar made me see that their root translation of the bird does not need to move everytime the wings flap.
Playblast shot 03: