Week 9-Starting ident 1 part 1

I have left this part of the ident until now as I felt the animation was more complicated than many of the others and so I could develop my animation skills before I came to this. To begin I imported Ted and the robot into the file with all the apparatus laid out. I then scaled them down so they were roughly in proportion to the rest of the scene.

Then I placed the bear on one of the roundabout seats. I then opened the scale coordinates window and changed these slightly to perfect the shape. I used the same coordinates as I had previously so that the bear was the same size in this part of the animation as in previous parts.

I then repeated this process to perfect the robots proportions.

Next I used the bones to position the robots limbs where they would be for the first frame of the animation. To start I applied a bend at the knees and hips so the character would be low enough for one foot to reach the floor ready to start to propel the roundabout. I also moved the bones in the arms so they reach forward so it would appear the robot was holding on to the handlebar in front.

I then used the move and rotate tools to move the robot into place ready to start the animation before rescaling the timeline to 75 frames in length. Lastly I selected the bear, roundabout and robot and grouped the items.

Next I turned on auto key and applied a rotation to the grouped objects between the first and last frame.

Then I opened the group so I could animate the robots outer leg. Before I started to animate this I repositioned the bones of the outer leg so it was closer to the ground.

I wanted to give the impression that the robot was propelling the roundabout and so selected the auto key and animated the leg bones. I began by applying a rotation to the ankle bone, but this was not enough and so looked unrealistic. As a result I also animated the movement of the upper leg and calf bones as well, also using the rotate tool. This made the push of the foot look much more realistic and so I was pleased with this.

This part of the ident has gone well so far and most of the animation is complete. I will continue with this next week by adding lighting and a camera.