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Sunday, June 15, 2014

Animation Mentor Class 3 Dungeon Crawl - The Thief on the Ledges



Last one of the semester, and I'm ending strong!  This has been a great semester so far, and I feel that I've learned quite a bit.  Shoutout to my mentor, Drew Adams, for his support and guidance.


I combined two ideas to make this one.  I really wanted to do a leap to a ledge; but that idea wasn't interesting on it's own.  I also had an idea of a thief going through a bunch of springing traps: wall arrows, spikes, tripwires, etc.  I thought that latter idea, though potentially hilarious, would be much less suited in this series.  So I kept the pressure plates and wall darts, and merged it with that broken rope bridge.

The dagger spin is really neat.  That gets some attitude down, not to mention, tosses and catches just look straight up cool.  I had to make sure the pressure plates read.  That intro was a bit heavy handed to reveal how they work, but I think it is worth the readability to the shot.

In the progression shots below, you can see that he originally climbed onto the ledge.  I ended up cutting it out because it just didn't match the leap the character did.  If I were to come back to this (which I may still do), I would give him a spring leap up -- maybe something a bit more cartoony.  But as is, with that lumbering heavy pull, it just didn't add to the animation, which was really about the run and the jump.  I AM getting better cutting stuff, and being okay with losing time, if it strengthens the shot.  Progress!