Digger Jump - Blocking and Pose to Pose

Critical Evaluation

This is the Pose to Pose Jump exercise playblasts, using Autodesk Maya. I animated them using the pose to pose technique.

Initially, the main theme of these projects was the Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose principle. I set the keyframes on the first video, the blocking, and made the tangents Stepped, so the software did not create any inbetweens. In my opinion, the timing of this exercise is very successful to depict this particular motion. The digger anticipates and stays, which demonstrates the gather of the energy needed for the jump, and also the next poses are quick and strong to portray the jump and fall. Finally, the timing of the follow through as the object is on the ground again is slow enough to show the force due to the jump, and also the appropriate time needed for the object to rest.

The second video is the complete pose to pose animation. I changed the stepped tangents to linear and flat ones, in order to add the inbetweens.  I believe, that the spacing is very efficient, depicting the slow in and slow out of the anticipation and follow through, and also the deceleration and acceleration when the digger jumps and falls. Additionally, the overlapping action is appropriate enough, because the antennae continues to move as the head rotates before and after the jump. Furthermore, I believe that the arcs are very well constructed, as they are curved enough to describe the movement of the object.

However, with the creation of the inbetweens the timing was not correct, because the movements appeared very slow. Plus the digger seems to stay in the air a little bit longer, which creates a slightly unnatural motion. This could be probably due to the sharp point of the peak of the jump, even though I edited the points of the Motion Trail to form the best arc I could. Finally, the overall animation appears smooth, even though I edited the spacing.

Thanks to these two exercises, I was more occupied with the timing and spacing editing. In my opinion, the animation was better with the inbetweens and the corrections of timing.