That aside, my first semester of iAnimate finally finished up and with that I will post my last assignment. The assignment was essentially a re-hash of a previous assignment that we already worked on, but with a quadruped. I decided to choose having a dog go from a standing position to sitting/laying down. I searched YouTube for a viable clip, but really wasn't getting what I wanted, so when i went to visit family over the Thanksgiving holiday I decided to use my relatives' dogs for inspiration. The first dog was a little too hyper, way too much movement for me to try to capture anything, however the dog Roscoe who was a bit older and slower proved to be a much better candidate.
My initial passes went quite smoothly, and when I presented it to Steven he was quite pleased with what I had. His comments were that I was moving a little smoothly, without the proper pacing to give it a natural feel, as well as that the dog was looking away from the camera the entire time.
So when I went back, I fixed the timing issues, added a little bounce and let him look at the camera, which really added much more personality to the piece. I still wasn't quite happy what I had though and added a little extra personality to the piece by adding an ear twitch and some eye darts. The eye darts though, I had to really cheat the camera because otherwise I was mostly just seeing the whites of the eye and it was kinda creepy. Ultimately, I'm pretty pleased with the final results and when I find the time in my schedule i plan on adding some nice scenery such as grass and some lighting to bring the whole piece together.
