Clean-up time, from stepped to spline.

All of the AM assignments I've done before were all animated in a layered, straight-ahead fashion. I've never converted from stepped to spline before so I had no idea what to expect. So there I go, taking one body part at a time and converting them over. Just for kicks I played it back to see what I would get. Feet were getting disconnected here and there, rotations were all funky, and all other kinds of animated mayhem ensued. Just be thankful you didn't have to see it. I will spare you the agony and forego posting it here.

I started smoothing out the curves, caressing them to try and get something that represents my blocked walk cycle from last week. One of the major problem areas I had was how the lower leg would rotate so far and snap back so it would be straight up when it hit the passing pose. After a few hours of coaxing hte curves, trying this and that, and several (incrementally) saved files later I get something that looks like a walk. As soon as I got that far I posted it up for public review and hopefully my fellow students can help me pinpoint any problem areas.

Cleaning up animation is no joke. It's pretty hard work, especially if you haven't done it before. I was going back and forth through the frames trying to get a sense of what was happening and what should be happening. Even though it's a lot of work, I actually had a lot of fun doing it. It was challenging and enjoyable at the same time if that makes any sense.