The Daily Wray: animated skateboarding

[wrayayrton]

when I animate i really just think of a trick or combo regardless of how realistic it is and then sit down and keep animating it till i'm satisfied.

usually I get stoned, parent the character and skateboard to a large dummy that i move through the scene like an action figure, auto-keying the general motion path of the skater, then I animate the board completely, followed by the feet, then the rest of him to follow. once I have a pretty good animation blocked in (a key every 5-10 frames) I take a break, get more stoned, and sit down and painstakingly do the detaily bits like fingers. most of the time the anim is done but I go back and pretty much completely redo the arms at least once just to see if i could do it better.

If I were a better rigger I'd do the board so the wheels roll and deck flexes, with real IK on the feet to the board and not just sliding keys butttttt I can't rig for shit.

Here's today's AOTD:


btw: thanks poppysquid! level design lighting, and propmodelling is one of my other hobbies.