5: Balancing Problems

Ugh, I spent almost five hours animating, and not much to show for it. *sigh*

I worked on a couple of fillers first. Red Kicker standing up, Maggie tapping her toe, and then Red Kicker rushing towards Maggie. The angle and sequence is almost exactly like that used in my fight test with minifigs, but it just ended up that way.



Maggie tapping her toe was extremely hard, because the foot joint is so incredibly stiff. I can't move it without moving the whole body of Maggie. The final product is the best I could do.

Then came the double kicks for Maggie on Red. Good grief, this sequence is only about 40-50 frames, and it took me 4 hours! It was horrible, I had a hard time getting them to stand. I had made those lego things, but in certain angles, they don't work, and of course those were the angles my stifkas were in. Eventually, I resorted to using blue-tac, but even then, Maggie just wouldn't stay in the position I wanted.

And then if I think I have the scene as I wanted, I notice that there is a sliver of blue sticking out. Arrgh.

Oh well, I may stick to the whole blue-tac stuff, because it keeps them planted as long as I don't have them in off-balancing poses.

I was so frustrated though, I was worried that the kick scene would look all off, but it's nominal, and I'll just use it, because it took me four hours to do. It was supposed to be longer though, I was going to add in the back thrust, but I can't do that now, so I'll just cut to a different angle, or interrupt the sequence, and then do the backthrust.

Maggie's hair is all screwy too. *sigh*

Since these were fast kicks, I made each body contact about 3 frames. When Red kicker holds his stomach, I thought that was moving too slowly, but when played in 24fps, it looks fine. The first initial kick of Maggies is way too fast though. I think it too was only 3 frames, but I'm not fixing it. I have to remember to spread those things to at least 4 or 5 frames. Actually, I could probably fix it fine if I added in the motion blur. That might register better...

Oh well, I think I figured out how it's going to end, and how to introduce the weapons scene.