Creeping Hand

Well, for my Maya class, I have a creeping (or is that creepy?) hand. It is moving veeery slowly across the floor, so that will have to change. I have been given the suggestions of "more wrist movement, put the thumb down for weight balance, have the wrist drag, do more of a quadruped movement with pairs of legs" etc. The low position of the carpal bones also lends itself to that creeping motion, like it is trying to hide. Having them in a more 'up' position may give a more aggressive or alert feel.

I was going for a very spider-like movement with this test. I've changed the rig multiple times since I first posted the summary of it. I also just completely deleted the rig that went with this movement and started over again. I did not have a bone in the right place to allow for a mid-carpal movement to happen. And I'm thinking of some sort of 'reverse wrist' like rig to have the wrist inherit movements from the fingers as well. I haven't decided that yet... I'm also thinking of having it drag something. A watch and a purse were two suggestions, but that really doesn't fit with the animation that I am going for. So, maybe a tag, like an archeological identification tag or something similar. Hmm...

Hand Movement Test

Virus Animatic

My fellow classmates and I (there are six of us in this particular ensemble) are undergoing what teachers like to call a 'group project' and students usually affectionately refer to as 'collective procrastination' (among other less savory terms). In any case, this project involves working up an animation for a mock client. We came up with a topic, a client, a budget, and a script to start out with. The fact that the script was finished without coming to blows was amazing to watch.

Now, this paints a not-so-nice picture of our group, which isn't true at all. We all genuinely like each other and enjoy our fellow classmates' opinions. It also appears that we have very wide stubborn steaks. It was an amusing, very polite and amicable, absolute refusal to back down or admit defeat. However, after hours of research and discussion, a script was born (and revised and studied and rewritten and mostly finalized). Naturally the storyboards stemmed from there.

Another thing that has tripped us up to some extent is the unrealistic-ness of the situation that our group finds itself. Six freelancers would not band together to work for four months on a 2 and a half minute animation for an educational institution. You would be lucky to get two animators together, and we won't be touching the actual time frame. So, to start with, there is quite the interesting set-up.

However, as mentioned before, we are stubborn and we persevere. Thus, here is our animatic from said project. It's like a baby animation that was born slightly deformed and is missing some fingers. And maybe an ear.