Animating

Due to problems with the cat objects I wasn’t able to add bones to the fingers of the villain. Because of this my animation plans have changed slightly so that instead of gripping a broom handle at the start I will have him walking along a corridor to start with and pick up a bucket with his hook hand as he walks along.

Now that the scenes are ready I imported my villain into the scene and altered the footsteps making more of them but moving at a slower pace. I then placed the bucket in the path of the footsteps and using the link constraint so that when the villain approached it he would pick it up as he moved.

Firstly select the bucket handle and go to animations, constraints and link constraints. A dotted line will then appear then select the finger of the biped. Click on link to world so that for now the bucket is part of the world objects. Switch on the auto key and move the slider along until just before the biped reaches the bucket then select add link and choose the finger on the biped. Now when the biped reaches the bucket he will pick it up as he passes and carry it with him. Some minor adjustments need to be made so that the bucket handle looks like its attached to the hook hand.

Once the walking was sorted out with the appropriate speed I thought the villain should be walking at I moved on to the posture. My villain has quite a hunched back but with the default walking settings it makes the biped stand up straight and the biped loses part of the effect. Using auto key I can rotate the spine and shoulders forward a little to make the hunch stand out a little more.

Next is animating the eyes which are a little more difficult as it is a consistent animation with a regular pattern. To make it easier I am going to animate each eye once and then copy the key frames down the line so that the character blinks on a regular basis.

I then added another small animation with the right hand pushing the caretaker’s hat up a little further on his head. This was done using auto key and selecting and moving the arm up towards the head. Once the hand reached the hat the hat tilts backwards slightly exposing the eyes a little more to the scene.

The villain then keeps on walking until it approaches a trolley loaded with evidence outside the evidence locker. This then merges over to the next scene of animation. Here for a few seconds the camera will focus on the eyes of the villain as he shifty looks left and right checking to see if anyone else is around. This will be animated in the same way the eyes when they blink.

I then moved onto the animation sequence where the villain pushes the trolley of evidence away. I tried using the link constraint for this but unfortunately it moved around too much when attached to the hand. Instead I used the auto key technique and as the villain walked I moved the trolley in time with the footsteps occasionally moving the hand to make it look like he was touching the trolley as it moved.

The next stage of the animation involved the villain pushing the trolley of evidence through the door into the caretaker’s office. As the villain walks the eyes shift from side to side to make sure he’s not being watched as he walks away with a trolley of evidence. As he approaches the door to his office the door opens and he walks through and the door slides shut behind him. The camera then moves down to look at the bottom of the door preparing the final part of the animation.

The last part of the animation involves the camera looking down at the door moving slowly upwards towards the glass panel in the door where the villain pulls down a curtain preventing anyone from seeing what he is doing in his office. The hook hand appears the other side of the glass frame and pulls down a curtain.

Now that all of my scenes and animations have been created I can now render the separate files out. I have also chosen a track to play as the villain walks down the corridor; it is another one bites the dust by Queen. This track has been edited so that the starting beat loops a few times and then fades out towards the end of the animation.