Yesterday I managed to animate three lions. Now I haven’t worked on Lion animation since I was an intern during the making of the Lion King. The few inbetweens I did for that film don’t really qualify me to be animating quadrupeds. The animation I did yesterday is passable and I am pleased with the final look of the shot.
I didn’t get into all the subtleties of the walks with shoulder blades protruding above the back or the hip movements but I did figure out the basics of getting four feet to work in tandem. Like in a human walk it all comes down to finding the contact positions and the passing positions. If the front legs are in a contact position then the back legs will be in a passing position and vice a versa.
I was quite pleases that I pulled off the lion walking towards the camera and turning. When I was a child I saw Disney animation drawing exhibited at a mall of a tiger walking in a circle. Ever since seeing those drawing I wanted to be an animator and I have finally gotten to the point where I am trying a similar scene. There are actually some mistakes with the back legs in that animation but the foreshortening hides the movements of the back legs and in general it works so I am moving on.
Today’s animation is very similar and just as challenging. One lion is walking toward the camera and the other waling away. The lions are in a crowded ER so there isn’t much room to move then so they will each just take one stride. I also want to animate a lion yawning the the background but that can be done in after effects with pin animation. This is quite a bit to hope to accomplish in one day, so I better get started.
Oh. I discovered that After Effects was playing back previews at 60 frames a second for some reason and I found the way to change the setting back to 29.97 so watching my animation going crazy fast is no longer an issue.