Evaluation: Sack Rig

This exercise was one of my most enjoyable. I love creating and building in maya and 3D animation is definitely an area I would like to work in. Animating the flour sack reminded me of all the weight movements and timing I had learnt doing the 2D character. After experimenting with all the possible movements i began trying to make the flour sack walk and look realistic. There are two ways of creating a walk cycle. The first is to make the character walk on the spot then move them along a platform by inserting keyframes and using the graph to get the timing right however the finished walk cycle can sometimes look more mechanical and make the character appear as though they are sliding along the platform. By animating the flour sacks movements manually and tweaking movements in the graph a more realistic walk can be achieved. i had to take into consideration the character of the flour sack so that the movements could reflect its personality. I also had to make sure all the elements of the character moved correctly during the walk, not just the feet and legs.
The flour sack approaches the end of the platform quite proudly then when anticipating the jump assumes a gymnast, bungie jump style pose before falling. This adds character to the sack.
I originally wanted the sack to fall and do a summersault as it fell but i had problems moving the point of rotation. Instead I inserted a long gymnast bar so that the character could appear to fall, swing round the bar and land on the floor.
Overall i am very pleased with my finished clip and look forward to practicing animating more complicated characters and learning how to create characters and rig them.