Well, after a bit more work, I managed to animate a walk cycle, complete with follow-through of the hair, accurate cycling between steps (the animation term for this is Y-4 cycles) and layering the animation.
The animation is designed to express a theme put forth my the animation program I joined a while back --Acme Animation--for our spring semester competition. As the theme is "tolerance", I could not help but take MLP:FiM's core values of love and tolerance, apply them to an animation, and in the process build some "puppets" for later use.
The loose synopsis of what I'm working on is what follows.
- A non-equine character, known as a Diamond Dog (first appearance S1E19, "A Dog and Pony Show") is sitting alone.
- Rarity walks into the foreground of the frame.
- She glances at the Diamond Dog, and then pretty much makes some form of a gesture shunning him (plausible situation, considering Rarity
- At about this point, I basically have the Diamond Dog start tearing up.
- Fluttershy enters the frame, notices DD. Hesitates for a bit.
- After pausing for a couple seconds, she hugs him. At this point, the tears subside.
- After this, I close with a title explaining that tolerance is accepting someone in spite of being deemed "different" by society.
With only a couple more classes left before I wrap it up, and with a weeks' worth of bone-rigging behind me, this project is approaching completion very, very quickly…and is soon to make my portfolio 20% cooler in ten seconds flat!
