2nd Year Creature Animation module

 The process of my assignment as part of my AN5002 Creature Animation module at Escape Studios.

I've chosen the Leopard Rig, by Truong, and will be using an interesting clip from a NatGeo Wild documentary, featuring a leopard climbing up a large tree.

First off, I set up my project in Maya, finding the right set assets, in this case, the right kind of tree, bringing in the Leopard rig and lastly, the live-action reference footage. 

Then I got to work blocking out the main poses. Some frames proved tricky as the movements were blurred. I looked at more video sources of big cats in order to better understand the movements and help me navigate the blurry frames.

I worked on the walk first, animating on every five frames and focusing on getting the walk as close to the reference video and at the same time as accurate as possible by referring to a big cat walk cycle sheet reference sheet.

One of the reference videos I used to help get a feel for the leopard's movements

The clip below shows the first Playblast, blocking out the poses in Splined curves.

I then got to work smoothing out the walk and blocking out climb up the tree. I ended up roughly modeling out a new tree object in Maya instead of one I sourced online. The leaps proved most challenging as I found it difficult to move the rig the way I needed. But with plenty of effort I managed to get it as close as possible to the video reference.

I then brought in a camera and began thinking about the angles. I settled on the camera slowly panning into the shot and following the leopard.

Following the live action reference, where the leopard takes a few quicker steps, almost like a trot, before making his jump. It ended up not translating as well into the animation, so I worked on smoothing out the movements, but still keeping the last steps a bit rushed to build up to the leap.

Once I was happy with the animation, I focused on the set and lighting. I brought in Arnold's Skydome light and sourced out the various objects to populate the scene, the background trees, rocks and skull. Lastly I added in sounds and ambient music.

Trying out a panther texture as I liked the contrast with the scene, but it was a challenge to get the lighting right, so I kept the original leopard texture.

My render test:

I worked further on smoothing out the leopard's steps just before the leap, as well as adjustments to the paws and claws to allow them to grip the tree and branch as he pulls himself up.

I also changed the camera for a more 'natural' view.

Lastly, I worked on the model of the tree as well as it's textures.

This was my final render: