Big Dog Animation

In this exercise, we are to animate a "Big Dog" when it is kicked from the side - and to show the actions of it losing its balance and trying to regain it.

i) If engineered or programmed badly, BigDog would fall over. Watch the full video again, and describe how BigDog’s legs move while walking– ie. what is the sequence of leg movements for one complete step? Use the terms BL, BR, FL, and FR for the back-left, back-right, front-left and front-right legs.

The legs that move at the same time will always be diagonal to each other. For example, the FL and BR leg will move then the FR and BL leg will move. Thus its : FL and BL moves forward, FR and BL moves foward, repeat.

ii) Explain how this sequence of movements manages to balance BigDog’s body weight.

As the center of gravity is at the middle of the dog, if the dog were to use its 2 right legs to stablize itself then it will lose its balance.

iii) Look at BigDog_kick_slow_motion.mov. Draw a storyboard of BigDog stabilising itself after being kicked.

Reflection:

When attempting this exercise, I applied all the principles that I stated in the post below (Spiderman weight shift). I found this exercise to be simpler than the spiderman weight shifting. I had to use ease in and ease out to give a sense of impact when the dog was kicked and when it tries to regain its balance.

Also, I had to stretch some parts of the timelime to be longer.

Lastly, I edited the graph editor to give it more life. The middle part where the dog almost lost its balance.