Urban Warrior vs Gunman

Part 1: Initial Idea

My aim was to create a sequence using a combination of dialogue, fps perspective and action. I wanted to use multiple characters and researched the best rigs for the project.

Part 2: Animatic

I created a rough animatic using Storyboarder to help visualise what I wanted to happen before creating any reference. I found some audio and recorded some of my own to create the dialogue.

Part 3: Reference 

Happy with my animatic I decided to record some reference . I shot one for the FPS character and one for the Urban Warrior character. I put the footage side by side so it would sync up better when I started to analyse it ready for getting into Maya.

Part 4: Previsualization

With the reference completed I would analyse the key moments and create a simple pre-viz to block out the scene in Maya. This would help me get an idea for the timing/spacing. 

Part 5: Blocking

Using the Pre-viz for reference I placed my main character rigs into the scene. From there I began using the reference to block in my key frames. I would start with the main holds and work adding in-betweens until I felt it was time to start cleaning it up in splined. Below is a example of my blocking.

Part 6: Polish Pass/Effects/Final Touches

Once I cleaned up my animation to get it looking smoother I could then polish it again by animating the overlap action, facial details, hair and the cloak. 

To make sure that the viewer understood what was happening when the urbam warrior attacked, I wanted to add some small VFX inside Maya so you could see his sword deflect the bullet. It would be subtle but worth doing.

I found a VFX pack online for free and managed to get them working into the scene. Below is a before and after with the VFX.

A key part to the sequence was that the Urban Warrior would cut the gun in half. To achieve this I started by making a duplicate of the hand gun in the exact same space as the original. With the duplicate I then cut it in half using the blade tool and cleaned the model up. 

I keyframed the visibility of each gun so then when it got cut I then could animate the barrel sliding off. 

This took longer than I thought to get working correctly but I am happy with the end result.

Part 7: Final Outcome

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of this project. I feel my initial aims from the beginning were met and ended up working on something I have never created before.