Finished dog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfyV484JePo

Rendered out ready to be put into the show reel.

Motion trails and bouncing balls

I'm using motion trails to smooth out the movement of the feet.

And for getting the ball bouncing with a nice curve.

Squash and stretch

Parenting the ball to the dogs head, then animating the switch on when he catches it, so the ball isn't permanently stuck to his mouth. 

Using grease pencil to get the tail movement down.

And afterwards, putting an expression on the face with the eyebrows.

Dog playing fetch work so far

Getting reference from Youtube and sketching out some poses to get a general feel for it.

 

 

 

So I baked the run cycle for just under 200 frames and added the grabbing the ball and stopping.

Next I'll animate the ball bounce and improve and tweak the stopping animation some more.

Dog run

And the running part of this animation is done. Can't believe how long that took. I had an animator friend help critic it all the way and it's become so much better than before and has been a learning curve for not only animating the run cycle but also the work flow.

Redid the dog run kinda

So the run didn't look quite right and the graph editor was all over the place. So not only did I remove keys that wasn't needed, but adjusted the legs to match and be offset.

Here's the graph editor of before and after looking at one paw.

And where I am currently.

Now running in place.

I had a lot of trouble when I moved onto cycling the run, even taking off the foot roll (which is poorly made as the actual foot moves too when used) so it still kept going weird.

So with motion trail and moving some keys in the graph editor I made it run in one spot.

Next step is to redo the foot roll to make it look better and space out the tongue and blinking so it's not everytime it cycles. And then work on getting it moving or at least animate in the part where he catches his ball. Which I also have to animate.

Dog run progress

This rig does not have a decent facial rig. But I've just carried on regardless.

This shows the chest control moving back and forth to imitate the squash movement of dogs.

mouth open and closed

and added the tongue coming out.

It's a pity the facial rig isn't that good because I wanted him to make this face while running:

Rig problems and progress

One of the important things I need for a running rig and this dog one doesn't have it. I can't curve the back to show squash.

And I figured it out, the chest handle just needed to slide down the body for the affect.

Dog running refs

Maybridge photos of a dog running, I compiled the second one into a video

Sketches to get the feel of the dog running and it's variations from the photos.

Done in Flash to get a clearer idea of cleaner images of a dog running.

A few running reference on youtube 

slow motion dog running

dog playing ball in epic slow motion

slow motion dog

After watching one of the dog youtube videos I found another way for a dog to run. I wonder if running without touching the ground when stretched is a greyhound trait? 

This one always has at least one paw on the ground at any one time. Even in full gait.

I had to draw her ridiculous face. 

I think I could get it down to 9 images as 2 and 3 are very close in looks.