>>29253752
Yesterday - Before playblasts
I found the models, tested them, and adjusted them. Sam's model had some rigging errors on the mouth so I fixed that.
I then customized the Male models to better fit my idea. Adjusting the shaders, and finding some clown masks from xnalara customized.
I pulled the table and floor from a resident evil scene. I also did a bit of lighting to see what it might look like.

From there, I created the basic pose, and created some parent modifiers. In the Sam rig, I created 3 bones, a table bone, a hammer bone, and a knife bone. I then parented Sam's hips and hands to the table, that way when the table jutters, Sam will move with the table. Since I plan to have the knife sticking in the table, I parented that to the table bone. I then parented the males hand to the knife bone.
Today - Day 1 playblasts
I switched on the Simplify plugin, and used Proxify+ to generate low poly meshes to try to improve viewport performance. I also set Playback to Skip Frames. I also use the playblast addon to create quick renders from the viewport.

In the animation, there's Sam, and 3 males. Only the Sam and the main male matter for this loop, so I turned the other two off.

Since the male is the dominant force, I animated his torso first. Since I plan to have the table move, I animated that next. I then animate Sam's torso, and from there I go back and forth up the chain of bones, trying to apply realistic motion. I'd create the general keyframes, and then open the Graph editor to adjust the interpolation between the keys. I continue this until I get what I think looks like a good loop.


I didn't animate the hands as I plan to turn this loop into an NLA track, and then create an overlapping track to add character animation to them. I can't vouch for the addon as I haven't used it recently, but it shows the idea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjzV7f7HudI

Next step is going to be creating 2 more sequences, a faster loop, and a finish clip.