The Wrymbone Lockbox

A party of 3 are sent on a simple task. Two caravans meet in some rarely traveled tunnels. They're meeting to exchange a small, peculiar lockbox. The party is meant to swap this box out for a replica, without anyone noticing.

Heres the battlemap I designed for this encounter, previewed in FoundryVTT

 After hosting this session, I'll be updating this post with a retelling of it's events. So stay tuned.

Running squirrel motion breakdown

One more motion analysis on a squirrel, this time it's running. The footage starts with the squirrel sitting in a resting pose before beginning it's run.

This arc is most noticeable on it's initial leap, after this leap the arcs in the squirrels' running motion become more subtle and wavy.

After the squirrel lands on it's front paws, the rest of it's body (except the tail) squishes up against it's front legs.

I noticed the squirrel's left front leg would lift immediately after it's hind legs make contact with the ground. It's front right leg stays on the ground just long enough for it's hind legs to land.

The squirrels' entire body stretches forward as it outstretches it's forelegs.

The front left leg, which lifted first, also touches down first. The squirrels body keeps shifting forward while it's rear legs outstretch from behind.

Once the squirrel's front legs both have solid footing, it pulls itself forward while it's rears snap forward from their previous extended position, almost like elastic.

Something else I noticed, generally when the squirrel lunges forward, it's head is higher than it's hips. When it catches itself on it's forelegs, it's hips raise above it's head.

The motion continues this way as it runs, the only other thing I noticed is how subtle the tails' motion is.

Leaping squirrel motion breakdown

 

While preparing to blockout an animation of a squirrel, I did some analysis on some footage of one, https://youtu.be/l5Bdid3Bxt4?si=dvhgChHN-gCrKBHc

I combed through this slow-motion footage to find keyframes and see anything notable about the motion. I also did a trace-over with some notes about what I noticed.

 Before the squirrel readies for it's jump, it seems fairly relaxed as it looks toward it's landing point. 

The body begins to tense up, and the squirrel flicks it's tail around, which made it look excited.

The body begins to squash and lean back

Something I noticed, before the squirrel actually leaps it forms a noticeable arc in it's back

This exact arc almost seems to transfer like a wave to it's tail as the squirrel begins it's leap.

The squirrel also lifts it's forearms very early in the jump, almost immediately after leaving the branch. I also observed the wave-like pattern of the tail's overlapping motion.

Finally the squirrel stretches as it arcs forward, as it reaches max speed the tail finally starts to smooth out as it drags behind.

As the squirrel approaches it's landing, it's body actually starts to compress and squash, it positions it's arms and legs in front of itself with it's eyes locked on it's target.

The arms and legs stretch out dramatically as the squirrel prepares to catch itself. You'll also notice the tail starts to lift upward as the rest of it's body descends.

This part was fun to see, between this and the next pose the squirrel is very naturally counter-balancing the bounce of the branch it lands on. In turn the branch is about to absorb the energy from it's landing. Just pay attention to the hips and the branch.

 

The video goes on to show 3 more jumps, but I'll just focus on the next one and be more brief. First it tenses and anticipates it's jump

This tension is a visual and literal compression of energy, the squirrel leaps by releasing this energy.

Once again it fronts it's forearms as soon as possible, also worth noting that it leads with one forearm and the other follows, in this case left than right.

This is a much more extreme compression as it anticipates it's landing, I really love this pose.

And finally it makes contact. In this leap the squirrel almost slides down the branch to dissipate the energy from it's landing.