To smear or not to smear?
polycounter lvl 9
Just looking for a quick round of feedback specifically on whether the smear frames in the animation work well for the fast action or if they would be better removed. General feedback is also welcome as well!
(Edit: Ignore the camera change at the end, not too sure what happened there during the playblast!)
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/146739#173713
(Edit: Ignore the camera change at the end, not too sure what happened there during the playblast!)
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/146739#173713
Replies
Something like UE's ribbon emitter or Unity's trail renderer is perfect for most instances. throw a refraction material on the ribbon and things should look pretty nice for a few minutes of effort.
At any rate, for your animation there are just a couple frames where you might need blur so you could do it in post, just a directional blur with some masking should work well. or try motion blur in the renderer with tight settings so only the largest motions get just enough bluring.
-Jonathan
Thank you I thought I would give it ago to add some snap to the animation since the action is so fast but I will try a version without and some blur to see if I can sell it more!
Example. Remove the character standing and dropping to his death. There's absolutely nothing interesting in this character and having him just stand and die immediately = is not worth animating.
Instead: Start with your girl doing a 1) standing idle 2) roll forward 3) back to standing idle. Working on perfecting that type of animation will help you learn better.
Those are my personal thoughts.
Thank you for the input, I however feel I need to push myself on this, I am willing to put the time in, even if it means starting from step 1 to real nail this down. I know I can manage this one with a bit of help. Which is why I am looking for valuable feedback from amazing professionals such as yourself and the rest of the polycount animator community!
I have updated the original post with an updated link that incorporated some of @Hito feedback.
1) How long have you been animating for?
2) Any links to your previous works available for us to see?
3) What is your goal as an animator?
I have a link to my site in my signature however it hasn't been updated in some time as I have been focusing on my new demo reel which a snippet of can can be found here.
Stuff has been replaced and improved since that version.
The dream is definitely to get into games animation, I am happy to be working on two projects which is a good step in the right direction.
Thank you for the honest feedback, as recommended I will take a step back from this one.
Edit: I have began blocking in a roll based of of this reference:
Using the frame counter of the reference video looks super slow in Maya for some reason. I set the playback as well as project fps to 30 so I had to adjust the keys best I could by eye. I have a feeling some timings are off so will keep playing with them!
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/147148#174282
1) blocking
2) get approval
3) spline first pass
4) get approval
5) polish.....
6) get approval.
You don't need more poses for your blocking. Jus finish the end of the anim, him standing up. After that it's time to spline and then start playing with 1)timing and spacing, NOTHING ELSE. All that you will do in this phase is move your entire animation keys around until you get something that feels good. DO that, submit a link and then I'll tell you what do do next.
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/147148#176299
Would love more feedback to really push this piece!
Thank you.
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/147148#178978
Since there's clear ref it's good to go through one by one and see where and when and how close you matched the ref.
First thing to do is make sure the ref and your animation frame rates match, I think this may have something to do with how far off your timing is. I converted the ref from 25 to 30FPS, and the frame #s are all at 30FPS. Ref # (Your #)
0 (0) - Start pose, pretty close. The weight is slightly forward in the ref, directly over the toes, as he is just about to start the action. Your weight is back, over the heels.
18 (8) Rear leg is still bent, pushing off the toes. Spine is arched back, head directly over the front foot arch. You're pretty close on this one, but much faster at frame 8. Rear leg is straight because you're not pushing with the toes. Back is straight, head is over the front foot heel.
29(15) This is frame before rear foot leaves ground in the ref. Back is straight, torso slightly forward of leading foot. Both heels are off the ground. Pretty much all weight is on the forward foot. Your arms are too far forward, as are the torso. Forward foot is flat. rear foot is too forward.
35(19) This frame is when Ref's rear foot leaves ground. legs are compressed, back horizontal. hands are well above ground and forward of body. body mass is still in upward motion. You are already at apex of main mass arc with head leading downward. Hands are in contact or just about to contact ground.
41(22) This frame is Ref's first hand contact with ground. Hips is just past apex of arc by 2 frames. Your pose is slightly unclear here, it could be 21 or 22. At 21 your hand isn't fully contacted, and the legs are lagging behind. at 22, your body is too forward of hand contact point. at 21 or 22 left hand is too high off the ground. It appears you are close to the ref with the right hand as it appears to be drifting backward (problem with Ref's lack of horizontal markers); but your right hand is already so close to contact that it appears to slide rather than the body catching up to it.
48(24) This frame Ref's right shoulder fully contacts the ground. both hands are in contact on ground. Pelvis is slightly forward of contact point. Legs and feet are following behind the pelvis. Your pose is fairly close on the surface, but this is your most problematic pose. Your contact point slides backward by about half an arms length. the overall mass has 0 forward motion between 23 and 24.
51(26) This frame Ref's hips contacts ground. You are closest to the mark on this frame timing and pose wise.
After your frame 26 things get very fuzzy with your motion.
54(30?) On this frame the Ref's left foot contacts the ground. Your closest is frame 30 where left foot contacts ground, but arms and body are far faster than ref motion.
62(38?) On this frame Ref's right hand contacts ground. Left hand and Righ foot contacts ground one frame earlier on 61. Body mass is still behind both feet and right hand, passing directly over the left hand at 62. Closest frame on yours is 38, Right foot and both hands contact ground at once. Left knee is far ahead of left foot. Body mass far ahead of Ref motion.
69(44?) On this frame Ref's hands leave ground. Body mass is on forward and up motion passing over the left foot. Weight shifted from hands and mostly right foot at 67, to left and mostly right foot on this frame. Hips and body mass on continuous upward and forward motion. Closest you have is 44; both hands appear to be off the ground. Body weight appears 50/50 between left knee and right foot. That's side effect of your pushing the hips down under the torso which forced the knee downward.
77(49?) This frame is just before Ref's left foot leaves ground. Hips and body mass are still upward and forward motion. All body weight is on right foot. Head and right shoulder directly over the right foot. It's difficult to find frame from yours that comes close. From your 44 to 53, hips, torso, and head, all trail well behind front foot. your motion in hips and torso is about vertical, basically impossible with how far out front your right foot is.
93(59) More or less final position in the ref. Entire motion takes little over 3 seconds. Body weight is closer to over the heels, compare this to the start where body weight is more forward over the toes. Your motion takes just under 2 seconds, considerably faster. Final pose is good, but problematic in the preceeding 10 frames where body mass is well behind right foot, specially on 51~53, where pose appear to be a backward fall.
Side note: you can see the performer barely had enough forward momentum to complete the roll on this take. from frame 85~90 his right foot is very tense with all the weight on the heel, and digging into the mat, in an effort to not fall backward.
Plenty to have read by this point, unfortunately there's much more. I'm guessing your blocking poses were not all on the same frame on the time line, which tends to make poses look off or too drifty. Brian's #1, #2, and #6 are particularly relevant to your practice anim.
http://blog.animationmentor.com/7-things-all-animators-need-to-start-or-stop-doing-right-now/
Would you say it maybe better to go back and re-time my poses or focus on nailing matching poses? I am more than happy to jump back a few steps if it is required to really learn from this exercise!
Make a shelf button for sets of controllers: in script listener middle mouse drag/drop the selection's MEL commands to the shelf to create a quick selection button. Make sets for each limb, spine, and entire body, and more along the way as you need them.
as you go over the poses, break the action down into sub-actions. Sub-actions are whenever a contact starts and ends, it means a new force is being applied to the mass, which will change how the mass moves through space. early key pose passes is marking start and end points of sub-actions plus apex points of the mass as it moves through the sub-action. So take a concrete example from your reference, the sub-action of the start of the roll... I'd consider these as the key poses, they mark the contact start and ends in the feet Left-0; Right-11; Left-14. Also marks the lowest point of the hip at 11, the point of maximum leg compression. In my early passes these poses would take up all my time. I pay close attention to the relative position of hips, shoulders, head, hands and ankles using the contact points as frame of reference; and maintain contact points so they are not sliding through these frames.
Then for Retiming, simply insert/delete frames between your keyframes on the time line to speed up and slow down the action. Having Add/Remove Inbetween bound to shortcuts is extremely helpful for this. use the shelf buttons you made earlier to grab all the controllers with key frames, then add/remove Inbetweens till you have timing that you want. Convert to Key(Red)/Breakdown(Green) changes the color of the keyframe ticks to help you differentiate things, not necessary but can be helpful. There are other tools that do similar thing with many more options.