Need help! - Very rusty at doing animation

Lee3dee

Hey guys,

I'm currently re-doing all the previous animations for the hunter character in the Duck Hunting game that ElysiumGX and I are working on. The model was created by Will (ElysiumGX). My animation skills are very rusty, so anyone with experience doing character animations i'd welcome to help

Walk Cycle Test1
http://art.lee3dee.com/files/walkcycle01.mov

monster

Looks like your missing up and down motion and oscillation on the COM object. The legs kind of jerk forward too quickly. And the shoulder should rise not dip on the way forward.

Lee3dee

Hey Monster, thanks for the suggestions. I made a few more tweaks.
http://art.lee3dee.com/files/walkcycle02.mov

I also have to animate a woman walking too. any recommendations on that? I'll get my fiance to walk a bunch of time tonight, so i can see the movement.

motives

If i were you i would get a screencap of someone walking and then comparing it to your animation. its just. it doesnt look like a human walking, it looks like a 3d model tryin to walk.

You are lacking a lot of secondary animation and movement. Why are the hips staying completely still troughout the whole animation etc.? There is a whole lot of things that i can point out that you easily will see if you compare your walkcyckle to that of a real human. Try to catch all the movements and nuances that makes its beliavable and human. At this point what i think it lacks is some good and soli knowledge in how the human anatomy and body works when walking..

Keep it up. the second cykle looks way better than the first one

Lee3dee

hehe good idea. You know the saying "programmer art", well this is why i choose to do environment art and not animation But as the Lead Artist on the project, i seem to juggle alot of hats. hehe

Sean McBride

it looks as if your hip rotation (what little there is) is translating up the spine into the shoulders and making him "wobble". If you were to compensate the hip rotation with some shoulder rotation rotation it would look better. Right now he looks off balance when he's swinging like that.

ex:

from: http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02w/walk1.shtml

Lee3dee

n30g3n3s1s: thx for the link and suggestions . I also been looking thought the "Animators survival kit" book for walk cycles too.

Right now im roughing out the other animations I have to create. Then going back to the walk cycle and other cycles to refine them.

diZzyWalnut

great book to learne the basic motion of the body -

MisterCline

if the boobies bounce, no one will notice the walk animation.

Scott Ruggels

[ QUOTE ]
if the boobies bounce, no one will notice the walk animation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh sure they will, if they bounce WRONG!!!

Scott

Zergxes

The animator's survival kit, great book. They will have to pry it from my cold dead hands...

Walks are hard, especially if you are trying to be sublime with your performance. Loosen this guy up- overexaggerate everything first and then trim back if you have too. Translate the body down a tad so you can get more distance with the legs before locking the knees. Then make the up and down motion with each step more pronounced (down a few frames after each lead foot plant, up when you max out the heel lift part of the toe roll on the trailing foot). The side to side weightshift you have with the shoulders should also be happening with the hips- then use the spine to keep the shoulders somewhat level. Check your (i have no idea what app you are in) graph editor and your key frames to get things more symetrical, your character is limping pretty hard which is easy to do with a looped walk. I think his left leg is moving considerably faster than the right. Bend those elbows! Either have the lower arms lead more of the action- an angry/determined walk or they have a delayed bounce with the body's rise and fall- a depressed/tired walk. Because of the radius/ulna crossover, hands tend to rotate somewhat when you bend the elbow. Curl the fingers more, a relaxed walk will have have very curled fingers- a mad/determined walk would have clenched fists.

Its getting better, and it already shows volumes more aptitude than most have. I have less trouble animating quadrupeds than I do human walks. I think it's because we see people walking so much that we have a more critical eye for it.

If you animate a woman, swing those hips side to side. Arm motion is usually a little more restrained in women, the elbow swings a little less, but still more than you have with the dude there at the moment.

Zergxes

Actually, if you feel rusty you might want to do a ball bounce. A lot of animators do those from time to time as a warmup. In some film studios the animators will kill two birds with one stone- the animatics use a bouncing ball as a stand-in for frantic character movement.

ElysiumGX

[ QUOTE ]
if the boobies bounce, no one will notice the walk animation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm making sure the boobs don't bounce. Otherwise I'm withholding the textures. Jeez, she's wearing a winter coat. I was a little shocked when the boss' first critique was she needed larger boobs and ass, with a smaller waist.

Yo Lee, you must be working your ass off on this by now. Some observations: The dude's posture is terrible. He's not that old. Bring his upper torso back some for a stronger stance. Your shoulders are pushing forward too much for a simple walk. The forarms have no "follow through", or swing to them. As the arm begins to pull back, the forearm still has some foreward momentum, and also usually swings a bit inward towards the body. If you can edit the keyframes of the forearm rotation separately, try to push those back a few frames. His hips are completely motionless. A bit of up motion while a grounded leg is passing under him may help. And his head seems to move side to side too far. I would do what you can to get it in game, and maybe polish it up later before we send it for testing.

Let me know when you want the textures...or if you need any help from me.

chip

Definitely need some pelvic rotations as well as up/down & side-to-side translation of the trunk via pelvic translation. As mentioned, it looks like his hips are completely static, but there's lots of subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) motion in both genders as the weight shift occurs between steps (lateral as well as forward).

The overly large arm swing needs less trunk movement and is centered almost entirely in the upper body. Tone down and distribute the trunk motion into the mid & lower spinal column a bit more, and put more of the arm swing into the shoulder joints. This should help unify the motion -- right now top & bottom seem a bit disconnected by a too-static center.

Lee3dee

thx for the suggestions guys, i'll put them to good use on thursday. I've been cramming on these animations for our game. Male and female characters have 12 animation sets each. They are all due on friday