Speed Animating Thread
polycounter lvl 18
Hi,
I saw the speed modeling thread above.I liked that idea. It made me think about how this process, of getting the meat & potatoes of your work down as fast as possible, could also benefit those of us that animate. My curiosity got ahold of me...
So, during lunches this week.. I set a timer on my ipod for 20mins and had at it. Best i could do in 20mins
Editing: [To any other animators: feel free to jack into this thread and post your speed animations! ]
I saw the speed modeling thread above.I liked that idea. It made me think about how this process, of getting the meat & potatoes of your work down as fast as possible, could also benefit those of us that animate. My curiosity got ahold of me...
So, during lunches this week.. I set a timer on my ipod for 20mins and had at it. Best i could do in 20mins
Editing: [To any other animators: feel free to jack into this thread and post your speed animations! ]
Replies
Thanks Warotic, glad ya dig it!
@Shiskebab, That's right. The only thing that I was doing with the 20minutes was setting Keys and Moving bones. Btw, I saw your speed models earlier. You've got an eye for creating believable skin tones!
A good chunk of the animation is there, but I'll be sure to come back & finish them up. Thanks Polygoblin!
@Valandar Ya, I'd have to admit the middle one was a happy accident. The last 15 seconds I decided I didn't like the upperbody/arm keys.. So i toasted them, thinking I had at least a minute to redo them...woops!
Thanks TehSplatt!
a few mooaarrrrr
So, nice work.
I will say, each one seems to suffer from the same thing. They are kind of floaty on the second step. They just dont have the same weight as the first step.
@slipsius, I'll be the first to agree with you that the Timing and Spacing[among other things] were sacrificed for speed during these run cycles
-Skeletal rigs were done in 3dsmax(simple biped)
Models belong to:
-Mr. Incredible & Boris(keg and battle axe character) were modeled by a great character artist & old co-worker ,Gavin Goulden. He use to post around these parts, a few years back, under 'Gav'
-The blue monster mouse character was from Poopinyourmouth's SDK
-Tim Applyby(Spacemonkey) modeled the awesome Sarge character
I am self-taught and a huge animation enthusiast. I also worked full-time in the industry 6 years ago
In my personal life ,things took a turn for the worst and I had to quit my job and put my career on hold for awhile. Though in the last year or so, I've started animating again- occasionally helping out on some indie projects to freshen up
That's a really great book, it also happens to be one of my favorites
One tip I'll give is...
While your reading that book, go and grab a really good animation movie. (I'd recommend one of the 2d animated films by disney's 9 old men. They tend to have less motion-effects that'll distract your eye). While you're learning a specific principle in the book, go to a specific scene in the movie that you like and frame by frame it.
Try to understand and seek out how those animation masters used that principle while animating their character.
They were clever and also very very sneaky!
A lot of the things you'll learn by doing this, won't be written down in any book
I got damn near 100 animations to do for the game I'm currently working on, I'll try posting them here as I go, maybe get some good critiques
EDIT: I'm way less experienced than you, but 20 mins?
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Let's see 'em, cgartland!
Welcome to the middle of the week
How are you making your gifs?
Your animations have a nice feel to them so keep it up!
Render out your animation in 256 colors from your respective animation package. Then...
1-Open Photoshop-> New Document: Set your settings how you like em
2-File->Place: Find your folder full of those sequential beauty renders (Check the imager sequence toggle, before accepting)
3-Then, Windows->Animation: Set your time range to match your sequence length. (Click on the top Far right arrow button to access document settings. Change your FPS to match)
Press play in the animation window to check for potential problems.
Everything good to go?
4-File->Save for Web & Devices: From here set your type to GIF. Lossy controls the quality and filesize of the GIF, and below at the bottom you'll have Looping Options: Set that to Forever.
& your done yo
______________
thanks Nina. I stalked your portfolio. I really dig the 2d Bull character you have in there. That's a character I'd love to see pushed into the 3d realm
Thanks bejkon-Yeah, It's time to change things up a bit and have some fun with these . Hopefully, more animators will join in to mix it up
All of the animations I have have already been cleaned up... but this one was done pretty quick... maybe closer to 30-40 min.
When it comes to doing your animations do you work with layers as in say you have a walk cycle, have a layer for the feet, then the hips, arms then head? or if its a reasonable sized walk cycle (lets say 24 frames) do you find it easier to just have the one layer?
When I do walk cycles, I will do the whole vanilla walk without them. Then, if say I want to add a head turn or just add some more personality to the thing, I will add them on layers. Also, if you want to try something out, like, add a limp or even small changes. using layers can be helpful because you can turn them on and off and clearly compare the difference.
Here is a list of beginner excersizes. Do them in order.
-bounce in place cycle. First and Last frame are at the top of the screen.
-Bounce in place with a coming to a stop. First frame is at the top, last frame is on the ground.
-Bounce across the screen with the same height each bounce.
-Bounce across the screen, each bounce shorter than the last, eventually coming to a stop
-A pendulum swinging, eventually coming to a stop
-A pendulum hits the ball, causing the ball to hit a wall, bounce a few times and come to a settle, all the while, the pendulum comes to a stop as well.
After all that, then you can start on walks and such. But dont jump into a full body rig. Use the ball and legs. The biggest mistake a lot of people make is jumping right into full characters. It's overwhelming and can be a detriment to your progress.
Also, don't RUSH. It's ok if your ball bounce takes you 10 hours. The key is to make it good. Quality over quantity. Don't worry about speed. Speed comes later. And don't move on to the next excersize if you are still struggling with another one. Post your work, and we'll tell you when you should move on to the next. We might even say redo it. It might come as a shock, or sound bitchy, but the thing is... If you redo it, I garentee you, it will be better than the first time you tried it. Sometimes its better to just take what you learned, and reapply it. Each ball bounce will be better than the next. I promise you that (as long as you put in the effort and dont rush).
Edit: When doing my animation its not on the spot which isn't a problem but I don't know when I rendered a rough version it just looks unnatural, more of just going from one pose to the next then any secondary animation I try makes it too...What is the term I am looking for...Busy? so much happening in a short space (250 frames/10 seconds total). Any advice? I will try upload to Youtube and embed in the near future.
I was wondering what kind of rigs everyone is using. I'm starting to get familar with the Cat Motion rigs in 3Dsmax but i've never animated with a biped. I feel like I did this backwards. XD
http://youtu.be/Y2SmStyp4mE
Also, don't waste your time with rendering. Playblasts work best when the scene isnt finished. Rendering takes time away from making the anim look perfect.
[ame="
Its hard to get the exact frame without a quicktime movie, but on youtube, its at 7 seconds that is off balance. the entire body is too far screen left. Though i dunno if its better in the second version, or if its just the camera movement that is distracting. But it still look soff balance
Anyways, in the spirit of this thread, I've decided to do all those beginner exercises that I just listed on my lunch breaks. Here is the first one. The infamous Looping ball bounce. Took roughly 5 minutes. maybe 6?
I`ll be posting them on my youtube channel. I think I`ll start a series of them.
[ame="
Glad to see you both joining in :-)
@ Rmunday, I work without layers
@ KrissyB, using Biped & CAT over here
_________________________________________________
I definitely felt the brutality of the timelimit with this session...
I failed to finish the idea within the given 20mins
Edit: Fair assessment ZacD (Updated the gifs to have the same duration)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/81bucb1z963nuvy/sneak.mov
Bam!: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53393379/sneak.mov
I was going for speed at the start, then decided to just make them good and make it a series for new animators to follow. No point in giving them bad examples just cause I was trying to do them super fast
[ame="
[ame="
[ame="
[ame="
and here's the 7th exercise that I did during lunch just because I was working on the pendulum but left the file at home. didnt want redo it, or jump into the 6th exercise since it has a pendulum in it as well. Ill add it to youtube when I do the 6th
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14662692/Animations/Beginners_Exercises/Beginner_Exercise_7_Rubber_Pencil_Stefan_Lipsius.mov
i now have a place to put my anims on poly
@ CaptianRev, welcome! In the spirit of the thread, feel free to include how much time was spent animating
edit: Took another look at it and noticed that he is going into invert when he is twisting out of it.. Usually trickers get invert when they start the twist instead of when they come out of it (look up Kjer or Vellu if you are going to do more animations of tricking kind of movement they are some of the most talented people of this sport)
still trying to embed it