@ Mithdia, haha I'm busted! Your critique sounds dead-on to me.
Come to think of it, I don't even know if it's possible to do this maneuver
from a standstill. I'll be the first to say, I'm at fault for seeing a cool move
and hacking it in too quickly.
I'm actually kind of jealous that you're able to do this. It makes me want
to learn martial arts!
@ Stephen, It's completely possible to do it from standstill That's how I learned it. And if you want to learn it you should do so, I know a tricker who is over 40 and he started at his late 30's I think. The sport itself has come long way from where it started in sports karate and I wouldn't call it merely martial arts anymore. It's a thing of it's own and it's beautiful. But yea.. I'll cut the off-topic
@StevenVyas, this may seem rude but do you think I could maybe get that soldier model, would be brilliant for weight practice and use of props (the gun). For private use and here only, you would get full credit?
@ Rmunday, nothing rude about asking :-) unfortunately it's not mine to give away. So I can't help you there, but what I can do is redirect you to another soldier model being offered for download on polycount.
Christ that soldier is hard to rig, the skinning is a nightmare especially since I am not that good at it. The armor piece on his left elbow is impossible! Guess I will keep working on my sneak :P
@ Stevenvya I think you just became my favorite Poly-counter, there arn't many animators on here. I really hope you could share some of your animation knowledge with a noob like me :P
Thanks man, that's really nice of you to say :-)
I'll include a few more progress shots of how i work, which might help explain what's going through my noggin while i'm animating. In the meantime...
Slipsius provided some great examples of the bouncing ball exercises.
While the bouncing ball itself is unsexy, many would say mastering the ball is fundamental to beginner animators because later you'll realize that the Bouncing ball is very similar to animating the root of a character- His/her/it's hips- Most of all the action that pushes a character's animation, derives from there! That being said, the principles that are learnt from the ball can also be applied to every other body part
Because the bouncing ball exercises focus on just one object, it also helps those that are critiquing to see where you're at, what fundamentals need to be reassessed, and where you can go from there!
cheers,
steve
Love the animation work they are all smooth besides what others have said whom are more knowledgeable then I on the subject.
I got a question about animating that I am not entirely sure of..
When working with game characters and timing how does this all play out?
Is It specific to the engine/application/console, or are each different?
Can you work however you want and when It comes to exporting, that's when you create specific time-frames for the animations?
Example:
With the walk cycle, is it, create a 15 second walk cycle with in 150 frames, or is it just create the walk cycle in however many frames and export is as is, say it ended up being 300 Frames?
^That's were I am stuck at, I like animating but have only barley touched the surface I am sure as I never knew of layers but after reading a few posts I got the general idea of how they are meant to work.
Thanks for any assistance, at the moment only interested in animating for myself, any designs I create, just fyi.
@ $!nz when creating walks or runs that are to be put into a games engine you do it as a cycle, on the spot. Lets say a basic walk cycle is a step a second (Thank you Animators survival kit!) you would animate 2 steps equaling 60fps (if you use the default) thats 30 frames per step. Then in the game engine there is usually a "loop" function for your animation, a quick bit of code will bind keys to walk and the coder will usually be the one to make sure the speed of the movement forward matches that of your animation.
[vv] /vv] is for vimeo videos. Polycount doesn't really know what to do with "youtu.be" addresses.
Copy & Paste the plain old youtube.com/ url , but remember to remove "&feature=youtu.be" from the end of the address before you post.
It will embed automatically
Edit: @ Rmunday, Good start!
Edit#2: I've drawn in a ball...oval ;-).. that you can compare the Timing and spacing with
This thread looks exciting. I'm going to grab one of my segmented brutes start animating. The time limit is 20, correct?
For me, I picked 20mins to see what I was capable of achieving or failing at, in that time.
Just as the Speed modeling thread, everyone has different set times for different pieces. It's your choice :-)
@Rmunday, practice Timing & Spacing on a bouncing ball. jerky movements = poor Timing&Spacing
I am finding timing difficult, I understand the concepts behind it as in, what comes down usually is quicker than what goes up because of gravity and such but when it comes to conveying this in software I find it hard to position keys correctly correlating to correct timing in frames.
I am finding timing difficult, I understand the concepts behind it as in, what comes down usually is quicker than what goes up because of gravity and such but when it comes to conveying this in software I find it hard to position keys correctly correlating to correct timing in frames.
I remember struggling to learn this when I was starting out too. It's a difficult concept to get ahold of, at first.
Here's a decent write up that might help http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/01b/bball.shtml
When in doubt, a quick google search with " [fundamental] animation tutorial" will help explain each one of them.
There's countless of websites that talk about every fundamental principle in animation
Thank you for the link. I know and understand the majority of the 12 principles of animation however when trying to convey these over into 3D this is where I begin to fall over. When it comes to timing and spacing in a basic form is it:
When you need a fast action at the beginning you will have more frames as momentum takes over then mid point the gaps between frames (spacing) is increased? So relating this to say, my foot steps. Start on the floor, Slide back (since it is on the spot) then as the foot comes up have more frames to compensate for spacing then as the foot reaches its highest point this is where most of my frames will be as your foot relaxes and to quote the link you gave me "[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]perfectly balanced between the force of gravity pulling it down, and its own momentum moving it forward"?
I know this may seem like totally nooby questions however I really thought I had the basics down [/FONT][/FONT]
The best piece of advice I can give you is to video tape yourself.
Then, by putting it in slowmotion or frameBYframe. Observe how many frames it takes for your foot to go from point A->B [total frames or timing of the action]. Then, where the spacing of the foot is positioned in between those frames. Notice where it eases into, where does it ease-out of, how long does it take to do it etc.
Video reference is probably your best source of feedback at this point.
Anyways,
Looks like we're deviating from the purpose of this Speed Animation thread.
So, if you have any other questions. Pm me, and I'll try to point you in the right direction
If you're having troubles with timing, don't jump into walks and runs. People always start with them, but they are actually rather difficult to make a GOOD walk / run. Stick with the ball bounce for now. The one you posted, I wouldn't consider ready to move on just yet. Stephen did a nice draw over for you.
Also, for youtube links, I find it the easiest to just click the share button, then copy the "long link" in the check box area.
Ok so technically did this in 25 mins. I find doing the bouncing ball in the normal "Arch" format is much easier than on spot, it manages to make timing that bit easier. This looks much smoother than all my animation ever. basically used the link I got to time this!
This is a 25 minute blocked out gorilla type walk with a biped bruiser type character. Currently in linear, timed on odd, and with only essential breakdowns to communicate the walk.
I'll polish tomorrow and limit myself to 15 minutes or so since I'm not doing this back to back.
But for now I wanted to get something up on the forum.
Thanks for starting this Stephen.
Rmunday, your translate y arcs are off. They should look like rainbows side by side. Also, your translate X is off. If you have a key frame at eh start of the animation, and the end of the animation, on the translate x, you can delete all the other key frames inbetween, so that it has a linear line between the first and last frame. Right now, it slows down and speeds up and its travelling across the screen, which it shouldnt do. It should be pretty constant. Each bounce can slow it down a TAD, but to start, its better to just keep it linear all the way across. Remember, once the ball is in the air, it will NOT change its side to side speed.
I have sorted the X axis, an easy delete of keys in the curve editor however I am a bit confused with my "y arks" Do you mean the actual movement arks themselves?
ALSO sorry for derailing the thread I promise when I improve my run cycle I will post it up and try re-do it within some kind of time constraint
Ya, that's the graph Im talking about. 3ds max must use Z as the up axis. Maya, it's the Y. My bad.
But anyways, ya, there is your problem. You have so many keys, and the tangents aren't very smooth at all. You really need the slow in, slow out thing. I always explain it as rainbows side by side, because the arcs should look like a nice smooth rainbow. Here is a picture of what it should look like. They can be somewhat differnet. shorter air time and what not, but pay attention the where it hits the ground. the tangent looks like a V. A nice sharp hit. Also, the angle that it goes into the bounce is the angle that it leaves the bounce.
Oh ok I think it just clicked on thank you! There are just so many keys because I followed the Link I was given near enough drawing for drawing, word for word but forget the software does a lot of the interpolation for you with no need to key in the slow in and outs >.<
Lots of keys isn't a total no no. If you need the keys, use them. But, just make sure they are nice and smooth. Your graph wasnt smooth, and will reflect that directly while moving through the air. It will suddenly change directions with an unnatural feel.
With animation, sometimes less is more. But, you have to be able to understand the graph editor and how it affects the animation.
Later on, when you're using full rigs, the graph editor comes last, but it will never fix bad posing. but that's a whole other topic.
This is all kind of depressing, I thought I had the basics down haha! Guess all I can do is keep working through my final year of University while keeping up with my animation (since there are no animation modules this year :O
I have however improved the walk cycle a bit, hell I'm throwing the run right out of the window till I get the basics down. "Got to walk before I can run" couldn't resist using that saying.
The animation itself goes to 7 seconds god knows what Youtube has added onto the end and I know at the end it sort of picks up speed... Improved in 15 mins does that count?
Think of your walk like this,
contact-down-passing-up-contact
then repeat for the other step
instead of improving on what you have, start over.
Learn the process and understand how to do it correctly before you worry about speed.
Does that make sense?
Makes perfect sense yes. A quick thought though. Do people actually prefer hand animated cycles or can you use say Max's CAT solutions to speed the process up and get good results?
Also I know everyone has that much more experience then me however I can guarantee the above video I posted does follow that. It starts from the contact (starting on left foot), Down (foot slides back and body takes weight) Passing position (The legs cross each other in the middle, body goes up slightly) Up position (Body is at its highest point) then contact with the right foot.
Hand Keyed all the way.
I don't have any experience with CAT but if I was working on a production and CAT was required to get a walk cycle done faster so I could focus on the money shots then I wouldn't flinch.
As for your walk, that may be. But it is the timing and spacing of those poses that do not work. Plus the poses that describe the Contact-Down-Passing-Up-Contact, do not read that well. Look at the Animators Survival Kit where Richard Williams breaks down a walk in the simplest form with clear, readable poses that you can use. Exaggerate your poses then pull back as needed.
I understand exactly what you mean, I am currently referencing that book as I type this, using the "on 16's" timing frame so the eye gets more time to take in the poses shown.
I found this guy on one of the polycount SDK pages, gave him an FK rig and created a few animations.
Speed Time
Intro: 30 minutes
Idle: 15 minutes
Exit 1 hour
sweet. I'm just grabbing some of the characters available on Polycount and giving them a rig using Dustin Nelson's Rapid Rig Script.
I look forward to your participation and characters.
I started this block before bed last night. Scene set up aside, the blocking took me around 45 minutes. I quickly sketched a couple of ideas then jumped into Maya.
I'll polish sometime today or tomorrow. Instead of doing a countdown I set up a stopwatch and applied the same principle of getting the basics down, fast and dirty.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5SmfMAaQuw"]Brute Bot Throw - YouTube[/ame]
Looking really cool so far matt, timing looks good. One thing though I think you could push his follow through poses a little more. The thing he throws looks pretty heavy so perhaps he could stumble a bit after the release? maybe kick his leg in the air after the throw.
Replies
[vv ] ########### [/ vv]
without the spaces in the brackets. But you just put the number. not the full link.
[vv]46482356[/vv]
edit: - the animation is still in blocking
Come to think of it, I don't even know if it's possible to do this maneuver
from a standstill. I'll be the first to say, I'm at fault for seeing a cool move
and hacking it in too quickly.
I'm actually kind of jealous that you're able to do this. It makes me want
to learn martial arts!
edit: Welcome DerDude!
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70908&page=3
Marcus has created a futuristic soldier that might meet your expectations
Cheers,
steve
I'll include a few more progress shots of how i work, which might help explain what's going through my noggin while i'm animating. In the meantime...
Slipsius provided some great examples of the bouncing ball exercises.
While the bouncing ball itself is unsexy, many would say mastering the ball is fundamental to beginner animators because later you'll realize that the Bouncing ball is very similar to animating the root of a character- His/her/it's hips- Most of all the action that pushes a character's animation, derives from there! That being said, the principles that are learnt from the ball can also be applied to every other body part
Because the bouncing ball exercises focus on just one object, it also helps those that are critiquing to see where you're at, what fundamentals need to be reassessed, and where you can go from there!
cheers,
steve
I got a question about animating that I am not entirely sure of..
When working with game characters and timing how does this all play out?
Is It specific to the engine/application/console, or are each different?
Can you work however you want and when It comes to exporting, that's when you create specific time-frames for the animations?
Example:
With the walk cycle, is it, create a 15 second walk cycle with in 150 frames, or is it just create the walk cycle in however many frames and export is as is, say it ended up being 300 Frames?
^That's were I am stuck at, I like animating but have only barley touched the surface I am sure as I never knew of layers but after reading a few posts I got the general idea of how they are meant to work.
Thanks for any assistance, at the moment only interested in animating for myself, any designs I create, just fyi.
Took a page from slipsius's book.
[ame="
Copy & Paste the plain old youtube.com/ url , but remember to remove "&feature=youtu.be" from the end of the address before you post.
It will embed automatically
Edit: @ Rmunday, Good start!
Edit#2: I've drawn in a ball...oval ;-).. that you can compare the Timing and spacing with
[ame="
For me, I picked 20mins to see what I was capable of achieving or failing at, in that time.
Just as the Speed modeling thread, everyone has different set times for different pieces. It's your choice :-)
@Rmunday, practice Timing & Spacing on a bouncing ball. jerky movements = poor Timing&Spacing
[ame="
I remember struggling to learn this when I was starting out too. It's a difficult concept to get ahold of, at first.
Here's a decent write up that might help
http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/01b/bball.shtml
When in doubt, a quick google search with " [fundamental] animation tutorial" will help explain each one of them.
There's countless of websites that talk about every fundamental principle in animation
When you need a fast action at the beginning you will have more frames as momentum takes over then mid point the gaps between frames (spacing) is increased? So relating this to say, my foot steps. Start on the floor, Slide back (since it is on the spot) then as the foot comes up have more frames to compensate for spacing then as the foot reaches its highest point this is where most of my frames will be as your foot relaxes and to quote the link you gave me "[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]perfectly balanced between the force of gravity pulling it down, and its own momentum moving it forward"?
I know this may seem like totally nooby questions however I really thought I had the basics down
[/FONT][/FONT]
Then, by putting it in slowmotion or frameBYframe. Observe how many frames it takes for your foot to go from point A->B [total frames or timing of the action]. Then, where the spacing of the foot is positioned in between those frames. Notice where it eases into, where does it ease-out of, how long does it take to do it etc.
Video reference is probably your best source of feedback at this point.
Anyways,
Looks like we're deviating from the purpose of this Speed Animation thread.
So, if you have any other questions. Pm me, and I'll try to point you in the right direction
Also, for youtube links, I find it the easiest to just click the share button, then copy the "long link" in the check box area.
[ame="
I'll polish tomorrow and limit myself to 15 minutes or so since I'm not doing this back to back.
But for now I wanted to get something up on the forum.
Thanks for starting this Stephen.
[ame="
ALSO sorry for derailing the thread I promise when I improve my run cycle I will post it up and try re-do it within some kind of time constraint
But anyways, ya, there is your problem. You have so many keys, and the tangents aren't very smooth at all. You really need the slow in, slow out thing. I always explain it as rainbows side by side, because the arcs should look like a nice smooth rainbow. Here is a picture of what it should look like. They can be somewhat differnet. shorter air time and what not, but pay attention the where it hits the ground. the tangent looks like a V. A nice sharp hit. Also, the angle that it goes into the bounce is the angle that it leaves the bounce.
With animation, sometimes less is more. But, you have to be able to understand the graph editor and how it affects the animation.
Later on, when you're using full rigs, the graph editor comes last, but it will never fix bad posing. but that's a whole other topic.
The animation itself goes to 7 seconds god knows what Youtube has added onto the end and I know at the end it sort of picks up speed... Improved in 15 mins does that count?
[ame="
contact-down-passing-up-contact
then repeat for the other step
instead of improving on what you have, start over.
Learn the process and understand how to do it correctly before you worry about speed.
Does that make sense?
Also I know everyone has that much more experience then me however I can guarantee the above video I posted does follow that. It starts from the contact (starting on left foot), Down (foot slides back and body takes weight) Passing position (The legs cross each other in the middle, body goes up slightly) Up position (Body is at its highest point) then contact with the right foot.
I don't have any experience with CAT but if I was working on a production and CAT was required to get a walk cycle done faster so I could focus on the money shots then I wouldn't flinch.
As for your walk, that may be. But it is the timing and spacing of those poses that do not work. Plus the poses that describe the Contact-Down-Passing-Up-Contact, do not read that well. Look at the Animators Survival Kit where Richard Williams breaks down a walk in the simplest form with clear, readable poses that you can use. Exaggerate your poses then pull back as needed.
Polish- 45 Minutes
[ame="
Speed Time
Intro: 30 minutes
Idle: 15 minutes
Exit 1 hour
[ame="
HAHAH; AWESOME!
I look forward to your participation and characters.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I hope you enjoyed watching my balls, as much as I enjoyed playing with them
You couldn't resist could you?
That aside, I think you animated your balls well!
I'll polish sometime today or tomorrow. Instead of doing a countdown I set up a stopwatch and applied the same principle of getting the basics down, fast and dirty.
[ame="