To help reduce the .gif file size, and have it load quicker.
Photoshop does an excellent job with .png(alpha) files. Which
would also allow you to crop your character
Likely a reduction from 750k to 30-80k(Depending non document size)
just my 2cents
Not got hang of the speed bit but hey here a start of a WIP, going to do a simple wall crossing (I say simple getting all the rotations to look correct a pain) @StephenVyas love that mech!
@MrOneTwo The slow speed is likely to do with photoshop having a different frame rate.
You can change this by going to the animation window clicking on the top right menu button in that window & then selecting document settings
I'm having problem with finding what you are talking about StephenVyas. I'm using CS6. I messed around with delay and using 0.03 made it look better. Also I changed size.
On 11 second club I found few exercises beginner should practice. Walk cycles are pretty hard Not something you should start with... and what Stephen said. Right now it looks really weird.
Exercises like bouncing ball help to know the software from animation porspective. I know 3ds max pretty well from modelling perspective. While I was making this bouncing ball few posts above I learned stuff... lots of stuff.
Of course some people learn faster so you know... whatever works for you ;D
StephenVyas - reinstall worked. Thanks again for the help.
Same here-Autorigs from 3dsmax & blender
Most of the characters i use are from friends, SDK's from polycount or found on the interwebz.
(None are modeled by me)
I think this'll get boring soon BUT here's my take at a walkcycle. It's finally some stuff to contribute! As my computer broke about a week ago I can only link you to vimeo. I'm going to post a gif of it as soon as I get it back.
Always good to see walkcycles :-) sucks about the computer tho...
Built my pc in 2003 & dreading the day it says "game over man.. game over"
____
a concept(attack) for my next anim. probably makes no sense to anyone other than myself at this point.
welcome melviso!
reminds me somewhat of the way they do it in Samurai Jack :)
**Sorry Guys!!**
If anyone has tried to send me a private message in the last.. Month?.. I apologize if I haven't responded. Just realized my inbox has been full this entire time. So that means, I didn't receive it... (I usually try to get back to everyone within a reasonable amount of time. Sorry)
**
Hugh, dont take on the walk cycle yet. They are trickier than they look. Even jumping into full character rigs is a bad idea till you get the basics. I suggest ball exercises, but at the very least, jump back to the ball and legs rig.
Ok, well, its all very linear to start. The timing very off, as you said. The up down motion you have on the hips, there is no ease in or out. it just sort of pops up and down. The left foot plants on the ground flat, but the right foot doesnt. The entire upper torso has no movement on it. even if you are holding a ball still infront of you, you`re going to rotate your body forward and back to counter how the hips should be moving. with how the character is deforming, Its hard to tell if you have any sort of rotation on the hips.
Sorry, a little harsh, I know. But seriously, if you take a step back, and try animating with this little guy, not only do you have to focus on less body parts, but you can fix crits much faster as well, because its have the rig. You`ll end up improving much faster because of it.
But I prefer 2d animating,just wished someone could come up with an Adobe Flash timeline script/plugin for Photoshop.PS timeline sucks.I know one can do animation in Flash and color in PS.But PS is so much better even for sketching and doing the animation roughs.
For anyone who's interested, I've rigged up the Captain Beefheart model graciously provided by Gav. It's rigged in Maya, .mb format.
There's nothing fancy like sliders for the fingers, or IK/FK switching - because, well, I don't know how to do those at the moment.
So there's no shortcuts in animating it, but at least it's serviceable!
Hope you guys like it, and thanks again for the awesome model Gav!
Be sure to take a look at the notes as well.
Hi guys been lurking for a while recently due to mega crunch on Lego City. But ive enjoyed watching this thread as I tried to start something similar a long time ago but alas Lego City was crunching even back then.
There has been great progress and il be adding my own attempts and encouragement here very soon! But ive a gift Id like to give the PC community especially animators.
A while back I started to dip into rigging solutions well ive been fiddling with my ideas for a while now and I almost have a decent AutoRig for Maya going, im keeping it basic as it comes, cheap quick and easy so ideal for game engines and animators here!
Id just like a consensus on features you would be lost without.
I guess its almost xmas and I need a new reel so keep your eyes peeled!
If you wanna stick with that rig, that's cool, but humour me for a sec. Go find a jump reference somewhere. straight up, or standing jump forward. Download the video (lots of programs out there will let you save youtube videos as mp4). Bring that video into quicktime. switch the timer to frames (click the 0:00). start copying the poses. use the arrow keys in quicktime to move frame by frame. For now, do a frame every 4th frame. Just copy the pose how you see it. Do that and post it. I wanna see the difference. You're biggest problem right now is lack of reference.
I still dont understand the graph editor or how to slow down certain keys and speed up others and make everything look seemless/smooth. If anyone knows any good tuts on that link em
http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/01b/bball.shtml
-A tutorial on spacing your keyframes. (Tip. While reading this tutorial, think of the bouncing ball as the root of your character- His pelvis)
Spacing is important, and I think it really ties in with what you're after here.
It goes hand in hand with timing.
Learning about Spacing will aid in controlling the speed & velocity of your character's limbs as well. Helping to create smooth motion,while allowing you to plot out your blocking stage at breakneck speeds
I'll just say.. The graph editor is great for 'polishing', after the blocking stage is completed.
I still dont understand the graph editor or how to slow down certain keys and speed up others and make everything look seemless/smooth. If anyone knows any good tuts on that link em
You said you prefer to learn by jumping straight into hard stuff... thats what happens. You don't understand tool basics. I won't tell you how you should learn but you should consider doing simpler things.
Keep practicing though (whatever way you choose ). Good to see someone keeps the thread alive. Didn't have time to do anything myself
This is a really great thread. The heavy at the beginning is magical. XD I am not much of an animator but I just wanted to point some nice stuff the check out. I'm sure most of the people here know of the site, but for those who don't. http://www.11secondclub.com/
Been meaning to post in this thread for awhile, here is a quick walk and run cycle i did last week. Blocked them out in about 30minutes, then spent an hour or two (didn't really time myself so probably more xD) fiddling and tweaking
Hey guys! I have a massive love for animation and am working hard to improve! ive seen this thread around and thought of posting some stuff as its one of the only animation ones, this animation isn't a speed animation :P but I would love some feedback! ive already had some feedback from my own thread and its been really helpful! but would really love more! cheers guys
Slipsius : haha a dancing cat? Thanks dude :-) pst... where are your new anims? ClenchingSkunk : Got the side to side rotation on the hips, i see. How 'bout some front to back rotation as well
So this is a little bit away from the point of this thread,
since I took it to a bit more of a polished state, around 4 - 5 hrs.
Having alot of fun with Beefheart here, thanks again Gav.
Rigged up an SDK and spent maybe 1.5 hours on this, still messing with the timing since I feel its just a little sluggish. Crits welcome as I want to put this on my reel
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H1HYYZNf98"]hero runWIP - YouTube[/ame]
So this is a little bit away from the point of this thread,
since I took it to a bit more of a polished state, around 4 - 5 hrs.
Having alot of fun with Beefheart here, thanks again Gav.
Nice cycle! I wouldnt have minded seeing alittle more jiggle in the belly to exaggerate his weight.
@nomar289 Not bad, you should add some hip movement as they should never be static, and i would animate the whole body though instead of one part
@Sukotto You where right about the timing, although the whole run cycle is too slow, you have tried to exaggerate the movements far too much, esp in the legs, too the point where he is flailing them about. I would take this back a step, delete any inbetweens you have, and work on the key poses, get your up/pasing, contact and down poses perfect and then work on the inbetweens. I would also keep working on the basics, do some bouncing balls and post them here =D
Slipsius : haha a dancing cat? Thanks dude :-) pst... where are your new anims? ClenchingSkunk : Got the side to side rotation on the hips, i see. How 'bout some front to back rotation as well
[Last update for this anim. Calling it quits.]
Wow..great work StephenVyas.Can u pls tell me where u upload this gif for posting here?Thanks.I think the file size for this is quite substantial as photobucket/imgur will only upload gifs of lower file size.
Replies
[A vanilla walkcycle to start off with]
To help reduce the .gif file size, and have it load quicker.
Photoshop does an excellent job with .png(alpha) files. Which
would also allow you to crop your character
Likely a reduction from 750k to 30-80k(Depending non document size)
just my 2cents
First animation. It's pretty fun to do but I still learn those stuff.
I am going to jump in!!
Brad Marques
Animation Director
Riot Games
Summoner name: RiotBamDragon
Alot of you guys animate so fast.
This is something I've done recently. It took me a little over 3 hours, I need to learn to animate alot faster.
[ame="
-mech stuff
[ame="
Here's a couple 20-min breaks from an art test.
It's 60 frames. Way too big in size though
@MrOneTwo The slow speed is likely to do with photoshop having a different frame rate.
You can change this by going to the animation window clicking on the top right menu button in that window & then selecting document settings
Here's a picture of where those frame rate settings can be found.
Left leg forward, right arm forward
Right leg forward, left arm forward
The arms help to counter balance the leg movement.
At the moment, the arms are pumping twice as fast as the legs are moving
Exercises like bouncing ball help to know the software from animation porspective. I know 3ds max pretty well from modelling perspective. While I was making this bouncing ball few posts above I learned stuff... lots of stuff.
Of course some people learn faster so you know... whatever works for you ;D
StephenVyas - reinstall worked. Thanks again for the help.
Most of the characters i use are from friends, SDK's from polycount or found on the interwebz.
(None are modeled by me)
https://vimeo.com/52438613
You guys are awesome! I'm looking forward to a small but nice animaiton community on polygount
Built my pc in 2003 & dreading the day it says "game over man.. game over"
____
a concept(attack) for my next anim. probably makes no sense to anyone other than myself at this point.
[ame="
[ame="
reminds me somewhat of the way they do it in Samurai Jack :)
**Sorry Guys!!**
If anyone has tried to send me a private message in the last.. Month?.. I apologize if I haven't responded. Just realized my inbox has been full this entire time. So that means, I didn't receive it... (I usually try to get back to everyone within a reasonable amount of time. Sorry)
**
Hey beta... I'm curious about this model/rig, is it something you've made or is it available for download somewhere?
Looks like it'd be fun
Sorry, a little harsh, I know. But seriously, if you take a step back, and try animating with this little guy, not only do you have to focus on less body parts, but you can fix crits much faster as well, because its have the rig. You`ll end up improving much faster because of it.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/simple-bot-rig-for-maya
Sorry for the late reply. I got the rig from http://www.3dmotive.com/. It comes with one of the animation tutorials.
I tried 3d animation,probably made a lot of mistakes.I cut the video cause I decided to discontinue the project.Everything was rendered out with Maya playblast and postprocessing in AE.Screwed up the fx and music part.
[ame="
But I prefer 2d animating,just wished someone could come up with an Adobe Flash timeline script/plugin for Photoshop.PS timeline sucks.I know one can do animation in Flash and color in PS.But PS is so much better even for sketching and doing the animation roughs.
There's nothing fancy like sliders for the fingers, or IK/FK switching - because, well, I don't know how to do those at the moment.
So there's no shortcuts in animating it, but at least it's serviceable!
Hope you guys like it, and thanks again for the awesome model Gav!
Be sure to take a look at the notes as well.
http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/398417/Captain_Beefheart_rig.rar
There has been great progress and il be adding my own attempts and encouragement here very soon! But ive a gift Id like to give the PC community especially animators.
A while back I started to dip into rigging solutions well ive been fiddling with my ideas for a while now and I almost have a decent AutoRig for Maya going, im keeping it basic as it comes, cheap quick and easy so ideal for game engines and animators here!
Id just like a consensus on features you would be lost without.
I guess its almost xmas and I need a new reel so keep your eyes peeled!
If you wanna stick with that rig, that's cool, but humour me for a sec. Go find a jump reference somewhere. straight up, or standing jump forward. Download the video (lots of programs out there will let you save youtube videos as mp4). Bring that video into quicktime. switch the timer to frames (click the 0:00). start copying the poses. use the arrow keys in quicktime to move frame by frame. For now, do a frame every 4th frame. Just copy the pose how you see it. Do that and post it. I wanna see the difference. You're biggest problem right now is lack of reference.
http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/01b/bball.shtml
-A tutorial on spacing your keyframes. (Tip. While reading this tutorial, think of the bouncing ball as the root of your character- His pelvis)
Spacing is important, and I think it really ties in with what you're after here.
It goes hand in hand with timing.
Learning about Spacing will aid in controlling the speed & velocity of your character's limbs as well. Helping to create smooth motion,while allowing you to plot out your blocking stage at breakneck speeds
I'll just say.. The graph editor is great for 'polishing', after the blocking stage is completed.
You said you prefer to learn by jumping straight into hard stuff... thats what happens. You don't understand tool basics. I won't tell you how you should learn but you should consider doing simpler things.
Keep practicing though (whatever way you choose
oh dear god....
ClenchingSkunk : Got the side to side rotation on the hips, i see. How 'bout some front to back rotation as well
[Last update for this anim. Calling it quits.]
since I took it to a bit more of a polished state, around 4 - 5 hrs.
Having alot of fun with Beefheart here, thanks again Gav.
Also, the attack animation above is dope. 0_0
https://vimeo.com/55658857?action=share
Finally got around at having another attempt at a cycle.
[ame="
[ame="
[ame="
[ame="
Nice cycle! I wouldnt have minded seeing alittle more jiggle in the belly to exaggerate his weight.
@nomar289 Not bad, you should add some hip movement as they should never be static, and i would animate the whole body though instead of one part
@Sukotto You where right about the timing, although the whole run cycle is too slow, you have tried to exaggerate the movements far too much, esp in the legs, too the point where he is flailing them about. I would take this back a step, delete any inbetweens you have, and work on the key poses, get your up/pasing, contact and down poses perfect and then work on the inbetweens. I would also keep working on the basics, do some bouncing balls and post them here =D
Wow..great work StephenVyas.Can u pls tell me where u upload this gif for posting here?Thanks.I think the file size for this is quite substantial as photobucket/imgur will only upload gifs of lower file size.
DeviantArt