Hammer Attack Animation
Hey everyone, this is my first post on Polycount. This is an attack animation I've been working on for my reel and was wondering if you guys could give me any feedback. This is my first pass, so I still have work to do on it. Thanks!
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From what I can see, the first and 3rd attacks are good, you captured the weight of the hammer well.
In the second attack, I think the timing is too short, it looks like suddenly the hammer lost its weight. It's really hard to thrust a heady weight in that position, try it once with a dumbbell weight when you're at the gym :P
Also, right when he gets to the slam, 3rd attack, the little twitch in his arms doesn't look so good, if you want to capture a struggle by the weight of the hammer, maybe do it from the spine? I think it would look more natural.
Lastly, I think as he prepares to the 3rd attack, he should move his back leg forward, so he got like an X in his legs, then use that energy to spin his body, instead of spinning on 1 leg with all of that weight.
The most weight and needed energy will kick in to get this hammer in motion and to stop it (Think inertia).
In the first animation he stops it in a strange pose: consider his center of gravity and dont forget to calculate the hammer in, not only its weight but also its momentum. I think he'd get thrown off balance there. So we either need to demonstrate a small tumble here, or we have to make him start catching the hammer earlier already, probably counteracting by a heavy rotation in his upper body against the hammers rotation ( Leg and back muscles could possibly catch this hammer if anticipated, arm muscles alone probably not, considering he cant even lift it easily) - here you get the difference between the more skilled and the less skilled warrior: One who knows to counteract the hammer rotation and the one who doesnt, or fails to do so enough, or does so wrongly, etc.
2nd attack: Gotta agree with Tzur, thats a bit lighthanded. Let him first shift all of his upper body in the direction, (like if he tried to ram open a door), then let the arms follow, then stop the body, let the arms follow through. Youll get the distinction between trained and untrained warrior again: Will he anticipate the weight of the hammer or will he get sucked in by the weight? How does he handle that ?
3rd attack: As I said earlier, hardest is to get this hammer moving or stopping it, so there shouldnt be too abrupt velocity changes. The hammer wouldnt stop midair because he wants to because the hammer is too heavy, so he starts the spin and either tumbles or anticipates that, with a BIG counterweight. Also look at the center of mass again. At some point he stands on one foot, having this massive hanmmer hanging behind him, with his massive upper body, and his tiny legs. He would just fall backwards there.
Thanks for sharing, had fun watching it, keep it going mate!
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And also when he picks up the hammer the handle seems to stay very straight, try keeping the heavy end of the hammer down longer and straightening his right arm as he picks it up.