[Weekly Theme 3] Kick Attack
mod
This weeks theme. A kick attack.
Some people have been posting some animations they`ve already done, that just happen to work with the theme. But let's try and do new anims, everyone! More practice!! It's the whole point of the themes.
Click HERE for tips on how to share your work. Or try your hand at using Sketchfab!!!
Some people have been posting some animations they`ve already done, that just happen to work with the theme. But let's try and do new anims, everyone! More practice!! It's the whole point of the themes.
Click HERE for tips on how to share your work. Or try your hand at using Sketchfab!!!
Replies
1.5 hrs block-in. basically chun-li's rising air kick
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syncsketch
http://www.syncsketch.com/playground/074b12394e004a85ab1bacea62593b50#40521
I decided to go with a basic low kick as I need to work on getting better with basic movements. One hour so far using my own template character and rig.
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0-8, torso rotates to left while hips rotate to right and shift weight toward rear leg.
8-10, torso rotates to right while hips rotate to left toward target. push off the rear foot
10-13, torso hits impact pose, hips hits impact pose, kicking foot leaves ground at 10 or 11, impacts @ 13.
14-20, settle to new right foot leading ready pose, right foot direct infront of left, parallel to it.
Mine @ 3hr mark, splining out and refining the poses and transitions.
http://syncsketch.com/playground/c765504d1fe448a49b772aebcb58cf34#40667
Now that I think of it, I've had the mocap-comparison made to my animations a couple of times before. I wonder if that is a fundamentally bad thing or not. :poly136:
I added a couple of comments on your sync sketch. There is be a bit of disconnect between the anticipation, rise and fall segments of the animation, which I think could be improved by focusing on the path of motion for the body during the transitions. Otherwise I think the individual segments are on the right track.
as far as looking like mocap... it depends. You get good mechanics typically from mocap, but unless you are mocapping someone super athletic you won't get enough snappiness you need for the action to "feel" right.
Going back to the kick, I looked up some muy thai low kick videos and counted frames. The kick take roughly 7 frames from when the rear foot leaves the ground to impact. Big difference is that the kicking foot is traveling through about twice the distance your foot is. Another difference is the hip is leading the thigh and foot all the way through the kick, where as your animation has the thigh pass the hip and lead about half way through the kick. And one more major difference is the leading foot lands with toes pointing out to the side instead of forward, it is basically in the final position before the kick starts. where in your action, the leading foot lands pointing forward, and pivots along with the kick, and it makes the kick feel very light.
@ Hito : that reminds me of Kyo from king of fighter fly kick
Found a video that might interest someone
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@Arturow: Awesome reference! Wasn't sure what to cook up for this one, but I'll definetely be trying to use a kick from that video! Thanks
Ember rig by Andrew Helenek
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Great work by everyone so far!
@Ankheilw - Love it, he has a bit of a weird head wobble after the kick though.
@k'vin - Really nice! Did you use reference for this?
@Denny - Very cool but I agree with Hito about it looking like cleaned up mocap, that's not a bad thing though.
I love the first pass on the kick, Smooth progression and good timing. What I am missing is a bit of weight and motivation from the character. I think your poses could be a little stronger and more exaggerated as well. In the beginning, I can really him winding up before he launches up into the move. Try pushing the verticality of the root.
Great work so far, keep it up.
your first pass already look really good
If you want to push it for this forum, I would say give him a little more vertical movement in the final attack and make the last lead in kick a little more exaggerated in pose and timing. Hope that helps in some way. Great work.
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@K'vin, timing feels very good, as are the poses. I'd put some variation in the "size" of the kicks... med kick, series of small fast kicks, BIG spinning kick. amp up the final 540 spinning kick with little more vertical and forward translation, and push the pose @ 58 to match. Follow through with the momentum of the final kick instead of stepping down and settling with the step backward like you have it now.
@Ankheilw, yeah the chin thing.
@Adam, really cool action. The return feels awkward, the left foot seems to be pivoting around a point just past the tip of the toes instead of the ball of the foot. The kicking leg hangs forward too long before starting to come back to combat-ready idle. Kick-gun has similar kicks on youtube. I don't know if you used ref or not, but you can see the kicking leg following through the kick arc without any delay.
Love the work you did on your kick. After seeing the second half of the video with the slow frame rate, I almost want some more time in the animation to appreciate all the extra work you have in it. Something to push the timing, maybe keeping the kicks at the current speed, but slowing down the time in between a little and exaggerating the wind-ups so that you can see the separation in the kicks. Otherwise, it looks fantastic.
Would love to see your character have a really dynamic land too, to absorb the weight. Something over the top like Trinity in the matrix? Keep it up!
He does keep his leg hanging forward for a moment before bringing it back and he pivots on his toe rather than the ball of his foot. Unless you mean a different part of the animation to what I'm thinking? I do still need to polish those parts up either way.
Slightly new update from me:
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After checking out the reference, once he sticks the landing the momentum sort of ragdolls/jerks his upper body pretty harshly (If not in the 1:32 kick its readily apparent in the 1:30 kick), and right now there is a bit of that but it seems loose and way more controlled. I think adding in a bit more weight/impact into the animation once he sticks the landing will really help sell the piece. Keep it up man!
http://www.syncsketch.com/playground/3da5dc84d3934982b882c1ee2c7fdfbe#40992
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Sorry about just the link. The Vimeo Embed wasn't working... Do anybody know how to make it work, for future reference?
https://vimeo.com/137567859
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I'll stop here with this one and maybe join the next weekly theme if I have time to spare. Thanks for the feedback everyone, it did help a lot.
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@ _adamturnbull Hey, this is looking awesome! I really love the whipping movement of the arm as he spins his body into the kick, that feels really good. Nice work!
@ Denny Nice, this is a big improvement, doesn't feel so mocappy anymore. I think the kick itself still feels like there isn't much force behind it, and I think maybe part of it is that the kicking foot is in a fairly straight line with the supporting foot (the yellow line)
I think maybe if the foot extended out past that, like the green line, with the body twisting a bit more into the movement, it would have more of the power you were looking for. A lot of martial arts use the knee to aim a kick, so if your knee is pointing past your target instead of in line with it, the foot will follow and really drive force through the target.
You still did really good work on this. I know that feeling of noodling around with an animation until you just totally lose the ability to 'see' it properly!
@ hito Haha, this is so cool. I still think she could use 1 more frame of antic, or maybe holding her foot back in the spacing especially on the 3rd kick where it's noticeably smoother and her foot doesn't whip out so much. I also agree with Adam that the spin is not quite coming across, and it might be better to do a solid landing pose instead.
I also wanted to show you all this tool: http://anilyzer.com It'll let you play videos from Youtube and Vimeo frame by frame, though it's limited to Chrome at the moment. Still, might be useful!
Couldn't find out how to properly embed the video. But here's the link. https://vimeo.com/137567859
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@Denny, big improvement I think. The small step in the back foot is a nice touch. I think it just needs a little more time on the impact moving hold before settling into finish, 2 maybe 3 frames.
@Adam, looking great. The top kick has much more snap now. landing feels better as well.
@JennyS, Feels really good. I think the torso could use a little loosening up in the follow through/landing, and the leading foot turn could use a little smoothing out as it lands. Otherwise really great stuff!
@Keenan, Not a bad combo. but I think it's a little more than you can chew for "on and off" in 4 days. ~200 frames is a lot to do in 4 full days for even an experienced animator. I'd focus on just a small chunk of it and spend a week on just 60~90 frames. Find lots of reference for the motion and analyze it frame by frame before jumping into the 3d tool.