LeeM Uni assignments + personal work

LeeMeredith

Hello guys I'm finally back at University and one of my modules is animation and I'd love to get critique from you guys during it.

My first assignment is to create two walk cycles, one light, one heavy. I went with light first, I used rhinohouse with gangster/swag kind of walk idea.

Atm I only have a front view because when I duplicated the cat rig it went all weird, I'll figure it out later.

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Thanks

Edit:

Side view
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LeeMeredith

I tried to build in overlap into the key poses but I wasn't sure if I was meant to also move the frames forward as well to further increase overlap.

Also fixed a bunch of curves that were wonky and hopefully solved my pausing/sudden drop problem.

I wanted to duplicate my cat rig to render multiple views...just this second I'm wondering if I can export/import, will have to check in the morning, although max seems very stubborn about not allowing you to move the rig as a whole while in animation mode.

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Hito

Looking good. Moving frames forward (to the right on timeline) will add overlap. e.g. the hands hit the forward pose at the same time as the front foot hitting ground (f#19); you offset the hand keys by one or two to get some overlap. You can get overlap by pushing the bias handles on the keyframe, but genrally people just shift the keys. Same goes for the spine blocks up the chain, the top two might be offset by 1 frame from the hips, and the hands 1 more from the top two blocks.

LeeMeredith

Thanks Hito, never really understood why I was doing it until your advice.

Latest update :- Increased height on the highest point of the walk and added overlap to the wrists but very subtle.

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Arturow

Hello LeeMeredith,

pretty nice walk , all the fundamentals are there like rotations and when the body parts move. The character feels connected I have some notes for you:

- When the legs go from back to the front they make a pop .
- The toes are getting trough the floor
- It feels a little strange that the legs are bent the whole time , you have them a little stretched in the contact position but I think it feels weird. This maybe is because the body is low in Y
- The head looks very stiff , try to add just a little overlap in his rotation

Just my opinion, take the ones that helps you

LeeMeredith

@Arturow Hi man, thanks a lot for the critique, I agree with everything you said and tried to implement it all, I'm not sure if I raised the hips enough but when I tried doing it any higher I run into huge knee popping but if you still think it's too low I can push it higher.

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penOr

The main thing I notice is that the legs are constantly bent like he's squatting. Unless this is to make it look really swaggy, I feel like a bit of bouncing up with an extended leg when he plants the heel would add a lot

Arturow

@LeeMeredith : I found what is wrong here! the rotations of your body are actually wrong!
Take a look at this image and pay attention for the image that is in the bottom right, that will explain the rotations of the hips and shoulders!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M6HnqXr3rmQ/UUeUYusQyxI/AAAAAAAAAxU/768Y8iVeaIk/s1600/walkreference2.png

LeeMeredith

@PenOr hey, yea it is meant to look swaggy, I'll experiment with the bounce though, thanks.

@Arturow I tried to do as that image displayed but it made an animation that I didn't want, I want to keep it swaggy but I really appreciate your advice, thanks.

Hito

Looking good man! I think you can tilt the head back a bit to sell the swaggy feel. Could even try pushing the hips forward slightly and bend the torso back as well, will be very subtle. I'd also experiment with loosening up the clavicles a little... push the forward hand slightly higher, about a palm width, which will add some more movement in the clavicles. The arc when the hand moves toward the back could be a little rounder.

if you want to push for real cartoony (and a challenge) you can try to do the double bounce.

LeeMeredith

@Hito wow great advice, I'm going to get working on everything you've said right after I post this. I'll skip the double hop for now, since I want it realistic-ish. I knew somehting was off about the way the arm moves behind, it must be the arc like you said, thanks Hito.


This is the 2nd walk for my assignment, my reference was a heavy guy walking exhausted, I really struggled with trying to get the feet to lift off slowly, anyone have advice for doing something like that? I kept running out of frame space.
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Edit: also due to the cat rig it looks like he's standing on his toes but he's not.

LeeMeredith

Updated with Hitos advice, I think I could push it just a tiny but more but I'll wait until after the classroom critique. I think I also notice some popping on the feet peels.

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LeeMeredith

Improved my walk based on critique

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I see a hella obvious cycle in there but maybe I've spent too long looking at it, I don't know.

NiklasT

Nice improvement!
As you say, it is easy to get blind when looking at your own animation for far too long.

Have you tried to put down the heel more? The character is walking on the toes now very much, but maybe that's intended? It also leans in towards the middle more on the right step than the left, which makes it look a little limping.

Have you also tried curling the toes/feet downwards when the feet are 50% mid-air to make it look more like the character is "pushing away" with the foot?

LeeMeredith

NiklasT wrote: »

Nice improvement!
As you say, it is easy to get blind when looking at your own animation for far too long.

Have you tried to put down the heel more? The character is walking on the toes now very much, but maybe that's intended? It also leans in towards the middle more on the right step than the left, which makes it look a little limping.

Have you also tried curling the toes/feet downwards when the feet are 50% mid-air to make it look more like the character is "pushing away" with the foot?

Hey thanks for the critique, unfortunately the cat rigs feet are odd to say the least, the heel of the foot is what looks like the foot and for whatever reason is raised at the back, whereas the first what appears to be toes is the actual foot. I'm not explaining it well but basically the foot doesn't move in such a way that looks like what you describe due to the nature of the cat rig.

Hito

The heavy is looking pretty good. You mentioned you refed a big guy exhausted. As it stands, the big guys legs are moving almost the same exact speed as the swaggy guy, but with shorter stride length. To compensate you keep the feet on the ground longer. It makes it feel like his feet are stuck to the ground instead of he's heavy. Try make each stride take more time... something like 3~5 extra frames on each left/right leg. The impact/push off pose would take a little longer, more settle in each step so the legs can catch the massive body.

The upper body feels better than the legs, the subdued swing makes everything feel heavy. I'd try a little more overlap in the head.

there's a pop on the left leg push off.

And yea, CAT is aptly named in more ways than one... it's very cat like sometimes. Everythings fine one moment and then it'll completely wig out the next.

LeeMeredith

Hito wrote: »

The heavy is looking pretty good. You mentioned you refed a big guy exhausted. As it stands, the big guys legs are moving almost the same exact speed as the swaggy guy, but with shorter stride length. To compensate you keep the feet on the ground longer. It makes it feel like his feet are stuck to the ground instead of he's heavy. Try make each stride take more time... something like 3~5 extra frames on each left/right leg. The impact/push off pose would take a little longer, more settle in each step so the legs can catch the massive body.

The upper body feels better than the legs, the subdued swing makes everything feel heavy. I'd try a little more overlap in the head.

there's a pop on the left leg push off.

And yea, CAT is aptly named in more ways than one... it's very cat like sometimes. Everythings fine one moment and then it'll completely wig out the next.

@Hito thanks for the critique, with making the feet stay on the ground longer I seem to run out of timeline space or have keys overlapping others, is there some way to get around that? should I be moving every single key prior to the foot peel and after?

Hito

The overall cycle length would be longer. Didn't count the frames, but it's around 25 to 28 frames per loop right now? I'd extend it to 32~35. I think what you want to aim for is something like that slight hang time the swaggy step has just before the front foot plant. Except here you are putting it after the foot's on the ground since the legs needs that extra time to catch the body weight.

I think a quick way to test it is push the keys by 3 frames after each foot plant pose; then duplicate the foot plant pose 1 or 2 frames after the current plant key. Might need to adjust the curves so there's no overshoot. You'll get a "hiccup" on the foot plant when you play through, but it should give you some sense of how much you need to slow that part down. insert or remove keys between the foot plant double keys til the timing feels good, then adjust the two poses so everything is smooth.

NiklasT

LeeMeredith wrote: »

Hey thanks for the critique, unfortunately the cat rigs feet are odd to say the least, the heel of the foot is what looks like the foot and for whatever reason is raised at the back, whereas the first what appears to be toes is the actual foot. I'm not explaining it well but basically the foot doesn't move in such a way that looks like what you describe due to the nature of the cat rig.

No problem! I see what you mean, then it isn't much to do if you don't want to go back and re-configure the rig, but as it is a Uni assignment I take it you are provided with the rig, and should probably not tweak it by yourself. :P

Keep working on it though, you are making very nice progress. I don't know if you play it, but World of Warcraft has this program (unofficial, I don't know) which is called the "wow modelviewer" where you can basically load in almost every single character/NPC in the whole game and watch a massive amount of animations for reference purposes. They have many examples of walk cycles that you can get inspiration from and it is very nice to be able to pause, turn around the character and slow down the animation! I can recommend it. The downside is that you need to have the game installed to load in the models and animations from it.

LeeMeredith

@Hito Interesting method Hito, I have a lot more tasks to do, mostly unrelated to animation but every time I update this thread I will re-read what you said and eventually find time to test it out.

@NiklasT Yea we can't tweak the cat rigs ourselves as far as I know, I think it's just so everyone starts with the same base and doesn't get confused. I installed WoW just for it and it's amazing! It's so cool seeing them in 3D, thanks so much for showing me that mod.


Here is my latest animation for this weeks assignments, it's a run cycle (skip more like) I also have to do a heavy run. I used Rhinohouse for critique and as far as I know I can't link their videos here but anyway critique is more than welcome.
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Intermission14

You're getting this odd lock/bounce in the left (green) arm in the frame 1-4ish area.

LeeMeredith

@Intermission14 thanks for the critique, I fixed that and I also received a lot of critique on tenshousandhours which I fixed.

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LeeMeredith

Heavy run, I started with reference but I felt it just wasn't showing the weight of the character (the ref was a skinny man) I deviated a lot from the ref, probably to the point of it not looking so great. Critique welcome/ any suggestions for great reference sites welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZEY0IGzZH0&feature=youtu.be

LeeMeredith

It's been a while since I posted here, I've been hammering animation and this post is to hopefully get critique on my heavy run cycle.

https://youtu.be/DoEKED0cxPw

Any critique is appreciated, I applied what little knowledge I have of arcs onto it, I had trouble seeing the motion trails of the pelvis and spine/torso due to it running on the spot, does anyone know how to work around that? I'm working in 3ds Max and I only know how to do it in Maya. 

EVernier

Hey Lee! The first thing I noticed is the spine, it could probably have a better curve in it. Other than that I think your poses are good, the movement in general looks good too but the arms and feet are very linear. It's missing an overall sense of weight and the head could use a bit more movement. I hope this helps!

Hito

one big thing is the pelvis is in a bouncing-ball path; the bottom is very sharp. It'd be more like a sine wave as the leg slows the downward momentum before pushing up on the cross-overs.

adding a little forward/backward motion in the COG/pelvis can add a lot to the run's character, especially for sprints. should be fine for game use as long as the root is moving a long at constant speed.

LeeMeredith

Thanks for the critique guys, I spent a long time watching tutorials and re-reading what you guys said and then attempting to apply what I learned to that run, I'd love critique on it further if possible. I put it on syncsketch to make it easier.

There's a pop in the spine/torso but I've checked and double checked the curves and it's all smoothed, not quite sure what the problem is there.

Edit:- not sure if I got the spine curve right, I tried to push it but it just looked way too much for him.

http://syncsketch.com/playground/dfd4ab6ff8fa4d34b2223619f5596c83#57276

LeeMeredith

@Hito Thanks a lot for the critique on synchsketch ,I really appreciate it. 

LeeMeredith

Practising runs, something I seriously suck at.

LeeMeredith

I realised I never really understood the fundamentals of animation or the principles, so I decided to enrol with Anim School and really throw myself into it and absorb as much info as I can.

I'll be documenting my progress here along with any other anim work I do.

https://youtu.be/611n_K3X3u8

slipsius

Cant wait to see your progress, Lee! 

For the ball bounce, after that first bounce, the ball translates weird in mid air. When an object is in mid air, it should have a linear translate. It can not slow down or speed up in mid air. The speed in which it leaves the ground is the speed in which is stays travelling until it hits the ground again. That arc after the first bounce, I THINK I saw a slight speed up. 

Besides that tiny adjustment, it looks like a great bounce! Good work!

LeeMeredith

Hello @slipsius thanks for the critique, I've re-watched the lecture and understand the curves a bit better, hopefully this version is ok.

I also added an extra bounce on the end.

https://youtu.be/LJ0HPT4zwx4

LeeMeredith

Balls of various weight, I screwed up the first revision but got a lot of great critique and produced this version.

https://youtu.be/D1s-w9wo3PQ

Hito

the different weights feels good. Nice touch with the last one bouncing off the big orange one. the exit angle looks off on the tiny ball when it bounces off the orange one, it looks like bounce off the ground (exits up) when it should exit more horizontal... Generally entrance angle to the normal vector will be the same as exit angle, so when you deal with collision of spherical objects you have to take into account of the normal vector at the point of impact. The red line is the tangent at the collision point, blue line is the normal vector. Green path is the tiny ball's path in your anim. Yellow path is closer to correct exit path based on the entrance path and collision point. All of this of course assumes perfect spheres and neglects friction to a degree. 

LeeMeredith

Hito said:

the different weights feels good. Nice touch with the last one bouncing off the big orange one. the exit angle looks off on the tiny ball when it bounces off the orange one, it looks like bounce off the ground (exits up) when it should exit more horizontal... Generally entrance angle to the normal vector will be the same as exit angle, so when you deal with collision of spherical objects you have to take into account of the normal vector at the point of impact. The red line is the tangent at the collision point, blue line is the normal vector. Green path is the tiny ball's path in your anim. Yellow path is closer to correct exit path based on the entrance path and collision point. All of this of course assumes perfect spheres and neglects friction to a degree. 

That makes a lot of sense, thanks Hito. I think due to how it would travel with the fix, I would fall short of my frame target so I'll wait to see what my grade is and then decide to remake it or continue forward.

LeeMeredith

 Third assignment, this one was to animate a ball with personality, I found it pretty challenging and welcome any critique, the key elements meant to show off are anticipation, squash and stretch and the ball making a choice to do something.
http://syncsketch.com/playground/20d44942e914465d8bdb5374d69a2b86#60406

Rmunday

Made a few notes for you, some parts need more work than others but overall I very good effort! Make a few amends, will be good. 

LeeMeredith

Rmunday said:

Made a few notes for you, some parts need more work than others but overall I very good effort! Make a few amends, will be good. 

Thanks a lot! I'll make those changes and look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow.

Hito

Rmunday made good points. One thing sticks out is the pivot is in the center instead of contact point, it's really noticeble when the ball comes to a stop near the ledges, the "foot" slips quite a bit. A little extra rigging or key framing to get the ball to look like it's really in contact with the ground would make it much better.

LeeMeredith

Well it has been a while, uni is over for the summer and I'll enter my final year in September. So it's time to kick it up a few gears, my biggest downfall is never posting for critique, so I will be constantly posting new animation work throughout summer and hopefully I'll get critique.

Here is a run animation I did for a small ue4 project I'm doing (for fun/practice)  I made a mistake by not using video reference, I wanted a samurai run and all I could find was a 4 frame image but as you can see it's not very samurai and doesn't look great but I'd love tips/critique on it.

Youtube
https://youtu.be/R0MrqnKsz1U
Synchsketch
http://syncsketch.com/playground/b3a03d453156458997c7ad5ec652f42b#80879

Arturow

Good cycle! left you some notes! and with stabilize I meant this Look how he is maintaining his sword . Keep the good work coming

LeeMeredith

Arturow said:

Good cycle! left you some notes! and with stabilize I meant this Look how he is maintaining his sword . Keep the good work coming

Thanks @Arturow  I made some changes like you suggested but I think the run is too bad to fix, next time I'll find proper run reference and stick to it.

https://youtu.be/J17nsp-PoBQ

LeeMeredith

So after failing again to keep this post updated, time to post again. I decided to take an ianimate workshop again, this time feature 2.

This is my first assignment and I'd be grateful for any critique you guys can think of  -

http://syncsketch.com/playground/d6514d8a5ba84fb4a6c0625debc02d4e#93159

Thanks!

AGoodFella

Cool, looking good. A couple of notes:

The screen left hand feels too linear as it plants on the arm rest at roughly f16. 

A bot of jitter at f11 for screen right hand.

The feet moving at the start feels awkward. I get what you're going for, but I don't know if it feels natural. I feel like the screen left foot could start on its toes and then move forward a little while the other foot comes into line. I tried to replicate the pose of the screen left foot and I couldn't do it. My foot automatically rolls up.

Right now, the head and hand move at the same time. Lead with one.

Spine feels busted at f24. Look at how much your chest moves and how little if at all, the rest of the spone moves. The chest feels too isolated. Have the rotations spread out nicely along the spine.

Keep the hands planted. You're using them to push off but they're translating about for no reason.

Add a little more overlap into the spine so maybe. the head drags a little as she gets up or maybe, the chest leads. Also, don't keep that same head angle throughout the entire shot. As she gets up, her head stays at the same tilt and it feels off.

End feels nice with the overshoot and settle. Exaggerate the hip tilt at f64 when her she moves to the other side. And counter the shoulders a little. A bit more contrapposto.

Its looking solid. By the way, who is your instructor if you don't mind me asking.

LeeMeredith

Thanks @AGoodFella I'm in the process of applying those changes and my instructor is Mike Walling so far he's great.

LeeMeredith

Well I'm doing a superb job of keeping this up to date, here's my latest animation for University. I'm still playing around with it and could use some feedback on it please.
https://www.syncsketch.com/sketch/113455#121997

AGoodFella

Added some notes.

LeeMeredith

Thanks @AGoodFella, I appericate your feedback.

I've made changes to my death and uploaded a new one critique welcome as ever, I need to move onto the next animation soon.

Edit: would help if I put the link -
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/113455#123852

Ichi

I made a couple of notes, I'm still a student myself so take them with a pinch of salt!

LeeMeredith

Hey guys I appreciate the critique, I'm going to re-do the animation or at the very least strip some of the break downs out and re-time, I made a very silly mistake of copying the timing of a death that was in slow motion, how I didn't notice I have no idea, I just wasn't thinking.

This is my 3rd animation for my final year project, I would be grateful of any critiques you guys have.
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/117975#127962

LeeMeredith

Thank you to the person who painted over my syncsketch, I will work on those changes right away.