Animating All My Rigs, a little rusty.
I started animating some of my rigs as practice, I figured I could give them all animations in time. I started with this guy, Baron Kog Maw. (ignore the run, I have since tweaked it, which you'll see in the second video)
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/154667807" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p><a href="">BKM Walk/Run 1</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/jessemilessnyder">jesse miles snyder</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
After a little critique on the run, i did this...
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/154803923" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p><a href="">BKMrun2</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/jessemilessnyder">jesse miles snyder</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
So I need to tweak the walk from the first video and then this second run cycle. Any critique would be appreciated. Thanks!
I also have no idea what I'm doing with embedding, I'll get it right next time...
Replies
Like I said previously, the amount of follow through currently isn't cutting it for the run with this lumbery type of fellow. I'd say speed it up as well to really sell the power and ferocity behind it.
What were you using as reference?
But wait; what's the difference between a Rigger and a technical animator? Aren't both the same?
Thanks! good to be here.
I'll probably do a whole new run from scratch and rethink how I want him to move. I was going off a lion run.
This is great! I'll see what I can do.
It seems like everyone has different ideas, but basically, I used to just rig and I was learning to make tools with Python, no animating really. Now however, I want to concentrate on animation more than python tools. I'll still use python in rigging, but it wont be my main focus for now.
Good start , I remember that I struggled alot with animal walk cycle
right now the walk feels like the computer is doing alot of transitions by itself , get more control over your animal
What really help me understand how the animal move ( 4 legs ) was this picture and of course all the feedback from the awesome people over here
And for a walk cycle I watched animals and this tutorial
hope it helps even a bit
looking good for a start!
BKMwalkRun2 from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
The shouldermovement seems pretty cool, but I wouldn't really say the shoulder is leading the arm right now. Before the hand takes off, the shoulder should begin its movement and the hand should follow that. Checking out a few refs from gorillas kind of shows that the shoulders dont move all that much anyways, so taking it in either direction could be cool. Finally a bit of left right twist that starts in the shoulders and moves the chest would be much needed.
The runs still extremely poppy, but its heaps better than the previous iteration. I say you could still probably bring those hands back a bit and add some rotation in the spine similar to what I suggested before, but the ferocity and the speed are definitely getting there. Good work man!
The Walk
Lets start with the feet. The curves on them are off. This is causing the feet to appear to pause before take off. When that is put into game, or when you start moving the character forward in space, you`ll notice sliding during that pause. A good rule to follow is that when the foot is touching the ground, the translate z (forward and back motion) curve should be linear from point of contact to point of lift off. This includes toe rolls. So, if your foot is reaching the back of it's arc, and the heel is coming off the ground, the foot should still be moving back until the toe comes off. Even then, I tend to add a bit of follow through to mine, so it continues backwards for a couple frames (for the ease in/out before it starts moving forward). Your front feet/hands are also pretty wobbly while on the ground. Do you have controls for the "fingers"? to add weight, it would be nice to see some finger compression while leaning on those front hands. if you dont have finger controls, you could achieve this by rolling the hand forward a bit, driving the wrist forward and down, if that makes sense.
The shoulders seem to have the wrong weight applied to them. Generally what would happen in a walk like this is the shoulder would be weighed down when your hand first hits the ground, then the arm will try and support the whole body as he transfers his weight onto said arm. This will drive the shoulder up within the first 5 - 8 frames that the hand is on the ground. This action is where you`ll get a lot of the weight in your animation. The body moving down, while the shoulder goes up, trying to support all the weight.
The same goes for your hip weight. The up down motion of your hips could be adjusted as well. your hips are almost at it's lowest point when the back feet hit the ground. You could get more weight out of it if you don't get to the lowest point several frames after the back feet touch down. I don't think you`re that far off right now. Might even be just a few frames.
The head bounce. It's uneven and is very noticeable when looping over and over. When his right back leg is on the ground, and the body is moving up, the head kind of kicks up. It's not quite the nice head bob that I think you`re going for. This could be a case of too many keys, or they just arnet spread out evenly. Check out your curves and see if you can spot anything. The 2 "humps" in your curves, of the head rotating up, should look pretty similar.
Your tail and your mouth/jaw movements are very nicely done. The tail has a moment where it looks like it hits a wall coming down, which happens when the hips start going up again. So you could add a bit of follow through on the tail, so that when the hips go up, the tail continues down just a bit. But besides that, ya, very nicely done!
The Run
This is a lot harder to crit right now. I feel it suffers from too many keys in too short of a time. Your biggest problem with it, from what i can tell, is your curves are all off. They probably look very jagged. Slow it down a bit, and see if you can smooth out your curves. I've downloaded your video and when I frame by frame it, it looks like when he goes to push off his back feet, the frame when his right foot is no longer touching, his body pushes forward. the next frame, his body moves up and backward, the next frame is forward and down. This sequence of events is causing a studder, for sure. So, the frame where his right back foot is no longer touching, move his body up a bit. then on the next frame, where his body moves backwards, just move that forward a bit so smooth it out. Really, just frame by frame that section and you``ll probably see what's wrong. Like I said, check your curves. The head also seems like it is unstable. when animals run, their heads tend to be very stable. So it could just be too many keys. But it's tough to tell. Give it an overall look. See what you can come up with.
Hopefully this helps. You`ve got some potential with these. And the rig looks fantastic (jealous! Would love to use it for personal anims). I did this crit at work, and someone walked by and commented on how cool it looked. They`ll definitely look nice on a reel at the end.
I had no idea about SyncSketch, it looks awesome, here's a link!
I just want to make sure everyone knows that Arkadius was responsible for the high coolness factor as far as the aesthetics go, he graciously lent me the model to rig for my portfolio.
I'm going to go over all of this and come back asap, thanks again!
EDIT: Updated both cycles, see below!
BKM_walkRun3 from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
Here it is on SyncSketch
BKM_walkRun4 from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
The run seems just a little slow, personally, kind of feels like a jog at the moment. I think it could use a couple less frames to really give it a sense of urgency. Also the spine could use just a touch of left/right movement.
Either way this is progressing super nicely! Good work man!
BKM_walkRun_5 from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
Here's a SynchSketch link
BKM_idle from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
Maybe in this case get some more movement on the large parts of the jaw have them twitch a bit, or do a small "Call" like predator a bit of a growl. It would add more life to the idle and push the character. Take what I say with a pinch of salt but an Idle doesn't always have to be just breathing.
Set all your controls to looping (infinity) curves.
Your chest moves first in a breath. So, let's use your chest control as the baseline. Start offsetting your controls by 2 frames for each control, moving outwards from the chest. So, if you have a neck control and a head control, shift your neck control over 2 frames. then your head control over 4 frames. Then, working down, your hips should be delayed 2 frames, then if your tail has 4 controls, start by shifting each control by 2 frames from where the hips were.. so the first control closest to the ass, 2 frames. second control is 4 frames. third control is 6 frames and forth control is 8 frames.
If you have keys on your shoulders, they should also be 2 frames delayed.
Doing this simple shift in your graph editor will make it much more realistic. While it's not the be all end all, this is definitely the fast way to improve what you already have.
thanks a lot! i see what you're saying with staggering everything, i didn't even consider that, right now everything happens at once. thanks again, i'll be back asap with an update.
BKM_idle2 from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
BKM_roar_idle from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
BKM_roar_idle_2 from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
BKM_roar_idle_3_small from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
Good work!
bkm_idle_roar_v1 from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.
This is just my opinion but I feel like he should lead with his front screen right hand more.
Like it leads, moves forward quickly, and plants quickly and then the big roar happens. So it comes forward, his body moves forward, maybe drop his head more like he's anticipating the roar and building up the energy and then as soon the front limb plants, 3 or 4 frames later, the big roar happens and his body finishes up its forward movement.
Then after the roar, his body moves back and then his front limb follows after. Right now, his front limb moves back quickly which is fine but it happens too soon, before everything else. Like its in a rush to get back, he's a big scary looking dude, so leave him out there a little, like the creature is still alert and ready for any danger, and then his limb moves back after the body. Makes sense?
Just my opinion, but its looking great!
bkm_idle_roar_v2_small from jesse miles snyder on Vimeo.