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Newbie in character animation

polycounter lvl 7
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SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
Hello
I start to learn animation about 2 month ago or so.
As i dont have any friends who could help me with that I'm walking along in character animation and collecting any kind of techniques, tips, tricks about 3d character animation through the internet.
At this moment i have created some animation and asked myself - Am i doing it right, does my animation looks correct and believable?
It's not kind of reel, this is what it calls ) animation progress, the latest video is the last thing which i have made.
For the model I download it from free website ( I don't remember exactly from which one) made retopology of it and create some rig just for body movements.
At this moment she have no facial emotion.... yet
but soon I'll finish her rig...well i think so ))
I would be very appreciative if you post some remarks or suggestion about this animation.
P.S. English is not my native language, sorry if I made mistakes

Replies

  • WeatherMan
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    WeatherMan polycounter lvl 6
    Greetings Mr. Shadow, and welcome!

    I must say I'm pretty impressed. Your work is pretty solid for only 2 months of practice. You're well on your way to becoming a kickass animator.

    I recognize the push and the swing and roll as tutorials from Digital Tutors (if I'm not mistaken). It's not a bad thing that you've tried to follow tutorials (Digital Tutors was my go-to as well when I first started), but at this stage I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself. I fell into the same trap of trying to do similar tutorials when I didn't really have a grasp of the basics quite yet. What I'm saying is I think you should back up and play with a simpler character, such as a classic ball + legs character. There are plenty of free ones available on CreativeCrash.com.

    I think your biggest issue right now is not having a solid workflow. And by that I mean you jump in too early to the animation process, particularly splining, which is a common pitfall among newbies. Your poses don't really transition well from one to the next at the moment, the weight is lacking in a lot of areas (weight is definitely one of the hardest things to master as an animator).

    If you have the means to do so, I would highly recommend looking into an online animation school, such as iAnimate, AnimSchool, or AnimationMentor. You need some professional guidance to keep you on the right track. All of these schools are fantastic in their own way, and you can't go wrong. I personally took iAnimate and I know from seeing your progress reel that you could place in to Workshop 2 Body Mechanics right away. I'm not sure if you'd be able to place in to AnimSchool or AnimationMentor, unfortunately.

    However, if you do not have the means to pay for one of those schools, continue posting your work here and we'll be glad to take a look. Here is a list of animation exercises you can try to work through to hone your skills. I would highly, highly recommend filming reference of yourself doing some of these actions (as much as possible), or find reference on YouTube before jumping in to Maya. Get a program like Kinovea to analyze the footage. Be careful not to fall into the trap of simply rotoscoping your reference; try to take the main poses as a foundation and then push the poses beyond what you see in the video.

    Good work, and good luck :)


  • Arturow
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    Arturow polycounter
    Hello @SpecterShadow welcome to the forums :D

    What @WeatherMan said is 100% correct , the walk cycle and the push looks very robotic and without energy. But its only time man , if you keep practicing you will get better. I recommend you to look to the book called "The animators survival kit" from richard williams, It will help you a lot.
    Good work and if you need anything , just post your work here and i'm sure the forum will help :)

  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    WEATHERMANARTUROW Thanks for reply, I really appriciate for that.

    And you right, I follow digital tutors like swing and push, the roll I tried to do myself, grab some reference from youtube and tried to pose. Didn't see the digital tutors got something like roll .
    As you say, i haven't found my workflow yet, trying different kind of that, like in push I follow straight a head and i dont like that method, it take too much time and in swing i use pose to pose method, but when I spline it I literally changed everything.
    As I create rig i found some issue with that, elbow and wrist is flipping at some degree of rotation and with spine i put too much controls and at some point for me it was annoying to change each of them on each frame during the roll, so im trying to fix them and simplify a lit bit.
    You will be laugh but as i was fixing rig i found problem in model and textures too)) so overall now im fixing that stuff.
    About animation school, in short, right now I'm not able to enter in some of them.
    I have that book, I'm trying to rush my self education in animation so i just picked up the walk cycle and seems to me i have made a mistake by doing that.
    Big thanks for animation exercises I will try to animate them and post it here )

    And again thank you for reply and help.


  • Archanex
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    Archanex polycounter lvl 18
    2 months??? If you built this reel in 2 months from nothing having never animated before, you should just keep doing what you're doing and you'll be just fine. Keep up the good work man
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    I started learning 3d about a half year ago
    As i heard somewhere in internet, rigging and animation is closed one to one, so the decision for me were simple, learn rig then animate.
    Spend first some time on modeling just to know the tricks of topology and rigging so till New Year i already have rigged model and start to learn basic of animation.
    Thanks for reply
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    So, I have done some animation with character weight and just playblast it from different views with current frame displayed.
    Will this kind of animation represent the character weight or I should dive deeper in this ?
    https://youtu.be/M2qgRFRFM0Y

    http://youtu.be/M2qgRFRFM0Y
    What you think about it ?
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    I'm still training with weight
    jump
    http://youtu.be/JEP3C4Qwim8
    I was surfing around the forum and found SyncSketch so here it is )
    http://syncsketch.com/playground/0752fda16ea84a769f7571448dfa75f5#71675
  • slipsius
    Before I get to your animation, just 2 quick house keeping things. 1) Stop putting labels on everything. They aren't necessary. The audience knows when it's a side view, and if it's a jump, I promise! People want to see the animation, not have to wait several seconds every time you change the camera.  2) Don't render with a black background. A grey of some sort is just fine. Or, google how to do the sun and sky render with mental ray. It's super easy, and looks great! You won't regret it! But a black background takes away from your animation. It hides your silhouettes.

    Now that that's out of the way, your animation! 2 months? Damn. As someone mentioned above, absolutely, keep doing what you`re doing and you`ll be just fine. It seems like the biggest thing you lack right now is reference. Your timing is all off. Your weight exercise, for instance. It's super slow. Do you have a smart phone or something that you can film yourself doing that exact motion? Film yourself and study it. You`ll learn a lot from doing that. You`ve got some great follow through and settle on some of your stuff, but the timing is hurting you.  

    Really, you just need to get more reference, and I think it will make a huge improvement in your work. Pushing an object? Look for football players doing their push exercises with the sleds. Find reference videos on youtube, or something like it and examine and follow them. Download the video and watch them in media player classic, or quicktime, where you can do a frame by frame. go through it and every 2-5 frames, match the pose on your character. any time a limb starts going a different direction, key that. pose that out. For walks and runs, count the frames in the video that the feet are on the ground, and match it with your character. If they are only touching for 4 frames, but you have them touching for 7, it's going to feel much slower than the actual walk. 

    Everyone uses reference, don't be afraid of it. Just because you film yourself doesnt mean you have to show it to people. You can be shy all you want. 

    You have a lot of potential. I mean that. Keep going! 


  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    SLIPSIUS thanks for such reply

    Honestly I was using reference as for the jump, found on youtube some guy was jumping and for doing that he spend like 125x and as I was looking at my playblast of that, it was too slow, so I make it almost in twice shorter like 68x but later I discovered what the problem was behind all that - frame rate - i didn't even think about it at all( I mean in reference videos).
    So i convert that video from 29 in 24fps, as I was doing animation on that rate, and well guy was jumping like in 70x and its turned to me a little bit confusing.
    A bunch of question is appearing for me like, should convert a video in 24 fps or make animation in the same frame rate of reference and which one of frame rate are more effective in animation or this is just each personal choice in which frame rate to animate or just to simplify stuff and eyeball it?
    I'm sorry if this kind of question looks stupid but what can i say its me ))
  • slipsius
    So, game animation uses 30fps, so I always animate in 30fps. tv and film uses 24fps. Since most videos come out at 30fps, it seems, your best bet would to be animate in 30fps as well.

    There are 2 settings in maya that you need to change though. 1 is for the timeline, how fast your in maya playback speed is. and the other is for your export. A lot of the time, people only change the timeline, so when they playblast their stuff, it seems slower than what it shows in maya. 





  • Blond
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    Blond polycounter lvl 9
    woow. simply woow. To become this good after 2 months of self-learning. I gotta give you props and respect man. Keep going at it. Seriously. I'm starting to believe in innate talent more and more XD
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    SLIPSIUS thanks for advice, I thought frame rate will only be influenced on playback and it appears it effected too on playblast.
    BLOND thanks, this raises my motivation in animation. )
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    My another attempt in animation.
    I filmed myself by phone and use it as reference.
    http://youtu.be/yCNsa1aubjE

  • slipsius
    From the side view, she's off balance before putting her foot down. She shifts her weight too quickly. But this is definitely a step forward for you. Good stuff. The timing feels a lot better than your previous stuff. Reference helps, eh?  

    Did you shoot multiple angles? or just one? You may need another angle for that side shot. 
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    SLIPSIUS  Yeah, reference help a lot.
    Just one, from front, thought that will be enough.
  • AGoodFella
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    AGoodFella polycounter lvl 5
    Keep going man, it looks good. One thing that could add a little more character is to maybe bring her arm up quicker when she looks off into the distance. So its like she see's something, raises her arm quickly and then you can drop it slowly like you have here. It will add more contrast to the timing and add some more personality/character. Could probably add some more lead with the head as she gets up.
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    Ok so for the last few month I was making some game animation for project "Undoing" - https://twitter.com/UndoingPC.
    And I had set up a game animation reel.

  • Hito
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    Hito interpolator
    Really good animations! The Stab + Shot into the enemy needs a little spacing out if frame budget allows, they happen simultaneously and it's easy to miss the stab completely. 
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    Hito thanks. Thanks for the comment.
    That character is AI , and I wanted it to made it as fast as it can, cuz player would will be running all the time, so melee attack should be as quick as possible, and now looking at it I'm thinking about that pause with up knife should be reduce a little, but overall everyone is okay with that )).
    I got what you are talking about, well, if it was player character I would probably make it slower.
    Thanks for advice, I really appreciate that.
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    Happy New Year, haha. Its been a while since i post something here )
    So here i go with some new attempts in animation ))
    I was trying to make some facial rig and lips sync in free time, so hoping to get your critique on this 'animation'.


    syncsketch is with mouth camera also.
    https://syncsketch.com/sketch/119332#137088


  • Noth
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    Noth polycounter lvl 14
    A lot of improvement since your first post. Well done. Do you create rigs too?
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    Hi Noth, and thanks.
    Yeah, I create rig for her, even though this character is from Mixamo store, which already had the skeleton and weight, and which I do not like, so I just delete the skeleton and make it from scratch.
    I'm not saying that mixamo skeletons and weight are bad, I just wanted more control over the character on some parts.
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7

    So its been long time since my last post, time goes by, skill is getting higher and higher ))

    Here is new video i have been working. it take me about 3 weeks to do
    A hand key animation, plus some lazy cloth simulation
    https://player.vimeo.com/video/349474682?amp;loop=1

  • AGoodFella
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    AGoodFella polycounter lvl 5
    Dude, this is awesome. The progress is unreal. You're better than me and I've been trying to do this animation thing for years.
  • Pain
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    Pain polycounter lvl 9
    Dude, this is unbelievable, you've reached to the master level.
    Do you have any advice for newbie in animation?
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    @AGoodFella Thans men, appreciate your comment
    Com'on men, we all trying our best, so dont say that, no one is better then any one else, so keep practicing, the more you fail the more you will be good in animation, cuz practice is a controllable failure, keep doing what you are doing, jump higher than you think you can, cuz you can do this, you just haven't realize this yet

    @Pain Thanks you too, I really appreciate your comment guys, yet there is no point called as master level ))) There are still so many thing to learn and observe
    Advice, hmm.... observe life, as animator you are not make just and animation, you are creating illusion of life, something that is believable and it shouldn't be always be realistic as hell, believable animatoin this is what cost the most. There is a book called just like it "Illusion of life", highly recommending to read it, most principles was misunderstooded by me until I read it
    Find your weakness and practice it, don't be lazy to work on your footsteps, human body is such a pain ))))) constantly re-balancing it self
    You can try to rotoscope animation, just dont post it, its your learning path of the animation, how the stuff work, which part leads, which is following, try finding more then 1 reference on movement you want to animate, record yourself and try different approach between you extremes, later on think about reference as a guide, cuz animation is not about rotoscoping, its creating believable animation, you are creating things not for yourself but for the audience, look at your animation as it is not your animation and what would you like to improve so it could be looking more appealing for you as if you were that audience, some stuff might be harder to change,  but it will cost the effort trust me ))
  • Pain
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    Pain polycounter lvl 9
    @SpecterShadow Thank you for the advice, really appreciate it.
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    Its been a while now. This reel is a 2 years of my work in Plarium Video Production Department as 3D Character Animator marketing the Raid Shadow Legends. All this "Legendary" projects won't hit the worldwide without awesome and talented people working in this studio.



  • WeatherMan
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    WeatherMan polycounter lvl 6
    Holy shit.

    I remember leaving that first comment all those years ago. You've come a long way in a relatively short time. It'll literally never get old seeing someone's progress as they experience the craft of animation. Keep it up.

    I must say though, you might start a new thread for your latest reel. The current title is a bit misleading (:
  • SpecterShadow
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    SpecterShadow polycounter lvl 7
    @WeatherManYeah it was a long time ago, though it feels like yesterday and thanks )))
    I think keep posting here, need to know from were starting point was, even though knowing tricks of animation, now I'm having more struggle with idea and learning composition, camera, but as you said it literally never get old seeing the progress so I think I'll have to keep this entertainment )))
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