Dance Animation Feedback

calllum

Hello,

I've been working on a dance loop recently, I want to add multiple loops together to make a full dance animation.
This is my first main loop, which will be the bulk of the dance. I'll post what dance I'm animating for reference.

It seems a bit stiff and my friend said floaty so I've come to polycount for feedback. The reference is faster so I think I need to speed it up as well.
The loop is only about 4 seconds.
Any critique would be appreciated.

My Animation:
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/178657#227318

Reference:
https://youtu.be/CAkLubN9daU?t=28s

Second dance at 28 seconds.

AGoodFella

Yes, way too slow and floaty. You need to tighten the timing up a lot.

Just look at Tracer's left foot from f57. Really floaty and lacks weight. Same for the other character's hop at f413/

Stuff like Tracer's action at f153 needs to be more snappier. She needs to get into the pose quicker and then she can hold it for a beat or two.

I would also do a pose strengthening pass. Tracer at f284 really needs to be an awesome pose, lots of torso rotation and countering. (This depends on how far you want to push the reference and what style you're going for).

Same stuff applies to the other character as well.

Hito

You might need to step back a bit and analyze the ref more closely. The speed is roughly 120 bpm; the loop you are looking to pull is around 2.5 sec, marked by the guy's right foot planting out at 0:30 then just before 0:33. I'd count the exact frames before getting in to Maya. Listen closely to the snare drum in the music as that's your best time marker. one foot is always on the ground on each drum beat. This also means all their moves take time in multiples of the drum beat, either 1x or 2x, or 4x. The hardest thing to get right, also the most important thing, in pair dancing is the push and pull between them and how that translates from their touching hands out through the body down into their feet. so pay special attention to that in studying the ref. Might help to think of them as a single character with the center of mass being roughly where their hands meet in the middle.

I would cut the music out and drop it on the timeline and block out broad actions to the beat, making sure all controls for each character are keyed on the same frame on the beats. Then break down the feet plant/push offs for each character, they will be the same timing, though maybe different side left/right, being the nature of dancing. again keep the keys all on the same frame. from there adjust the overall duration and timing by inserting/deleting frames between the keys till it feels right.

You might try the blocking passes on all FK, even for the feet. The goal is to get the timing nailed down, since it's especially important for music related activities. After that you can switch the feet to IK to get proper plants/pushoffs.

calllum

Hello, Thanks for the help. 
I've sped the animation to 80 frames so 2.7 ish seconds, it looks a bit fast on parts but that's my Timing which I'm trying to fix. After overlapping the reference I've realised a lot of the animation Is off when the character is at the right side of the video.
My rigs are quite basic so epic poses are difficult to create, I'll see how fair I can push it.
After pointing out the snare I realised all the steps and hops are in time with the bass, so I've been working off that.

Originally I screenshot all the contact and passing, I should have followed the beat.

this is my current update, I've added the video and music.
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/178657#228652

Hito

I see improvements already. moving in the right direction.

Tracer's core movement is missing the two small up/down in the steps from ~35 to ~65. Same for Mercy. That's the biggest thing making them feel flat footed. The main mass, torso + pelvis, has small up/dow each step, to the beat of the drum that's what gives Swing dance it's distinct poppy light feel. The other factor are the feet during those frames, each step is essentially a hop, so there're few frames where weight is off both feet. Right now you have one foot always flat on the ground. In the ref it's 1~2 frames each step, only the toes are contacting and neither foot is carrying weight.

a general thing to keep in mind is their motions will be synched on the beat, without much offsetting that's in everyday natural movements. Good dancing (Old timey stuff like this specially) is very deliberate and timed movements, even if it doesn't appear so on the surface. In pair dancing the two are either matched (Up/Up; Left/Left; etc), or mirrored (Up/Down; Left/Right). Right now Tracer is a few frames faster than Mercy around 28~30 and 74~78, sort of half way between matched and mirror, it makes them feel "off beat".

calllum

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/178657#229889

Thanks for the help again, this is my current version, I changed the incorrect steps to fit the reference more and tried to add the bounciness, it's a bit difficult to see at part because having it too bouncy looked bad, once I reanimate the hair It should get better.
I've also added the hopping from one foot to another and tried syncing the dancers up more. Think It's close to completion now, just cleaning up a bit more and add/ fix the dress, hair and finger animations.

calllum

I put this away for quite a while to work on animonthly. I've picked it back up and tried finishing it off. I think its improved drastically from the original, I'm going to leave it as it is for now and start the next loop, if you see anything wrong critique is always welcome and I can go back and fix it.
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/178657#249314

calllum

I started the second basic loop, was simple to create, just needed to modify tracer with little tweaks to mercy. I fixed a couple of things I saw with the first Loop but is relatively the same.

I rendered them together,  switching between the first and seconds version.
Mercys head needs to have a smoother and quicker turn on the second loop but I think most of it seems decent.

Not sure if to purely focus on this till completion or switch between another animation then another loop until the last two loops are completed.

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/178657#258790

calllum

Dropped it for quite a while and multiple times but picked it back up to finish the third loop and call it done there.
Feedback is always welcome but think I've had this sitting for long enough.

 https://youtu.be/TqH-cCjxCoc