[Riot Creative Contest 2017] - Jason Holt

Vipples

Starting up my WIP thread for the RCC 2017 Anim entry. Trying to lock down a character at the moment... thinking either Lily+Snout or Arc the Dragon rig from Josh Sobel... more to come!

Vipples

I think I'm going to try to do Conan + Snout as my "character", combo style. Might switch it up still, only really had time to rough out an idea pose.

Vipples

Had some time tonight to rough out a quick run blockout for snout + cart. I want conan to be bouncing around wildly in the back, but wanted to get snout's personality down first. I haven't touched the arms on this yet, only really working on his main body. Sorry if the gif quality is crappy... haven't gifiphied any videos before. 



Here's the youtube link for better quality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkv0bcVUvjQ

Any/all feedback is welcome!

AnthonyAnimation

Haha, Snout is so goofy. How are you liking that rig?

Vipples

It's pretty good for the most part. There's some weird deformations that I can hopefully iron out later, and I'm hoping I can add a global squash to him since he doesn't have that at the moment. 

joaoalexdias

I did a run cycle with snout and didn't go well, his legs are to thin and small his feet are also small and few deformation possibilities, so for a side and front view cam I really don't advice! But I love your idea and for a 3/4 view will do fine

Vipples

Yea I'm having issues with the way they parent the legs and shoulders... they seem to be constrained in some odd manner rather than an actual child of their respective parents. Ran into some issues after pushing the upper spine more only to realize that with the shoulders. I can get around the hips issue by just using the main root for the bulk of the movement (which the legs seem to follow well enough). But both the IK and upper FK spine have some major disconnect issues with the shoulder. I can leave the upper spine mostly rigid but I really wanted the contrast of this really squishy character vs the rigid/erratic muscle bound conan character. Gonna keep playing around and see if i'm missing something, or might need to find a different rig.

joaoalexdias

Yes I understand, the idea is great! I noticed that for the contest we have to also playblast a front and side view, so check the bend, knee snap and foot roll and the overall feel of the legs first. my biggest struggle was polishing those elements, at the beginning was fun, but when I started polishing started the problems! Sorry for the newbie question its my first contest, were do I sign up??!!

Vipples

You just create a thread/post here like this one and tell people you're joining up. Then just add progress as you go. I'm not sure if we need to create a thread for the final entries when we're all done at the very end or not.

joaoalexdias

Cool thanks!

Vipples

put some more time into the snout run cycle, started roughing out the cart movement. Hopefully get some time this weekend to start blocking out conan's idle/cycle.



(Never used syncsketch before... hope I did it right :P)
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/205159/

Trancechild

I really like how it's coming along, here's some feedback for ya.

The variation in loop; having the cart coming onto one wheel is a nice touch.  Adding to that, I would make the wheels wobble a bit, like they are loosely connected to the axle. (Maybe just try by shifting the pivot point of each wheel slightly off-center to see what you get.)

Is there a way you can lag the nose of the dragon?  He's so bouncy that I expect the tip of his snout to have some overlap with respect to the cranium part of his head.  The 55 degree angle (and the front view) exacerbate this anomaly.

Btw:  That syncsketch link is niiiiiice!  Great find.  

Vipples

@Trancechild I like the wheel wobble, i'll definitely add that touch. I'll see what I can do with the dragon nose. There are controls for the  nose, but the weighting is pooptacular. I'll see if i can't clean up the skinning a bit, if not there's a tool that is supposed to be out "soon" that I could definitely use to give that some additional movement. If neither of those options work I can always rerig the nose myself, but I've already spent a lot of time reworking the rig that I want to avoid that if possible. 

Thanks for the feedback, I'll fo' sho get on those two points! 

Vipples

Adding some first pass anim for conan in the cart. Still need to add some more details to the cart like some rocking forwards/backwards, as well as some jittery-ness to the wheel rotation so it doesn't look so perfect. 

Also slowed down snouts run cycle by a few frames so it'd be more readable since he's so damn squishy.

Going to start blocking out the recall/ult next and then come back to this later to final it.



https://youtu.be/X7PXTBJDUIs

croasan

Hi Jason! I love the idea of your animation

If you allow me a little feedback, I think that the conan character feels too loose for a guy who is going to fight. I mean, the animation is great as a secondary action of the cart, but I would suggest you to try adding more tension in that character to give the feeling that he's trying to control the vehicle.

Anyway, great work!

Vipples

@croasan - Thanks for the feedback! I agree he's looking too loose. I feel like the cart/his reaction to the swerve are too much for a simple cycle as well, so I might extend the cycle out for some more frames and have this be more of a fidget variation to the cycle. Hopefully then he feels more in control rather than constantly reacting to the cart tipping.

joaoalexdias

Hey man Congrats great work, I agree with @croasan , don't forget that he is a champion, but overall feels great, and you managed to get a great result with Snout!

Did you get response about the camera angle and FOV?

Vipples

@joaoalexdias - I never got around to asking my question in the Q&A thread, but it looks like another animator did. Sounds like its yes, include a playblast from the LOL game camera view. And thanks for the feedback! 

joaoalexdias

How did you set up the camera?
I don't know if I did it right, I set the angle of view = 40 and rotate X = 55, I think Its ok but not sure, you can check in my latest post:

http://polycount.com/discussion/194402/riot-creative-contest-2017-wip-joao-dias#latest

Another thing that I dont know is from the 3/4 view what side should our character be, for example usually in a run the character is in 3/4 back, and in a recall is in 3/4 front or side.
Is there a rule about this our we just set the 3/4 view in a way that best represent our character?
(I'm posting this question in the faq)

Thanks!

jenna_dean

I really like how much effort the dragon is putting in to pull the cart, the weight comes across nicely!