Wall-to-Wall Jump Animation
polycounter lvl 8
Ok, as suggested, I'm taking a break from that large mess that was my box lift animation... to something more quick and fun!! 
A wall-jumping animation!
This is the first pass, most keys and breakdowns are in (might still need a few more breakdowns). Before I go further into tweaking it (as I have a bad habit of doing), I'd love to hear everyone's feedback on it
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfdTxHBj03s[/ame]
Also, not sure what camera angle I want to use to best showcase this piece. Suggestions on that as well would be great.
Thanks for looking!
A wall-jumping animation!This is the first pass, most keys and breakdowns are in (might still need a few more breakdowns). Before I go further into tweaking it (as I have a bad habit of doing), I'd love to hear everyone's feedback on it
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfdTxHBj03s[/ame]Also, not sure what camera angle I want to use to best showcase this piece. Suggestions on that as well would be great.
Thanks for looking!
Replies
I have a hard time relating to this since it does not seem to follow normal framerate/speed. I'm not buying the really fast spring at the beginning.
I'd try to find some nice parkour videos showing similar moves and push yours a bit further. Hard to tell what is going on with the wall jumps. Maybe a bit longer stretch of wall and have the character run a bit on the wall before making the first jump?
It is quite good for a start, but the jumps are lacking...I don't know how to phrase it...energy perhaps....they seem stiff...and the first jump looks completely unnatural...I would make him run a bit on the wall, before jumping off it, instead of jumping from the corner...
And exaggerate your arcs a bit...I mean its computer animation...doesn't have to be to realistic (in fact it shouldn't be...)
I think that came up in your other thread, too...post videos with a frame counter...makes it easier to comment...also, with animations going that quick, I'd recommend also rendering a slow motion version...it makes it easier to see whats going on.
http://vimeo.com/6495648
Not that much wall jumps, but cool none the less.
There are some great parkour style animations here :.skymonkeystudio.com/, scroll down to the bottom, might be useful for some reff, ideas, inspiration.
this :poly142:
o wait he fully is isnt he
Check out the way the frames of the ball start to bunch together at the top of the arc - this is how you're going to add a lot of weight in there
I think the angle of the shot isn't showing the characters momentum like it should.
It seems kind of weird that he would run at one wall and spring toward the other. Normally when wall jumpers do this kind of thing they come at the wall at more of a straight on approach.
It looks like he runs deep into the shot and bounces back toward the camera but off to the side?
It might make more sense to start the character on the right side of the screen and run toward the first contact point at more of ahead on angle, squish him down a few frames and explode back out, it would help account for the transfer of energy.
Ref: (the first jump might be interesting to do, go over the side and bounce down)
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Lots of videos, mostly of David Belle
http://www.misterparkour.com/
Just for fun, Parkour!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/96408/the-office-parkour
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/fight-science#tab-Videos/07742_00
DarthNater - No, I don't get the National Geographic channel, but thanks for the link
NoChance - Good point, I have a bad habit of making things too realistic, especially in animation. (I was always more inspired by, say, Disney over Looney Tunes. As such, I always have to be reminded to exaggerate
Vig - Thanks!
Honestly, sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking--or not thinking. Why didn't I youTube wall jumping before I started? I have a really bad tendency to always take the long, hard route. Note to self: Always reference what you're gonna do first, you idiot.
Thanks for the links
frettchen - It's like I know all the basics, but they somehow slip out of my head when I get more complicated... thanks for the reminder!
Piflik - Sorry, I'm not sure how to go about getting in a frame counter? I will next time.. if uh... someone tells me how? :P
iansmithartist, kodde - Thanks for the links
Alright, got some other work to get through today, but I'll try to get back to this later. Thanks again for the comments... I will make a great piece of animation yet...!!!
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As you can see, I've basically redone everything after he jumps up to the first wall. I'm much happier with this version, as it was inspired by all the parkour videos I've been watching (thanks for all the suggestions to check out parkour--I'd never even heard the term before now! :P) Unfortuantely, I'm already feeling a little fed up with this piece (that didn't take long, huh?).
The usual great critiques would be great to hear, as I'm not sure where I stand with this piece anymore. :P Oh, and if you're wathcing the 'recovery' at the ending, no I've barely touched that, so I know for sure that part's bad. :P
Thanks again for looking!!
I ask this because it looks like the character is jumping off of something for it's initial jump, either that, or its jumping again in mid air...
Although it is a nice work Mezz. Its missing physics.
For one. The person runs too fast and no one can figure out what just happened there..so be ready for "wtf wazz dat!! *blink blink*"
Suggustion:
- Try to decrease the running pace.
- If the person jumps on the first wall he should bounce on the other and step a little higher (take ref from Prince of persia series if you like)
- Set the camera in the middle so people can see how he jumps on the first wall.
How jump on the wall works:
If the person is jumping by right stepping on one wall and bouncing by lifting himself up with the support of his right foot, he should have a right hand aligned with his foot to the wall to support the bouncing. and than moving out his left hand along with the left foot towards the second wall.....
Good luck
Nitewalkr - I can try to slow down the run, I'm just worried that it'll end up looking too slow if I do that--I can try fiddling around with it.
Also, I'll double check what my hands are doing, seeing if I can get them working better like you suggested.
psychoticprankster - I'm working in 3DStudio Max, with its biped.
DarthNater - Sorry, I didn't bother throwing up planes to act as walls in this render, my bad. :P There is supposed to be a wall in front of him as he runs, and another wall perpendicular that he jumps to from the first one.
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A few changes made. Something funky with the run on the wall still, trying to figure that out... any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks again for looking!
Mezz, *if you stick to one animation pattern only..=.=!*
watch this and observe the animation.
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as you can see he side jumps the wall to run on the wall. Not jump forth the wall and run left on it. And if hez jumping forth he runs upwords on the wall to hold the edge to support him to boost running towards to other edge.
and one hand is always aligned with the wall.
Not sure how I can fix all this up without as much effort as starting a new piece, so I think that's what I'll do instead.
I was thinking of doing a piece soon with a lip-sync, but I'm having trouble finding good rigged models to download for 3DSMax. Anyone know where I can get some good ones for this? (Cyrael - Thanks for pointing me to Creative Crash, they had a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately, most of the good stuff is for Maya.)
http://www.11secondclub.com/rigs/Max_v03.zip
As far as your jump goes, it was a good effort but some of the basics are still letting you down a bit - for instance trying to get the run right and then have it go into a jump is probably too big of a step right now so maybe breaking it down into its seperate pieces first?
Make a looping walk cycle, make a looping run cycle, try something like an idle or a death animation (these are always quite fun) and then once you have these working well, you can try to string those into other things
Keep up the good work!
It's amazing how little of the floating helpers and rig clutter you need with biped.
Honestly I think you should stick to biped, its just like the other rigs, does what they can do and is pretty clutter free. Besides you're learning the most important skills right now stick "how to animate" which transfer to whatever rig you use in the future. There is a big difference between knowing how a rig works and being able to "animate". Rig learning is about 5-10% of the learning when becoming an animator.
It's not the rig that makes the animators work great, but the animator that makes the rig do great work.
Or look into CAT (its available in 2010 to subscription members, standard in 2011).
Or look into PuppetShop (if you want biped on crack + standard rig clutter).
Or CrypticAR.
There is a lot of biped hate floating around and most of it can be debunked in minutes or chalked up to inexperience with the rig, or using an out dated version. Don't buy into the hate just because its there, try it all out for yourself and go with what you like.
However, right now, I'm realizing I need to get back to the basics. I have sat down and am reading "The Animator's Survival Kit" from front to back. I've glanced at some pages before, for walk cycles and the like, but never really gave it more thought. Silly me. I plan to now work myself back up, starting with ball-bounces and basic cycles. And then I'll rock out the more hard-core stuff. Oh yeah. You'll see.
(I'll have more animation updates soon... just not sure of what, or when... but, soon...!)
thank god for this line vig....
You should jump over to the 11 sec club and drop that line. it feels like every 2 hours on that site someone is asking where they can get the bishop rig - because they see cool /good animations with it. Well the reason they see good animation with it is not because its an amazing rig, but because it is an AM only rig and can only be used by AM students - whose work is usually consistantly high. GAH. it infuriates me. (ppl asking for a certain rig bc they saw someone somewhere do something cool with it.) (*note to mezz - I was not in anyway referring to you asking where to find some rigs - your reasons were legitimate - you weren't searching for one bc you thought it was cool. and btw I think you're making some great progress so keep on posting!)
Check out this video of carl lewis doing a long jump.
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He asked for a Max rig and I linked one that I thought maybe was good. I'm not saying it
josh