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craigrmsmith
craigrmsmith
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craigrmsmith
Hello everyone!

Working on a set of in game animations for a character I made for university and wondering if I could get some feedback on what I have done so far, what you all think and what can be improved

This is my first ever character animation so you are probably going to rip it apart but please be *constructive* :)

Links below

Idle 1

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxKpAG7IA9k[/ame]

Idle 2

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAYrt1lif_g[/ame]

Idle 3

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-iFtKCObh4[/ame]

Walk Cycle

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbdL9vcec6s[/ame]


Many thanks in advance appreciate it alot :D

Craig
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  • Stinger88
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    Stinger88 polycounter
    Looking good. But I think all the animations look stiff. You need to add more movement to the character on a whole.

    I'll elaborate. Its most noticeable in Idle 3. You have only really animated the bones that are doing the main movement and you have only animated a starting position, a middle position and a return/end position. So the character bends forward, stops dead, then returns to the start position. In a movement such as this the all or most of the joints should be moving (some parts only very slightly) and the movement should be constant even if it is only a tiny movement.

    Add key frames to keep the character moving between the main key frames.
    Animate more joints and add slight movement.
    Try using bezier curves on your key frames. It'll solve a lot of stiffness.

    Basically. Less robot, more fluid.

    Hope that helps.

    EDIT: also. There's no stomache wobble in idle 3
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  • craigrmsmith
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    craigrmsmith
    Hey,

    thanks for the reply, can I ask though, what are bezier curves?

    Sorry if it's a silly question my course doesn't teach animation it's a game design course, so I'm learning from tutorials on-line.

    been trying to work on the graph editor to make it seem less wooden but I guess its because I'm only animating the controllers instead of the bones individually that's causing that like you said so will go back and work in to them all some more.

    Thanks!
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  • Stinger88
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    Stinger88 polycounter
    Sorry. My bad. Its been a while since I animated anything.

    I mean SPLINE tangents.

    Bezier is a different type of curve not really used in animaton.

    MAYA-Animation-Basics-1_clip_image010.jpg

    Heres a tutorial that'll help you play around with the curve tangents.

    http://www.3dtutorialzone.com/tutorial?id=96
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  • Mark Dygert
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    Mark Dygert mod
    It's really hard to critique cycles without seeing them loop at least a few times. It's even better if they're presented in format that lets scrub back and forth, like quicktime.

    I use Quicktime format, along with dropbox for hosting, its great.

    As for the animation it is very robotic, and pose to pose, it goes: Pose, STICK! Pose STICK!

    Follow Through
    Think of follow through as a ball bouncing off a wall then slowly rolling back to the wall, picture the ground at a slope if it helps. The wall is your pose, you throw the ball it hits the wall, but it still has energy so it doesn't stop moving. The ball keeps going and dissipates and slowly settles back in.

    Things start out and settle in at different speeds.

    Which brings us to Overlap.
    Think of overlap like a whip or a tail. The base and the tip don't move at the same time, each link away from the base lags behind its parent.

    If you where to throw a ball MLB style:
    Your shoulder stops before your elbow.
    Your elbow stops before your wrist.
    Your wrist stops before your fingers.

    Check this guy out:
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCugqNjPemU[/ame]

    Notice at .38s his right leg is still traveling after his arm has hit the extreme pose and started to recover, overlap. Not everything land on the same keys. If he didn't overlap his leg wouldn't trail behind and it would look really weird having everything happening at the same speed and same frames... this is what you have going on...
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  • Razorb
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    Razorb polycounter lvl 15
    allways useful reading your feedback Vig :) even when its not directly for me.

    Keep it up Craig :) more more more
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  • craigrmsmith
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    craigrmsmith
    Thank you very much for all the feedback, that video was really useful. I didn't know the overlap was so extreme I've only been pushing the overlap on my animations by 2 maybe 3 at the most keys so that would definitely loosen it up a lot more thanks!!

    I have been reading the Richard Williams animators survival kit like a bible but since this is my first time actually putting it in to practice on a full character I'll need a lot more practice.

    Appreciate all the comments will be getting working on it all right away! can't thank you enough!
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