Finished Centaur Animations
Hey there this is the tread to show off my finished centaur animations, i made a WIP thread for it which can be located here http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96649 if you want to see how the animation have changed but this is my final year project for university the idea is to combine motion capture and hand animation, id love for you guys to check it out and leave me some feedback, if you could comment on how the animation looks overall, if you think the motion capture and hand animation blends well and generally anything you want to say. thanks for looking and i look forward to seeing what you say. Thanks.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JErvSnsazrQ"]FYP - Finished Centaur Animation - YouTube[/ame]
If you have any questions ill be happy to answer them.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JErvSnsazrQ"]FYP - Finished Centaur Animation - YouTube[/ame]If you have any questions ill be happy to answer them.
Replies
What is most apparent to me from watching the animations is a lack of understanding on your part on the principles of animation. When adjusting mocap data, especially for a character with an extra set of legs, it's important that you understand the movement so you can clean it up accordingly.
The biggest problem with this is how obvious the back leg animation was added on to the mocap data. It looks much less realistic and weightless.
The walk cycle is also a problem; a four-legged creature does not walk the same as a two-legged one. You need to understand how and why if you are to make the walk convincing.
Also, you need to act out and definitely get reference for the changes you're trying to make. In the death anim, for example, the way the back legs fall and crumple under him doesn't really make sense. Also, your rig appears to break here.
My suggestion is to go back to scratch and really learn how to animate, learning all the main principles of animation. Once you have all that, your animations and mocap will improve greatly.
Sorry for the harsh crit, but hopefully it encourages you to focus on really learning what you need to do to make good motion capture clean up. Keep going!
Much of what Mezz says here is really true.
If you're setting up keyframed and mocap side by side, you MUST be understanding of how the principles of animation apply to BOTH techniques. The reason being that both types of animation move in their own ways, and when they're displayed side by side, it tends to show flaws in both by comparison. (for example, try watching 'Mortal Kombat Annihilation' for how not to do it!)
Trying to tie these 2 styles together, for the mocap I'd advise that you work some of the anim principles into it. For example, take the walking mocap, and keyframe some overlapping action into the arm movements, and build on the shoulder shifts to add weight. The idea is to add to the movement mocap gives you, which creates the animation. Not strip that initial movement away.
Meanwhile for the keyframed, you really need to look at some horse reference. Since you are working with mocap, the timing would also have to be similar to the source material to keep that realistic tone. Look at applying those principles and reference, and your work will benefit loads.
It's a tricky subject that you're taking on. But you have some great mocap data and a cool-looking rig to work with, I'm sure you can get some great results :-). All the best!
Also, if you`re going to show all the different views, either show them all at the same time, on one screen. Split it into 4 sections and they all play at the same time. Or, at the VERY LEAST, play the full animation before switching to a different view. The death, the animation doesn't even finish before you switch to the next view. Show the mocap once, then show the finished model from the front, side and 3/4 view (if you can get them all on one screen, it would be better)
thanks
Here is a very good example that you can study
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F_7BBNjXp4&feature=youtu.be
cheers again for the feedback gonna help alot for my dissertation