Thanks for the feedback heboltz! :-) I'll take a note of that.
Just to give a bit of feedback for some of the other guys here:
MattiasG - Very nice sequence. It's nice and busy and I really like your poses. The timing of them feels a little too equally spaced out though, as a result the piece doesn't 'pop' in terms of exaggeration so much. This is fine if it's a more realistic tone that you're aiming for. But if that's the case then the timing still needs to be adjusted to add some more weight to these heavy-looking characters. So far coming along nicely, though!
Valias - The character's hips seem quite low as he runs, so perhaps bend the spine forward to make him appear as if he's almost stealth-running (similar to how Sam Fisher moves in Splinter Cell, for example)? What is his body language saying as he runs? The spine seems too straight and stiff compared to the legs, so the overall pose suffers a bit. Timing's nice though, getting a good feeling of speed in this one. Keep it up!
MattiasG- Hey, your fight loop is looking pretty good so far, i know its a WIP and your probably already doing this, but you might want to pick up the tempo a bit. some of the jumps/dives seem a bit slow. and those body mechanic rigs from Joe Daniels are tons of fun, and very cheep for all your getting i think.
SuperSoupy- your fight animation is also looking great. the only comment i can think of would maybe be for the red to grab blue quick after landing the initial hit.
hopefully all have some more stuff to throw up here soon.
SuperSoupy - Really like your animation I gues you allready are aware of that the blue guys left elbow goes through the ground at the end.
Other then that, it looks great!
I know it's nothing special. I like the low poly model of Po (found online). I would have needed to upgrade the model and rig it properly. Never liked Biped, but i thought I would give it a shot. Could use a little more polish with timing...just a start.
Great work guys, keep it up. Been away for a week or so. Got a class to teach walk cycles to on monday and thought I'd practice...bloody hate walks. Here's my just over 20min
Refined:
mMttiasG - beautiful, cannot wait to see the final E_ensey - Very smooth jump, love it. You other one (zombie) needs a little more on the hips
Hey there! I know a lot of people at work have this workflow - getting the main body mechanics working outwards from hips, chest first. I myself always work pose to pose really haha! Keep it in stepped for as long as i can be patient to, and then polish in spline only problem is you have to keep checking back and forth for rotation issues. It's an interesting concepts though, but not one i have tried yet.
Yeah, I do like "blocking to polishing" approach too, and that drives me mad, that I can't control hip movement separate from chest movements, it is hard to get clean motion of the hips most of the time in CAT...
I love almost everything about CAT for my workflow, but inability to have separate COG and hip controls slowly drives me crazy...
Nixellion - cool! Do u have a simple tutorial on adjustmentlayers ?
Sounds like something I wanna try out
Well, nothing special really, it is 3ds max CAT's adjustment layers, you can know all the information about them from Introduction to CAT in 3ds Max by Digital Tutors. Or were you asking something particular?
Thanks everyone for the feedback
Here is the polished version. I played around a bit with 2d animated fx´s aswell.
Found this neat 2d fx course that seems promecing and ppl sounds quite happy with it. http://bitey.com/2010/08/bca-fx/
wow its incredible :O
the only thing that looks unnatural to me is after the big shield burst
the right guy does this slide with his right foot and the starting position
of the sliding looks a bit not good for this kind of movement
Thanks m8 ^^
Naah, dont know yet. Have lots of school projects atm. But the deadline for the contest was quite some time from now, so I just just might enter with something. Bad thing is that the cool monster rigs I would like to use is from dota 2... aaand it feels a bit douchie do use them in a Riot Games contest xD
Some brilliant work on here, I just have a quick question. When we are tasked with creating rigs for our animations, can we use anything we want? (cat-rig/bones/biped) I have zero experience with rigs so I'm guessing bones would offer the most controls for rigging?
Some brilliant work on here, I just have a quick question. When we are tasked with creating rigs for our animations, can we use anything we want? (cat-rig/bones/biped) I have zero experience with rigs so I'm guessing bones would offer the most controls for rigging?
Weighted balls practise below.
If it's the Riot Contest you're referring too, then yes any kind of rig can be used. So long as your animation itself is in the style of LoL, go nuts :-)
Hey again, I have a question, and I'd really like to hear an answer from experienced animators, especially StephenVyas himself
So, I'm not going to rise up a holy war, it is really a practical question about a situation in our studio. So, are thinking about switching to Maya for game char animation. We found a rigger, who is experienced with maya and softimage rigging. But most animators in our studio did not work in Maya much, mostly Max. Rigger can work in max, but it will take a lot of time for him to remember and learn it, and obviously things with rigging can be unpredictable.
So, the actual question is - what is really better for high quality gamedev animation, Max or Maya?
Personally I am one of the Max users, but I seem to be the only one of our animators, who thinks that switching to maya is going to benefit us later... Maybe I'm wrong and max is actually better? With his triangulation handling for example, or something...
When it comes down to personal preference, there are a ton of threads out there with the sticky details.
When it comes down to a studio choice/Project choice, I would pick what the most people on the project/team are the most familiar with.
At the end of the day, the programs are just tools, and a tool is as only good as the person using it.
This is indeed not about personal preference.
On the other hand, it is much easier for an animator to switch to maya, rather than a rigger, and it proved to be hard to find a good 3ds max rigger, there are a lot more maya riggers... right?
On the other hand, it is much easier for an animator to switch to maya, rather than a rigger, and it proved to be hard to find a good 3ds max rigger, there are a lot more maya riggers... right?
Short answer: "yes, its easier for an animator to switch from 3dsMax to Maya vs a Tech Animator learning rigging in a new program"
Longer Answer: It's really going to depend on your pipeline and team needs. Finding a tech artist/anim that has a strong background in one program will be a very solid reason for the team (especially if its a new project/pipeline) to stick with that pipeline.
If the only reason the studio is thinking about making the switch over to Maya is because it is proving hard to find a tech artist/anim that specializes in Max, I would suggest looking harder. If there are other benefits that would boost productivity for the team as a whole, I would go maya.
Like I said before, Maya and Max are booth excellent tools with their own unique ups and downs. All sorts of studios use both for rigging and animation. I would suggest prioritizing team needs first and making changes accordingly.
On a personal note:
I'm a maya user, I've learned to rig animate and script in Mel/python. I picked up animation in max in a couple of days and I was able to get up to a working/production quality within a few weeks. While Maya rigging comes way more naturally to me (because its where I started) the rigging systems in max seem to have some serious horsepower behind them, be it Biped, CAT or bone custom rigs using bones& joints. Just a little background on where I'm coming from on this.
Yeah, I agree that Max and Maya are both great tools, and it is not correct to discuss which one is better, which I'm not doing here.
And yes, we already found a rigger\tech animaotor with strong maya background, thats the reason...
Thanks for the answer, I hope it is not too much off-topic here, if there is anything else to say, maybe its better to create another thread for that?..
Still here ^^ Need to chip in some 20 min challange soon and post. Have made alot of new animations though I did for a school rts game ^^ Lots of angry orcs xP
PeteHawk, nice eye xD Is it something u just made for this post ?
Hey buddy, would love to see your angry orcs
Yeah, just to hopefully start up the thread again! Plus been busy with freelance and teaching, so I want to do other things to keep me happy hah
Hi this is my very first try on loop animation, very much inspired by Steve. I tried finishing this piece in very limited time of course. Hoping for some valuable critiques
Here's my try on fight loop animation. Very much inspired from Steve. Didn't take much time. Hoping for some valuable critiques
I don't post here often, so feel free to ignore me, but I can offer some critique it would simply be that the animation doesn't flow together as nicely as I would expect. I think a lot of that is simply that you aren't carrying the momentum of the character. When he rolls over the big thing's back, he shouldn't just land perfectly flat and then start into that next jump, his momentum should carry him forward into that somersault.
And it's basically little things like that kind of mixed in throughout. Your poses are great, the actions are all clear, it's just that each action seems independent of each other action, for the most part. Try to make sure that if an arm is moving in one direction, it stays going in that direction until it's had time to come to a natural stop. And carry that throughout the body.
You start to do it at the moment when the swordsman's feet slip on the ground at the far right of the screen, but that sort of drag needs to carry throughout.
@Xelioth Thank's for the feedback. I'll keep that in mind and improve next time
Yeah similar to what Nathan said, see it through with the momentum and drag, let it flow a little more.
It will be a cracking piece once done though! Good job.
One bit I cannot read is what is the big fella doing before his attacker roles over him? Is he blinded by something? Is he anticipating the next attack? It just feels like he let the attacker role over him.
Yeah similar to what Nathan said, see it through with the momentum and drag, let it flow a little more.
It will be a cracking piece once done though! Good job.
One bit I cannot read is what is the big fella doing before his attacker roles over him? Is he blinded by something? Is he anticipating the next attack? It just feels like he let the attacker role over him.
Thanks Pete. Yeah the big fella's blinded n slowed down, although it's not much noticeable. Will try to improve next time
Since loops are all the rage these days, I looped up an old animation I was working on about a year ago. Nice break from scripting and blend trees, hah.
Since loops are all the rage these days, I looped up an old animation I was working on about a year ago. Nice break from scripting and blend trees, hah.
At first glance, the first thing I noticed was the weird charge-up to the jump, on her last footing. It almost looks like its some sort of slow motion but I'm sure it was not intended.
You most likely need to make this shorter to keep the momentum going.
Actually, it was intended. I had a lot less antic on it previously and it didn't read with that much power, so I threw in alot more frames there for some huge ups.
I might go back and play with the robot some more, a walk in, maybe? more polish either way.
Hello Polycount! First post and first animation animation. Any crits would be great as I am still a student.Took a number of hours to animate.
Also hope I made this .gif correct
the turntable isn't doing any favors to what seems to be a decent animation. I'd say everything seems a little bit the same. All the timing is similar, nothing is emphasized. Good weight on the animation, it works well, but everything just runs into everything else.
Replies
Just to give a bit of feedback for some of the other guys here:
MattiasG - Very nice sequence. It's nice and busy and I really like your poses. The timing of them feels a little too equally spaced out though, as a result the piece doesn't 'pop' in terms of exaggeration so much. This is fine if it's a more realistic tone that you're aiming for. But if that's the case then the timing still needs to be adjusted to add some more weight to these heavy-looking characters. So far coming along nicely, though!
Valias - The character's hips seem quite low as he runs, so perhaps bend the spine forward to make him appear as if he's almost stealth-running (similar to how Sam Fisher moves in Splinter Cell, for example)? What is his body language saying as he runs? The spine seems too straight and stiff compared to the legs, so the overall pose suffers a bit. Timing's nice though, getting a good feeling of speed in this one. Keep it up!
SuperSoupy- your fight animation is also looking great. the only comment i can think of would maybe be for the red to grab blue quick after landing the initial hit.
hopefully all have some more stuff to throw up here soon.
cheers,
Other then that, it looks great!
[VV]109153094[/VV]
Refined:
mMttiasG - beautiful, cannot wait to see the final
E_ensey - Very smooth jump, love it. You other one (zombie) needs a little more on the hips
Also a crosspost from the competition:
Here's walk cycle for a rig i've been working on.
[ame="
https://vimeo.com/109680575
Opinions are welcome!
cheers
They wont be my "final entry", but I'll probably develop them later for something else.
http://animatorsteve.weebly.com/
Yeah, I do like "blocking to polishing" approach too, and that drives me mad, that I can't control hip movement separate from chest movements, it is hard to get clean motion of the hips most of the time in CAT...
I love almost everything about CAT for my workflow, but inability to have separate COG and hip controls slowly drives me crazy...
Well, nothing special really, it is 3ds max CAT's adjustment layers, you can know all the information about them from Introduction to CAT in 3ds Max by Digital Tutors. Or were you asking something particular?
Here is the polished version. I played around a bit with 2d animated fx´s aswell.
Found this neat 2d fx course that seems promecing and ppl sounds quite happy with it. http://bitey.com/2010/08/bca-fx/
the only thing that looks unnatural to me is after the big shield burst
the right guy does this slide with his right foot and the starting position
of the sliding looks a bit not good for this kind of movement
Keep it up! You partaking in the contest?
Naah, dont know yet. Have lots of school projects atm. But the deadline for the contest was quite some time from now, so I just just might enter with something. Bad thing is that the cool monster rigs I would like to use is from dota 2... aaand it feels a bit douchie do use them in a Riot Games contest xD
https://www.tumblr.com/video/mosseljongen/100014789173/500/
Weighted balls practise below.
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/sfwx7udc2nhxetq/balloon.mov?dl=0
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/cderawda97lw6g0/heavy%20ball.mov?dl=0
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/s7zkswhxg4ffabr/pingpong%20ball3.mov?dl=0
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/x0cvppjut00hgcz/beachball2.mov?dl=0
(hopefully these links work)
If it's the Riot Contest you're referring too, then yes any kind of rig can be used. So long as your animation itself is in the style of LoL, go nuts :-)
GFY is a video, yeah, but it saves a lot of bandwidth as well.
MattiasG's GIF.
7MB -> 378 KB
http://gfycat.com/UniqueFavorableAngwantibo
So, who do I talk to so we can get polycount to display HTML5 video in the post ?
So, I'm not going to rise up a holy war, it is really a practical question about a situation in our studio. So, are thinking about switching to Maya for game char animation. We found a rigger, who is experienced with maya and softimage rigging. But most animators in our studio did not work in Maya much, mostly Max. Rigger can work in max, but it will take a lot of time for him to remember and learn it, and obviously things with rigging can be unpredictable.
So, the actual question is - what is really better for high quality gamedev animation, Max or Maya?
Personally I am one of the Max users, but I seem to be the only one of our animators, who thinks that switching to maya is going to benefit us later... Maybe I'm wrong and max is actually better? With his triangulation handling for example, or something...
When it comes down to personal preference, there are a ton of threads out there with the sticky details.
When it comes down to a studio choice/Project choice, I would pick what the most people on the project/team are the most familiar with.
At the end of the day, the programs are just tools, and a tool is as only good as the person using it.
This is indeed not about personal preference.
On the other hand, it is much easier for an animator to switch to maya, rather than a rigger, and it proved to be hard to find a good 3ds max rigger, there are a lot more maya riggers... right?
Short answer: "yes, its easier for an animator to switch from 3dsMax to Maya vs a Tech Animator learning rigging in a new program"
Longer Answer: It's really going to depend on your pipeline and team needs. Finding a tech artist/anim that has a strong background in one program will be a very solid reason for the team (especially if its a new project/pipeline) to stick with that pipeline.
If the only reason the studio is thinking about making the switch over to Maya is because it is proving hard to find a tech artist/anim that specializes in Max, I would suggest looking harder. If there are other benefits that would boost productivity for the team as a whole, I would go maya.
Like I said before, Maya and Max are booth excellent tools with their own unique ups and downs. All sorts of studios use both for rigging and animation. I would suggest prioritizing team needs first and making changes accordingly.
On a personal note:
I'm a maya user, I've learned to rig animate and script in Mel/python. I picked up animation in max in a couple of days and I was able to get up to a working/production quality within a few weeks. While Maya rigging comes way more naturally to me (because its where I started) the rigging systems in max seem to have some serious horsepower behind them, be it Biped, CAT or bone custom rigs using bones& joints. Just a little background on where I'm coming from on this.
And yes, we already found a rigger\tech animaotor with strong maya background, thats the reason...
Thanks for the answer, I hope it is not too much off-topic here, if there is anything else to say, maybe its better to create another thread for that?..
Time to start posting stuff, well, at all really.
Wooo!
Boooosh!
Hey buddy, would love to see your angry orcs
Yeah, just to hopefully start up the thread again! Plus been busy with freelance and teaching, so I want to do other things to keep me happy hah
Hi this is my very first try on loop animation, very much inspired by Steve. I tried finishing this piece in very limited time of course. Hoping for some valuable critiques
Here's my try on fight loop animation. Very much inspired from Steve. Didn't take much time. Hoping for some valuable critiques
And it's basically little things like that kind of mixed in throughout. Your poses are great, the actions are all clear, it's just that each action seems independent of each other action, for the most part. Try to make sure that if an arm is moving in one direction, it stays going in that direction until it's had time to come to a natural stop. And carry that throughout the body.
You start to do it at the moment when the swordsman's feet slip on the ground at the far right of the screen, but that sort of drag needs to carry throughout.
Yeah similar to what Nathan said, see it through with the momentum and drag, let it flow a little more.
It will be a cracking piece once done though! Good job.
One bit I cannot read is what is the big fella doing before his attacker roles over him? Is he blinded by something? Is he anticipating the next attack? It just feels like he let the attacker role over him.
Thanks Pete. Yeah the big fella's blinded n slowed down, although it's not much noticeable. Will try to improve next time
At first glance, the first thing I noticed was the weird charge-up to the jump, on her last footing. It almost looks like its some sort of slow motion but I'm sure it was not intended.
You most likely need to make this shorter to keep the momentum going.
I might go back and play with the robot some more, a walk in, maybe? more polish either way.
Thanks for the feedback!
Also hope I made this .gif correct