Sketches For Animations

[mrdes]

Thought I'd start sketching some of the key poses for animations in Springheel's list. Some will also be sketches of inbetweens if they give a better idea of the weight. I'll update this thread as I go along so there is much more to come.

 

The drawings are pretty poor quality but the main purpose these have for me is to get the poses down correctly. Hopefully they'll not only be helpful to me but to other people that are animating these actions.

 

 

Just realized the 1st keypose in the overhead-hammer attack is from a different angle so it looks really off Not that that's the least of the problems with my drawings hehe. But they're just quick sketches to get the pose down like I said.

 

By the way, I hope no one minds that I'm doing this as I haven't really recieved the go-ahead to start on any animations yet.

 

edit: Forgot to mention that for very dynamic actions I usually only sketch the key poses from the anticipations to the follow throughs and that's why there are no settle sketches.

[oDDity]

I think the hammer poses would be more suited to the forge worker's anvil hammering rather than the guard's attacking. I thought that's what is was before I read anything. It might be generally better to keep the hammer attacks to one-handed. I think you get more dynamisim that way. Having to keep two hands on it restricts the poses you can strick quite a lot.

[mrdes]

Thanks for the advice oddity. You're right, that hammer sketch wouldn't be very suitable for an effective attack at all really.

 

Few more sketches

[sparhawk]

I also thought this would be a hammer on an ambos before I erad that it would be an attack. The frist two look good for either one, but IMO the second poses are not correct. For an attack this would put the attacker to much off balance and for a working smith he wouldn't use such a strike.

[Springheel]

The powerful overhand attack does use two hands, but they both should be pretty close to the end of the handle, so that gravity does most of the work.

 

It's interesting, just as I was looking over the animation list, I thought, "it would probably be helpful if I did some sketches for these". And then I saw your post.

[Springheel]

One other thing I should mention about the animations. We're going for a realistic, gritty flavour for the mod, so the animations should not be overly exaggerated. We definitely want to steer clear of the cartoony feel of T3.

[Domarius]

You really gotta put these into an actual animation to see if it flows. 'Cause I really don't trust that hammer swing. In frame 2 and 3, his back bends from one way to the other. He's going to look like the stretch man from Fantastic 4.

 

What I find works REALLY well is to get my Wacom pen, and draw messy blobs of sillhouettes frame by frame in Flash, and keep playing it and editing it over and over. This lets me quickly rough out the form and flow before I even draw lines.

 

Seirously this works REALLY well and makes an awesome foundation for applying the detail on. Each drawing may look nice as individual pose, but do they flow? It's easy to think they do before you actually see them in action.

 

This is what I'm talking about. I didn't do this but I do stuff like this. Each time you click replay you get to see the process.

[mrdes]

Sparhawk - Yeah I'm just scrapping the current hammer sketches that are there atm.

 

Springheel - The hands are farther apart and with one nearer to the top to support the full weight of the hammer (the heaviest part is obviously the actual big hammer part), instead of him falling over backwards when it is raised. This is of course just for a very heavy hammer which is what I had in mind, but I now realize it would not make for a very effective weapon or attack for that matter hehe. But yeah the whole hammer sketch is just really off anyway. I'll go for a lighter hammer in just a few minutes. Light enough to be held by both hands nearest the end of it. I'll try to keep the exaggeration of my posing down to a minimum as well.

 

Domarius - Absolutely right. The third pose's back should be arched more like the second pose's, and then the arch would start to reverse when the hammer comes over his shoulder. Thanks for pointing that out. And I actually start with sort of the same method as you. First I do messy gesture drawings or blobs of silouhette, but you can just barely see it on these drawings. I start with a pencil underlay and then sometimes I clean it up a bit and draw the whole form in over with pen (mostly only when I need to show it to other people). And scanning it also sort of hid the pencil underlay but that wasnt necessarily my intention though heh. The difference is I do this starting with the all key poses first, and then afterwards I would do the same for the inbetweens to see how it "flows". So after these poses are fairly solid I would work at the flow of it. And if it's for a long animation I bring it into flash and do some quick line tests. I've done a bunch of flash animations such as that one as well. Good program to learn with and run tests.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone.

[Domarius]

If you do your blobs as frames in Flash before anything else (rather than on paper), you can see your blobs in motion before you refine the form, which is very important.

[mrdes]

I normally only refine the form if I need to show people to get critiques and advice since anyone can understand the drawing a lot easier. Most of my sketches remain scribbley gestures though. But I have never begun my initial drawings right in flash before, so I'll give it a try for sure - probably starting within the next few minutes

[mrdes]

Jotting my key poses down into flash seems to help a lot.

 

Another quick shot at the overhead hammer swing. Might be a bit low but easily fixed.

 

 

In my sketches the back arches sometimes look pretty exaggerated but it's mostly just to emphasize it so it helps me keep it in mind when Im doing the animation. It's like a little note that says to me "the back arches THIS way" heh.

[Springheel]

Probably a good idea to not worry about the combat animations right now. We still need to have some development discussions about exactly what the gameplay requirements of the combat system will be. That will have a big impact on the kinds of animations we end up needing. The list on the other thread is just a starting point for discussion. I think focussing on the Stage 1 animations first is the way to go.

[mrdes]

Ok sure. Will do. I don't even really need sketches for most of the stage 1 animations either. I'll start with the builder guard I just rigged after I take a little break.