Hammer Guard Wip

[Springheel]

I'm not an expert on this either, but something about the feet looks off to me. When his right foot hits the ground, it seems like his toes are planted on the ground before his weight shifts to that foot.

[oDDity]

I'm not an expert either - join the club.

The hardest part is working out *exactly* what's wrong, so you know *exactly* what to fix. That's what separates experts from learners.

I'm going to animate at least 100 walk cycles over the coming weeks to try and get to grips with it. WHen I can do a generic cycle backwards with my eyes closed, I'll move on to fancy passing positions and extremes to try and get individual character into walks.

[SneaksieDave]

From even less of an expert; I'll make an attempt:

 

I get an overall sense of "keep the joints bent more", as both elbows and knees might be getting a bit too close to locking out. I see what Spring is saying about the placement of the legs - like he would injure his knee if he walked too long like that.

 

I think the sense of "gayness" probably comes from the hips moving (side to side, twisting, up/down) a bit too much. If you cover him from the belt down and watch, it looks quite stronger.

 

The only other thing that stands out to me is the arms might be a bit rubbery for a physically fit warrior in metal. That would tie in to the first point above.

 

Overall it looks good and pretty natural, but if I had to find things that are "uncomfortable" about it, that would be about all I could pick at.

[Renzatic]

Yes, that's a weighting issue. THe problem is if I don't have the thigh bone influence the curaiss there, the leg will cut through it when the knee raises. I didn't pay much attetion to the weighting for this animation test, this is just for my educational puposes.

The curaiss will have to remain a little bendy though, but not that much.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not bad at all, Odd. Nice, natural motions.

 

But...I dunno if it's the speed of the animation or what, but he looks a little...what's the best way to put this...runway model sassy.

[mrdes]

The run and walk cycles look good. You might have seen this already but http://www.anticz.com/Walks.htm has a pretty good walk cycle tutorial.

 

I didn't really like the attack though. I don't see any strong poses in it really which is one of the most important parts of animation. A good way to avoid this is to use a method of animating called "Pop-thru". http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/popThru/popThru.html has an extremely good explanation of this method. Basically you figure out the key poses of the action and their timing first, and then you can do all the overlapping/secondary actions, inbetweens etc after. Something that helps even before that though is doing some thumbs before posing in 3D. Here's a quick sketch of how I might have posed the attack, assuming you wanted it to begin from an idle pose and not a combat type of stance.

 

 

I apoligize if it's cluttered to the point where only I can make it out Just quick sketches though.

[oDDity]

Heh, don't worry, those were never going to be used in the game, I was just throwing together some stand-in animations so we could get characters in the game and a little AI scripting started.

The way I'm currently learning to animate is that pop-through method. I lay out the timing and main poses first with stepped keys. You still have to find those good initial poses though no matter which technique you use, and it's something that can't be taught, since every pose for every animation is different.

Yes, you can act it out yourself, but action in animation tends to be an exaggerated caricature of real life action rather than a direct copy.

[mrdes]

Yeah I agree but using the pop-through technique focuses much more on posing than straight-ahead animation does, so this helps to emphasize strong posing. I used to do straight-ahead animation before because I thought that that was how everyone animated Very messy stuff sometimes. Good that you already got a grasp on the pop-thru method. You're gonna be a powerhouse when it comes to anything related to game design hehe.

 

I disagree that posing can't be taught though. That's sort of like saying you can't teach drawing because every picture is different. To improve my posing I do a bunch of quick gesture drawings everyday and go to life drawing classes during the school year. I remember my first assignment at school was to draw 500 figures from my head all in different dynamic poses in a few days. (He actually quickly counted them all too ) but I practice it all the time now and it helps a lot when it comes time to pose for my animations.

 

Also, Acting your animations out shouldn't be underestimated. You're right, often times animation is an exaggeration but to be able to get the "exaggeration" down you have to understand the "real". I act pretty much everything out that I do and it helps a great deal. You just have to identify where the basic principles of animation are in that specific action like your arcs, anticipation, easing in/out. And from there is where you can build on to achieve the exaggerated. Or you can start with trying to act it out exaggerated to get a better idea of where these principles lay. A lot of the time you'll find yourself figuring out things that you might have missed or mixed up prior to acting it out, such as which side of the hips the weight is on or which shoulder is up and which is down. Those things can make all the difference in posing, and they dont even necessarily require exaggeration.

 

I remember I had an acting class during first semmester for my animation program. Haha that was hell for me. Anyway this post is gettin long. Hope it helps a little.

[sparhawk]

I have some books on animations and they also say that it is a good idea to act the animations out. As well as having always a stopwatch handy to get the timings.

[oDDity]

You can teach anyone the technical aspects of how to draw- how to place a medium like pencil or charcoal on the paper and about composition and tone and colour etc, but you can't teach them how to draw well - how to choose subjects and make compositions that are really special. Same with music. You can teach anyone to play the piano well, you can teach them musical composition, but how many of thoese people will end up using that knowlege to produce great works that million will want to listen to for centuries?

That's why there are so few truly great artitsts and composers compared to how many people know simply how to draw or write music.

The same with animation. Since every pose for every animation is different you can only teach general guidelines, the animator has to come up with the poses for all his animations by himself, and the great animators come up with the best poses.

I think natural talent is the deciding factor in all these things, since there is no other explanation for it. You can't tell me that Bach or Beethoven were so great simply because they practiced on the keyboard for a few hours longer than the next guy or because they did more late nights studying composition. If all that was required to become a master at something was technical study, there would be tens of thousands of great artists and composers in history, not just a few hundred.

 

I do act out my anims to get an idea of timing and posture, but translating that to the animation and knowing which parts to exaggerate, and how much, is where the skill lies...some people in the world will always be better at that that others.

It's takes years to learn to animate characters well anyway, so I've a long way to go, but I've always thought it would be nice for me to be able to animate my own characters.

I have the Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams, which I think it widely regarded as the best animation book there is, though it isn't really CG related, there's still a lot of great advice in there.

[mrdes]

I agree with what you're saying but I do think that posing is also more of a technical thing as well since a lot of it has to do with things like weight and balance. So I feel that all the practice you can do to help you with that is a definite good thing especially if you dont have as strong a natural talent as Beethoven did with a piano hehe. I'm sure Beethoven's endless hours of practicing wasn't what made him a master but I'm fairly certain that it helped. He had the brilliance inside his head and his skills and practice allowed him to produce them on to another medium that others could experience as well.

 

I do know what you mean though. I just don't think its completely one or the other, but a combination of both as well as many other things. But I just think that if you aren't all that very intuitive when it comes to posing you can make up for a lot of it with experience and that comes with a lot of practice. Practicing posing through gestures, life drawing, and teachings/guidance from someone always helps in my opinion.

 

It's funny you mention the Animator's Survival Kit because it's sitting open right beside me hehe. I was actually going to mention it as well. Great stuff in there.