Your backlegs are still a bit springy to me. His left leg on frame 3 to 4 moves back quite a bit, then from 4 to 5 not that much, same from frame 15 to 16. That makes the legs pop back. And his wrists still rotate too much during the swing, especially on the move back. In the front view his hips are going up 2 or 3 frames too early. You have them go up as the foot plants, but at that point there wouldn't be enough wait on the leg for the hip to go up already. So delay the whole thing by 2 frames or so. You can also make the up movement sharper, cut the amount of time the hips take to go up in half.
Other than that, I would say move on to the next assignment. Great job!
Before I start with the detail, I encourage you to really think about who this character is. I understand that it's difficult to get the mechanics done for a walk, walks are hard to do. But you can still learn the mechanics while doing a walk with more character behind it. Who is he/she? Where? Don't have it be a plain old Hogan.
Besides that, here's what I see:
In the front view, your feet are too straight forward, you can angle them out. The hip movement could be a bit sharper when the foot is planting and the weight goes over the leg, right now it's very even. The biggest things to fix are the legs and the knee pops during the foot plant. You will have to adjust the hips and root so that this moment gets smoothed out. Also on frame 17 and 2, when the legs are in the back position ready to take a step, your legs are straight and then bend drastically, that pop needs to get smoothed out as well by adjust the hips and the footroll as well as the root. Those sections are very hard to do, so frame by frame work is needed.
I would make the ball bounce away further screen left. Sorry for not mentioning that earlier. I think it would add to the tension if you would let the ball "almost" escape. So have the ball almost reach the screen left frame. Don't extend the block, extend the tongue. I would also make the tongue swallow zipping back movement more complex.
How about this? Break up the bounce distance of the ball. So after his jumps down from the block, he can only do little bounces, because he's just fell from a high place, so he's weak and scared and then starts bouncing away and gaining ground more and more, making the audience believe that he will escape. Then right as he is about to exit frame the tongue snatches the ball. Now, instead of going back straight like you have it now, it would form that S curve (see picture) and at the end go into the rotation that you have (start coloring your tongue, the ball, etc. so it's not all grey).
In terms of animation there are a few things as well. The snatch: from 245 to 246 you have the ball touch the tongue (tongue already bent). Have the tongue go down in front of the ball (cutting him off), then have the ball jump into the tongue. From 246 to 247 there is a slight movement screen left and then to 248 a huge jump screen right. That could be more fluid, with the ball stretching/pushing the tongue more screen left when it gets grabbed. As you roll back the tongue now to frame 250 you have pretty much nothing moving til 253, I would keep it going, keep it fluid. The spiral swallow down is cool, but a bit hard to heard that it's twisting, due to spacing from frame 262 to 263. Also coloring the tongue will make it read better that it is twisting.
As it is swallowing I would close the eyelids a little, then when it's done, look down while opening them again, and have a mouth appear with a smile. :-) Or something like that. You just need an ending to all of it, not just a swallow. With some reaction by the monster, you give the whole meaning a little bit of meaning.
Doesn't seem to be my week. I really wanted to post stuff tonight, but the animation meeting we had (there's a short that a friend of mine is doing and Thursdays is animation review), ran longer than usual. It was around 11:45pm. Then I sat at my desk in order to check my email and my email application just wouldn't show the mail folders. I fixed it, but now it's 12:44am and I'm dead tired.
Alright, so... TOMORROW should really be the day of new posts... Fingers crossed.
In case you're bored, here's a shameless plug, just entertain yourself with SWENCH, that will keep you up to date. :-)
sorry for the hiatus. I finished working on "Transformers" this week, which looks great btw. (sweet renders, the robots look so real, sometimes they look like well animated animatronics - just like Davy Jones had you guessing if it is make up or not, this time you will wonder, is that real or not? Obviously the action will give it away that it absolutely can't be an animatronic...). I started working on "The Spiderwick Chronicles" and switching shows had me busy for a while, finishing Transformer shots and making sure that the files are clean and getting prepped on the doings of the new show.
But everything transitioned fine and overtime work seems to be scheduled for Saturday instead of during the week AND Saturday while on Transformers. So critique and updates should appear either during the day, but most definitely after 7pm if I didn't get to it at work.
I hope you guys are not completely crushed after my "reality check" ramble on Monday :-) But as I said, I won't sugar coat the current state of the industry nor your work. Better you hear the good and bads news now than later. I will post more specific dos and don'ts at a later point for demo reel creations, rig usage, how to get a foot in the industry, etc. etc.
Speaking of ramble. It's really unfortunate that this class is so big. You guys are great, it's not that, it's the difficulty of combining lectures and critique. Both are important, so every now and then I will lean more on one than the other. If you feel that you didn't get enough feedback for your shot, please let me know. Drop me an email with your work and I'll embelish on what I said in class. Last class lasted til 10.45pm which is crazy. Thanks for those who were waiting for the feedback. If you need to go home, again, just write me an email and I'll look at your animation later that night or the next day.
What you guys need to do is complain, or politely suggest, to the Academy that classes need to be smaller. I mentioned it already and will defninitely continue to do so. I don't see the benefit of doing a lecture for 30 to 90 mins and then critiquing your work for a few minutes. Last week I think it worked well when I combined the lectures with the critique, and we all finished at 10. But the moment I focus on something (like last time on the reality of how much work and dedication is needed in this field), there is just not enough time. I'll work on focusing on the most important things in my critique during class (even though I LOVE detail stuff), but let the school know that classes just can't be too big and that JD sucks. :-)
Now that it has been around 7 weeks into this semester, don't be shy in telling me what sucks about my class and what doesn't. I want to make sure that you guys get the most out of it, so speak up when something is not working or if you feel that I'm not covering certain things you'd like to know.
Midterm is coming up and the grading hammer will slam down. Most of you guys are doing good, so no need to worry. My grading will depend on your work and how creative you are with it, not just the technical side.
[ Wow. I started writing this in the morning, then had to go to a client transmission, then lunch, then an animation meeting, then back to work, than a Harry Potter "it's a wrap." celebration, then back to work and now it's suddenly 6:30pm.]
Uhm... totally lost my train of thought after all those hours. ... Uh... Yeah...
I'm gonna go home now and work on other posts that will pop up later tonight. A few handy tools while animating in Maya, good sites for help and probably some critiques.
Looks like the big reveal has to wait a bit. When you only have one free day a week, it seems that it's being spent doing house cleaning and phone calls and general catching up.
:-)
I'll tell you guys tomorrow about it. [Edit: Alright, how about next Monday.]
Awesome cycle, love it! Now that's what I'm talking about. He's a cocky football player, not a grey standard walking rig. Nice job!
The overall attitude comes across very well. The helmet wobble is great, nice detail.
A few tiny things. Side view, his left hand, as it goes down til frame 7, it looks like it goes down til 7, then stays at the same height for frame 8, then goes down again at frame 9. It's a small detail, but if you smooth out that spacing, then it will get rid of that tiny pop. Right now it looks like the arms starts going down then suddenly accelerates. I think that those frames I mentioned are the culprit.
The hips (front view), they seem a bit wobbly. You can a direction change in it, which could work, but it needs some love. Let's say frame 7, his left leg is up, all the weight is on the right leg. So the screen left side of the hip should be higher than the right side. You have it at frame 4 already, but that is a bit early. By frame 9 the hip goes up with the passing leg. Realistically, it should be the opposite, because now the weight really is on his right leg (screen left). By frame 11 the right side of the hip is really high up. Again, it should be the opposite. When he takes the step on frame 16, your right side of the hip is going up already, that's too soon. The weight is not on that leg yet, the foot is just starting to plant. By frame 18 the hip is up. I would delay that and have the hip down and then start the same movement up at frame 18 til 20 or 21. Your body is dipping very quickly at frame 18. During frames 16 to 19 the body (looking at the hips) stops going down, then at 20 starts the quick dip down and the up. That movement gives the character a nice bouncy feel to it. But since it's dipping that fast, he's preparing to push himself up, so he's really putting all the weight on that leg, so revisit your weight shifts on the hip.
Feet (front view). From frame 1 to frame 2, the screen right foot slides towards the right, then his heel does a sharp screen left movement from frame 3 to 4. The screen left foot is better, that pop is not in there. Except from frame 18 to 19, look at his toes (screen left foot), the move to the left quite a bit, but then on 20 no movement to the left anymore. Take frame 19 and move the foot screen right to fix the spacing.
Overall body movement (front view): Look at frame 16. He's leaning towards screen right. So he would have to move in that direction and balance himself out. But from frame 16 to 19 (looking at the hips as reference), he stops moving towards the right, then on 20 continues again. Keep the movement going towards the right, don't stop it, and maybe have him move screen right a bit more. Looking at frame 16 he looks off balance, and since he's moving from left to right with that lean, you'd expect him to move a bit further screen right in order to balance himself out.
That should be it for now. Great job, looking already really good.
When you want to make your cycle last longer and tweak things inbetween, then select your character controllers (or the bouncing ball or whatever has animation on it), in the graph editor, select "Curves", then "Post Infinity", then "Cycle". Still in the Graph Editor select "View", then "Infinity" and youll see lighter dotted version of your curves that extend beyond your selected timeline (1 to 30). If you select Curves>Pre Infinity, then you'll see the curves go into the minus timeline to the left. If you want to extend your cycle, then you need to bake out your keys. Select your controllers (or ball or whatever has animation on it), then Curves>Bake Channel. This will "bake" out the curves for the timeline that you have set. So if your cycle is 30 frames long, and you want to make your whole animation 240 frames long, then adjust your timeline, then bake out the curves and you will see that it will bake them out from 1 to 240.
As to what funny things you could add, that's up to you. Why not have a football being thrown at him. Either hard so it hits his head, throws him off balance then he has to regain his composure, and he will act like nothing happened while he does so, or someone throws the ball in a more casual way, he catches it and throws it back? Let's talk about it tomorrow and we can act some stuff out.
The following are fixed. Now ! the box has a symmetrical eye shape. Now !! it has a nice curve when it bends. Now !!! it has a mouth with big teeth. ( I am working on its tongue.) Around frame 26 !!!!, the tail has been fixed. How do you think the way the mouth shows up on the top of the box? Actually, I am not for sure, it looks good or not. I am thinking about giving a little bit more overlap and follow through of the tail after finishing animation of the mouth and tongue.
Hahaha, awesome! I love the teeth!
Well, you can have them come out like you have it now, slow and creepy, or they can spring out, almost like a trap that opens. I like the slow creepy way, but experiment, try different things.
The fixes you made are good, it's all working, concentrate on the tongue. Think about how the tongue will grab the ball. Around the ball? Around the tail? Is it a sticky tongue? Is it a snake tongue? Does the tongue have teeth at the end?
I will need a side view (in Maya, in orthographic cameras, choose "side"), nothing in perspective. It's just easier to critique it that way.
Let's go ball by ball.
Big one (heavy): from frame 10 to 11, the ball goes up. Treat it from a pure physics point of view. A heavy ball would not go up for no reason. Have it just roll down the object. From frame 12 to 13 the ball goes suddenly down. It should continue its arc to the right. The ball should accelerate towards the end, so that the spacing gets bigger and bigger as the ball falls down. You have the ball travel a lot of distance from 12 to 13, but then less to 14, then even less to 15, it should be the opposite. As the ball lands, there is no bounce. Even a bowling ball would bounce a bit as it hits the ground.
2nd ball (medium): This one should come in higher. If you look at the height of the scene, it should fall from above the middle. That way it will interact with the object in the middle and the heavy ball. Right now it shoots into the scene from too low a point. In terms of spacing, the medium ball hits the heavy one at frame 20. At that speed it would bounce off it immediately and the heavy ball would move a bit due to the hit. You have another contact frame at 21, which is too much. From frame 21 to 22 the distance is not far enough, it should travel more screen right. As it moves to the right it suddenly stops from frame 25 to 26. Then from 26 to 27 it moves screen left, which can't be, it would still continue the arc towards the right. This ball then suddenly stops as well. With a medium weight ball, it would bounce a few more times before it rests.
3rd ball (light): this one enters on frame 27 a bit too low, I would have it enter from a higher point, so that there is more opportunity for bounces. Spacing wise there are some issues. It enters at frame 27 almost like a pop. On frame 26 nothing is there, frame 27 it suddenly fully appears in the scene. That would suggest something very fast, but then you have the ball go down on frame 28 with a small travel distance towards the left. From 28 to 29 the ball travels screen right, which is impossible, even for a ball that's alive. From frame 30 to 31 the ball suddenly moves to the left. Is the ball further back than the others? Right now it looks like it's not hitting the ground like the other two balls. From frame 32 to 33 there is a sharp dip down. Track your ball with a dry erase pen and you will see that your arcs are not smooth and round, they will be too linear. From 33 to 34 the ball gets bigger. Is that because it's traveling towards the camera? Remember, I need the scene in a side view, so that we can concentrate on two axis only, no depth movement, nothing in Z. But even if you treat this scene as a 3D one, the ball couldn't just land and then change direction towards the camera.
Please change your camera to a sideview and think about the spacing of your balls, and especially your arcs. Study the bouncing ball examples on our site and track those balls with your pen. Study the curves of the balls as they bounce.
Please stop working on anything else and concentrate on that assignment. You need to master correct spacing and timing before you can move on. Right now there are too many mistakes in this assignment. Think in physics, pure gravity, that's it.
Alrighty? It's getting better, there was (almost) no craziness in this clip! :-)
sorry for the non-posting. I've switched to a new show at work and with overtime on the previous show my schedule just got a little busier. On top of that I'm preparing my presentation for "Animation Buffet", an idea I had for a while now but that I have kicked into high gear this week. Among the new class related posts (critique, recommendations, updates, etc.), you'll find out what "Animation Buffet" is all about. I'm really excited about it and I think if done right (knock on wood) it could really help out all the animators out there.
Make sure to visit that link often because their tips are great. I will go through their blog tonight and post individual links, but you might as well just read through every post, because it's all important. I'm just going to pick out the student examples and specific animation tips but again, make yourself comfortable and check out that site.
Go to www.animationmentor.com and once you enter the site, you'll see a box on the lower left which will let you sign up for their newsletter. I highly recommend it because it's full of useful information, but mainly for the tips&tricks section posted by master animator Shawn Kelly.
A quick thing about the newest clip (looking good btw!). When the ball lands after every hop, you have it on the ground for 2 frames or so, but what I would do is continue the tail motion. So when the ball lands on frame 26 for instance, the tail stays the same on frame 27 and slowly moves on frame 28. With the tail and ball staying the same, it looks like a pause whenever the ball hits the ground. To make it more fluid I would continue the tail motion throughout the whole thing. So the moment the ball hits the ground, the momentum of the tail would have it go down on the next frame, giving it more overlap and follow through.
As a whole, the tail looks a bit like a fish tail. It's not wrong, but it would be nice to see a more fluid movement every now and then, and by that I mean something more snaky, where the tail really follows the path of action.
There are some things here and there, but the biggest one is this: his body is way too low, it looks like he's sitting. Check frame 12 for instance. It looks like his sitting on a table. The pose at frame 12 would have him fall back, he's too off balance. Also, during the passing when the body should reach its highest point, the foot that carries all the weight is going to be flat on the ground, because all the weight is on it. Right now you are starting a foot roll moments after the foot hit the ground. Keep it planted until the leg starts stretching too far, which is the reason for the foot roll. But when your feet get off the ground, your toes are not going to be bent, because the pressure is gone, the foot is off the ground. The only way your toes would point up is if the character WANTS them to be up. Which can be a character trait if you really want to, but right now it looks like a mistake. In the front view you can see that the feet are pointing straight forward, like in the characters default pose. Humans don't really walk like that, they would point mostly outward or also inward. Your hands are dragging too much. The overall speed of your walk seems a bit too slow. With that timing, having your hands drag that far back and forth looks like it's a deliberate move. Your arms are also bent all the time, which looks a bit odd given the timing. If a walk is that slow, it would seem that your character is very relaxed or tired, which means that his arms would be hanging down a lot more. Your fingers are also super straight.
Posing a character doesn't stop once you animated the main body parts. A hand pose says a lot about your character. Same goes for the facial expression. The whole body counts.
Think about what kind of walk you want to do. Who and what is the character? Is it a cop? An astronaut? A stressed out housewife carrying really heavy grocery bags with flowers sticking out of the bags and flapping into her face? It's not just about the mechanics.
What I need you guys to do is to look at the examples I posted. It's good reference. Same goes for the tutorials and the work of your fellow students. But most importantly, examine your animation by acting it out. Try to walk like your character, I guarantee you that it's going to be hard in your case because of the legs being constantly bent. Do the poses that you have in your animation make sense? How does the timing feel?
You have to think outside the box, past the basic mechanics and create a character.
I still think that his neck and head area are stiff. It's definitely better than before. I would go for final and move on to something else. You can always get back to it at the end of the semester. It's what we call a CBB. C-ould B-e B-etter. And that's not in a demeaning way, it means it's good, move on, and if there is time at the end, get back to it, but it's good enough to move on.
And this is not a suggestion, go check it out right now. I will post a collection of links from Animation Mentor, Spline Doctors, Keith Lango, Victor Navone, etc. later on this week. There is tons of information out there, use it! Until that post, read through Victor Navone's tutorial.
Speaking of which, academyanimation.blogspot.com has new posts (I hope you are checking this site). First off, the reel on Veerapatra's animation site.
The animation on the reel is great and definitely and inspiration for other animators. I posted specific clips on our site, 3 walk cycles and a weight assignment. The reason is because they have personality. It starts simple with just adding color to your model and making it different, to establishing a character for a walk, like the cop or the dog owner. Same goes for the weight assignment. It's not just an assignment, the action takes place within a set, the character has a purpose, he's not just lifting something because that's the assignment, the exercise was taken beyond the minimum requirements.
The latest clip on our site is Joey's current Character Ball assignment. I'm not singleing (is that a word?) him out because I favor him or because he's great and the rest of you suck, but because he's great and the rest of you... noo, just kidding! But the clip is great and should serve as an inspiration and motivation for the rest of the class to think outside the box.
I understand that it's difficult to master a walk, there are a lot of mechanics and problems to think about, but same goes for other assignments. If you plan to make a living doing animation, then you need to look around and study what other people are doing. The successful ones and the not so successful ones, so you learn what to do and what to avoid. Your work needs to stick out, it needs to grab people's attention (in a good way). It needs to be original and engaging. Most importantly, it needs to have personality. Character. You can't get away with "just" doing the correct movement, the correct animation. The character needs to be alive and it needs to be unique. That goes for a ball, a flower sack, a cube monster, a human, etc.
If you have an idea but then you don't use it because it means "more work", then you might as well quit now. Harsh, maybe, but still true. Animation is hard work and you need to be willing to go the extra mile.
Think about how you can add personality to your work. Your character, who is he/she? What is he/she or it? How old is the character? Where does the character come from? In what situation is the character in your clip, what happened before, what will happen next? If your character is doing something, it will change according to his situation. Let's say he's eating breakfast. Well, the way he's eating it will be different if he's sleepy, late for an appointment, distracted, super hungry, etc.
So think outside the box for your current and next assignments.
If you are unsure about something, email me, ask me in class, don't be shy.
Animation Director at Lucasfilm Animation / worked at Framestore, Blizzard Entertainment, Nickelodeon Animation, Warner Brothers Animation and Industrial Light & Magic / Teacher @animationmentor / @academy_of_art / @spungella Animation Workshop
