animation in action

[Uncle_Buck]

chairs

--looking at it now, I probably should relax the intensive lighting so you can see their features better--

*shrug*

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/hap.avi

Anyone got any ideas for a personal animation I could do?

[egerie]

The page cannot be found / File does not exists.

About ideas .. What do you want to focus on ? What do you want to train for and what do you want to show your peers/bosses ?
I'm biaised toward character animation with a flavor of cartoon in there. Nothing fancy really ; just a simple lighting, character with as less polys as possible (even just the bones) but moving really convincingly in a specific task. Something that you could guess just by the way your character would be moving. For example, playing a sport (trick is trying to make someone guess which one), hammering a nail, etc.

[Uncle_Buck]

egerie-My apologizes, I believe I was editing the file at the exact time you were uploading it :D The link should work now

Well--I'm not sure if I've been around these forums long enough, but I'm aiming to get my work into video game animation.

I'm not just talking about easy run and walk cycles either, real character driven animation.

if you're even more curious--I have what I have done so far

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/jh_mar03.mpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/fiveline1.avi
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/happy.avi
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/hi.avi
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/oneline1.avi
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/sixline1.avi
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/threeline1.avi
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/twoline1.avi
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1u85k/wheh.avi

I'll take your advice and get some animation that's a bit more action driven.

Thanks--you've been a great help

[ashand]

Uncle_buck I hope you do not mind if I give you some pointers on your animation as I have nothing on this site to prove credibility and mostly just lurk. I am, however, an animator by profession and I may have a few good tips for you.


1. I agree with the idea that the lighting could be better. Lighting can often times turn a rather boring and flat scene into something much better.

2. When a person acts there is a progression of things that happen.
First there is thought (Which is usually shown on the face and in subtle motion)
Second there is movement (and this movement is motivated by those thoughts).
Then thirdly there is speech.

Much of your animation feels as if they are all happening at the same time or sometimes even in the wrong order. Part of the reason for this is the fact that you are trying to do to much in too short of time. This is a common error that I even catch myself doing frequently when I get the tunnel vision that comes with animating to an audio track. My suggestion is that you find each characters motivating thoughts and translate them into a few good key poses. Once you have those key poses play your animatic and see if you get the gist of the emotion/motivation. Then it becomes much easier to add the secondary keys and fill in the time inbetween.

3. Also cartoon action, (which is what I assume you were going for), also benefits greatly from anticipation. What I mean is that in comedic or cartoon action it is much more effective to hold a pose and then explode into action at the last second then to have constant and unmotivated movement. A classic and somewhat exhagerated example of this is when the coyote (roadrunner) runs off the cliff and hangs in the air holding a pose and expression longer than realistically possible and then realizing it (explosiong to emotion), and then finally falling (explosion into motion). Once you reduce your key poses to a few well motivated ones you will find anticipation much easier to achieve. You have done this well on a few occasions during the piece unfortunately it becomes lost in all the extraneous movement. In general you do not want your other characters to distract from the one speaking so keep their movements to only the necessary

4. Becareful with your splines. Some like the eyes are too curved. Eyes almost always move in a linear fashion. Rarely ever does someone roll their eyes. Same thing is pretty much true for the eyebrows rarely does someone move their eyebrows slowly or constantly they almost always move directly to the point (so to speak).
Others are too tight/linear such as how the hands sometimes stop suddenly. Gross body movement rarely stops on a dime and almost always has some sort of follow through. Even when slamming your fist onto a table there is some residual movement (albiet hard to show as it is subtle) in the form of bounce and twist.

5. Composition. Even as an animator one must consider composition and how the camera sees the scene (and therefore the audience). Consider positioning your camera so the characters are composed well within the safe frame of the camera. It becomes disturbing to the unconscious if the caracters are constantly breaking the edges of the scene or are partially hidden off the sides. You may also want to consider angles that may accentuate the comedic tone of the clip.

6. Promising. You are doing a very good job as someone who is fairly new to animation. Your facial animation is nice although a bit too much happening. Your emotional/motivation concept is good, you are just trying to accomplish to much. You will know you have a better piece when somebody else can get the gist of it without ever hearing the sound. Egerie is right that it may be helpful for you to try to do some tests with simple actions (without audio) and practice making those actions motivated and understandable to somebody else.

Keep up the good work, animation is a complex art form that is really about observation and mimicry. You are showing that you can see beyond the surface of motion and are begining to breakdown the pieces. Just becareful not to go to fast as motion is about subtlety, layers, detail much like good painting is.

I apologize if this was not the kind of thing you were looking for.

[Uncle_Buck]

ashand- It's funny that you mention the 'tunnel' vision aspect of using clips. I get it all the time!

I'm extremely happy as this is exactly what I was looking for. I've come to a bit of a standstill in my animation phase and wasn't sure what to do to make my work better.

I think I'm going to get away from clips for a few weeks and start practicing regular animation. I'm not sure if this comes across correctly, but I'd like to say thanks for your incredible comments. This has been really helpful, you have no idea.

print screen

Still learning, step by step--

[Tedsuo]

Hey Buck,

Cool stuff. I agree with everything Ashland said, but I would add that there is one very important thing missing from your animation: weight.

I've noticed you've picked a number of clips that have the characters sitting down or covered below the waist. I did the same thing until a teacher of mine snapped me out of it. On the full body animations, the hips seem very stiff and flat. Almost all actions involve the hips in some way. Also, there are a number of spots where the character defies gravity, i.e. picks up one foot without shifting his weight over the other foot. Very important to get those weight shifts in there, even with cartoony stuff. Get the weight down, and the audience will believe anything. When the weight shifts, the hip of the weight bearing leg gets pushed up from the pressure (or conversely, the hip of the leg that is not bearing weight drops from the weight of the hanging leg). I think putting in hips and weight shifts will add another level to your animation.

What I think you really got going for you is a sense of character. A lot of students looks like they're animating manequins or something. And you're not afraid to go in there and animate all those eyelids, fingers, etc.

BTW, a good book on animation- especially anticipation, inbetweening, and overlap- is Richard William's Animators Survival Kit. I highly recommend it if you haven't checked it out yet.


Cheers,

-T

[ashand]

Thanks Tedsuo. ::embarassed look:: I hate it when I forget fundimentals ;)

I agree with Tedsou of course all the way and I loook forward to seeing your other clips in the future Uncle_Buck.

[neverman]

Originally posted by Uncle_Buck


I'm not just talking about easy run and walk cycles either, real character driven animation.



Don't underestimate the difficulty of walk and run cycles

They are some of the hardest anims there are to get a variety of character out of.
Test this by doing 10 distinctly different walk or run cycles with one character(shouldn't be more than a good weeks worth of work). You can get a lot more out of a cycle also if you double it and make minor modifications to it - this hides the loop very well. If your looking for a real challenge attempt a dizzy walk cycle - that one will get you going!!

:chug:

[Uncle_Buck]

Again, I'm surprised again! Who knew there would've been a lot of help here!

Sorry if I came across that cycles aren't hard to do...they are. It's just when you do them you get into a different mindframe.

I'll check out that book :-) and I'll try the cycle exercises and another short clip


cheers!