OT: Timing for animation?

[azmin]

Hi danb,

For a scene of around 4 mb I can still have an almost realtime editor feedback. I would hide the bone (structure>display filter>bone unchecked), set the hypernurbs subdivision editor to 1 (in the obj. properties), turn off generators, hide light and anything else apart from the character and use quick shading.

Hope this helps,

cheers.

[bobzilla]

I never get anything close to realtime feedback. I always have to do Make Preview tests using editor renders not full renders. Pretty quick, but a bit of a pain to keep doing them all the time.

[AdamT]

I'd recommend "The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams and "Timing for Animation" (!) by Whitaker and Halas. They both focus on 2D animation but the timing issues are pretty much the same. Both include *tons* of diagrams with keyframes and timing.

[Uncle-Ox]

Hi

I haven't done a lot of CA but here's what I've found to be extremely useful:

1. Take a video camera and video tape yourself while you act out the moves you want the character to make.
2. a. If you have a capture device, capture the video and time (in frames) how long a specific movement takes. This method is very advantagous as you can also see how to compensate for acceleration and deceleration in the movement. I'm new to C4D so I'm not sure how to do it but I've seen threads in this forum which explains how to map the captured video onto an object and have it playing in the back of your view as reference.
2. b. Simply time the movements you want on your whatch or by counting and you can get pretty close to getting what you want.

Hope this helped.

[danb]

Thanks everyone.

---azmin---

thanks for that advice but i'm afraid my computer is very old and not able to crank out that speed no matter what i do. I hope to upgrade around christmas.



---bobzilla---

thanks i was afraid that would be one of my only options for animation feedback.

---AdamT---

Thanks this is more of what i was hoping for recommendations. I will pick up those books.

---Uncle Ox---

Thanks i have tried a similar method in cinema4d. One where i used a reference video and set it to playback in the editor viewport. This method is really nice and i totally forgot about it. Just got a video camera also.



Thanks again everyone and please send more suggestions if anyone has any. :)

[LucentDreams]

I've started a character animation, one of my first, and am having trouble with timing the animation in the first pass.

The reason i am having difficulty is because i am not getting realtime playback in my editor view. So I was wondering if there is a set of rules for animation. Maybe like for walk cycles a foot should travel from the floor to its hight over 4 frames, just an example.

Does anyone get realtime playback in the editor view? I have even tried with just bones showing but still no go:)
for a plain and simple basic walk cycle, two strides, is generally one second. But wheres the livelyness in that ;)

Can video tape youself as already suggested, thats always good. But a mirror and your own sense of rhythm is still the best imo. Faster to use then a video tape and always available.

[sundialsvc4]

Something that you will also notice is that the motion of real characters doing real things is almost never "glassy and smooth." It is abrupt. There are many, many times when I think a CG character takes too long to do something.

Also carefully observe how the film editor works his magic on top of what the actors did. Good editors cut rather ruthlessly, knowing that the viewer's own imaginations are the best source of believable motion: if they know what happened, and they can see the start and the end, they can imagine the middle.

Bring your animations up to rough-animatic stage only. Then refine the motions, then edit down. Bring to completion only what you actually plan to use.

[imashination]

I'd recommend "The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams

Yup, buy this. Just how slow is your computer?

[danb]

It's pretty slow. As i mentioned in the intel 4ghz thread its a p4 1.4ghz. The very first batch so no HT and the slow 400mhz bus. It is rock solid though has only crashed 5 or 6 times when installing new graphics card. I also have a GeForceFX 5200. Maybe that is contributing to the slowness. I can bet about 12fps in my viewport with everything disabled

Also as i wrote in the other thread i was looking for help to maybe overclock it. Anyone got any tips on the matter?

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