ball with legs walks over things

[studiomaxer3d]

here is an update. (http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk2.mov)

[airdogg01]

hey Studio maxer. This is a great start to a good exercise. I'm seeing more and more people get back to the basics with these types of characters recently. Just a few things that sticl out to me. Check the arc on his back foot as he steps over the first box, and also the arc of his body when he stands up from that step. On the very last step up onto the bigger box, make his back leg straighten all the way out before leaving the floor. This will help add to the illusion of weight for that big step. Theres also a point after coming down from stepping over the first box, where his left leg interpenetrates his body. I like that he comes down so far, just maybe find a way to get the leg out of the way. Also, I dont know if this particular rig allows it, but adding some squash and stretch would add a lot to it as well. If you get a chance to take a look at any of the stuff coming out of Animation Mentor, they do similar exercises, and they are usually very "alive" with lots of squash and stretch. Keep it up. I can wait to see it finished! (hope none of that was too confusing.)

[studiomaxer3d]

not confusing..thanks for the advice.. I'll get on it right away.:)

[studiomaxer3d]

ok here is an update.. I really dont know what to do with the feet.. the rig isnt doing what i want it to do.. the feet are twisting up..so that needs some attention. i need to keep the feet flat as the body twists.. and when he makes the leap im having problems with the foot. when i do that jump all of my weight is on my toes and i hold the position for a second, then my heel hits the ground.. but this rig is basically forcing me to make him land on his toe nails.

watch the clip (http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk3.mov)

[airdogg01]

The subtle squashing looks nice. And yeah,I understand all about rig limitations. sometimes they just dont cooperate.

[studiomaxer3d]

does this foot look better when he lands from the leap? it seems that the legs bends to far forward for the ankle to support it.. but then again this isnt a human. what do you think?

clip (http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk4.mov)

[airdogg01]

Yeah, the landing from the leap is looking much better. i see you fixed that sliding on the toes sorta thing. Take a look at his foot/heel when he takes the first step up onto the box. You're getting a little bit of sliding there now. This piece is getting stronger and stronger every post!

[sporadic]

Just saw this, and have gone through all the clips. The big thing I was seeing was the landing after the step over the first box. The head bobbing doesn't really look right. If you go through 5-6 frames after his foot touches, he leans *way* forward (past the toe of the planted foot), and really has nothing to pull his weight back. Maybe kick the back leg out to give the impression of catching balance? I just can't see why he doesn't tip over!

Other than that, it's looking really good. Keep it up!

[studiomaxer3d]

Ok.. here is an update.. i think you were very right about him going too far forward.

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk5.mov

[sporadic]

Yep, I'm buying that motion a lot more. I'd push the rotation a bit further, though. Have the body continue to rotate forward (so he starts to look down) even as he's starting back up, whiplike, you know? This will sell the idea of the leg catching and pushing him and the body having to catch up a bit. That will give the same feel of the bounce you had without the 'Why doesn't he fall over" feeling.

Another 'cartoony' idea. When he comes back up, have him lean further backwards and throw his right leg forward to balance, and speed the 'catch himself' up just a bit (2-3 frames, maybe).

I really like this. Keep going.

[studiomaxer3d]

hows this?

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk6.mov

[adam-crockett]

Very first frames: his foot starts moving before his body. Have his body move first, then his foot. A walk is a series of controlled "falls". Just lean him forward, and have his foot come forward to catch him.
I like the little tiptoe move he does over the first box, I even like the step he does up onto the next box. Its that bit inbetween. He does a wierd forward, back, up, down, then steps again. I think it should flow better, from step to step. His sqaush motion where he catches himself from the first tip toe jump step could easily be the anticipation into the next step onto the box. Dont stop his forward motion on his body or his right leg, just flow into the next step. Oh, you could slow it down a bit to show him catching his balance, but stopping the motion altogether breaks the flow of your animation. OVERLAPPING action!

[studiomaxer3d]

He does a wierd forward, back, up, down, then steps again. I think it should flow better, from step to step.

I gotcha on that one.. I see it now.. thanks for pointing that out. You look at something so long and stuff disapears. I'll get on that ASAP.

[studiomaxer3d]

i think im gonna go with a step after the leap. Something along these lines.

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk7.mov

[adam-crockett]

Yeah, I like that better. I still think the stop after the tippy toe step is too harsh.

[sporadic]

Yup, I think Adam managed to convey exactly what I was trying to get at. It looks pretty good now. Are you going to fully render this, or was it just an exercise?

[studiomaxer3d]

Its just an excercise. But if I somehow manage to make this the best animation ever, I may consider a nice looking render with some different angles. I would love to make this animation go on forever and have him jump on a tire swing or something. Hey thats a good idea..:) I'll see what happens as I continue on and smooth it out. Thanks guys for the help on this. This forum is very useful and I don't think enough people post their Animation WIPS. They just do their thing and show mom and dad or grammy and thats all the feedback they get. That will never do. You guys pointed out stuff that I would probably not pay attention to because of my noob status.

People are so into animation mentor.. but I think this forum(if used wisely) along with some good books can rival paying 15k for some feedback.

[studiomaxer3d]

here is another update. i reworked the ending.. it needs refining now.

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk8.mov

[adam-crockett]

It looks hella better. I especially like his step onto the last box, though his leg goes through his body. I think you've got a winner here.

[studiomaxer3d]

yes there is much tweeking required.. I just have to decide whether I want to commit to it.
Should I move on? We'll see. I had a heck of a time with this. I ended up working on it a lot when I was real tired and it was extremely late. I found my best things came when I was at work and took a brake and set a few keys on this.

All in all it was and is a good excercise. I need to do about 100 more of these.

I'll keep my progress posted if I end up going further.

Thanks for the crits.. it helped a lot.

[adam-crockett]

Put it aside, start another one, then come back to it later with fresh eyes.

[studiomaxer3d]

here is a render.. you gotta render stuff even if its not done.. just makes you feel better.

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk8-5.mov

[jamagica]

are those feet slipping because of the key interpolation?

in the graph editor make the foot target interpolation 0 slope...(unless your program doesn't have it

[studiomaxer3d]

yeah they are slipping quite a bit.. i didnt get to to fixing all that yet.

[studiomaxer3d]

just an update with a nice render.. still need feet fixing. this render has no floor or boxes.

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk9.mov

[jamespstevenson]

It's interesting seeing all the variations after the comments. In my opinion, seeing them all for the first time, the very first one has a freshness and lightness that's lost in the latest one. I'd be inclined to go back to the first version, where he looks kind of small and nimble.

The initial block, the foot could do with coming up a little later - more or less with the jump. On the larger block, your ball could do with having his weight over that front foot when pushing up onto it. With a little work you'll have a nice little test here.

PS - I tend not to read the other posts when looking at animation, just to remain objective!

[studiomaxer3d]

i agree.. it got really stiff as time went on..

[studiomaxer3d]

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk10.mov

the last step up needs some help now.. it doesnt look like he weighs anything.. and the leg straightens out too much.. I should just take a break from this.. but i can't stop.. I'm addicted to this scene.

[studiomaxer3d]

This will probably be it for a while.. too much other stuff to do.

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk11.mov

[RussellStenberg]

Hey,

Just checked out your most recent...I can see a lot of improvements, here's what I've got so far.

-When he pauses before his first step I think he'd probably look down at the object that he want's to step over. maybe tilt the head side to side to give him a bit of a curious look at the item.
-The step down after the first box isn't smooth, thers a bit of a jump.
-On the step after that, I'd put the forward foot up there faster, after a big step like that the bodies going to be moving kinda fast, he'll have to get that foot more ahead of himself.

OK, thats it for now.. I'm liking it though, looks great.

[studiomaxer3d]

Thanks Zort,
I'm digging what you are saying. I was thinking about the stuff you said last night. You enforced that fact that I need to take care of it.

That step before the "step up" looked funny to me.. now I know why. And the 'look down at the box' would definately add to it.

I also try and smooth out the jump.

Also there is no impact on the step after the jump. Thats another big problem.

Thanks.

[studiomaxer3d]

heres a quick update. I update way too much. with not enough change.. is it all worth it?

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk12.mov

If anything I'm learning quite a bit from this. Its funny as you progress your earlier work looks so rediculous. Not this exercise in perticular, but an earlier one I did. It's so bad.

Im noticing that the end of this is really rough.. gotta do something about that.

[RussellStenberg]

Updates are ALWAYS good, even daily updates. Whenever I update something I'll try to use the same file on my website so I don't have to post a new link, and I'll try to explain a little of where I made improvements. I have a post one on here called "Stupid People" you should see some of the original ones that I thought were good until I had a pro crit it. Luckely he's been helping me on it and it's looking SO much better.

It's good that you can see your work progressing, and are getting the eye to find whats wrong and whats right. It takes a lot of work for that.

The first jump looks ALOT better, very much smooth now, it just looks like he slows to fast on impact coming down. He should be at his slowest point at the TOP of the arc and then gain speed and come to a sudden stop at the bottem..

I'll look at the end later, I got some other stuff to do, looking nice

TTYL
-Russ=

[3FnD]

Hey Justin, I took a look at all those versions and it's come quite a way! That seems like a good exercise you're doing and the improvements are very noticeable. Just a coupla notes for you...

1) ball-guy seems to have "bendy leg syndrome", where his legs are always bent. Now if you're going for more of a semi-stompy, trudgy walk, no biggie, but in a more "normal" walk--even for a 1-eyed ball guy, there maybe should be at least 1 maybe 2 frames where the leading leg is totally straight when the heel makes contact with the ground, the contact position.

b) pay close attention to where his weight is as he moves around leg to leg and up and down the boxes. you've made some good changes that help in that regard since the first version, so just think about where his balance is all the time.

3) if you haven't done this already, get a camera and shoot yourself walking over some similar boxes...totally invaluable things get revealed sometimes that you never expected! Shoot some reference if you can.

4) The timing of the compound rotations of the "ball" (which is essentially the same as hips on a person) are always tough, and you've done pretty good there but it could use some more attention. Walk around the room with your hands on your hips to help you get a sense of how they're moving on XYZ rotation.

Finally, I kinda liked the idea of squash and stretch but looks like you took it out. If you plan to re-introduce S&S here's what I see from your earlier versions:

e) you can do the sqashing and stretching different ways, but what I found looks "nice" to me is having the ball squashed a couple of frames after the fwd leg takes the weight of the body, and is at maximum stretch a frame or two after he reaches the highest point of the step, on the way back down. The overlap by a frame or two helps. What you don't want to do is have the squash happening gradually as he's coming down...only after the impact.

don't know if you're planning more later but hope that helps a bit if you do something again. overall you made some great improvements so keep at it!

[studiomaxer3d]

Hey,
Thanks for taking the time to write such a good crit.
I was going for a stompy walk...
I plan on just tweeking this up with the stuff you said in mind.. Hopefully by next week I can have some more stuff done to it. Thanks again.

[studiomaxer3d]

here is another update

http://www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk13.mov

some added steps and things.

[sporadic]

Haven't looked at this in a little while, but maybe that'll give me a different perspective. It's looking pretty good. I'm not sure I like the left foot being to the left of the first block. I preferred it stepping over it. Also the catch after the first big step seems a little abrupt, or something. I'm not sure what, but it looks odd to me.

Don't remember what I said before, so I might be repeating myself. Still, good job.

[studiomaxer3d]

give that same link another look.

[3FnD]

hey justin, I think it's probably about time to put a floor in there. Being able to see the foot platforms as they pass below floor level makes it seem like the first box must be floating off the ground or something.

Looks like you've got him squishing that smaller box now? Nice idea, just make sure the timing of the squish and the foot match perfectly or it looks odd.

Since you're going for more of a stompy walk, consider having him lift his feet slowly and then drop faster. And as always, really watch the weight and balance like coming over that first box. Like, maybe his body doesn't weigh much, but he also has tiny little legs so maybe it's hard to hold his whole weight on just one leg for very long. If so, try to show that in the way he moves into and out of that slight pause on the first step.

Just so we're on the same page, these are just my 2cents...I've still got tons to learn myself! :)

[studiomaxer3d]

this thing has the most annoying feet.. they get all twisted up just because the body is twisting. I think Im just going to stop here and start another one, with a better rig. good rigs are hard to come buy for xsi.. at least from what ive found.. does anyone know where i could buy a good one?

[RussellStenberg]

studiomaxer3D,

XSI, your insulting your name....I'm taking the name as your a Stuio max user and now a change to XSI.. Uhhhh .. :-)

Anyway, I'm not sure about a new rig for XSI. or for that matter ANYTHING about XSI, I never used it. But if you can, just do what all good Max and Maya rigs have in common, put a dummy/point/object out in space and align the knee with that point and make it so the knee always points in that direction..bada bing...bada boom the knee will never go where you don't want it to go :-)

Anyhow any more updates :-)

[anthea]

hello,

i agree, this has come a long way. good work on sticking with it.

one thing kenny was saying about the bent knee syndrome, i would have to agree. what you were saying about going for a stompy kind of step is maybe not reading for a few reasons:

1 if it was a stomp the heel might not make as much contact as it is now, might be more flat footed contact point, right now you have the heel contacting for aprox 3 frames

2 spacing, i see how right after the absolute contact of the heel to the ground you flatten out the foot which is good for a stomp, but the 5 frames previous to the contact are what might be the problem. this sort of relates to what i wrote above. right now you kind of have a slow in, spacing wise to the heel contact. what would actually happen in a stomp is the foot would be speeding up prior to impact causing there to be lass frames at the impact point.

hope this helps.

btw might also be a good idea to get a frame counter in there for crits sake then people could quote the actual frames they are referencing

[studiomaxer3d]

ive been making changes to ballwalk13.mov

ill update that with a frame counter in there. thanks for the feedback. just reload this link

www.justinneri.com/animations/ballwalk/ballwalk13.mov

[3FnD]

better still, justin. I still think (someone mentioned this before, too) Ball Guy should look down at that first box...how else does he know to stop, or how to step over it? Can't remember if you said you're putting that in eventually, but since he's blinking and looking around maybe you forgot or something. :) But it's your call of course.

[mstram]

this thing has the most annoying feet.. they get all twisted up just because the body is twisting. I think Im just going to stop here and start another one, with a better rig. good rigs are hard to come buy for xsi.. at least from what ive found.. does anyone know where i could buy a good one?

Have you seen this one ?
http://www.mrsolo.com/mrs_edgard.html

Mike

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