Animation Tips

[zehnerbomb]

Sounds interesting, how long do you think you are going to make it? I look forward to seeing some sketches and boards.

Good luck!!

[lemonyfresh]

You sound like you have the general Idea, and that is the first step. You should script it out, so just write down the sequence of events, include camera angles, the look of the scene, the lighting, etc. Then you should do one of two things, get an animatic together, which is actual footage of this event happening, so just get a camera and a few friends and get them to act out your idea. If don't have access to a camera or any friends ha ha, you should storyboard out the script. Create a series of drawings going through the motions. I would reccomend the animatic. Then get animating, All you need to do that is a burly computer about $5000.00 dollars worth of software and a shit load of time. There are alot of different ways to do it, but a good one is to block out the sequence by creating snapshots of the events spaced out on your timeline respectively.

[snovak]

Glad to see you here! A good way to get your animatic on the web is to post it on Youtube, myspace, google video, etc etc. Then, copy and paste the link into a post here.

lemonyfresh nailed pre-production. Good info.

[AniKat84]

My animation clip would be between 20 and 30 seconds. Im actually working on my models now. Once I have them looking a bit better I will post them up. If anybody can tell me how to insert my sketches would be awesome. Thanks

[OneSharpMarble]

By the sounds of it you are very new to animation and something I want to stress right now before you jump into a 20-30 second scene with lots of complicated movement is don't!

If you are new do walk cycles, do ball bounces, do simple things that are either a cycle or maybe 5 seconds. If you jump into the deep end you will spend huge amounts of time on something you will never be able to use.

You gotta start at the bottom, everyone does.

[snovak]

It is a good idea to keep it short. Especially with dancing, which can be very complex.

[Chiko]

I agree with others. definatly draw it out in little sketches. It can even be stick people, as long as you have your poses right. Try to get the timing where you want all the action to happen written down as well.

[AniKat84]

Thanks for all your responses. The last animations I did were two walk cycles which were about 10 seconds each. So I would like this one to be a bit longer so I can focus more on the actual animation. So far I have modeled the background and working on my two figures now. I have a question I would like to express emotions through eyes on the mannequins but not sure if I should include eyes or just keep it simple? I would like to post some of my sketches on this thread but not too sure on how to. Please help. Thanks.

[lemonyfresh]

You have to have them online somewhere where you can access them with a URL. Then you use the insert image icon on your message editor its a little yellow landscape. Then you just put your URL in the box and it will slap it right there in your post. You will be able to see it in your editor, if you can't then you did someting wrong.

[AniKat84]

This my 1st animatic for my animation. Sorry for the drawing lol. Enjoy :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW9QwHymtvY

[kmoni]

Hey! I think it's a great idea, Look forward to seeing it when you are done!!

[AniKat84]

Heres an update on my animation short: I've finshed modeling my characters and my background scenery, except with my techno ball ( having trouble wiht that). Im also starting to rig my characters. I'll load up some jpegs tomrrow :)

[AniKat84]

Hi People.. sorry i havent posted in a while .. but been busy. Here is my background scene with out the technoball. tell me what you think .. thanks.

[AniKat84]

Here is a closer view of the club scene

[AniKat84]

Here is the models i have for my dummies :) please tell me what you think and how i can improve. I start to texture them today and rig it fiinally :)

[snovak]

I'd just map the UVs, slap a wood tex on there, rig, and start animating. If you want to use an animation package like Motionbuilder, that's fine too.

If you're interested in using Motionbuilder, I made a video tutorial explaining the workflow from Maya to Motionbuilder, and back. You can check that out here:

http://www.cec.fau.edu/tutorials/Maya2Motionbuilder.mov

I hope you find it usefull.

[AniKat84]

here is my dummies textured. tell me what you think. thanks

[snovak]

That'll work. The next thing to do is look through your animatic stills and start blocking out some motion to the music.

[AniKat84]

ok .. heres the thing i was trying to rig up my dummies, all the joints are in place but when i try to constrain it with the dwrigging tools it kept telling me that one of my translations was a negative number. so i would try and fix it to a positive number, but than it looked awkward. am i doing this wrong, should i get the latest version ... please help me

[snovak]

maybe email me with your model. I'll see if I can figure out where you're going wrong. Feel free, also, to use a rigging package. ie.- advanced skeleton, final rig. whatever to make it happen. Unless you want to specialize in rigging, there are always other packages out there to get`r done.

[AniKat84]

heres an update! I was able to rig my dummy and workign on the second dummy now. Once i get the animation blocke out a bit i'll render it out and and put up a link to see it.

[AniKat84]

Heres another update on my animation. Both of my dummies have had the mesh parent constrained to the joints, since they are not human no need to have deformers. My female dummy is rigged up and im having trouble rigging up my male dummy. Since time is runnign out to animate both i was thinking of having the girl walk into the club with the music and start dancing as soon as the guitar riffs start.I would have the guy sitting at the bar moving his head, tapping his feet and hands. At the end the girl can walk over to sit at the bar and kiss. Ive tried rigging the guy in the same scene and doesnt work, than i tried rigging him in a seperate one and still doesnt come out right. Im using dwrigging tools. By tomrrow i'll have the girls walk cycle done and start daning by tuesday. Thanks :) Any comments?

[snovak]

Sounds good to me. Bring your files by sometime this week if you'd like to try to figure out the solution to those problems. One thing, I would suggest. Try creating the two rigs in seperate scenes to avoid conflicts while building two dw rigs in the same scene. Then import one scene into the other. That should do it.

[AniKat84]

I did try to rig up the guy in another scene and it still didnt work. It kept saying not enough information. So im gonna but the guy in the bar.. and just work with the girl walkign adn dancing. :)

[AniKat84]

Im Finshing up my girl walking and gonna start her dancing. Here my guy sitting down at the bar.. hes looking depressed and once the girl walks into the club and starts to dance hes gonna straighten up and be happy.. once the dance is done shes gonna walk up to him and sit next to him at the bar.. and kiss than i fade out. thats my idea and hopefully it works hehehe

[AniKat84]

well im about 75% done wiht my animation.. i have the girl dancing and walking, the lights are finished all i have left is to fix a few stuff and key the guy at the bar. once i get latest render out i'll be putting it up on here. thanks again and hope everybody had a great holiday :)

[snovak]

Is that a final frame? If so, I would suggest working on your lighting a bit. Something more "dance club" like. i.e.- spinning lights, floor lighting, that painting on the wall backlit, etc.

[AniKat84]

I worked on the lights and what not but .. its already rendered out. I tried to make it look as much as a club i wanted to make the lights spin too but it just didnt come out the way i wanted it too. :)

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