Animating basic movements (help)

[doCHtor]

Hi,

about the animation part - I think you will have to go through some books or video tutorials. I doubt that what you are asking can be explained through a few posts on the boards.

I would surely check out the well known book "Animators survival kit" by Richard Williams.
Than Keith Lango and Jason Ryan have some affordable video courses.

The question about how to connect the sword to the hand is application specific. You will probably find that easily in your applications manual. But usually it involves some form of animated link constrain (you could just hard-link it if you don't plan to release the sword from hand).

[Iniquitous]

Thank you for your knowledge and the application I am using is Maya

[MarkD]

That's a big complicated problem, we probably need to break it down a bit before we can tackle anything specific.

Which software package are you using?
Are you having trouble with the nuts and bolts, like what are key frames how do you set them? Where is the curve editor what does it do?
Are you having trouble with believable motion? Things like overlap, secondary motion, squash stretch, timing, anticipation?

[Iniquitous]

That's a big complicated problem, we probably need to break it down a bit before we can tackle anything specific.

Which software package are you using?
Are you having trouble with the nuts and bolts, like what are key frames how do you set them? Where is the curve editor what does it do?
Are you having trouble with believable motion? Things like overlap, secondary motion, squash stretch, timing, anticipation?

Im using Maya 2009, i know key frames and setting them, i dont know what the curve editor is ><. Yes i am having a bit of trouble with all of those.

[MarkD]

In Maya its called the Graph Editor if I remember correctly (I mostly use 3dsmax). If you have the basic nuts and bolts of Maya more or less down, then its time to get cozy with the 12 principles of animation (http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=1429&page=1). The book linked to before "The animators survival kit" by Richard Williams is great. He regularly taught this as a class and recorded a DVD series (http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/), so amazing, yet so expensive. I read the book and got a lot out of it. He covers 2D animation but ALL of it applies to 3D and then some.

"The Illusion of Life (http://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Life-Disney-Animation/dp/0786860707)" is another great one, again covers 2D animation but every last word of it speaks volumes to 3D animators. I'm sure there are others.

Animation Mentor's Webinar archive:
http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/past.html

Ken Lango, has a ton of tutorials:
http://keithlangotutorials.blogspot.com/

Victor Navone's blog is a great read:
http://www.navone.org/blogger/
http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_DashTake.htm

Animation Mentors Free Resources Page:
http://www.animationmentor.com/resources/

[Khare]

Hey Iniquitous, just starting out in animation can be hard, and it's not easy to know in which end of the pool you should start swimming, especially when using a software package you're not to familiar with. I'd reccommend starting out with animating a bouncing ball, I know you're just itching after doing really cool and big animations, but I think the single best tip I can give you is not to get in over your head when you're starting out, your scenes will become a mess and you'll be demotivated.

Another tip I can give you is to study body mechanics, shoot footage and reference of yourself or others doing certain actions and then study how you move. Oh and be sure to get your arcs right! Most motion moves in an arc and it looks a lot more fluid and less mechanical.

It's also important to get a good workflow going for yourself. Plan and draw your scene (doesn't matter if you are bad at drawing, stickmen will do as long as they portray the angle of hips/shoulders ect). To fail to plan is to plan for disaster! Know exactly what you are going to animate before you sit down in front of the computer and you'll notice huge improvement on your work.

Also, when working in Maya, you can break down your scene into parts on your timeline. Do one segment of the time and don't try to work on your whole animation at the same time!

Lastly, don't be afraid to post your work online for critique, no matter how bad (or good) it is. If you get a couple of unfriendly remarks just ignore them, most people around these kind of communities are friendly and helpful, and it's important that you use that resource, you'll improve your work tenfolds.

Here's some resources for you:
www.animationmeat.com (http://www.animationmeat.com/)
www.animationpodcast.com (http://www.animationpodcast.com/)
www.animationarena.com (http://www.animationarena.com/)

Oh and watch some animationmentor webinars http://animationmentor.com/webinar/replay/20090422workflow/workflow1.html

Hope this helps
Khare

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.