Used the model from Digital Tutors. As far as animation goes I am self taught:
Backflip and Jump
Nice start, but just a couple of things I noticed.
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In both shot there seems to be a lot of twinning. Try breaking them up some more, change up the curves so that they look and move different, even delay one of the arms by another couple of frames to break it up
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for the back flip, try adding some more anticipation at the beginning to show more power to get the charcter to jump as high as he need to complete the rotation. Also, again, try and make one leg land before the other, from what I’ve learned and noticed, feet will never plant at the same time. As for the head when he lands, I would also delay that some more for overlap
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For the jump, the legs lift too high as he is getting ready for the jump, try having him shift his weight from left to right (and vice versa) and have the leg follow the body more than having him lift it with his muscles. Add some more anticipation as he is getting ready, the spine looks too stiff at the moment. And again as he lands, add some spine rotation to help sell the weight as he absorbs the impact.
Keep it up!
philjay
#4
Thanks for the in depth critique! You just got me pumped to work on something new!
Sadly I’m finding it hard to commit to a single animation and perfecting one than trying lots of new stuff.
No problem, glad I can help get you motivated.
I know what you mean about it being hard to commit to perfecting a single animation before moving on, I did that as well, but then you realize that you don’t have any finished pieces of animation for your demo reel.
If I could suggest, do your best to complete as much of the work as you can, as finishing off the animation will help improve your skills and you’ll be able to use what you learned in the next sequence you attempt to make.
Good luck with these shots and the next animations you make
philjay
#6
Ok, being stubborn and moving on, mostly because of a new rig to play with! Thanks to Jason Gill for his awesome and easy to use AgentX rig.
Started work on a pretty terrible ( :banghead: ) walk sequence based on a tutorial for reference. It’s very exaggerated but this seems to help to make sure I get all the different motions right, then I can trim down on the movement. Here is a video having only started on the feet. It’s pretty wrong, but one thing I’m not sure what to do is how far forward or backwards I should put the center of gravity before moving the hips etc? Also it seems the there is problem with pacing of each step, which is partly due to the lack of being able to press a button to mirror the left foot with the right… I know blender has that function, what’s the equivalent in Maya?
EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxxBIl3jedw :bounce:
One thing I noticed about the backflip is the center of gravity is off a bit.
Your rotation pivot looks like the root bone, but should be moved forward to halfway between the tucked up knees and hip (about 5-7" in front of the hips).
The easiest way to do this is with a null in that position and the root parented to the null.
Great work, though!
Scott
dgovil
#8
- Walk Cycle: You’re hips are too far back.Remember, a walk is a controller fall so each step should be him falling forward and then his feet catching his COG. I would in fact hide the feet and concetrate solely on making the upper body look right, including the arms, since the feet are actually very minor.
Another thing is, you’re toes cannot flap upwards that much when they’re in the air.
Otherwise looking good, make sure to add compressions to the upper body and weight shifts left and right once you get the tY going well.
1 & 2) Your jump and flip, I think you were doing better with a simpler and more cartoony rig like this one. The biggest two things that stood out to me were the lack of antic and the twinning of the poses. Try and push your antics more, especially the compressions and break up the poses.
philjay
#9
Thanks for the replies!
All advice was taken. The second rig I used was more complicated to use than I thought…what I can I say I got excited!
Decided to try my hand at a walk cycle again. Somehow I made it into a sad walk…
One other thing. When I start twisting the shoulder, the head shakes from side to side rather than stay rooted towards his/her direction. This of course is down to the way the joints are parented and because the head is last in the chain, by the time I get to it it’s all over the place! How do you stop that?
Cheers!
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