Here’s the finished product. Of course, there’s always room for improvement. 😉 I widened the gap to make the landing a little more believable, made adjustments to the jump pose, and tried to make the poses a little punchier, but looking at it now it’s not so noticeable. That’s one thing that always bothers me when it comes to smoothing out animation; I tend to lose my poses. If anyone has any advice to preserving poses while smoothing, let me know.
Here’s part 2 of splining. Note to self, things are easier the more detailed the blocking is. Again, my challenges were with the arms and switching from FK/IK.
Let me know what you think!
This is the first half of the animation, splined out. The jump at the end is definitely not refined yet, but any crits on the running + stumble + running again are greatly appreciated. I changed the footing upon falling, making the stumble a little slower, and tried to accent the acceleration from stumble to running as per your crits. I think I might’ve made things a little too slow on some spots, though; please let me know what you think.
I definitely hit a lot of rough patches with this stumble. Smoothing out the movements from blocking to spline took me a lot longer than expected (probably because it involves more body movement than my previous exercise). Also, smoothing out the switch between FK and IK was also time consuming.
Onto the second half of the animation! 😀
Worked on the blocking over the past week. Any crits are greatly appreciated, as I continue to refine it. Some parts feel slow (particularly his running), but last time I blocked my animation I had too many parts where it was incredibly fast when I started splining. I’m also not quite sold on his jump. What do you think?
Again, blocking helps tons. It makes things easy to change and forces me to focus on posing. I’m thinking this workflow’s a keeper. 😉
)
I wish I had the fearless attitude of this li’l t-rex. Although, it’d be nice to have some foresight too. 😉
)
)
When watching Kiki’s Delivery Service awhile back, I fell in love with this one part near the end of the movie where Kiki is running and as she turns the corner, she slips on a leaf and stumbles before regaining her footing. It’s such a small detail, but it makes such a difference.
Watching this along with seeing stuff in Drake’s Fortune inspired me to try doing a bit of physical animation where my character will run, stumble a bit, pick up his footing, then jump and scramble up the side of the wall. Above are reference thumbnails taken from Kiki and from a parkour video I saw on Youtube. The jump thumbnails read right to left because it was easier for reading the movement based on the reference footage.
Here’s the finished product. Of course, I’ll probably keep tweaking. Any crits are welcome!
I learned a lot doing this animation test, particularly about workflow and using the Max rig by Peter Starostin. Animating strictly with IK hands was an interesting challenge, but it does make things easier if you want to visualize arcs and adjust torso movement without affecting the hand positions. I’m not quite sure if I’d use it for a walk cycle, but for acting it does have its merits.
Anyway, I’m off to start my next animation which will be a physical test using my character, Asher. I’ll put up the planning/blocking as I go.
Added more smoothing to the rest of the clip. There’s still some rough spots, but I intend on going through them as I start adding facial and finger movement this upcoming week. I tried to follow the crits from last post; lemme know if I’m on the right track. Thanks again for all the advice!
Started polishing the body this week. I’ll be out on vacation all of next week, but when I get back I’ll post more as I go along. I’ve made changes for the pose where he pauses and tried to bring out his silhouette more as per your generous suggestions.
I’m finding that splining is pretty time consuming; it’s teaching me a great deal about patience. One of my fears is that I’ll lose the poses and timing as I smooth everything out. Please let me know if I do…or if you see anything that sticks out to you. Thanks!
(Found via Cooked Art)
Thanks especially to the guy who posted this on Youtube.