Rodney

Here's something that might be a useful tool and it should also get at that element Robert is talking about... It's important to nail down your Sources and Forces. My initial thought is to wonder why the primary Force of the explosion would hit him almost exclusively in the chest but... I don't know enough here about the Source (the motivator) to know. So perhaps we can learn more? You could easily simulate your small explosion by having a small ball expand outward from the Source. If you make the sphere mostly transparent (or better yet, fade it to full transparency over time as he comes to a complete rest) you can use that as a measuring tool to nail down, track and align his backward motion to the visible Force of the explosion. You can then replace that sphere with the appropriate FX later. Use that sphere to define the Force of your explosion and we'll be better able to gauge the characters reaction to that Force. Just a thought. I'm still of the mind that while the Action (External Motion) is important, the Acting (Internal Representation of Inner Motives) is even more important. You've got a hint of Acting in your scene with the Head Shaking but we really need to see more. Of course this isn't an either/or scenario... in the audience we want both! Appropriately tying/relating the Acting to the Action is important and I sense it'll reveal you'll need to exaggerate your poses after an explosion even more.

hehe. Nice one Gene!

You are so violent! It would be good to see what sent him flying.

Nice one Phil! You've sold me on that one. The only thing that strikes me as a missed opportunity is the final resting point of his eyes. When animating, animators often draw an X where the characters eyes are focusing and keeps the characters eyes on that X as much as possible. In Animation:Master we often do this by creating a Null and having the Eyes follow that Null as an Eye Target. This is usually accomplished with an 'Aim at' Constraint. Of course the challenge with any Eye Target is to understand what the character is trying to looking at. As it is something going on inside the character's mind that something is important and even if never seen by the audience we should define it. If the eyes go somewhere else... there's another X for you to define. I sense that if you cannot get his eyes to open wide enough, or don't have an eye target in your rig, you may have to tilt his head back up for us to get a good look at his eyes. Bottom Line: The audience wants to see the character thinking and this is best conveyed with the face and particularly with those eyes! (Going back to watch it a few more times.... standby...) Yup. Yup. I see a couple possible courses of action and I've listed them in order of my own personal preference. If this were a shot from a director, you might not have the option to add more time or insert another shot. You'd have to really sell that extra footage to the director as that forces changes all the way down the production pipeline. I assume you are the director in this case so it's your budget to decide. 1. If this scene hooks up with another shot, for instance a close up on the character's face, I think this shot is good to go to final refinement. 2. Add more time to finish the final beat of this sequence. Really nail his recovery. Have him look intently up to the source. (See previous comments in previous post on this subject for some ideas on possible emotional performance options) 3. Quickly change his expression at the very end. Pop from one expression directly into another. He's shaken his head... but now he's back and you've got to sell what is emoting from his mind. (See previous comments on anger, etc.) 4. Some other thing I haven't thought of that can really sell the character's performance. In a gag this would equate to something completely unexpected and without knowing more about what happened to motivate the push this remains something for you to define. There is one other thing I would do that is unrelated to your animation. I would do something with the background. I will often replace the default Ground Model with one of my own that curves upward (to soften the horizon) and/or slightly arches it so that it isn't a completely straight line. For me, altering the color and inserting other objects is a secondary consideration to just breaking up that boringly static horizontal line. You've put a lot of time into this animation... don't let distractors like a default background degrade that... make sure to present it right. Heck, if you are really ambitious put a couple stacked boxes behind the character and have them interact with them. Perhaps that is what slows/stops his backward fall? Great update Phil. Keep em coming and if you have the spare time try some variations. You'll get faster each time.

I wanted to share this little animation where I track your character's eye and hand from the side view. The eye is not always the best point to track but I thought since I was talking about the face and arms/hands I'd look into that. Here's how I interpret these 'channels'. Eye/Head There seems to be room for improvement in the frame just before the first hit on the ground. There is a significant drop from the whole body at that point and I believe that accounts for what we see here. If you look back at Robert's drawing (above) I believe this is the same trajectory problem he highlights in red as "Not This". The character's fall appears to still be too sudden and linear. Again, I'm tracking the eye in this case so some of that isn't going to be evident here in this green dotted trajectory. The Hand There isn't much indication of follow through here and that is very important in secondary action. At the point where the dots go linear is where the body/butt hits the ground... but note... the hands don't continue their movement downward. So... I'd say the focus for improvement still should be at your character's first contact with the ground. Dare I say, this is where you could place an Extreme (a key pose that you want to have the rest of the animation flow into and out of). The other two primary Extremes are the initial push and the character at rest looking up at the cause of his present circumstance. In the attached (Green Dots on top are tracking the Eye while Red dots on bottom are tracking the Hand): tracking.mov

Much improved. I've been running your animation over and over again to better understand how to respond. Truth is I think you've sold the basic action. If you had something or someone strike him in the chest there'd be no doubt of what is going on here. Much of the rest is, as you've already stated, in further refinement. I've been looking at the fall mostly from a technical aspect (and most of this from your side view) but I believe where you'll get the most bang for the buck moving forward is now going to be in the character's performance. You've got the basic motion down... we could quibble on aspects of the current motion... but going internal to the character will enable you to seal the whole deal by nailing the emotion. The face is where we display the majority of our motivations and emotions. How is your character going to react to this push? Dismay? Confusion? Anger? Assuming your character is rigged for it, adding that facial detail at the end will provide the real entertainment. With the emotive content under control I believe you could then run another pass at the arms and hands to break up their symmetry and motivate their movement. Besides the head and facial features it seems to me that your time would be well spent refining the arms and hands. My thought there is that as the body goes down the arms should go up (i.e. as a secondary motion they are being dragged by the torso). You're doing great stuff here... if this was a baseball game you'd be rounding second base with enough energy and momentum to take you all the way into home.

Another birthday for you too!?! That stuff is gettin' contagious. May this one be the best one yet. Happy Birthday Luuk!

Happy Birthday Paul!

You should also be able to select your Keyframes, Right Click and select "Snap to Frame". The Apostrophe is the shortcut key for 'Snap to Frame'. --------------------------------------------------------------------- For those interested in Shortcut Keys... read on: --------------------------------------------------------------------- There are other handy shortcut keys well worth learning as we can use them elsewhere in Windows and A:M. For instance: A quick way to Snap all Frames on the current channel is to quickly select the Comma key followed by the Apostrophe key. Like this: ,' Control A grabs all keys in the current windows and snaps them to frame. Whacking the Period key once selects the compliment (opposite) keys from what you have selected. Whacking the Period key again restores it to the original selection again. The keys I wish I could commit to memory are the Interpolation Keys: 6,7,8,9 and 0. If I could remember them that'd make running through the Timeline tweaking interpolations a breeze. Note that these shortcut keys (and more) can be found by Right Clicking and examining the menu. Here's an example:

Looking good Spleengene! You've been upping your game in Lighting and Texturing for awhile now and the results speak for themselves. I know this is a WIP but... for your consideration: The Blue/Purple Light's fall off terminates a little early. Perhaps you could increase that Fall Off so that it doesn't terminate in a noticeable line and appears to extend naturally and/or fade. That's the only thing that distracts my attention from what you've got going on as staged. I really like the variation of blue/purple against the red curtains. It conveys a nice sense of depth behind to the stage.

Wow. That should be very useful.

From the title... I sure wasn't expecting that! I like the idea of adding some blinking at the end.

Funny stuff Mark. I almost cringed in anticipation of what I was about to see. Very nicely executed. (and for some reason I think the kids should especially love it... chicken nuggets are so primal) This'll be one of those odd observations but I submit it for your considered consideration. Could you perhaps have Flemm paint an 'X'? That is if you aren't saving that master stroke for something greater? Perhaps you could even extend the hat's tracking/reading capabity even further (in the novel if necessary... it might be too much work in the comic book or animation!) - 1 Mark - slash mark (separate) - 2 Marks - X shape (disintegrate) or (if Xs painted on many unconnected objects... reintegrate) - 3 Marks - M shape (microwave) - 4 Marks - Two X shapes (Mark Largento and Mark Skodecek appear to rig the rigging, build ships 'n bottles, animate skeletons guarding treasure and otherwise save the day) - 5 Marks - (insert standardized gag here: um... Flemm runs out of paint) etc. But seriously... it's that tried and true symbology thing. Oh how I yearn for the visual of more pirate Xs! Regardless, you are really hitting your stride here. -------------------------------------------------- Nice breakdown Robert! Looking forward to your next update. -------------------------------------------------- Edit: You posted again while I was typing. Love the evil monkeys!

I haven't looked at Robert's video again so I shouldn't spoil your exchange with him on your jump. Using the 80/20 rule I'd say you'd get the most bang for the buck in improvement by adjusting the symmetry/twinning of your current jump so that the legs and arms don't move in such perfect sync with each other. I'll also assume you are well aware of the pass-throughs where the hands pass through the legs and the feet slip through the floor. As a means of signaling that the feet floor relationship is already known my suggetion would be to Turn Off the Ground and render without it. In that way the viewer can focus on what is there in the animation. As for a positive... what you've got there is smoothly animated throughout. That IKJoe is a fun character.

That older one is very impressive. Definitely a keeper. I'm sure I must have seen that one before but glad you linked to it again. Ah, if I could just put to use the project files you've shared throughout the years.

Nice diagram Robert! That's one of the better (and simpler) illustrations I've seen showing how Center of Gravity works. I especially like how they show how the CoG moves upward when the arms and hands are up. Nice. Now might be a good time to mention that when spinning objects like the man in the illustration above, the classic method is to create a Null, constrain the Character to that Null, then rotate the Null instead of the Character. This makes easy work of keeping the Character spinning around his Center of Gravity without breaking the Character's rig. For those that have access to Jeff Lew's DVD I'm pretty sure he uses that method in one of his lessons.

In your diagram the center of gravity and point of impact certainly aren't the same. At least you've indicated that they aren't. I'd go so far as to say that the Center of Gravity is rarely the Point of Impact. This will often be the case because the CoG is generally covered (or surrounded) by something that prevents it from being directly hit. In fact, in some cases the CoG is just empty space with nothing to hit! It is however still the surrounding object/objects' Center of Gravity. Case in point... Your pose on frame 9. More on that in a moment... Consider for example a car with four wheels distributing the weight the whole car evenly on all four tires. The Center of Gravity is likely at a point low and in the middle of the chassis; a hard place to get to but ripe for helping cars spin out of control when hit at the extremities. Especially, the front and back. Depending on your characters stance he could have his arms or some other object between the force and his center of gravity. In the case of your diagram, we assume the center of gravity is at his hips and the force is being applied to the chest. The CoG is at his hips because his weight is bearing straight down with support from his legs and hip holding that weight up. For what it's worth, I perceive that your character's Center of Gravity is a little too low on Frame 9. The reason this should be the case is that his weight ( Torso, Head, Arms and Hands) have shifted forward. I don't see that significantly changing the four poses and positions you have in your diagram though. If anything it does make me think that his CoG-based trajectory would send him a little further backward. At the moment I'm thinking it is a very good indicator of the amount of force that has been exerted. More opinion to stir into the mix. For what it's worth.

Started from scratch with Thom and concentrated on him sliding once he hit the ground... ThomThumped_000.mov

I believe Eugene (at least the Eugene's I've seen... the ones on most A:M CDs) is rigged with the 2001 rig. If someone rerigged him with TSM I don't believe that version has been shared yet.

Thanks for posting the side view. That makes it a lot easier to analyze what you've got going thus far. Here's my take with Shaggy filling in for your character. I started by trying to emphasize the forward and backward movements/chain reactions but got lost having fun thinking about how Shaggy would react to it. Not sure I conveyed what I set out to convey but.. fun exercise! I should note that I used your character to rotoscope the basic movement/trajectory. Then adjusted from there. I'm adding a second view (from the front) in case you are interested (I can upload the project file but the timeline is such a mess I don't think it's worth studying). You can tell in this shot that I only refined with the previous movie's camera in mind. I guess the point I'm trying to sell/exaggerate more than anything is the motion of the torso, neck and head as it makes impact with the ground. While I may not have quite hit the mark in my attempt I do feel there needs to be some more reaction and recovery there. Especially given the force that it'd take to launch your character that far. Keep it up. You are doing great things. Entertaining me too! ShaggyPushedBackv2_000.mov ShaggyPushedBackv2Front_000.mov

You are so violent! Looks great John!

Excellent graphic Robert. I don't suppose you have another one for the reaction on the ground to seal the deal? It's important to see that there are (at least) two 'hits' here. The first is what sends him flying. The second is the ground 'hitting' him. Both require appropriate reactions to that contact. The area of most interest to me (complicated stuff indeed) is where he hasn't yet recovered from the first hit when his body begins to react to the second hit. In vehicle accident terminology that first hit would be the Point of Impact (POI). If we could measure the distance to where the Character comes to rest we might be able to better understand the force used to propel him there. There are formulas for this stuff... that... um... I obviously forget.

Nice Character Phil! There is something a bit odd about the secondary motion of the character (I believe the problem is mostly in the head?) - The character seems to be getting hit directly in the chest. - His torso launches backward dragging his extremities (and head) with it. *Note: Here, I believe the head should move forward farther than you have it as it pivots at the neck. The head is heavy and there should be a noticeable delay and moving forward/tilting of the head. (think whiplash!) - The character's butt then hits the ground - This creates a chain reaction that extends out to the extremities (and his head). *Note: The head doesn't follow the trajectory and instead moves forward and down. I believe it should continue back even after the Torso has stopped and then SNAP BACK forward as the body settles. I think the forward motion of the head that you already have can then pick up there. That's my initial thoughts on his bounce. Looking forward to seeing more of your character animation! Added: There is a good opportunity for some anticipation in this bounce by following the natural chain reaction of the underlying bones/skeleton of the character. The Head moving forward first helps to anticipate and strengthen (exaggerate) the backward movement of the head after he hits the ground. The secondary motion (followthrough) of the head then finishes the arcing forward as his body settles. While perhaps it's beyond the scope of this bounce I'm curious what his face would relay to us after he settles into place on the ground. (Get that internal dialogue on display if you can) -

There is a trick JohnL3D can show you that involves animated textures. You can use that to gain the look of the wireframe with Patch Images. Basically, what you do is animate the transparency of the textures (fading it in) while animating the Patch images (fading them out).

We've all been there at that smack-the-mallet-to-the-head moment. Glad to see you've resolved the problem. More poet-try for the occasion? 20% of the bugs cause most of my frustration. 80% of the bugs do not bother me at all. But... most of my problems aren't even related to bugs! It's the user-error principle, Perhaps they should make that a law? "Thou shalt experience more user error than bugs".