thejobe

i understand the pose in standing up and the top of the jump. but in the "squash" what is suppose to line up with what? is it sholders, hip, feet (or toes in this case)

just to get a better idea of where i am and what you did, i did a side by side although my jump is longer for setup and finish the timing in the air is about the same so i believe that is good. i can see the diferences in the jumps as far as balance goes but im not sure how to translate that into the jump on my side. the points of where the feet leave the ground are dramaticly different. i can see now that i have been treating it like the guy is wearing large clown shoes rather than them being his toes. also my landing is much harder almost as if he weighs 100 lbs more than the guy on the right. this one is both jumps at begining jump_test_jobe_and_robcat.mov this jump is showing the timing in the air. jump_timing_jobe_and_robcat.mov

i fixed the balance issue the best i could. also shortened the amount of time he spends at the peak. i think. jump_test_side6.mov

OK after i recovered from the head injury (thanks to the wall i banged into many times) i sat back down and went over the videos, and over, and over, and over. till my eyes bled. this was the best outcome so far from that headache. i know the hip is not centered and his weight looks off, so no need to mention it. i just wanted to get something out before work. i will fix it when i get back. other than that let me know if this is any better. P.S.! key frames are so much better to work with than just moving thing around on the screen. jump_test_side5.mov

few questions... where do i find that graph and the one with bars to edit those things. if i knew i had all that this would have been a lot easier on me. also how do i get the ruler to come up on the action window, i dont have one of those.

yes that is what i mean. the toe really is in the same place. took like 2 hours to do it but i made sure it stayed on the same line. so not sure how its moving, maybe this character is just too hard to animate for someone like me.

thats where the problem is. i don't know where the right place is suppose to be. here is the project file. im at a complete lost at this point. jumping.zip

im just not sure how to make that work here. i thought thats what i did but i guess its just too messed up to fix now. its apparent i have no clue what i am doing.looks like i have some more reading to do. ill try again in a few more months i guess. thx again for the help though. but i just am not getting.

ok so. i banged my head against the wall for about 30 minutes then tried to think about what i was doing wrong (i don't recommend trying this for it hurts a lot) i went back thru the jump and adjusted from the hips down. once i got to the toes and made them level with the line on the screen i played back the animation, a problem came up. his hips and legs were acting like he wanted to jump backwards, couldn't figure out why it was doing this for over an hour. the only solution i could come up with is to move his hips forward in the jump. after thinking about it im guessing that his center of gravity shifted forward before the jump and to compensate his hips had to follow. im not sure if its correct but its the best attempt so far. or i just screwed it all up and have to start over again. (god i hope not). jump_test_side4.mov

That bus is bringing back haunting memories. I give it 2 thumbs up! Don't forget the little fan to cool the driver LOL.

i think i understand it a lot better now. that last jump i did the hip target i just figured the time i wanted the jump to be, set the beginning and end marks and then i guessed how high he would be in the middle (which actually could be any height really) and then i just started adjusting all the bones to move along with the movements. as far as changing the curve. im not 100% sure how to accomplish that but ill see what i can do. the rig. i know 0% about rigs. never worked with them before. whenever i did something with bones before it was for very simple models, so character rigging is well out of my comfort zone. so im working with what is giving to me, and i wont know the difference at this point. and yes! how did you know i was going with a forward jump next! i guess its part of learning animation as a whole. thanks for taking the time to look over these its been a big help. i will post an updated video later tonight.

i took another approach at it. instead of doing each movement one step at a time, i did the begining of the jump and the end in one move and then worked on the middle one bone at a time jump_test_side3.mov

im posting the actions for you to play with so you can give me a better idea what what im looking at. jumping_side_action.act

I liked the second one better. The first one looked like he'd been dragged into the air by some unknown force, and his legs just straightened before they too were dragged off the ground. The second one looked like the character was putting some force into the ground to get himself airborne. If you can get a set of the Jeff Lew animation DVDs, that will help a lot. Review here: That looks like an amazing DVD. Just wish I had the money for it, maybe in a few months. On the jump I'm trying to just get a feel for the movements. Since I have no prior background in any form of animation I really just going out on a whim with these.

Amazing work. Love the detail.

i watched the video a few more times and this was the best outcome i got so far jump_test_side.mov

that was nicely explained but sadly i have no understanding of what you were trying to get across. not sure how to interpret those movements into my jump.

well i think its been about 5 or 7 years since i last tried at character animation. so i thought i would give it a go again when i saw this basic character model in the sharing page. last time i tried, i did a jump animation. so thought it would be good to try the same motion. i kept it pretty simple with the motions. can you who have been animating a while critique it for me and maybe give me a few pointers as to what I'm doing right or wrong. please be honest jump_test.mov Thanks

not sure if its too late but finally got around to recording my umm "commentary" commentary_Jason_Hess.wma

Ill record something tomorrow. Even though mine is only like 10 seconds long. I will make a 3 hour commentary. Hehe.

I know only 5 mind left in the day but happy Easter. Hope yours was very joyest.

I'm going to blow it up to 10x20ft and put it on the side of my house

i think this is still for that ranma movie

as far as i can see your lighting is too bright on certain areas. try using keig lights just on the dancers. also as rodney said bring the camera in. it will give you better clarity of the dancers and what they are performing. and it will give you a better composition. usually wider shots like that are done for the use of many dancers, with a zoom out.

you just made me the happiest person in over-world.