New User - Please critique Tut. 4

[Gary]

Greetings all!

 

I've had A:M for a few years now, but I've never really had the opportunity to get into it as much as I'd like and never made much progress. So I figured I'd best start back at the beginning with the tutorials. I just finished Tutorial 4 and would like to hear some critiques. Please bear in mind that this is the first thing I've ever animated. Previously, I've just played around with modeling a little bit, and not very well at that. All the manipulations were done primarily by adjusting the CP's and a few timing adjustments were made by stretching/compressing or moving splines around in the timeline window. I'm assuming it gets a lot easier when I learn about constraints, easing, etc. I had a heck of a time keeping the feet from sliding to the right just after the little step when he's done with the pitch. Anyhow, I'm all ears.

 

Here's a link to the avi file. It's about 5.8Mb.

 

Thanks

[Mr MM]

Very nice!

He/She is twrowing something. Yes, but what?

Throwing it towards the horizon. And then looking for it towards the horizon.

But then looking for it towards zenith. The logic?

 

What I am missing most is some sound...

But very good done!

[Gary]

Mr MM,

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

Sorry, I keep forgetting this is an international group. I live in the USA and grew up with baseball. The idea is that Knight is pitching a baseball and the batter hits a high fly ball out of the park. Listen in your mind for the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd. He tried his best to strike him out, but it's kind of hard with a suit of armor getting in the way. In the end, he's just showing his frustration and dejection.

[KenH]

Not bad! He could use more snap(reduce the distance between the keyframes) in the actual throw. Also, if you watch a pitcher, he's always looking at the target. The head in your animation looks up in the air above him mid throw. Keep it up.

[Gary]

Also, if you watch a pitcher, he's always looking at the target. The head in your animation looks up in the air above him mid throw. Keep it up.

 

I thought about that too. In the tutorial, he has his head all the way back during the wind-up, as if he's just putting every ounce of strength he can behind the pitch. I may try going back in and changing that. Is there an easy way after the fact to keep his head pointed toward the imaginary batter, or do I just have to adjust the head positon at each keyframe?

[KenH]

The head bone will have it's own set of keyframes. You just move the head bone as you did any other one.