Cartoon cloak movement 2

[luckbat]

Hey, does anyone remember my last attempt to animate a walk cycle with a cloak? No? Well, it was four months ago.

 

Anyway, I had some concerns about the viability of the last version. Namely because it only worked when the character's arms were locked to her sides, and also because dynamics have to be recomputed every time you decide to change something.

 

So, I went back to the drawing board. Since I wanted the cloak to swish around as the character's arms moved, I (loosely) constrained some of the bones in the cloak to the arm bones. The rest of the work involved manually animating the edges of the cloak so the hands and knees don't pass through it. The cloak as a whole is a child of the ribcage bone, so it naturally swings from side to side a bit while the character is walking.

 

 

So here's version 2. I rendered the toon lines in a separate pass, but I thought the animation looked kinda cool without them, so I left them out. I also slapped on some cloak decals for visual interest, but they're a bit pretentious-looking, so I probably won't keep them.

 

(By the way, if anyone's wondering why I don't simply use SimCloth--I don't think it's compatible with toon lines...)

 

Edit (6/11/05): Updated this animation with improvements to the walk cycle and cloak constraints.

Ebon_cloak_walk_2_1.mov

[Kricket]

That looks great!

[3DArtZ]

cool!

 

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[Dearmad]

First off, wow you're working hard on this and coming up with some fabulous solutions. This solution seems promising, but then the last one seemed so to me as well.

 

I'm wondering if the cloak can move even more freely than it does in this test. The front edge (the vertical shape of it) to both sides looks a little locked into place. When her shoulder pivots to her left for example, the entire cloak travels that way, without a trailing edge at the bottom; it moves "of a piece." Note, this is a VERY MINOR quibble.

 

Is the rig pretty much the same as before only constrained differently now? I mean as many bones as the first test you shared but with different constraints.

 

On another note, the umbrellas are ingenius, man. That is too cool. However, they seem a little small, IMO. Seem like they should be thicker and weightier, almost twice what they appear to be to me, at least the handles....

 

I really like this character, and can't wait to see more of this project of yours.

[bentothemax]

That looks very good.

 

The only crit is that i to agree, i think the cloak should move more, more freely and not so stiff

 

cant wait for more

ben

[luckbat]

First off, wow you're working hard on this and coming up with some fabulous solutions.

I'm not sure how making two walk cycles in four months constitutes hard work, but I'll take my compliments where I can get 'em.

 

I'm wondering if the cloak can move even more freely than it does in this test. The front edge (the vertical shape of it) to both sides looks a little locked into place. When her shoulder pivots to her left for example, the entire cloak travels that way, without a trailing edge at the bottom; it moves "of a piece." Note, this is a VERY MINOR quibble.

Yeah, but it's a legitimate quibble. I just did a quick experiment with lag settings on one of the bone chains, and it definitely looked nicer. Gimme a day or two to play with it--I'll post an updated animation if all goes well.

 

On another note, the umbrellas are ingenius, man. That is too cool. However, they seem a little small, IMO. Seem like they should be thicker and weightier, almost twice what they appear to be to me, at least the handles....

Agreed. They were just quickie umbrellas I threw together. They don't even have spokes. I have a lot of costume work left to do, from improving the appearance of the bandages to texturing the cloak properly, so it's on my to-do list.

 

I really like this character, and can't wait to see more of this project of yours.

Thanks. This walk cycle is the first step in converting my animatics into the final short. I'm just gettin' started here...

[Mr. Jaqe]

Nice! Been following your progress since I saw your first post.

 

I do have one minior crit: He could use a frame from toe points "most forward" 'till it hits the ground. Other than that: Awsome model and movement.

[MikeSanderson]

(By the way, if anyone's wondering why I don't simply use SimCloth--I don't think it's compatible with toon lines...)

 

So are you using Cloth Wizard at all?

[Paul Forwood]

That seems to be working well. What version of A:M are you using, Mike?

It's good to see an update on your project.

[pixelmech]

Mike that is great! I too have been looking forward to some updates on your project. Get cracking!

 

Just a quick crit - I know you may not be done with the walk but the feet are too stiff - the forefoot/toebox should be stretching up on the stride forward (maybe not much, granted its a slow deliberate walk), and it should be bending forward on the backfoot as support. The rest of it looks great though!

 

Are those umbrellas slung over her back? That is what they look like...

 

Tom

[luckbat]

So are you using Cloth Wizard at all?

Nope. My goal is to move away from dynamically calculated keyframes, towards an optimized "cloak rig" that responds to the character's movements through a series of constraints--with maybe a few "helper" bones that are animated manually to avoid collisions with the hands and knees.

 

That seems to be working well. What version of A:M are you using, Mike?

I'm using 11.1g--hang on, make that 11.1h. I'll be upgrading to Tiger/A:M v12 when the opportunity arises, though.

 

Just a quick crit - I know you may not be done with the walk but the feet are too stiff - the forefoot/toebox should be stretching up on the stride forward (maybe not much, granted its a slow deliberate walk), and it should be bending forward on the backfoot as support.

Are walk cycles ever truly finished? It sounds like the consensus is that the feet are too stiff. I'm using a TSM-1 rig, so that's an easy fix.

 

Are those umbrellas slung over her back? That is what they look like...

They are indeed...

[pixelmech]

ROTFL I asked the same question in the other thread...I'm such a loser!

[luckbat]

Who's the loser now? After spending half a day tinkering with the walk cycle, I started noticing some weird glitches I thought I'd already fixed. It was only then that I realized... I've been using the wrong walk cycle!

 

Back in February, I spent weeks making improvements to the walk cycle that I'd originally developed for my lipsync test. Somehow, months later, when I started working on this cloak test, I picked the older walk cycle by mistake. I guess because it had been so long since I'd last worked on it, I didn't notice the difference.

 

(Let that be a lesson, kids! Never keep backups of your old stuff!)

 

Of course, once I'd added in the new walk cycle, all of my cloak keyframes and constraints had to be revised as well. Also, since the new cycle was a bit more vigorous than the previous one, I started getting all kinds of collision problems with the backs of the legs. I'd originally omitted putting bones at the back of the cloak, mainly out of laziness, so I had to do it now, bringing the total number of bones in the cloak to 60.

 

I didn't want to have to hand-animate the new back-of-the-cloak bones, so I implemented a solution I'd been wanting to put in for a while. It's hard to explain, but it's an attempt to approximate the effects of leg movement on hanging fabric--e.g. a cloak or a dress. Basically, if a character is standing straight, both the front and back of a dress will be hanging straight down. When a leg moves back, the back of the dress is pushed back, but the front of the dress stays the same. When a leg moves forward, the front of the dress is pushed forward, but the back hangs straight down. It's not the sort of behavior you can mimic simply by constraining the dress bones to the leg bones. So, I bit the bullet and added two new bones to the model, which I then associated with the thigh bones' Smartskins. Leg bends back, new bone bends back. Leg bends forward, new bone points straight down. Thank you, Smartskin.

 

Which brings us to the latest cloak walk cycle. Despite being swishier than ever before (it's more like a short kimono than a cloak at this point), virtually the entire cloak is animated only by its own "orient-like" constraints, plus lag. Only 12 of the 60 cloak bones have manual keyframes, those being the ones that get pushed aside by the movements of the thighs.

 

Needless to say, I will never, ever dress any character in a cloak ever again. No, it's bikinis and spandex from here on in. I've learned my lesson.

 

Note: I've replaced the animation in the first post with this new one.

[3DArtZ]

Hey Mike, first off, very nice effect.

2nd off, Great conclusion you've made about what items to put on a character.

3rd off, These simulations won't ever be perfect.

 

The 3rd thing is something that I know have handi capped me in my animation endevours. I've spend countless hours trying to make things perfect, when in fact, creating an effect in 3d is usually associated with adding some kind of cheat to pull off the effect.

 

I'd say, if you made a animated movie and included even a less polished cloth sim than this, it would go by so quickly that it would be accepted by the viewer.

 

So, I'd say you've got your effect perfect!

 

Nice stuff

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[luckbat]

My effects don't have to be perfect, just good enough for Dearmad.

[Dearmad]

Huh? The *easy* standard then, because I figure perfection is off-limits too, and strive for just: "It isn't making me too antsy to look at, so it must be fine!"

 

Anyway my reaction, even after scrutinizing it a bit, is: wow. Looks sooooo nice!

 

I like the way the upper part (shoulders) moves without too much clothiness to it, yet rotates with the shoulders, then gradually the cloth frees up as it goes down- looks just great!

 

I really have no crits this time. My only concern would be how much work it is for you to animate- a constant thing you have to balance when you're a one-person show.

 

You're going for a good deal of realism with this cloak (putting things into scale that you don't have a technical animation department and are just one person doing your film). While it'll hurt ya time-wise a bit, it'll pay big rewards in how things look, I bet, once you're done. I imagine there will be a few desinged shots in your film to take advanatge of the cool look possible with a cloak like that, and you're setting it up well, I think.

 

BTW: I love the idea of skin-tight mummy wrap... she's an attractive character everywhichway.

 

 

Oh, one edit:

Not a crit of the cloth, but in this cycle, just a glimpse of her hand or arm underneath might help with the illusion of the cloth, since then the eye has a concrete connection with what's driving the cloth's motion and then the mind goes along with it- so your "illusion" of cloth" doesn't have to be as close to perfect as it might otherwise need to be.

 

Does that make any sense?

[luckbat]

I really have no crits this time. My only concern would be how much work it is for you to animate- a constant thing you have to balance when you're a one-person show.

Yeah, no kidding. Fortunately this was a one-time undertaking. Character's going to be wearing a cloak; character's going to be walking around. So it definitely needed to be done. The other character's wearing pants and a short-sleeved shirt, so I guess I'm good to go now.

 

Not a crit of the cloth, but in this cycle, just a glimpse of her hand or arm underneath might help with the illusion of the cloth, since then the eye has a concrete connection with what's driving the cloth's motion and then the mind goes along with it- so your "illusion" of cloth" doesn't have to be as close to perfect as it might otherwise need to be.

 

Does that make any sense?

Sure. The hands are the final thing I need to work out with this costume. The character does a bit of gesturing and even locks a door at one point, and with the current design she can't do that effectively. I have three options available to me: A) Shorten the portion of the cloak where the hands are, which is how ponchos are designed, Cheat the cloak bones so that the fabric inches up as the character raises her arms, or C) Have the character do what a real person would do--poke her arms through the opening at the front when she needs to point or grab something.