Dive animaton

[jirard]

My daughter kicked the plug out before I could finish it but here it is. I still havent added cp weights, smartskinning or even comstraints although I am reading up on them. The animated lacks weight and the timing is off (things I was trying to fix before the plug was pulled).

[robcat2075]

It's a promising start. As you refine the character's rig you will find it easier to get good results.

 

Jack-knife dives are very difficult to animate because the body's center of gravity changes quite a bit as it bends and a CG character is not rigged to automatically simulate that.

 

Two things to look out for as you go forward... once he jumps, he can't stop suddenly and pause in mid-air... he should make a continuous smooth arc, and once he starts falling he will accelerate rather than move down at a constant speed.

 

your daughter pulled the plug?

[John Bigboote]

Good practice! Keep working on it...if your daughter allows...

[bighop]

You may want the head to look up and then sharply look down.

[rusty]

My daughter kicked the plug out before I could finish it but here it is. I still havent added cp weights, smartskinning or even comstraints although I am reading up on them. The animated lacks weight and the timing is off (things I was trying to fix before the plug was pulled).

 

 

Something seems off but I don't know what. The legs seem twined (they always move together) and, if there is a diving board, normally you jump and bounce on it before diving. The legs seem to jump at frame at one point. Oh, I know what is off... maybe... after the character extends its legs, the character does not rotate at the center of gravity but rather at the base of the legs. In truth, I'd have to look at someone diving to be sure.

 

Rusty

[Rodney]

One of the classic techniques to handling a dive/spin is to create and animate a Null object that has the character constrained to the Null. If you have Jeff Lew's Training DVD he covers it there. (Not diving but center of mass and character spinning in the air)

 

The idea is to move and rotate the Null to account for the center of balance (which as Robert states is not the center of the character but the center of mass of the character) and movement of weight and then animate the character's arms legs... everything else... separately. Separating this out you should be able to address the twinning Rusty mentions more easily.

 

I'm running a search on 'diving board' videos on the internet but 'tis locking up on me at the moment.

 

Edit: There are quite a few on youtube.

.

[jirard]

Decided to try it again using some of the advice. It still dont think it looks right though. The arms should swing before he jumps and carry the body along with the legs. Oh well I will mess around with it more tommorow. I will also check out some diving footage too.

 

dive2.mov

[ernesttx]

i'll echo what others have said. in diving, it's a very fluid motion. lots of arcs to the arm movements and the important thing is center of gravity and the pivot point.

i used to do some diving in high school and weight gets transferred to the upper body and shoulders when you leave the end of the diving board. that's why the arms are swung out forcefully down and up. then, when you are just at the point where the momentum has left the upward thrust, that's where the turns, pikes, tucks or pivots come into play.

 

i thought this was a fun exercise, so i tried to execute the move myself. hope it helps.

dive.mov

[GAngus]

I did a lot of spring-board and platform diving as a kid and later on the college dive team KSTC-Emporia.

 

With a dive from a standing position or from a spring board, the arms should be reaching for the sky as the knees begin to straighten out so that the the diver can get up as high as he can. Very important when one needs the time to do a flip or two before he/she hits the water.

The starting position you have him in would be good for a racing dive where one would want be projected out horizontally as far as possible.

 

I threw a small thing together here to try and show what I mean.

It's only a jump and the timing of the shot is a little off but, if you step through the first part of it slowly, perhaps you will get my point better.

 

Otherwise, that's a cool little dude there doing the dive.

Keep at it, a real animating challenge, for sure.

ThomDiveA.mov

[robcat2075]

You won't catch me on on one of those crazy things. My diving is limited to having to take one leap off the 10-meter platform to fulfill a graduation requirement in college.

 

Here's a dive I did 4 years ago. Now that i look at it again it's a bit light on the feet.

 

http://www.brilliantisland.com/am/dive20.mov

[GAngus]

HeHe... I can dig-it...

Not to interrupt the thread here but....

Hey, it was a L-O-N-G time ago when I did that stuff.

 

When you're young and with good physical conditioning, and work into it step-by-step, it's like anything else......

A little at a time and you can do anything. No magic really.

Yes, on many occasions, there are variables that one has no control over, but that's life, with it's usual challenge.

 

There's a "system" to everything if you look at it more closely. Right?

That includes A:M. BTW

Once you delve into it, it's not that hard at all.

 

Your "brilliantisland" dive looks a bit cavalier indeed, but quite acceptable in a cartoon venue and I liked it. Shifting his weight on the approach makes it much more believable.

 

I struggled for months with various "Dive" animations but, Barry's DVD helped me a lot with understanding how to get better results.

His "jump" tut was really great and got me in the right direction.

 

The secret is, as has been already stated, is to consider moving the whole model, in blocks, and then refine the animation with the "in-betweens" to get the desired results.... right ?

Right, at least in the most simplest terms.

 

BTW, I should think that animating a bird, flying around in a 3D scene would be even MORE of a challenge.

The turning, the diving, the constant up and down of all the things that birds do just seems like it may be one of the hardest things to animate, not to mention the flapping of the wings as well as flap-variations during turns & dives. Just the thought of it boggles the mind !!

 

Sounds like a good future project. I hope I can undertake it sometime soon.

Cool

[jirard]

I havent tweaked the actual dive but I am still playing with it. I guess I could of animated the water.

dive.mov

[thefreshestever]

looking good so far... what bothers me a bit is the gaining of the speed as his arms follow... i think before his arms are raising it´s a bit too slow and after that it´s a bit too fast... with this timing it looks a bit like he would have some dumb-bells in his hands... but very nice idea, have to try it by myself sometime... thanks!

[jirard]

looking good so far... what bothers me a bit is the gaining of the speed as his arms follow... i think before his arms are raising it´s a bit too slow and after that it´s a bit too fast... with this timing it looks a bit like he would have some dumb-bells in his hands... but very nice idea, have to try it by myself sometime... thanks!

 

I feel exactly the same way. I am gonna cut some frames when he raises his arms up, and also raise his arms up faster so that it looks like they are thrusting him in the air and then add just a few more frames towards the end to slow it down. Thanks for everyone that responded I checked out all the clips (very cool) and am taking the advice given.

Looking forward to seeing your stuff freshestever. Are you gonna use the character in your avatar?

[jirard]

Ok after reviewing the advice here I tweaked it again. He isnt diving off a diving board. I imagine him diving into a lake or something. Crits welcome

dive3.mov

[MasterFunk]

I think that he is too slow at the beginning. try to have a more or less fluid motion

[robcat2075]

Here's a typical problem with animated jumps... leaving the ground without the body fully extended.

 

Everything should be completely stretched out at the last moment before his toes leave the ground.

 

In real life it's hard to get very far if you dont' straighten out. In animation it looks like the character is floating because in real life no one can really jump that way, so it implies the character has no weight or is being moved by some unseen force.

[thefreshestever]

ok, took a few hours this weekend and made one by myself, that really was fun... you can barely see the squashes and stretches, but they are there ... i realized that i´ll have to do some more short body-mechanic exercises in future.. thanks again for the idea...

divetest_low.mov