Animation fun

[GAngus]

Just an animating exercise with some of the Hash resources.

All done in a chor. action, and not finished yet although, any crits. welcome.

 

I'm still trying to get a handle on this key-framing business.

Barry Zundels CD was very inspirational for me and helped break the ice with animating in A:M.

Showing His method of positioning the character at key positions first, using just the model bone, and then filling in the motion "in between" using the bones later, made it a lot easier.

magic7.mov

[largento]

Did you use a special codec? I'm getting an "additional components are needed" message and no video..

[GAngus]

Did you use a special codec? I'm getting an "additional components are needed" message and no video..

 

Oh, darn.....

Yes, I used that "On2" codec, which I assumed was OK here, and readily available with QT Pro, as it seemed to compress the original file size nicely (was 3.5mb)

If that's a problem I will have to explore other options.... sorry

 

 

How about this one ?

magic7anim.mov

[Bruce Del Porte]

Good start!

magic7critC.mov

[martin]

Good start!

That was a good crit, Bruce: easy-to-do suggestions and lots of encouragement.

[robcat2075]

MP4 is a much safer choice than ON2.

 

Congratulations on getting started animating!

 

I made some notes on "walks" for some TWO animators a while back, those may be helpful as you work on the knight's animation.

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=258588 (post 180)

 

 

Picking up the rabbit is a tricky problem because he needs to be constrained to the knight's hand (so he doesn't drift) but constaining his head/ears to the knight's hand wont' bring the rest of the rabbit with them. I'd constrain the main hip bone (or whatever moves the whole body) to knight's hand and do the whole pulling motion faster so we don't have time to see any errors in matching the two together.

[GAngus]

Wow...

Thanks guys....

 

I'm feeling a bit honored here with all this, say, professional and even distinguished attention... really, I mean that...

 

And for the excellent suggestions regarding center of gravity, anticipation and the new ideas to try, as well as the welcomed encouragement, which has been exciting and I am looking forward even more now to getting this project improved upon.

 

That "boing" (stretch-unstretch rabbit as he finally pops out of the hat) thing Bruce, sounds a bit daunting at my level here but, I will try for something else there in some way. I knew there was something missing there and that idea could indeed add an extra dimension to the clip as well.

 

And, Robert, I didn't even try any constraints for the rabbit yet, I just inched him up and scaled him, frame by frame with the knights grip (lot of top-front-side views) at that part of the scene until it 'looked-good'. Perhaps I should be glad it wasn't that obvious but, I will try to do it the right way and it will probably be easier too... but watch out for a swarm of questions with that soon, as I know those constraint things can be tricky.

 

Finally, thanks for going easy on me, there's a ton of loose-ends in this clip, now that my eyes have been opened a bit.

OK... Gotta get back to work now. Hope my vacation time doesn't end too soon here. Too hot out, and bad rains expected later anyway.

thanks

[Jeetman]

I like the march towards the rabbit. And the animation looks good!

 

The thing that did jumped out at me is when knight reaches for the rabbit, there's popping in the arms or a rotation issue. If it's popping, that's easily fixed by putting a little more of a bend in the elbow. To determine if it's a rotational issue, go into spline mode for the key frames and look at the rotation keys. I had one with a monkey animation I made before. His arm was rotating to the next pose. It drove me crazy till I realized to look at the splines and sure enough I saw a long drop in my "x" rotation. I adjusted the spline and all was good.

 

Definitely a good start!

 

George

[Bruce Del Porte]

Nothing daunting, you are 90% there. The prj plays better than on the video, but you'll get the idea.

S_S.prj

magic7S_S.mov

[Rodney]

You've selected a great little short sequence and gag to go with it. (It has special resonance here in the A:M Forum too!)

A one... two... three... punch... little ditty I'm confident will be well worth your effort to refine.

 

Such is the stuff of great storytelling.

 

I agree that the crits you've got here are great. Love the video crit/suggestions Bruce!

Way to go guys.

 

I don't really want to suggest altering your ending but will just a bit. There seems to be an opportunity for yet another storytelling beat. As the Knight 'TADAs!'... perhaps the rabbit could take a bow? Its extra... but might be worth the effort.

[GAngus]

OK, thanks guys

 

Im rendering out a newer version right now.

I was able to get into the spline mode as suggested here and found a LOT of bad spots that I was able to iron out. Much smoother, as you will see in a while. The render still has 44 minutes to go (doing it over on the PC).

Will post it a little later.

 

Bruce: I redid a lot of spots with center-of-gravity in mind and think that it is better now. Also added a little foot kicking with rabbit as he comes out of the hat. The splines were a real mess in there. Forgot I had stretched the whole thing out in the early stages as it was happening way too fast. Man... there were jagged splines all over, in the middle of frames and even many instances of 2 cp keys on the same frame marker ! I'll keep that in mind when I do that stretching in the future. Painful lesson to learn. Right, perhaps scale/pop the rabbit thing too at the end, thanks.

 

Rodney: Thanks for the idea, I was thinking also about the bows. Matter of fact was thinking of an opening bow but had started already.

BTW, Is there a way to Insert say 10 or 20 frames of blank space into and already existing chor action in the front ? I tried to copy/paste the first frame into the second frame as a test but it looked like it was messing everything up so un-did it. That's what is probably nice about using plain Actions in stead of everything in the Chor. right? But, yes, I may add something more on at the end. Bows, or Rabbit scoots away fast as might most Rabbits in this situation perhaps even have the Knight pull out a bull-dozer also ! and a ton of other stuff.. could be fun. Fill the whole stage up !

 

Thanks for the help, getting a lot out of this exercise. 19 minutes to go on the render.

later

[GAngus]

OK, here is the updated version I did last night..

There's still a few loose ends with the arm movements before & after the rabbit exits the hat but, I have almost reached the end of what more I can do with all those bad splines but WILL continue to work them out. I recall when I was first doing it, I was hopping around a lot from bone to bone and doing bone rotations in the middle too, so it's like a pile of spaghetti in there now but getting better.

 

Next, will be attempts to finalize the end with something and a few finishing touches. I was thinking of a banner on the stage wall with a twist on "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" but as "Eine kleine Knight Magic", or is that perhaps too corny ? whatever..

 

 

Oh yes and Robert: I'll have to try to try the constraints method on the rabbit. That'll have to be a whole new project but, one I should do.

Actually, I used a "translate to" with the wand in his hand but realized too late that I should have added an "orient like" also and had to align it by hand during his walk, so just left it that way for now. Constraints are the way to go, too much work otherwise. -understatement-

Perhaps run a few tests first.. BTW, couldn't I just stick a Null on the rabbit model up between his ears and just use that to constrain to ?

Don't NULLs work that way, or am I way off.

Thanks again here...

KnightMagic8b.mov

[Jeetman]

Nothing daunting, you are 90% there. The prj plays better than on the video, but you'll get the idea.

 

Hi Bruce,

 

Nice tut on showing how to manipulate the scaling to show how to squash and stretch but you left out a very important part that should have been addressed. When showing "squash and stretch", the volume needs to be maintained. That is if you squish rabbit in the "Y" 50%, you must stretch him out in the "X" approx. 50% for it to look right. If all you do is squish in the "Y", then the illusion looks more like he's shrinking.

 

George

 

Here's a crude example

 

rabbit_stretch.mov

 

rabbit_squash_and_stretch.prj

[GAngus]

George, Bruce,

 

What great examples of how I could add that squash-stretch thing to the Rabbit as he comes out of the hat.. Thanks for taking the time there. I studied them well and was able to incorporate the concept into the clip as much as I could and it definitely adds some more interest to the gag.

 

I've continued going over all the frames/bones and smoothing things out again, and have made an attempt at the boing thing as the rabbit exits the hat as you will see.

 

As it turned out, I had to squeeze it in there (as much as I could) without having to re-key the Knights whole arm movement, so it's not as noticeable as it could have been. I'm surprised a little that I actually pulled it off as little as I did.

 

I hope I can just do a restart on the whole project soon and make it even better. Get some Bows in there (Re: Rodney), and dress up the scene a bit in general. Oh, and get the magic wand into the act also. Perhaps, have knight first tap the hat to produce the magic spell.

 

thanks again

 

Gerald

 

Onward !!! I'm on roll here....

KnightMagic9.mov

[Jeetman]

Gerald,

 

It's looking good.

[GAngus]

Thanks, I must have changed some lighting keys.

Now it's too dark.

 

Here's my latest WIP.

It's Barry Zundels "Will" model which was on his tutorial CD..

 

A walk/hand cycle ??

WillHandStandNew22.mov

[robcat2075]

A walk/hand cycle ??

 

That's a challenging motion to do. One thing I think would give more weight to it is to make sure his body mass is centered over his hands while he's pushing himself up. If he had rolled into that handstand quickly his momentum might plausibly be carrying him forward, but he's gone into it so carefully that that doesn't look the case.

 

I also think there's opportunity to bend his spine when he leans forward and when he is pushing his legs up. That woudl loosen him up and help show more effort in what he is doing.

 

good start though.

[GAngus]

A walk/hand cycle ??

 

That's a challenging motion to do. One thing I think would give more weight to it is to make sure his body mass is centered over his hands while he's pushing himself up. If he had rolled into that handstand quickly his momentum might plausibly be carrying him forward, but he's gone into it so carefully that that doesn't look the case.

 

I also think there's opportunity to bend his spine when he leans forward and when he is pushing his legs up. That woudl loosen him up and help show more effort in what he is doing.

 

good start though.

 

Yes, crits well taken, Rob

 

As seen in a side render, there's really lots of room for improvement.

Especially, concerning his Center of Gravity.

During the walk he even wavers a bit too in the Z.

 

It was a challenge indeed, for nooby me especially.

 

Actually, I had first tried doing it by blocking in the model bone 1st, and then doing the in-be-tweens, but what a disaster that was, so I re-did it all over, leaving the model bone alone.

 

Some re-editing is in progress. I Will post back soon when I can improve on this.

 

thanks

WillHandStandNew22bbb.mov

[Jeetman]

Thanks, I must have changed some lighting keys.

Now it's too dark.

 

Here's my latest WIP.

It's Barry Zundels "Will" model which was on his tutorial CD..

 

A walk/hand cycle ??

 

Gerald,

 

I don't have the codec you're using to view this.

 

George

[MasterFunk]

Thanks, I must have changed some lighting keys.

Now it's too dark.

 

Here's my latest WIP.

It's Barry Zundels "Will" model which was on his tutorial CD..

 

A walk/hand cycle ??

 

Gerald,

 

I don't have the codec you're using to view this.

 

George

 

neither do I.

[GAngus]

Hey Rob,

 

OK, here's what I did...

I slowed the whole thing down again, a little.

I did another pass and shifted his knees/feet forward as he presses into the hand stand and the balance looks a little better, I think.

I may even have the knees too scrunched up into his chest now, i'll probably work on it some more there.

 

I also introduced some side to side movement as his hands take the weight of each step.

 

What do you think ?

 

here's the proj. too

 

PS. Jeetman, MasterFunk, some how it reverted back to that On2 Codec again.

 

I changed it again, hope it plays OK now, sorry bout that.

WillHandStand_final1a.mov

will_hand_stand_final1.prj.zip