PM "Pharmaceutical Man"

[Shelton]

Ok, it has been a year since I animated anything so I thought I would practive with a walk cycle. But I can not upload avi (Win 7 - 64)

 

Steve

[Rodney]

The forum accepts MOV if you can convert to that.

You may have to zip up an AVI file.

 

How big is the AVI file?

[Shelton]

Bad conversion but here is the mov. Be gentle

 

Steve

 

Edit Thanks Rodney. I will get a better convertor

 

Try again in few uploaded wrong file

 

Ok here are my questions when creating a walk cycle how to prevent the pop or sudden move from the end of cycle to the beginning of the next cycle.

front.mov

[robcat2075]

Glad you're animating again!

 

notes...

 

-his heels are contacting the ground with bent legs. The leg typically is nearly straight when the heel hits.

-you do have him continuing down a bit aftr the heel contact. That's good.

-The hips will typically turn a bit to follow the legs as they go front and back and the torso will turn in opposition. Just a little.

-the back and forth of the arms is normally late compared to the legs. This is largely because they are hanging from the torso which leads them around.

-He almost looks like he's leaning back from his walk rather than leaning into it.

 

 

I've got a whole bunch of notes on posing out walks on my screencam page that you may find helpful.

[Shelton]

Thanks Robert. Just found your walk tuts. Will watch and update with new later tonight. It feels good to be walking myself again so to celebrate I thought I would start walking with the characters!!

 

Steve

[Paul Forwood]

Hi Steve

 

If this is a 1 second walk cycle, at 24 fps, then copy all your keys from frame 0 to frame 24 and render your animation from frame 0 to frame 23. This just ensures that it loops correctly. Then check your curves on other keys to ensure no abrupt chnges in direction or strength.

It's good to see your character moving and very happy to hear that you are too.

[Shelton]

thanks Paul I rendered it too far... So I am working a new cycle will remember to do this

[Shelton]

Here is a rough render of the front view and the knees are popping quite a bit. Hard to see this while you are animating

 

Steve

frontwalk.mov

[Rodney]

Be gentle

 

Now why did you have to go and say that!!!???

 

As a basic (subtle) walk I think it works quite well but... I'm not sure how far it goes toward demonstrating his personality.

It's hard to make specific suggestions without knowing more about who he is and what his role is in the story but for what it's worth... here is where my thoughts fall now:

 

One of the best ways to gain a sense of personality just happens to also be a great way to demonstrate weight in imaginary characters; move/animate the hips of the character up and down. In most cases you'll find the leg supporting the weight of the character will then push that side of the hip upward while the other side not bearing the weight will come down. The shoulders will tend to move in opposition to the hips; when the right hip goes up the right shoulder will move down... as right hip goes down... right shoulder goes up. As you adjust/tilt/angle/exaggerate these two parts of the trunk you will establish and convey their character/personality because that movement effects the rest of the body, the head, the arms and the hands.

 

If there is any one thing that would give your walk more punch... and the character more personality... I'd say it would be exaggeration.

Imagine him really wanting to go somewhere!

 

You can always back off from the extremes but it's harder to find more action when it isn't there to begin with.

 

Keep up the great work Steve.

It's really paying off.

[mouseman]

The one thing I'd add to Rodney's suggestion is to move the center of weight slightly closer to he leg that is bearing all the weight; i.e. slightly to his right when he is on his right foot, and slightly to his left when he is on his left foot.

 

Lookin' good, lookin' good!

[Animus]

Hi Shelton,

one small thing that would change his attitude would be to have his head

pointing straight ahead, not rotating left to right. Think of a tough guy

coming at you, his head and eyes keep straight.

And maybe not tilting the foot so much. We don't see under the shoe

of people we cross.

Walk cycles...

 

Michel

[mtpeak2]

Steve, if you still have v15 installed, or an older version, you can import the avi into A:M an convert it.

[Rodney]

Great tips Chris and Michel! (for me animation is a daily learning opportunity)

 

one small thing that would change his attitude would be to have his head pointing straight ahead, not rotating left to right. Think of a tough guy coming at you, his head and eyes keep straight.

 

This is something Don Bluth nails very firmly and something that can translate rather well if your character has a rig with a good (single) eye target.

The difference in most rigging as opposed to hand drawn however is that the head is generally not a child of the eyes. (Hmmm.... Note to self to to explore that angle for rigging)

 

When in doubt (and definitely for teaching purposes) Don is known to draw an X where the characters attention is focused and draw an eyeline (one single line) from pupil to where the X marks that spot. The eyes then focus on that spot as the character moves forward. Unless interrupted or distracted or shifting to another action, as the character walks forward the eyes (and usually the head) will keep a laser focus on that spot.

 

move the center of weight slightly closer to he leg that is bearing all the weight; i.e. slightly to his right when he is on his right foot, and slightly to his left when he is on his left foot.

 

I don't think I could have said it better than that.

One thing to strive toward is a better understanding of where the Center of Gravity (CoG) lies versus the center of visual objects. Our senses can betray us here. For instance, a top heavy character might have to shift more weight up top in the shoulders and a heavy set character might sway back and forth and lift more from the hips while walking. It's so important to consider weight distribution in light of the character's design.

 

Related to that, but not so much walk cycles, I recall Jeff Lew had some of the classic examples in A:M with a moving/rolling character where he introduced the idea of wrapping the character around a stationary Null in a Choreography. That probably would be overkill for a walk cycle but the principle certainly remains sound. The center of gravity can usually be analyzed by drawing a plumb line from the head to the ground. In this way it's fairly easy to see which foot the character's weight is on and determine if a character is balanced or would (in a real world) fall over on the ground.

[robcat2075]

Hi Steve,

 

It's hard to judge the legs from the front but I can tell the arms are too rigid.

 

Here's a brief example of how overlap will loosen up a shape:

 

Arms_H.mov

 

The left arm is holding the same shape through the whole cycle, much like yours. That looks very stiff.

 

The middle arm is has a different shape for the front and back keys. This looks a little better.

 

The right arm was keyed in the same positions as the middle arm, but the rotation of its Upper arm lags behind the translation of the shoulder, and the Lower arm lags behind the Upper arm and the Hand lags behind the Lower arm. Every bone is a bit behind the bone it is attached to which is typical for a chain of bones like the arm. If there were fingers on this arm they might lag behind the hand.

 

I've exaggerated everything here but without overlap CG models look very stiff and weightless.

 

The mass and inertia of a bone (in real life) is what makes it resist any change of motion by the bone it is attached to. The animators challenge is to move the character as if that mass and inertia was at work even though a CG model has no mass or inertia.

[Shelton]

Here is the side view. No changes have been made yet. And a cleaner conversion of the front view

 

Steve

side.mp4

frontwalk.mp4

[Meowx]

I honestly liked the first walk you posted (post #3) a lot more that this one. Sure, it had some technical points to work on... but it was a lot more expressive.

[robcat2075]

Steve could you re-post those in Quicktime? The MP4s barely play in Quicktime and Quicktime is the only player that can scrub footage frame-by-frame and that's what i need to talk about things in it.

 

I tried recompressing them in Quicktime but that didn't work either. I don't know why that didn't work.

[Gerry]

Hey Shelton, I replied to your PM/email. Let me know if you got it.

[Shelton]

Gerry

 

I finally got it and have responded.

 

Steve

[Shelton]

I have a dumb question. I am trying to resize the arrows in the quiver. The arrows have been rigged. I want to resize teh mesh and bone structure. When I select the model bone it resizes the bones but not the mesh. Any help Thanks

[mtpeak2]

Use the scale manipulator while holding the ctrl key.

[Shelton]

Thanks Mark

 

I was holding the shift key and well it wasnt working.

 

Steve

[Shelton]

I have a couple of animating questions. I am doing an action and want to rotate the entire character. How do you do that?

 

Also he is holding a light saber and I have constrained the saber to the hand but when I rotate the torso the saber stays at the base with the null I created and the handle tries to follow the hand. Any thoughts

 

Steve

[robcat2075]

I have a couple of animating questions. I am doing an action and want to rotate the entire character. How do you do that?

 

The model bone is not accessible in an Action so you will have to conventionally pose the character to face ina different direction.

 

Also he is holding a light saber and I have constrained the saber to the hand but when I rotate the torso the saber stays at the base with the null I created and the handle tries to follow the hand. Any thoughts

 

Tell me more about the heirarchy of the "saber" to the"handle"

[Shelton]

Thanks Robert that is what I thought.

 

The sword is simple. (I have removed null and all other bones for testing) I have one bone right now for the entire saber however it is at the handle position. So I have constrained with kinematic and orient like.

 

I think it is my understanding of the process of placing the bones. When I try to move the saber in action screen by moving the saber bone it leaves a shortcut to the saber at 0,0,0. After constraining to the hand the saber will rotate but not move with the hand.

 

Steve

[robcat2075]

A kinematic constraint doesn't sound useful here.

 

Just "orient Like" and "translate to" constrain the sword to the hand and then you only need to animate the hand.

[Shelton]

Tried that as well and the saber stayed in place

 

Steve

[robcat2075]

Tried that as well and the saber stayed in place

 

Steve

 

 

Post (or send me) a version that has all your mesh deleted except the hand and the lightsaber and I could take a look at it if you want.

[Shelton]

Well, rebooted the machine and constraints orient and translate like worked. So I am happy to say I am animating again. spent three hours this afternoon trying to get PM to hold the light saber. I had restarted AM I thought. But once I restarted the machine it was ok. I was switching from 32 and 64 bit programs. Dont know if that caused the issue or not.

 

Thanks Robert

 

Steve

[mtpeak2]

You can animate the model bone in an action, but you need to in the models tranform properties.

[Shelton]

Thanks Mark!

 

It has been so long since I have tried to do anything. Took the day off today and found I have forgotten so much and have really been struggling it getting anything to look right. I hope to post a vid first of the week.

 

Steve

[Vertexspline]

Oh gosh ----so its not like riding a bike....damm. Not that I have even figured to do that here yet either. Anyhow...

Steve---

hope you get flashes of recognitions so your way back is easier for you.

[Shelton]

Just starting to block in the animation.

 

Steve

Sword.mov

[robcat2075]

Here's something I find useful in side to side movements... always move the hips in an arc, and it's almost always an arc that dips in the middle. It might be slight but it helps avoid a floating drifting look.

 

Think of a marble falling down a bowl and rolling back up the other side. Slow in and out, faster in the middle.

 

Also... typically these side-to-side movements are shifting the weight form one leg to another. The side of the hips that is NOT over the supporting leg tends to drop a bit.

 

This is difficult to get right. I'd like to have a "side step" tutorial in NewTAoA:M to cover these things.

 

I realize this is only blocking but i'd build these things into the first blocking poses since hip tweaks tend to affect the legs quite a bit.

[Shelton]

Thanks Robert! I should have some updates to give later today. I have an additional 2 secs on the end so I uploaded the wrong block. But it is a start.

 

 

Steve

[Rodney]

Nice update Steve. I can see this is going to be a fun character!

 

I've got some notes and I'll try to refine them and add them to a post.

 

Most of my thoughts I need to just put into practice in my own work first before suggesting them here!

[Shelton]

Rodney I am open to any thoughts.

 

Just a small update. Oh and by the way of love net render. Also when I created the mov in after effects I had the settings for 30 fps instead of 24 which had the timing off.

 

Steve

swordmovie.mov

[robcat2075]

To me, that still looks like his hips are moving in straight lines.

 

The last pose looks promising. I'd clear his hand from touching his head and move his other hand out too.

[Rodney]

That's a pretty slick update Steve. I like it!

It's got some snap to it too.

 

For what it is worth, here is a link to the outline of the 'workflow feedback' I was going to suggest:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=360816

 

This was/is my effort to better understand not just an optimal workflow by YOUR workflow.

For my part, a goal would be to properly test my workflow and publish it in a video.

Then using feedback to refine it more.

[kwhitaker]

Hi Steve, i love the way your sword fight rocks back and forth. very cool.

i was thinking if maybe you lifted the right foot a bit more, as he moves foward. just a though, he looks great and ready for the next move.

[Shelton]

I have had fun re learning the dope sheet. The graph editor makes it easy to adjust and tweak. I hope to have the first pass done this weekend and from this i will begin to build the bow and arrow sequence for cupid. There are still so many things to do, but will keep plugging away.

 

My wife advised that if i would give up some other interests, maybe i could complete something.

 

Steve

[Shelton]

I have been busy working on a project and have not uploaded anything in a year in this year.  That project is nearing completion and with the my retirement after 35 years of work I will have more time for the things I love.  

I built this character 11 years ago.  A lot has happened in those 11 years.  

I was never happy with the geometry of the PM's face.  So this past weekend I completely re did the head, shoulders bicep, and stomach areas.  

Here is a quick rendering of the PM2.  I have included a new wire frame as well.  The old PM was rigged with the 2008 rig by Mark.  I am rigging the new PM2 with a cross of Zundel-TSM2-Robert Holmen-Steve Shelton rig with a little bit of the Saucy Rig.  I have the geometry in and now completing the control portion and will work on the poses.  I hope to have him finished in the near future.  

[Tom]

Nice!