Research & Development

[TheSpleen]

Ok I have an important video coming up and my most frustrating problem I have had throughout all my videos has been the body mechanics.

mine do not quite move like everyone else's. That "aliveness" is somehow missing.

I believe it may be I do not work much in the timeline window?

I really would like to get up to speed on this.

Anything jump out at yall?

 

 

Gene

[robcat2075]

You have put your finger on the true struggle of character animation. I wish there were a short answer.

 

To me it's, it's all about mass. Not just the weight of the character when he steps on the scale but the weight and mass of every body part and how the body moves all those connected parts around.

 

The best starting point is bouncing ball. It is the simplest weight and mass to learn to move around and to learn how to use the the timeline to get it right.

 

Remember when Holmes was doing bouncing balls? Watch my notes on that and then do that first bouncing ball and lets see what you get. No squash and stretch, just bouncing ball.

[Gerry]

I would recommend Barry Zundel's tuts if you have a couple of bucks to spare. He takes a character model from sketches through modeling, rigging and acting out a whole monolog. There are some missteps along the way especially in the rigging, but that's such a highly technical area, I still feel like I got my money's worth. He does a great deal with the animating, especially in tweaking keyframes to give believable weight to movement.

[Gerry]

I just checked over on his website and it looks like you can get all the animating lessons for about $23, or you can buy them one at a time for $3 - $5. You should try one to see if it works for you. http://www.barryzundel.com/home/Tutorials.html

[TheSpleen]

thanks for the responses!

[mouseman]

I would also suggest doing some small animation tests, similar to the one I did with the guy sitting in front of a couch and standing up.

[largento]

Some practical tips. Bearing in mind that I'm no expert and that I tend to think of animation like stop-motion rather than traditional animation:

 

1) Set your key poses first in a pattern. Say, every 10 frames, key everything on the character. Now you can grab those keys and move them back and forth to adjust timing. If something happens too quickly, drag them further away, too slow, drag them closer. When you've got the major moves worked out, you can work on overlapping and follow through movements.

 

2) At 24fps, something must appear in at least two consecutive frames to be "seen" by the audience.

 

3) Get a timer or stopwatch or something to record yourself making movements and see how many frames it takes you to do it in real life. I have an iPhone app that does this and I've been finding it amazingly helpful.

 

4) Record yourself doing it and watch how everything moves and when. You don't necessarily have to rotoscope it, but lots of times you aren't fully aware of what all the parts of your body are doing when you do something.

 

5) Curves. I don't use the bias tools at all when I'm modeling, but I turn them on as soon as I start animating. You can smooth out movements using them and also zero slope to get rid of movements you don't want.

 

6) I've been thinking lately in terms of "move-hold" "move-hold" when I animate. It's made my animation less floaty.

[robcat2075]

Here's a basic body mechanics point... moving from side to side:

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...799&hl=hips

[TheSpleen]

Wonderful information all!