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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

A Run Cycle


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Simon I have a plastic matt on the black parts with around 4% reflection and a white spec clour and the spec is at 40% in size on the atribute in the matt file ,thats all really

and you can allways crit my work ,it all helps

steve

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Hmmm.... something is not quite working there but I can't quite figure out what it is.

 

While I'm looking into it I'll suggest that it seems to me that her head bobbing up and down like that while running at such a fast pace seems wrong. It might move a lot at the launch but after that her head... and eyes... should lock in on the way ahead of her. She is going somewhere quickly and this implies an intent to get there fast and/or making sure she is aware of any obstacles in front of her.

 

Not sure... not sure... not sure...

 

A few of the poses suggest 'jump' ala Trinity from 'Matrix'.

 

 

Added: Not the best video reference but full of random running at various speeds:

 

And second video:

 

This last one has some nice slow mo analysis.

At 4:20 some text crawls up the screen and echo's Robert's suggestion to lead with the hips.

Shortly thereafter there is talk about vertical movement (head bobbing) and they talk about 4 inches in movement... but note that the this is the head moving up and down, not tilting forward and back.

At approx. 8:20 the video starts talking about Stride Angle and it's relationship to Bounce (head bobbing and vertical movement of the body).

At approx. 11:45 there are some olympic runners that come close to hitting the stride of your character and her upper body is held very stably throughout the run.

 

My suggestion would be to place a Null ahead of the character and have the character look at that Null (you don't have to constraint the head or eyes there but you could do that as well).

 

 

Your girl's run is obviously more exaggerated that most of these real world examples but...

 

Conjecture: The faster the run the more stable the upper body will tend to be to maintain balance and to prepare the runner to occupy the space(s) they will be moving into.

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Simon I have a plastic matt on the black parts with around 4% reflection and a white spec clour and the spec is at 40% in size on the atribute in the matt file ,thats all really

and you can allways crit my work ,it all helps

steve

 

 

Steve

Thank you for the info. I'm guessing that the plastic matt you refer to is a material ? rather than a matte in the photoshop sense ? I do like the effect though.

 

The thing I noticed was the hair movement not relating to the head and forward direction but, I think that probably comes later. I find it a little difficult to gauge from the angle you choose so unable to offer anything more positive. My apologies.

simon

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Thanks for that Rodney ,some good info there

and thanks to you Simon the hair is shag not hair as such ,from Jim Talbots model I liked it so tryed using it but its not so animatable as hair . I donte see the shag particles anymore so probably got replaced since the new hair IS much better ,and yes I should have put matterial file not matt ( not thinking )

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Had a go at getting it better ,but now it don't seem to flow very well ,maybe the feet are on the ground to long

 

 

Steve

 

Take this with the proverbial salt mine,

An observation I would make is, depending on the speed she is running at, the arms should move through a wider range,If she was an athlete or an action movie star ( at one extreme) then the forearms would be parallel at least to the thighs and possibly higher if sprinting flat out.

She is in contact with the ground for 8 frames, which seems a lot to me but I defer to someone with more expertise. The other point to make is that she lands as if walking, heel first, and I think most of the action in running is in the first part of the foot, from the toes back to the in step ?

 

Pass the salt...

simon

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Simon hit on this aspect and I see the same thing in Robert's video:

 

The range of arm and leg motion is constrained a lot in your animation and more flowing in Robert's video.

Interestingly, I thought the arms might bend more on the back swing but you've got that pretty close.

It's when the arm goes forward and cross over in front of the chest that yours loses that smooth arcing motion.

Similarly, on the movement of the legs backward Robert's fast run has his foot almost up touching his butt while your girl's knees hardly bend upward at all.

 

Aside: I note that that Null (which I assume to be an Eye Target) is moving up and down. Make that a fixed position and you've got it going! Heck, constrain it to another Null that is somewhere off screen. Even if the head moves then the eyes will stay fixed on that location.

 

Back to Robert's video:

Note the range of motion of just his upper arm alone.

 

There are some aspects of your video that work 'as is' but almost as if there are missing frames from the end of the sequence. That just so happens to be when the girl's arms would move in front of her.

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Steve,

I see some nice improvement in this last one.

There are a few frames (maybe four in total) where the upper leg either stops or moves in the opposite direction that the movement the leg should be going. Extracting those frames seems to make the animation flow a little smoother. This may relate to that comment you made about having her feet on the ground for too long.

 

Attached is a compilation of the run just for the purpose of trying to figure out where everything was going. It may not be of much use to you but noting the change from one image to the next in the arms and legs might help to understand better which way the bones are moving. There was an aspect of weight, squash and stretch that I started looking for in the sequences as well but I didn't get for with that. I suppose you could say that the circled areas represent what I would call extremes and they should tell the story by themselves. You've got some nice poses there but the others don't seem to flow very well into and out of them. The inbetweens just make the motion smooth and finesse the sense of weight and the timing of the motion.

 

If you draw a line on any of her arms and legs you'll see that from frame to frame there isn't much change (in direction or shape) going on and this is working against you in my estimation. These held poses in the extremities should be free flowing and running on smooth arcs.

 

 

I'd be very curious to see your keyframes and channels.

 

 

Added: In just looking at the thumbnail image I've attached and glancing from figure to figure you should be able to see the girl running but that isn't happening. You can see a couple poses that read well. Those are really important but there aren't enough of them. In (I think it's frame 10) I made a small note that bringing the other arm/hand up and forward might strengthen that pose.

rawanalysis.png

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Thanks Rodney thats a good image of things ,I started again as I just had to many keyframes and channels

 

heres what I came up with

btw this runs from frame 1 to 14

 

Steve

( keep the salt ready )

If you look at frame three The grounded foot changes orientation from the proceeding and following frame - toe down, to toe up, to toe down,

Also on F3 perhaps the height of the hips relative to the grounded foot might be higher, likewise on F10 ?

Frames 7& 8 perhaps need the foreleg extended further, before the touchdown on frame 9. The rear foot on F9 might best be pointing back rather than forwards ?

 

simon

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