Attempt At Cartoon Physics I - Eddie's trick

[RS3D]

I am experimenting with some of my old animation projects in order to see if adding cartoon-type physics improves them.

The attached video is one of several tricks from a project where Eddie and his "family" perform a series of stunts with a basketball.

The back flip in real life would be quicker than what I am using here, but I added a little delay where he hangs in the air.

Hopefully it adds a little entertainment value to the animation.

 

I would appreciate it if someone would take a look at it and let me know if you see problems with the timing and weight of the

characters during the action.

eddieSecondPart_reduced.mov

[robcat2075]

Whoo! This is an extremely complex move to animate.

 

I do see some timing/weight things that can be remedied. Let me study this a bit and I'll be back

[John Bigboote]

I would start out by animating Eddie in choreography mode 1st... animate his bounding box to get a nice smooth flow of where you see the action going, get the spin down pat and copy/paste the start settings to the end. Next, in skeletal mode generate some 'key frames' -like when he is pushing-off, when he is mid-spin... when he lands...etc THEN- start from the ground up... so get his feet and legs looking like he is properly treading the ground all the way thru... get his base spine bone animating with weight, coil and recoil... the arms and upper body and head come last and are instrumental as well in adding to believable locomotion, balance and poise. Working in passes like that allows for experimentation, saving incrementally allows you to scrap an approach and start again knowing what you learned or applying new ideas.

 

Be sure to post your ensuing versions!

[RS3D]

I worked on animating an opening scene for the project. It shows a father character video taping the trick and a brother character doing a drum roll. I think

this perspective will be good enough to cover the basketball trick and the back flip trick that come later on.

eddieFirstParAt.mov

[Rodney]

I'm liking where this is going!

[RS3D]

I managed to integrate the back flip action into the starting choreography. At this point, I think I need to do 5 things:

1) Eddie should take a step back to gain some momentum before starting to run forward

2) I need to extend the drum roll sound track so that the cymbal crash happens when he lands after the flip

3) I need to add a cymbal and get one of the characters to hit it at the correct point in the animation

4) Extend the camera blinking light animation to the end

5) Smooth out the father hand action as he returns the hand to the camera

 

Does anyone see anything else that bothers you?

eddieFirst_and_second_PartsA.mov

[RS3D]

Here is an update that addresses the concerns from my previous post. Hopefully I have the sound close to the right spots

in the animation..

 

The next phase is to come up with some additional actions with a basketball and try for a humorous ending.

eddieFirst_and_second_PartsB.mov

[robcat2075]

Here are some of my observations...

 

clip4000RS3DsJump.mov

[RS3D]

Thank you RobCat for the most excellent analysis of the back flip. I can see that the two key pivot points are the pelvis and the head. As you point out, everything should

revolve around those two points and then adjust for correct lags for the other body parts. I will work on that as I get closer to a final version.

 

I have been mostly trying to figure out how to show the effort by his sister in helping to execute the back flip. Since this is about cartoon physics, I have actually been working

toward a double rather than a single back flip. This would be very hard to do in real life, but if I can show added effort by something outside of the Eddie character, it would

hopefully make it seem a little less impossible.

 

One of the things that does not seem to be working is the motion blur on my system. I don't know why yet, but it will probably be necessary when I get to the

double flip which will have to be extremely fast.