My first animation

[zowat]

Hi i've been working on this little animation for most of the weekend. Its two actions a run cycle and a jump. I decided to use mr ball pretty much since he doesnt have arms to have to worry about, and i was inspired by some of the other mr ball animation on the forum. The run is very close copy of a run cycle in "The Animators Survival Kit" by Richard Williams I know the right foot has some funny issues i just couldnt seem to fix at certain points, will try to tweek them later.

mrball.mov

[Dalemation]

For a first animation that`s excellent! Maybe a little more anticipation would have helped and the inbetweens are a bit too even on the jump. I think he should have slowed a bit more as he reached the peak of the arc before falling again.

 

The run looked great to me. Impressive.

[robcat2075]

Nice Run!

 

I finally broke down and got Richard William's book. I shoulda done that a year ago. Tons of great stuff in there. Much better than trying to furiously scribble notes at his $1000 master class. So amazing that there are people who can actually draw all that and get it right. And we imagine CG is hard

 

In addition to what Dalemation said, to make the jump more "credible" I think there's room for more squash in the takeoff and landing. Right now he doesn't seem to go much below the "down" position of the run. I realize he's got rather short legs. Maybe the takeoff point shouldn't be so close to the wall for a more natural arc, too?

 

But that's a great first clip.

[zowat]

Thanks for the replys guys. i've done some more work on this animation and pretty much redone to begining of the jump by adding a litte hop. i guess my biggest problem was getting the timing right in the first one i posted. i must have deleted the choreography 20 times because actions were jumping around on me and i didnt know how to fix it. It seems with stride length on you cant really adjust the speed of the run cycle by dragging out the action and increasing the amount of times the action repeats. The option just isnt there in the properties panel with the stride length active. But after looking over the NLA video from anzovin i found a better way to control the speed and timing by adjusting the ease in the path constraint. It took a bit of playing around to get the feel for it but now i think i get it. I think i'm gonna keep playing with this animation for a bit, having alot of fun with it

 

ps. This is the first animation i've posted, probably done a hundreds animations just to test stuff out and see how things work.

mrball_ver2.mov

[JBarrett]

Looking better!

 

One thing you might want to work on is the stride length for that run cycle. It doesn't work for the actual distance he's covering on the ground (watch the feet slip on the ground during each stride).

 

The leap over the wall works *much* better. Very fun, cartoony take on it.

 

The camera has a bit of a hitch at the end. You'll probably have to re-do the camera movement anyway once the stride length is fixed because he'll be covering more ground, so you might want to peek at it then. Camera keys should really be kept to a minimum. While CG gives us the freedom to do whatever we want with the camera, the vast majority of the time it looks better to treat the camera the same way you would its real-world counterpart. Keep the moves simple, and try to replicate basic trucks, dollies, pans, zooms, etc. Some cinematography reference would be good to review when planning camara positions and moves.

 

Overall, it's looking pretty sweet. Keep at it!

[zowat]

HI Justin thanks for your comments. I see what you mean by the foot slipping and went back into my action and adjusted the timing. I spend most of last night working on just that. I originally had stride length turned on and set at the heels but i guess since he leaves the ground i had to extend the stride way out. then i could make small timing adjustments to the action so the foot speed matched the ground movement in the action window. I made a test render with just the run cycle and it seem much better as far as foot slipping and now he covers alot more ground per stride. i still need to work on the jump and to get the timing right , but now i know how to do it so it looks right in the choreography.

 

As far as camera moves , its an area i'm having some trouble in, i'll try to keep the moves simple like you suggested. maybe I'll pick up a book on camera techniques

 

thanks for you help. i'm learning so much on this little project

mrball_run.mov

[MATrickz]

Wow thats excellent for some of your first animations! All the problems have been fixed as far as I can see, great job!

[zowat]

ok here is an update. i fixed some of the foot slipping problems i had with the jump also.

mrball_ver3.mov

[lazz]

That's pretty good! And you are definately showing improvement! the only minor problem is the transition between your running action, and your jump action. It's difficult to notice first time around, but if you watch it in slow-mo it's easier to tell where it happens. Anyways, great animation! Keep up the good work!

[johnl3d]

I liked all three ..you should tie them together

 

 

glad I watched

[olioli]

I love that little mr ball guy...

This may be a bit of a stretch, but do you think you could upload that model. I would love to practice that stuff...

Thanks.

oli