Okay, yesterday I started a new, more challenging 3D animation than the previous ones (I haven't put up the second one yet...). I decided it needed to be much harder because I felt I was limiting myself to mundane, boring animations, making any development I make watered down. Far better to have a challenging animation and work hard at it than an easy one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzcMAuz7zjk <--The new animation
Feedback is much appreciated. This is only the beginning, of course. There is more to do.
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Get to know me more through my blog at http://kaidonni.animationblogspot.com/! :cool:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z47kiCGz4Jk
Updated the animation by adding more steps. Still far from finished. That is a good thing. No more easy animations for me.
Get to know me more through my blog at http://kaidonni.animationblogspot.com/! :cool:
Is the ball supposed to be hopping down hill or is the camera just tilted?
The movements are a little floaty. It looks more like the ball is a balloon or is walking on the moon rather than hopping down hill. It needs more weight on the landings, esspecially if it's hopping down hill.
You can do this one of two ways. Have the ball accelerate into the landing, then have a long ease-in to a pose where the legs are fully bent and have a hold a beat. Then have it hop up and repeat. What the character is doing is absorbing the force of the impact and at the same time gathering energy for the next hop down the hill.
The other way is to shorten the ease-in and not have a pause at the bottom of the pose. Also don't have the knees bent as much. The hop is going to be a shorter quicker hop as well. What the character is doing here is keeping a faster pace down the hill and controlling the speed with short, fast landings and take offs.
Look at the ball bounce exercises to get a sense of the timing of the ball in the air. The ball is fast out of the bottom pose, then slows up at the top, then speeds up as it heads back to the ground. The spacing between the ball from one frame to the next should never be equal on a ball bounce. Terminal velocity is around 100 miles per hour and that speed won't be reached in a ball bounce.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Thanks for the feedback. The character is hopping down a slope, yes. I'm making some adjustments at the moment, experimenting with the first way you outlined, where my character absorbs the force of the landing and is getting ready for the next boost. Still looks floaty because I use spline tangents as the default in and out tangent (I don't know why Stepped Tangents are only available in Maya on the outgoing curve...messed around with the settings, but using spline tangents during the roughing out process is just my way).
Get to know me more through my blog at http://kaidonni.animationblogspot.com/! :cool:
Since it is hoping downhill, also watch the character's center of gravity. The body is leaning too far forward when it lands on the ground.
I usually leave the curves on stepped tangents at this stage while I'm working out the timing and spacing and poses. Once I get those working right, then I switch to flat or splines.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0iFtZ7U5nJU
An update. Still needs lots of work. Been trying to fix the legs, have focused on the first two or so steps. Need to prevent the snapping of the legs. Heh, I feel overwhelmed by the curve editor, so I'm having to reel back and take it a step at a time (no pun intended). This is indeed a challenging animation for me...oh, and one of the jumps towards the end looks wrong, too...
Get to know me more through my blog at http://kaidonni.animationblogspot.com/! :cool: