Start of a new week, and Digital Acting is the module currently in progress. As a part of this we were asked to create a heavy lift animation, which I found quite entertaining and fun, and its been a while since I tried animating a bit seriously.
Below you find my result for this exercise.
Below you find my result for this exercise.
So, lets get on with the hard stuff! Thoughts behind and self analytical reflection upon my own animation style. Which is hard to do for non "writing man" as myself ^^
Well, not really, so here we go; As I saw the post saying we should do a heavy lift animation, I immediately had a certain idea already going. As you can see from the video above, its a try at a comedic kind of setting. Doing a heavy lift, I almost instantly knew I wanted to make the stone be epicly gigantic and fall upon the character. Not quite sure where the inspiration came from, but I pictured some old style Donald Duck and Wilie Coyote'ish movement and animation. The Road Runner and Wilie Coyote is some of the best and funny cartoons i can remember, so I guess this naturally comes as a favored inspirational source. Though I cant say my animation skills is quite up to the standards of the Looney Tunes... yet...
Well, not really, so here we go; As I saw the post saying we should do a heavy lift animation, I immediately had a certain idea already going. As you can see from the video above, its a try at a comedic kind of setting. Doing a heavy lift, I almost instantly knew I wanted to make the stone be epicly gigantic and fall upon the character. Not quite sure where the inspiration came from, but I pictured some old style Donald Duck and Wilie Coyote'ish movement and animation. The Road Runner and Wilie Coyote is some of the best and funny cartoons i can remember, so I guess this naturally comes as a favored inspirational source. Though I cant say my animation skills is quite up to the standards of the Looney Tunes... yet...
For those a little known to 3D animation, the Lowmax rig or Lomax as I call it, is a well known one. I got this rig of a classmate, and loved it from first try. It has all you could need from a rig, such as a IK/FK controller for the arms, which gives full control onto the user on how to use the rig, wheter you like one over another. Personally I am a IK kinda guy, but I see the benefits of the FK solution too. Also full control of the feet, be it banking, heel lift and so forth, using custom attributes on the foot controller.
Above you can see the controls for animating facial features, you got plenty of little sliders to drag around and make the most funny faces you can imagine up. As you can see, there is no reason why one should need to use the 3D Max Biped ever again. Allmost.. (Yes thats right, you heard me, I dont like the Biped..)
Only thing I seem to miss about this rig is a hand controller, similar to the one used on the feet. Its not problematic, but would have made finger-animation perhaps a bit easier. (Then again, we love challenges, dont we!)
So there you go, thats a little about the Lomax rig, FOUND HERE, lets move on to the action! ^^
Only thing I seem to miss about this rig is a hand controller, similar to the one used on the feet. Its not problematic, but would have made finger-animation perhaps a bit easier. (Then again, we love challenges, dont we!)
So there you go, thats a little about the Lomax rig, FOUND HERE, lets move on to the action! ^^
First I'd like to tell you a bit about my way of animating. I have no rules. And I simply just animate. That's the short and sweet version, but to get a better understanding you could say that I am a Straight Forward kind of animator, I don't do much counting of frames and such, I just place a key here and there, where I feel they should be. Trying to incorporate as much natural movement as I can, in (hopefully) the right places. That's MY way of the Samur... Erm... Animation.
I dont think I can say it better than ; "Just do it", simply apply movements you like to a character. Of course its more to it than that, like remembering things like squash and stretch, for a animation like this, to give the character more life and dramatic action. Remembering to apply the use of secondary motions, like when he is standing there, angry and upset on this stupid piece of rock whom just hurt his poor pinkies. Using the motion of one motion to followthrough another. Yes, I am aware my technical terms are somewhat flawed, but thats also one part of what this years study shall remedy :D
Above you can see a point in the animation I forgot, or more correctly, just made it so that it moves quick enough for your eye not to catch it :P Cheap, I know, but it works, kind of! Should have worked more on this to have made it better though.
Also wanted a bit of the Donald Duck fiery anger, as he stumbles on that darned rock. You know, the classic Donald, jumping up and down shaking his hands, Silly Symphony style.
Here you see some of the applied stretching to the arms used quite a bit in this animation, to give it some better animated life. Lots of bending used throughout, in certain very unrealistic ways. Some of the angles used is perhaps a bit to steep, but all to make it feel more cartoony in this epic struggle to rid himself of this darned stone..
Here we go with the extraction of the stone. Its this ladder part of the animation i feel best about, mostly due to the fact that i feel I kinda got the feeling I wanted from what I was doing, if that makes any sense, hehe. Looking back I think I could have used even more anticipation to really get the point through, with the big rock he's pulling up. But I feel that I did a pretty decent job with this, time considered.
You may have by now noticed my keys are maybe not the cleanest of keys. But this works for me, and I guess things is not as messy as it may look. Some of the reason for it is the use of secondary motion, in say for instance the relation of the head and spine, when the spine stops and the head gets this little rebound effekt. Makes thing a bit more lively and not so static, pluss lots of time spared not messing with the curve editor, by just adding a couple of keys in front and back of the key in question.
Its kind of hard to see, but I left out facial animation and finger animation intensionally due to time restriction. I guess i spent about 8-12 hours on this one. It still amazes me how much time is acctually needed to get good animation, which also reflect my thoughts and feelings on how the 3D industry works. How much time, creativity, blood, sweat and tears is spent creating these beautifull films we 3D geeks love and hate. The amounts of manhours spent perfecting a small movement only seen on screen for, perhaps if youre lucky, a few seconds. One word; Epic. Says it all. Hats of and bow down in the gravel, and thank you Animation Industry Gods, for bringing us the joy of animated entertainment!
But i digress...
So, moving on. Above and below you can se examples of the squash and stretch applied to a pretty extreme degree. Top one is stretch applied to the maximum of what was possible with the Lomax rig.
But i digress...
So, moving on. Above and below you can se examples of the squash and stretch applied to a pretty extreme degree. Top one is stretch applied to the maximum of what was possible with the Lomax rig.
Here we have that classic Looney Tunes/cartoony "Oh noes, a anvil is above my head!" type scene.
Need I say more?
Need I say more?
Finally a look at the little earth deformation thing I made for this. Real simple stuff really. A plane extracted out a bit, adding turbosmooth and noise, Edit poly, selecting the midsection, apply Spherify and a Squeeze. Voilà, there you have your earth deforming thingy! XD
So I guess this is it, the end of the line of this day's selfreflektive train to animatory divineness.
To conclude, I say that I need plenty work still on my animation skills (And Journaling skills aswell). I keep hearing that timing and secondary motions is something I should work on, and I concur. This is one of many weak spots of mine, which is painfully obvious each time I watch my own animations, hehe. But Im workin on it.
And now I am all out of big words and fingers are sore from typing. Hopefully someone would have found this either interesting and/or helpfull, and with that I say goodnight and bye bye for now.
To conclude, I say that I need plenty work still on my animation skills (And Journaling skills aswell). I keep hearing that timing and secondary motions is something I should work on, and I concur. This is one of many weak spots of mine, which is painfully obvious each time I watch my own animations, hehe. But Im workin on it.
And now I am all out of big words and fingers are sore from typing. Hopefully someone would have found this either interesting and/or helpfull, and with that I say goodnight and bye bye for now.