Moho Forum

Here's a practice animation I did. I used a switch layer for the head. Kind of basic, and short. Please take a look, thanks.

udd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8gkqGJr03Y

For learning porpouses only:

1) The received ball should bounce a bit in the floor unless it is made of clay.
2) It is supposed that the man should throw the ball from his hand as reaction for the other ball's hit. That's the real challenge: synchronize the ball movement detached form the hand and the hand movement itself.

Good luck. It is not a simple exercise.
-G

Genete wrote: 1) The received ball should bounce a bit in the floor unless it is made of clay.
2) It is supposed that the man should throw the ball from his hand as reaction for the other ball's hit. That's the real challenge: synchronize the ball movement detached form the hand and the hand movement itself.

Thanks for the input, Genete. I tried out your suggestions, although I wasn't totally sure what you meant by the second idea. I also changed the position of the ball already in his hand to make it more visible, Here is an improved version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HolMK_s6PkU

I like it better now although his movement in throwing the ball is too smooth. I animated it straight ahead instead of planning my key frames so I didn't think it out enough.

udd

You should add more reaction when the guy is hitted by the ball, and you should add some anticipation when the guy is throwing his ball.
Remember your character is acting with all his body, not just with the superior part. Give him some legs movements, as some duck. you can lock the feet bones and move a little the whole body to get some nice movements.
Remember timming too, let your guy think about what happened, what is happening and what will happen. Let us believe is he who is taking the decisions.

selgin wrote:You should add more reaction when the guy is hitted by the ball, and you should add some anticipation when the guy is throwing his ball.
Remember your character is acting with all his body, not just with the superior part. Give him some legs movements, as some duck. you can lock the feet bones and move a little the whole body to get some nice movements.
Remember timming too, let your guy think about what happened, what is happening and what will happen. Let us believe is he who is taking the decisions.

More work, huh? OK I will try to improve it more. Actually I was already trying to do some of the things you said in the second animation(except the leg movements). but maybe just not enough.

By the way...then do you think I should increase the length of the animation? In other words to add the anticipation and thinking of the character?

Thanks for all the good advise, selgin. I will work on it and post my result as soon as I can. I hope you can comment more when that happens.

udd

uddhava. here is a test I just made based on your animation to illustrate what I mean
http://www.mediafire.com/?zzfxjzg5jd0
It's not perfect, but works as example, I think.

selgin wrote:here is a test I just made based on your animation to illustrate what I mean

That's very nice work, Selgin. How long did it take to do this example? Did you do this straight ahead or pose-to-pose?

I wonder how you did this so fast.

neeters_guy wrote:That's very nice work, Selgin. How long did it take to do this example? Did you do this straight ahead or pose-to-pose?

I wonder how you did this so fast.

Thands, neeters, actually it taked no more than an hour. Using bones it's pretty easy to get results fast, that one of the reasons I love AS. I think the key is to use lock bones, with them you get fancy results with just a little effort. Of course, on more complex characters, add details moving points give a lot of magic.

The way I worked that example wasn't too ordered, actually I was improvising all the time. Basically I work this way:
first, think the movement and decide if there are bones which will need to be locked. then, lock the bones and stablish the last pose of the movement. when the pose is ready, I go back some frames and add some basic anticipations to the movement. Then go after and add some reactions, as head movements, bouncing, etc. It's not more than this, I think.
Obviously, if something is not working, I delete, move, copy or do whatever with the keyframes until I get what I wanted.

However, I just wanted to share the file to show what was I reffering to, I hope it can be useful as a reference, there are infinite ways to be hitted by a ball and throw another one.

Thanks, that confirms for me the most efficient workflow for my own animations.

uddhava wrote:By the way...then do you think I should increase the length of the animation? In other words to add the anticipation and thinking of the character?

I'd let the action determine the length of animation. Traditional animators used to keep a stop watch to time actions. Today we have it easier: We can video tape an action and import it as reference. If you act out the scene, ie., get hit on the head and throw a ball back, you will find it takes longer than 2 seconds.

One thing I noticed is that when the man throws the ball, his arm actually slows down when it should be speeding up.

As a practice piece, though, it does the job.

selgin wrote:uddhava. here is a test I just made based on your animation to illustrate what I mean
http://www.mediafire.com/?zzfxjzg5jd0
It's not perfect, but works as example, I think.

Thanks selgin, your example look's great. Sorry I couldn't reply last night. I had to get up at 2:30 AM today so I was already sleeping. Even now I am still busy. I will reply to everyone later and see if I can work on my practice also.

Thanks to everyone for the advice, udd

Well here's here's my latest and final attempt at this "practice" animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZYCOvO3zbg

It's funny I actually just wanted to create a character with bones according some ideas that slowtiger gave and then I thought "What should he do? He can throw a ball".
Any way I tried to follow some of everyone's suggestions and I think it improved, but it would still have along way to go. It's still way too quick for example.
Thank you ,neeters_guy, selgin and Genete for all the good advice. I will keep it in mind.
Any last comments appreciated.
udd[/quote]

That looks really good! Keep it up - you're doing well!