ABC 4, da BIPED!!! good ol' IKJoe Options

[amarillospider]

BootCamp 4

Biped!!!

Biped's: the ultimate challenge, the ultimate goal.

Somewhere I got IKJoe for A:M rigged with the setup machine. But I couldn't remember where. (As far as I know IKJoe was originally built by the guys at www.rigging101.com)

anyway, here's joe

and here's joe zipped

And if you aren't ready for arms, torso, and head yet
get the little ball from this thread but you should probably adjust like Parlo recomends.

I like Joe because he's simple and he doesn't have a really expressive face to distract us, we are still focusing on basics. Anyway, I think we'll be using IKJoe for a few bootcamp's, so now's your chance to get used to him. Re rig him if you want, but remember we are focusing on basic animation, so don't get to distracted. If you have some other model you really really want to use that's fine, just don't get caught up in detail's.

Excercise A:
Side step. Make Joe take a step to the side. Keep in mind: balance, anticipation, weight, follow through (especially on the arms, and also on the head) exageration, personality. Victor Navone's side step

Excercise B:
Big jump. Make Joe jump big. Keep in mind all the same things as for A.

Bonus points: make these actions looping, with stride length.

Something else to keep in mind is reversing arcs of the body. You can sell weight better by doing this, and it makes things more interesting. "Animator's Survival Kit" talks about this. In example B you could do this by having the body curled up for the anticipation to leap, then while airborn have the spine reversed to a big arc, and then the impact snaps the body back into a concave curled up shape.

No Excercise C this time. Go and do A and B again, but completely differently then you did before, a whole new direction. Try it with the ball with feet. Try it with both, like they're competing. The skies the limit.

Have fun, be bold, experiment, push things til you break them!!

-Alonso

[Drakkheim]

already a new camp!!! Well it must be time, I was starting to see juiceboxes in my sleep

Well at least i'll have time to get both excercises done in a week this time.

thanks for keeping these coming amarillospider.

-s

[lazz]

Alright! I've been waiting for this one .
Anyways, I've ran into a bit of trouble if anyone can help me out. So here's the problem, for my sidestep with Mr. Ball, it has a pause in the middle of it, so how do I keep him from moving forward while he's stopped? He's supposed to take a step, pause, then take another step and so on. When I put has stride length, it keeps him moving across the screen even when he's not supposed to move. hmm... . So anyways, here's my looped sidestep for both mr. ball and IKJoe.

Attached File(s)

 camp_4.mov ( 164.75k ) Number of downloads: 205

 

[amarillospider]

Robert: nice job, very accomplished. An improvement you could make on the ball is adding more up and down. When the ball shifts it's weight over it's right foot so it can place it's left, you could emphasize that by moving the ball up a little to get it in place, and settling it down over the foot. As it takes a step it's suggesting an arc, but you could exagerate that more, so an arc with the highpoint in the middle and settling onto the other foot. Looking at the ball in loop, it looks like it's posing with it's foot out there, and then placing it, I'd suggest really flourishing it (tilt the body more, wiggle the foot more) if your going for the charicature, or smoothing out that catch by placing the heal on the ground and going straight into flat. Joe looks great! In loop it looks like he is moving fairly fast for not looking where he's going, maybe have him glance to make sure where he is placing his foot is okay, or slow him down some to add to his cautiosness. Both your character's have a lot of personality from their floppy toes. With Joe, his right leg is turning while his weight is on it, not possible. Try it, with all your weight on 1 leg try and change the direction your toe is pointing (if your doing it by hopping your cheating, cuz your weights in the air). The easy way to change this is weight till he places his left foot and really quickly shift the weight to move the foot, and shift it back (little weight shifts like that add to the character's believability also, I think) Not quite buying the push off from the left foot, mainly because the torso and leg are moving at the same time, and I'm not seeing the muscles push the body over to the right side before being pulled along afterward (leg needs to straighten some to show this). What I said about the ball arcing more up and down, can be applied to Joe's butt as well.
Both character's are doing a bent leg side step. Try straight leg, less sneaky, just to flex more.
Great Job!!!

As for stride length sliding, there is a work around. You have to counter animate your character when it's standing still. When your character is not covering ground, move the root bone over the amount that the stride length is trying to move them in the opposite direction (so stride length + counter root animatin = 0 distance)

Wow, look how long a post you got for being first.


-Alonso

[lazz]

[Tunames]

OK here's my 1st attemptsidestep A

[higginsdj]

OK, Here's my attempt at Exercise A (no credit for looping - still have to work that one out).

I didn't use the supplied model as I didn't like the rig and I can't rig a model myself (yet) so I used another forum members model (recently posted BasicMan3 by Steve George - very nice rig)

Exercise A

Cheers

[Tunames]

Hey David yours looks a lot better than mine. Since I'm such a noob at animation got any tips for me? Did you use IK or FK arms? Thanks for the complements on BM got any suggestions on how to improve him?

[Tunames]

OK this wasn't one of the exercisesbut I had to do it

Exercise X

[higginsdj]

Hi Steve,

I can't think of any improvements for basicman3 - he did everything I asked of him without any problems at all.

Your animation looks like a first pass. That is you have moved the body and the feet (though it looks more like a foot slide) into position. What you need to do in pass 2 is add some anticipation. ie body weight will lean in the opposite direction of the movement - let the audience knwo you are about to do something. Now you do have the body weight move WHEN he moves the foot but this is just balance - not anticipation.

Pass 3 - look at making the moves bigger - ie exaggerated. rather than raising the foot an inch, raise it a foot, bend the knees.

Pass 4 - Movement involves the whole body. Each part of the body is a link in a chain for movement and follow through. DO NOT BE AFFRAID to go overboard with the movement.

It wasn't until I animated too much movement in a character that I could go back to my old animations and see just how stiff my animating was.

Also try to avoid any jerky movements. Halfway through the step theres a bit of a jerk in the horizontal movement of the body. Look at the graph editor it might make it easier to see.

The easiest thing to do right now is stand up. Let your body loosen up ie stand there and bounce a little, DON'T leave your hands by your side, bend the elbows a little and watch what happens in a mirror - NOTE the timing - all the movementis just a little delayed and a little offset the further down the body chain. Now do a side step. Repeat over and over again and study your own body movements. Now sit down and animate - DON'T try to do it all at once - just do a bit at a time and repeat the acting each time to refresh your memory.

Cheers

[higginsdj]

Xade,

That really is a great animation but I have one issue - the head doesn't move - at least a glance in the direction of a step would be good or a wobble of the the head as the body moves sideways. (I think I missed this in mine as well)

Cheers

[Biotron2000]

[higginsdj]

Steve,

Exercise X - nice - just need to add some follow through on IKJoe (ie some bounce on the protruding extremities)

Cheers

[Tunames]

Thanks for the critics and advice David heres a 2nd pass at exercise A


Exercise A 2nd pass

[higginsdj]

Hi Steve,

Some improvement. Issues I can see:

1. Left foot - it's a side step. Your action looks like a drag (even though it is just off the ground)
2. Hands and fingers are static
3. Right foot is twisting on the ground before being lifted off the ground.
4. Both hands are penetrating the body. Don't forget that you are animating in 3 dimensions - not just 2
5. Head starts off well but looks like it only had one more keyframe (right at the end) so the motion in the second half of the animation is just a slow turn. Add some follow through to the head (think tail - bootcamp2 - body is th eball and the head is the tail - same should apply to the arms)
6. Arms are too static - remmeber he needs to act - show personality - have some prominant secondary motion and follow through and there is no harm in adding gestures.
7. Body is stiff. Remember balance. body bend at the start is OK but there is nothing at the end. Look at the position of the body when the left foot is picked up. The body is well to the left of the right foot so it is a physical impossibility! The body needs to lean over to move the CG to the left (his right)

If you have autobalance turned on then I recommend turning it off. With it on you cannot properly animate anticipation and follow through (IMHO)

Cheers