http://media.putfile.com/bootcampABC1A

ABC 1 A this is my take on the exercise what do you guys think of this? Hopefully post the next one tommorow night.

Hey Mark that's a good start.

I think it's a recent bug but the squash/stretch expressions I built in don't seem to be squashing. So it looks like the balls are getting taller and shorter without any conservation of mass, they should get skinnier when the get taller and fatter when they get shorter. Anyway.

Looks like you have good settle with the big ball. It might just be the lights but it looks like it isn't quite touching the ground. For it's second bounce it starts squashing before it is touching the ground (and having a reason to squash). The diminish of energy is consistent and believable, but the sound makes me expect a more rubbery ball. When the heavy ball hits, I'm not sold on the hop to the side. If the ball is alive there isn't enough reaction to the landing, anticipation to get energy to make the jump, and a sense of judging for it to hop back. If it isn't alive, it doesn't seem right that it would bounce over and back, more likely it would bounce up, but then only if it were on something like a plastic table, not on the ground.
The yellow ball is pretty good. It looks like it has a second bounce in there but it's totally synched up with the camera jolt so it's not really seen. I kind of want to see a little drift after that 2nd bounce, as if it had a little more energy but not quite enough to get it off the ground.

All in all a good first effort. You might want to build your own pose sliders so the balls can actually squash and stretch. So pay attention to squash and stretch and arcs and energy (momentum vs gravity). Don't get to distracted by playing with sounds and camera shakes.

Keep going!

-Alonso

Thanks for the advice

I had trouble getting the pose slider to squash the ball. I was able to stretch the ball so I scaled the -Y axis of the ball to get a squash affect. I thought that gave an acceptable affect but like you mention this would not enlarge the X axis of the ball to account for the loss mass from the Y Squash. You are right the mass has to go some were. Here I thought I was going for browney points with the camera jump I can't help myself I love playing with the camera I will have another look at this and see what I can do to improve my animation.

And again thanks for taking the time taken in trying to improve my skills

http://media.putfile.com/bootcampABC1A2ndtry

I keeped the camera jump and sounds if you would like to see it without the camera jump please say and I will lose it. Guess I should concentrate on one task at a time I increased the X axis to tie into the Yaxis and I really see the difference thanks. Youe were right it was the third bounce of the big ball my timing was off so I fixed that as well.

Let me know what else needs work then I will proceed onto the next exercise

Thanks again

The squetch does look better (but don't forget that things to include the z axis if we're going to see this from multiple angles)

It looks like the ball is still squashing before it has anything to squash against. What I think is happening is that you don't have enough keyframes. It looks like there is one squash keyframe for when it hits, but there's not a stretched out keyframe before that, so the ball is slowly squashing to it's keyframe shape as it falls. Check out this picture I grabbed online. As the ball falls it gets stretched out as gravity pulls it one way, and inertia and air friction pull it the other, it squashes once it contacts the ground and gravity keeps pulling it down but the ball can't physically go down anymore so it's energy goes out to the sides, then that energy comes back in towards the center of the ball and squirts back upwards (because that's the only direction available (down is blocked by the ground, and outward is blocked by the incoming energy from the oposite side of the ball) stretching it out.

The bounce from the heavy ball landing looks much better.

Here's 2 excercises for you. Try making a looping cycle of a rubbery ball bouncing in place.
Bounce a ball or two across the screen (entering from one side, exiting on the other). This will test your sense of arcs.

It looks like you have a natural sense of timing.

-Alonso

Ok now I see my problems Wow I am learning alot I have to admit when I did the frist attempt I was quite pleased with myself. I thought Wow I aced that on the first try



"Oh what I fool am I"

I have learned that yet again the time line window show so alot of what is really going on, not what my mind wants to see! Ok now I THINK I have this and I made two one with the camera jump and one without it. Boy those sounds get anoying I had to mute the speakers sorry bad idea agian concentrate at the task at hand Mark

this is camera jump 3rd attempt
http://media.putfile.com/bootcampABC1A3rdtry

and without camera jump

http://media.putfile.com/bootcampABC1A3rdtrynocamerajump

Thanks again for your time

Good improvements. It's looking better. I really like the squetchy settling in the larger ball.

So, one of the annoying things about animation is that there is always something that someone sees that they think can be improved. So it's up to you when you've had enough and are ready to apply what you've learned to a new excercise.

So anyway, what you could do if you wanted. Your squash is looking better for the landing, but now you need to pay attention to the top of the arc. Take another look at the picture I posted. When the ball is at the top of the arc it's back to neutral shape because the downward forces of gravity are canceled out by the upward momentum, so their's no significant forces pulling the ball out of shape. As gravity starts winning the ball starts stretching, and gets more and more stretched out until it suddenly meets the floor and squashes.
For some reason it feels a little odd that the heavy ball stays exactly in one place, I feel like I want to see it wander a tiny bit after it's rebound. (Don't know why I'm not missing that on the larger ball)

Your making good progress.

-Alonso

The looping cycle? do you mean a resusable action? or a short animation of a ball bouncing in place?

I am working on the bouncing across the screen and tring to get the arcing to look natural. I need to work more on this so maybe tomorrow I might have something worth showing. My eyes air blurring on me now I guess buying this 21" Monitor was not such I good idea

I mean ball bouncing in place. Kuep just did one, check it out.

Have a good weekend.

-Alonso

Thanks I will work on that this weekend.

Off topic have you seen my animation that I posted in the show case forum? I would be interested in your opinion.

How does this look?

http://media.putfile.com/abc-1-B

Now I am starting the bouncing in place ball but will alter / fix above file after your observations. Getting the arc right is tricky

http://media.putfile.com/bouncing-ball-1-c

I think I am getting the hang of this I hope

Nice! It may be a little slow though.

I noticed that but I thought it would be easier to study for correctness so I left it.

ABC 1 C

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-1-C-f

I went over the 200 frames and I wanted to do more but I thought I would send this. I could finish it if you want to see the ending I have in my head.

Hey <PF> Mark! You're really cranking these out! Great job. I'm gonna comment on the last two. You have good squash and and stretch on the single ball. I agree with Ken, the spacing is too uniform, to start off just get the "change" frames in, just before the ball hits and right after it squashs, put a greater space in-between. Your last one is awesome! Fantastic job on clarity, I could understand almost all of the actions. Which is-I'm sure you've found out-is very hard to acomplish with a ball. I like the rough feel to it; is it in stepped key? Perhaps try and keep the spacing like this makes it feel snappy. I love this one! My only crit is to try and put some anticipation on the yellow ball before he exits the shot.

ok, you actually made me laugh with the bottle!

on the bounce.. yeah, definitely speed that up, and cut the contact frames to two... the first is stretched so it is just touching the ground, the next is a squash. the next frame is stretched and already off the ground.

Question #1

I see Boot Camp and Ultimate Boot Camp and amarillospider has websites for both. The Boot Camp seems clearer in it's instructions so I have started with that website I have downloaded the chor, models and have submited ABC 1 A, ABC 1 B, and ABC 1 C, So is the Ultimate Boot camp the next level after the Boot camp or does it replace the Boot Camp. I am confusing myself just writing this I get the impression that the Ultimate Boot Camp is the original and has been reorginized for the TWO project. But the exerices are different

Question # 2

Which ones need to be done if My intentions are to help out with TWO?

Qestion # 3

ABC 2 A

Do I animate the Tail as live object moving at it's own will or do I have it reating with the forces of the ball like a rope (dead object)?

Sorry I have been away form these forums and for months up until a couple of months ago and I have been trying to answear this myself but there is simple to many posts to go through

ABC 2 A ver.# 1

OK guys bring on the critics

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-2-A-ver1

ABC 2 B ver 1

http://media.putfile.com/ABC2Bver1

I know of one thing I need to fix is the tail is slightly under ground I forgot to check for this after altering the last couple of frames.

WOW WOW you're really trucking.

Ultimate ABC was created after the original. To get ready for TWO basicly you need to be able to/learn how to animate. The Ultimate ABC leads you through different skill levels better, and if you go through it you have a demo reel to show you can animate. I think the TWO team is looking for that demo reel, so they can judge how well you can animate. Check the pinned thread at the top of the students forum, I'm going to go in and add excercises for Ultimate ABC after I give you a critique.

I'm impressed by how much work you've been doing!

So.
ABC 1B: The little yellow ball looks pretty good, you could add a small 2nd bounce in there. The bigger ball looks okay. The angle of the squash and stretch should be along the same angle of the trajectory, right now it's up and down. The diminishing bouncing is fair, but the arcs look off (not consistent), try turning on Onion Skin (from the Tools->Option window) or get a dry erase marker and follow it on your screen. The first stretch and squash look pretty good. Often the ball stretches as it's going upwards, which you haven't captured here on the bounces, try putting it in and see how it feels to you.. I see that you are doing a good job of getting that nuetral shape at the top when the energies are neutralized, and I see you are doing a good job of diminishing the squetch as the bounces get smaller.

Bouncing Ball:
It's hard to judge since it's in slow motion. Try getting it up to speed, because one of the reasons we do bouncing balls is to work on timing as well. The stretch as it falls is good, and good stretch coming back up stretchy then neutralizing out. The squash looks okay, but I'm not sure how strong it's going to look at normal speed. If you look at that picture I posted, it's an old animation trick to have the stretchiest pose right before it hits, then next frame is the most squashiest, then a couple of frames of transition back to stretchy on the way out, gives the impact more oomph.

ABC 1 CF: Very cute. Fun. I think you could sell the sad feeling of the larger ball if it didn't stick at full deflation, but more deflated but then breathed a little so we could see it's in a sad state emotionally and not just physically. You've got some cute personalities developing but I kind of want to see some more evidence of physics mastery (as in more hopping) also. Fun so far though

Old ABC2 was about learning follow through and overlapping actions. So in the chor with the ball floating back and forth it was just to concentrate on the whole thing as if it wasn't alive, but when the ball is alive and hopping around on it's own then the tail is also alive.

ABC2 A: Good start, the follow through looks natural, which not everyone catches on their first try. But when the ball changes direction it looks like the tail is changing all at once (all three segments change on the same frame). This is overlapping action aka successive breaking of joints. First the first segment should move and change then the second is pulled along into the change and then the third is pulled along by the second. The give away is that when the tail is passing directly underneath, it's a straight line. Also it looks like the first and last frame are duplicates, which puts a tiny lag in the animation (when animating a cycle I usually set my first and last frames the same so the animation will go to the same place, but I render up to the frame before the last so the viewer doesn't see the last frame twice.)

ABC2Bver1: So here also the ball is not alive so the tail is also not alive.
Your doing a good job of keeping the consistency of the tail, it is always about the same amount of stiffness, it's stiffness doesn't very (which it shouldn't). Again there's the straight down tail as it passes, the joints aren't being animated successively. The diminishing of the wiggling is good for when the ball stops (might be a tad biased on one side). You did a great job of the first joint of the tail not moving until a lot of pressure is pulling it (keeping your stiffness consistent.) The tail seems to move right before the ball falls at us, instead of being pulled by the ball. The first impact with the tail is pretty good actually. The tip should be jolted downward though. But after the first impact the tail segments should be more affected by the ground, as gravity pulls on them and they get impeded by their attachments to each other.

I'd suggest you try animating a looser tail, just for variety. One trick for animating follow through is to animate the top joint first and hide the rest, then once the top joint is animated unhide the next and animate that in relation to the top joint, then on down the line the same way. A classic follow through excercise is to animate a reed of seaweed sticking up and floating back and forth in the tide (you could just make a chain like this tail of cyllendars with bones). Often when talking about follow through you hear the term "whip action"

Great job working on all these excercises. Hope my critique's can help you improve.

-Alonso

Wow let me first say thanks for the critque the detail and explainations are Great See I am learning this bolb stuff to

I have done ABC 1 B ver 2
http://media.putfile.com/ABC-1-B-ver-2

and I think I have this done
Unless I meshed something else up or missunderstood something.

Now I hear what you are saying that the ultimate Boot Camp is geared for TWO and the original is more basic. I feel I need to complete Original Boot camp then proceed on with Ultimate Boot camp. Judging by my work do you agree? According to the posts animation process may not beginn tell earliy 2006 if this is acorrect and if I keep this pass up I am hoping to be done both then on too some contest/challenges. Does this sound like a reasonable course of action too you?

Time for bed I have somethings to do earliy tommorow I will fix the other animations tomorow night. tell then good night.

Looks good Mark. Two things to work on now. Make sure to rotate the first ball as necessary before and after the crest of the arc. Also make sure you get the "change" frames! Stretch before the contact, big squash on contact, stretch after. Really exaggerate the poses. Really nice!

Good Job on this,you did a good job of making one ball heavy and hard on the other rubbery and bounce. When I step through the animation tho I can see a few areas that could get looked at again. Josh mentioned 2 of them like adding rotaton and the timing of the squash and stretch. When the big ball contacts the ground is slides a bit before bouncing up again. The other thing i noticed is the small ball almost seems to accelerate at the end, but that might be and optical illusion because its getting closer to the camera.

Over all I think it looks good. Keep it up




~ Erik

Good improvements, the arcs look cleaner. I agree that the axis of squash could still be tweaked (so it's in line with the motion, instead of just up and down) Pixar's correct that you can push the extreme poses, but it's not absolutely neccessarry. Pushing the extreme poses gives more punch, more exageration (which is of course one of the 12 principles) but it's also a stylistic choice and doesn't need to happen every time. Good work, we can see steady improvement.

-Alonso

I speed the bouncing by 8 keyframes and I looked carefully at the strech of the ball after the hit and it takes 3 key frames for the ball to pick the strech and it leaves the ground on the 2nd key frame counting the hit as the first key frame. So if I understand you this should be it. Unless this should be faster? Now I have done what you said on another exerices and this is 30 key frames and the 30th is the same hieght as #1 on the first video now I have rendered to 29 so it does not hang in mid air but my question is which is more realistic? should the ball hang before gravity wins over momentum or not? I am not sure?

http://media.putfile.com/bouncing-ball-1-ver-d

Ok I am throughing out the time limit on this exercise I believe you wanted 200 Max well I gone to 500 and I still want more
To give the emotion of sadness I believe you have to really draw out the actions. I still have not done this because I wanted to keep this a short as I could and tell the story that is in my head. I also need more experience as to the timing of different emotions. This will come with time as I animate animate animate. So without any further ado here is ABC 1 C the 2nd ver.

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-1-C-J

Man, you're just a tiger, turning these things out!

The emotion one is better, the emotion reads in the beginning much more clearly. I'd suggest dragging the time out much longer, sadness takes a long long time. (all of the bootcamp is really just guidelines, I suggested such a short time because I didn't want people getting distracted making an epic, but do what is fun and teaches you the most.)

It's true that as gravity nulls out upward momentum the ball will start to feel like it's hanging in the air. And if you plan for that double frame that's fine. In your bounce though, you haven't eased into the top hang slow enough for us to actually feel that hang time, in other words the 2 frame hang wouldn't fit the rest of your timing. The squetch looks great on that ball bounce. I think you can work on your overall timing some still. Basicly right now everything is happening at the same time, just like a metronome Tick Tock Tick Tock. The top of the arc should slowed into and slowed out of, the bottom with contact should be fast into and fast out of. You can do this with more keyframes, or by playing with the channels.

You're amazing man. Don't forget to get out there and give others critiques also.

-Alonso

ABC 2 A ver 2
http://media.putfile.com/ABC-2-A-ver2

I tried hiding 2 & 3 to move one first and the whole tail moves with 1 so I tried to move 2 & 3 back to origianal then on next frame I could move 2 without moving 1 then adjust 3 back to orginal then adjust 3 on next frame.

Question when you are looking at my animations you seem to be able to play the animation one frame at a time? is this true and if so how do you do this with quick time? Do you have the Pro ver.? After I render I can not make out what I have done as well as when I am in AM and can steep through the chor. on frame at a time.





Thanks for reminding me I will try to help others with the same amount of dedication you have shown me as of now the next boot camp post I see I will make a point of helping out as best as I can.

Hi Mark, looks like your working on the same sort of action as I am. Looks pretty good. I only have a few comments. First off, I think it would look more realistic if you started with the tail straight down and then showed how it lagged behind when the ball took off (although maybe you do this so it cycles nicely). Secondly, when the ball reaches the other side and starts to come back, it feels like the tail switches directions too quickly (hope that makes sense). Maybe let the ball travel a little bit further along, before the tail follows behind (i.e. have it lag a little longer). Forgive me if that made no sense....this critiquing thing is hard!

Paula

Mark,

It's stiffer but I can see you have the concept better now. Its stiffer because of your counter animating, trying playing with the models joints to make them better work for you, making the joints "attached" or not to the parent might help. It looks like your first joint isn't swinging quite far enough. You could drag your keyframes a little to make the action take a little longer and so look smoother.

I don't have the fancy quicktime, I just manually drag the playbar in the quicktime, and have basicly trained myself to see how long a frame is. Practive grasshopper and you too can do this.

-Alonso

Help!

Ok I thought I had a handle on actions and even blending them but I can't figure out why I can not get the secound action to repeat itself?

I have attached a jpg of what I see on my sreen I hope



I have two action and two paths the first is a walk action 24 frames longe on 1 path for 8 sec. the corp range is 24 which is the action length which I has set to 0 -> 24 to use all the action. and the chor is 0 -> 8.00 which works fine. Now the 2nd action is a different action also 24 frames long ona 2nd path for another 8 sec. so the corp is 0 -> 24 and the chor is 8.00 -> 16.00 so the 2nd action should repeat approx. 8+ times but it only does one cycle? I have stride length set on both and if this was wrong it would only slip.

Ok I am having a problem moving the juice box around. I am having a mental block or just need to clear my head of it so I went on with ABC 4 and will go back maybe after I get home from work. So here is side step ver. 1 this is a small side steep I could make it a larger steep but what do you guys think of this?

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-4-ver1

ABC 5 A ver 1

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-5-A-ver-1

Ok this was fun it brings back the 3 years I was taking Karate and Kick boxing

Sorry Mark, I don't know a lot about reusable actions. I think I usually don't touch the cycle lenght, I let it be the same as the crop length, and then if it has stride length it will repeat if the chor action is longer. I find it easier to deal with visually in the timeline by dragging those red bars around. But you can probably get more help in the reusable actions forum (if we still have that)

Anyway the animations
ABC4 This is a good start, but you need to push it further. The weight does shift over the foot it needs to be over, but the weight needs to be all the way over that foot, or the movement needs to be much faster so gravity doesn't notice. Your doing a good job counter bending the upper torso for the lower torso's movements. Keep it up, just push it further. The arms are a very stiff, they are just like the tail on the ball when it was swinging back and forth, (that's why that tail had three joints, just like bicep - forarm-wrist/hand) If you don't want to deal with arms it's better to hide then in your render, but it's good practice also. Good start.

Abc 5
We can see your martial arts training influencing this. The weight shift looks right, can't be positive because of the angle, but it looks like the weight is over the locked leg at the same time that the locked leg is locking. You could put more successive breaking of joints into the kicking foot (as in make the toe drag behind and then snap forward). Check out http://www.museoffire.com/Lyceum/Dojo/index.html the Linear punch tutorial in this list of tutorials for learning how to make your kick more snappy and threatening like. At the end of the kick the weight isn't returning to balanced between the two legs. Also when the animation starts everything kind of floats into place, either start in place, or move their physically. I can tell your action scenes are gonna look great once you get your skills together.

-Alonso

Ok I moved the pose in frame 5 to have the weight over the right foot more. I tried to adjust the arms as you mentioned. It's suital I tried not to over do it to much and added another head movement after the step down to so weight and momentum of head movement.

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-4-ver-2

I copied the action problem over to the reuseable motion forum and I got some advice on how to control the juice box better by adding some more bones to the model so after 5 is done I shall go back to the juice box ex.

Off topic but are you signing up for TWO also?

Hey <PF> Mark, I only have time now for a quick comment. Hopefully I'll do a full critique when I have time. On ABC-5-A-ver-1 I think he should lean back when he's in the process of kicking. Also watch those feet! Great job, I see that you have a good understanding of this move.

More comments to come.

I should have mentioned in my post because I thought that the floating feet at the biginning would look bad but I was taught in martail arts class the slid into the fighting stance. By using hand gestures like raising our hands into a boxing stance hopefully the person threating you will not notice you are postioning our feet to kick them. "Make them look at our hands around our head aera then kick them in the gut" But this is animation and not real world so I should go with what looks better I guess. I am attempting to move from a natural stance into a fighting postion then kick and return to another position as stated in the exe. description. I will post different veiws to help show wieght and balance after I fix the return stance and foot/ toe action of the kick. Thanks again for the critic I appreciate this and hope the above does not get taken the wrong way. Hate to sound like I am whinning

Ok I found mistakes you were right I have redone it and made two views this side view is wrong put you can not see it but I found unbalanced pose in front view and fixed that there.

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-5-A-ver-2-side-view

This is front view
http://media.putfile.com/ABC-5-ver-2-front-view

I think I should have arched the back forward instead? Leaning back during the kick reduses momentum/ hitting force the the kick and places you in an unblanced state. I know this does not sound right but try it out. All the forces go forward but one would think this unbalances the kicker and it would if you hold the kick out but you snap it back and place the kicking foot behind you ASAP. Kinda like a pendulum motion.
Again this is Animation not real life so if arcing back is the better look I maybe should do that? What do you think?

Mark, the side step looks better. The arms look better, the head looks good. You can take it further by shifting the weight over the new foot so that he can pick up the old foot and move it in place, then balancing the weight over both feet after. (basicly what you did with the first foot, now do to the 2nd foot on the other end of the action) The arms are better but could still be made much looser and relaxed.

I have not yet been able to make puposefull foot slides look right. In animation in the end what matters is how believable the action is, not how technically correct it is. One way that might sell the foot purposefully sliding forward is to raise it's heel and have it slide forward on it's toes. Reversing back arcing can help give impact to a motion, reversing lines often does, but I don't know if here would be a good place for that. There's good initial shift in weight on the kick, but when the foot comes up the hips should be pretty much over the other leg.

It seems that you have the basic concepts down, I think you are being a little timid. Next animation you do, keep it simple, but really exagerate and push your poses, see what that does for you. Remember each frame is on screen for only a fraction of a second so a pose will not be seen as strongly as it looks.

I hope to work on TWO a little, I'm not working right now and hoping to land some kind of job animating (long stretch I know) so I don't know how much time I'll have. (I might be doing Animation Mentor in January (as a student obviously))

-Alonso

Hi Mark.

Good work. I think you have a good sense of timing, the speed of the kick looks good. You need more exageration on body shifting and anticipation. In my opinion, a cartoony character like IK Joe should extend much more then a realistic character. Better exagerate then shy. One thing i noticed in the bootcamps is that many start with a neutral pose and finish with a neutral pose within a 5 seconds animation, i would recommend starting with an extreme pose well planned. Just my 2 cents.

Michel

You hit the nail right on the head I will try all the suggestion you have stated but I wanted to point that the bold comments made me slap my hand on my fore head (ok not too hard ) It's amazing the little things you notice about movements that we are blind to in non animation mod

Animus

Thanks for the comments it helps greatly

ABC 5 A ver 3 front view

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-5-ver-3-front-view

ABC 5 ver 3 side view

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-5-ver-3-side-view

I tried to step into position with as little sliding as possible and going onto tip toe to make the slight stepping look better. I like the front view but if you look closely on the side view I need an extra keyframe after the right foot side steps before the right foot kicks. I will try and fix this and post again if my eyes don't start giving out on me working afternoon shift staying up late animating and reading forums then getting kids off to school then animating house work checking out forums then going back to work is catching up on me But I feel so good doing this it's energizing me

Looks better. Watch your feet, they're interacting wierdly with the ground a little. Looks like time for you to get well aquainted with feet nailing in channel mode. In the timeline click on the channel button (turning the timeline into a bunch of colored lines instead of just dots) Select a foot and for all the keys where it shouldn't move at all select those keys in the timeline, right click and choose interpolation method Linear. If the foot is not supposed to move the keys should be the same. You can also erase extra keys that aren't necessary.

-Alonso

After alot of trouble with reuseable action I finally got this to work. This animation is very crude and needs alot of polish. I will polish my reusable action as I get some critigues I just wanted to get this out here to try and catch up. The next juice box I am going to not use action they have there place but maybe this is not it?

http://media.putfile.com/abc-3-A-ver-7

Mark,

Your juice box seems to be more skating than walking, it needs more of a definite step and watch for the sliding. Since it's a cycling action, maybe your stride length needs adjustment.

Richard

I am getting myself into tech difficulties with thing juice box and I am wondering if I should be wasting my time with this exe. The problem is I misunderstood the exe. I thought it was supposed to be using reusable action I assumed this and now I have walked into a tech. wall. I find I get caught up when thens don't work I have to get what I tried to work to work instead of trying another route. Then I tried making an action with CP and I can not get the CP to paste mirror? then I gave up on actions and tried to just work in chor. I move the CP but the bones stay behind? The total time spent on getting over these problems is adding up big time and I am afriad that TWO will be over before I get this one. Animus told me he added bones to the model to help him but I don't know how to add them and I don't want to spend time right now figuring that out. I am moving on for now I am enjoying the other exe. I don't know if this is cheating but can someone post or E-mail me there project file so I have something to look at. I will use this a tutorial then create my own work from what I learn from viewing it.

This is only to show I can lock the feet but the body motion does not match because I removed the feet s movement. I was trying to have the character going from a natural non fighting pose to a fighting pose then kick. THe movements are so sutal that doing this without making the feet appear to slide is dificult. Someone mentioned the importance of postioning the character in frame one to avoid this. Which I can see working in a short one action only animation but If I get into a fight scene and have to go from a front kick to a punch ect. there has to be some sliding of the feet? quess I need to look at that fighting tutorial you post Aloson I clanced at it but did not want to start another course at this time

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-5-A-foot-lock-only

Hi Mark, sorry I didn't get back to you. I'm still not sure about which way the back leans during the kick. But you are the one with the martial art experience so just stick to your instincts. It's looking good, you might want to do something with the upper body "torso" control however.

This is really rough and still a WIP bot thought I put down were I am at for now

http://media.putfile.com/ABC-5-B-ver6-WIP

Uff, don't worry about the tech stuff, just concentrate on animating.

Good locking of the feet, the weight/balance actually looks better, especially during the kick.

The point of locking feet is that when the bodies weight is over the foot it is effectivley pinned to the ground there's all that weight on top of it holding it down. If the character is going to subtley move the foot or slide it they need to be aware of it, and chances are they need to not have weight on it. Try standing on one foot, can't move it or slide it unless you hop (taking the weight off). Often when we are animating we go along setting body keyframes, but the feet don't need all the those frames because they are not moving as much, so one way to help keep the feet together is delete keyframes that are the same every time. You want to make the feet behave, in the Doors stuck anim on your site, shaggy's feet wind up pointing up while he's still fighting the handle, before he lifts him, that's whay you need to be able to control.Basicly I mean: subtle feet moving are okay, feet not moving are okay, feet drifting when they are not supposed to not okay, just make sure your feet are doing what you want them to be.

Backflip. Good antic. Good landing reaction. Things to work on: the hands and feet are totally twinned almost all the time. The change over of body should happen mostly near the top of the arch (not right before he lands) (in a back flip you look up and back arching your back, then when you are at the top of your jump, you pull your legs up, their weight coming up flips you over, and now your curved forward as your feet reach out to the ground.

Animation is difficult, but it should be fun, do projects that are fun for you.

The point of using a reusable action to get the juice box across was just so the you didn't have to hand animate it. If it's right up by the camera it wouldn't take to long to animate. It's good to know how to sync up an action so it can loop, but it's not vital, more important right now is to ingrain the basic 12 principles of animation (here's an explanation of them with illustrations http://www.hash.com/amtutes/Bootcamp/mytwelve.html)

just have fun.

-Alonso