I've started working on my TAOA:M, and my bootcamp, in the hopes of participating as an animator on TWO. ( also want to audition for the voice of King Bal, but that's a different story entirely...)

Anyway, here's half of my ABCUltra level one final project:

I did two balls of different materials, interacting. I'm working on a separate clip featuring a ball with a tail.

Here is a short clip of my tailball wagging his tail:

Finally, here's my tailball model in case anyone wants it: (I can also post my squetchball model if anyone wants that too, it uses the same setup as the tailball,i.e the squetch lever, just without the tail.)

Hi BrainMuffin!

The first ballbounce gives us something to talk about.

First, I like the quick, snappy pace. If in doubt, fast seems to be better in animation.

I've marked up a copy of your animation to go with the notes below-

A) If we track the ball from frame to frame we see it's making some very un-bounce-like paths. A real bouncing ball will trace a parabola through the air, and will never travel in a straight line. There are cartoon reasons why an object might deviate from that (like a bird with wings, that can exert force in mid flight) but a ball with no other forces applied... no.

B ) If we ignore the vertical and just track the forward progess of the ball we see that it actually slows down and speeds up several times. This will look odd to the viewer, since a ball has no way to brake in mid-air and then speed up again. This is easy to fix in channel editing. The horizontal component of the ball's motion will either be a straight diagonal line (for a ball that doesn't come to a stop) or a line that starts out diagonal and slowly levels out (the ball coming to a stop)

C) A classic bouncing ball impact will have a stretch frame contacting the ground at impact, one squash frame, then a stretch frame that has already left the ground.

1,3,4, and 6 are stretch frames that should be reaching the ground but aren't.

2 is about where that take-off stretch frame should be placed
5 wasn't bad, but could be nudged up a bit too.

It's a formula, there may be timing reasons to not do it this way. But in most cases the stretch-contact then squash will look less poppy, and the takeoff stretch that is already off the ground will look less sticky.

The heavy ball has something odd going on with it but I'd have to unshake the shot to diagnose it

Thanks for starting the Bootcamp!

A and C I completely agree with ( In fact I don't know how C escaped my attention in the first place.) I'll fix them both and re-post.

B I have to disagree with though. There's one force acting on the ball: gravity. Gravity should cause the ball to move slower as it's moving upward than when it's falling, that's why it makes that parabolic arc. It should be moving it's slowest at the point where it's upward motion and gravity cancel each other out (and there is no squetch applied.) I think once I straighten out the parabola curve and the contact squetch, the speed won't look as odd...

I know what's going on with the big ball, though. It's first bounce seems to be just a bit too slow, and it looks unnatural. I've been tweaking it, I guess I have to tweak it some more...

Thanks for the C&C, Robcat. I appreciate it.

How did you do the marking on my movie? That seems like it would come in really handy.

Welcome Brain Muffin

You've got a nice dying of energy in that bounce, and the squetch looks pretty good too. I can see you starting to push the ease in the tops of the arcs, but you can take it further. Robcat's right, you need to watch your arcs, the computer's trying to straighten them out into diagonals instead (1 trick if you don't want to draw on the screen with a dry erase marker is to draw the arcs with a spline in the model window then animate in wire or shaded with wire mode) You misinterpretted Robcat's comment. He was talking about the ball moving left to right only (not up and down, you are correct in your understanding of gravity) If you smooth out the left to right timing I think it might do a lot of help on the arcing issue also. The big ball's 2nd bounce needs to be shorter (it's about the same as the first) but otherwise that one is losing it's bounce well also.

I can see that you have the idea of overlap/whipping, but the dog style tail you've chosen to use isn't showing your skill with it off best. I think if you modeled the tail up and curved more like a dog tail or a C I would less expect it to whip about more snake like. I suggest making it's tail more dog like, and putting this dog ball head to head with a cat ball that has a snakelike tail whipping back and forth (no extra animation unless you want, just a quick shot of annoyed confrontation).

Great work, looks like you're already a pretty far way there.

-Alonso

I have to disagree with your disagreement. Remember, "B" is just about the horizontal motion of the ball which is completely independent of gravity's influence. Gravity exerts no horizontal forces.
vector paint in AfterEffects. Still a hassle , I haven't figured out a better way.

Last night I took a look at the curve channels. When I opened the channel for the horizontal movement for the little white ball, I saw exactly what you were talking about,Robcat. I had all sorts of keys through the middle, and it was all bumpity... I cut out all but the first and last keyframes, and added some ease-out. I also adjusted the height of the bounces, and added the touching frames just before the squash, and I fixed the cannonball too.

Attached is what I've got now...

Thanks Alonso, I'll try making a dog and cat ball tomorrow, that should be fun.

Thanks again Robcat. I agree with your disagreeing with my disagreement also.



I'm going to take a break, and then get back to shaggy fighting with the door...

Wow man, looking good! My only critique is that at the end of its bouncing run the little ball is floaty, get in the graph editor and tweak. That's all this really needs, some tweaking. Get in there frame by frame if you have to. Very awesome!

Also thanks for reminding me about TaoAM. I still have to model that darn Giraffe, I can feel the nausea coming on.

horizontal movement looks better. I'm still kind of feeling the diagonal, I think it's because the axis of stretch is diagonal instead of consistent with the path/arc.

-Alonso

I still feel the forward progress of the ball while in flight is not consistent and the arcs still have rather flat sides. There are many abrupt changes of speed both in the vertical and the horizontal.

I also think the ball is moving too far forward during it's contact frames.

Those mocups are really helpful to see with Robcat, thanks.

(To bad I've been to lazy to do them so far)

-Alonso

Remember kids... you can try it at home too with a dry erase marker!

It's fast, it's fun, it's... it's free!

I'll have to get a piece of plexiglass to do that. (I'm on a laptop).

So what should I do to fix this? Should I play around some more with the channels, or add in new keyframes?

I'm thinking that maybe just lowering the peaks would make it look better, but maybe not... I probably just need to adjust the trans Z channel some more, right?

example to look at


http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=145330

you might try a sheet of sandwich wrap too.

Ok, I think I've got it now, I hope I hope...

I used the Onionskin feature to see the arcs. I have it set to step from frame, 1 step, 45 before. (Enough before to see all of the motion. essentailly, these are all the frames laid out.)

I think the stretch is a little to for the height on some of the bounces. The main thing that stands out to me though is that the ball is stretching up but the axis of the stretch is not in line with the arc of movement. Don't forget the arc of movement is what is causing the stretch, the forward movement along the arc vs the air drag and gravity pull.

I think you have the idea here, and really you just need more practice at it. I suggest moving on, try another excercise, and then the next time you do a ball bounce watch how much easier it is to do it.

-Alonso

Ok, here's what I'm working on next.

The Mr.Ball3000 obstacle course! I've set up several objects for Mr.Ball3000 to interact with, including the camera, two sets of stairs (one going up, one coming down) and a balance beam.

I'm hoping to cover my secondary action requirement with the antenna on his head, and to cover the basic emoting requirement my having him react emotionally to a few of the objects. Would that be ok Alonso?

in the meantime, here's Mr.Ball3000 walking. (If you watch it for too long on loop, it'll make you dizzy...)

I'll post the Mr.Ball3000 model for anybody that wants it soon. He's rigged with the Setup Machine for his head and legs, and I just threw in four bones to control his antenna.

Cool robotic ball.

ABC is basically a guideline to help people figure out what they should learn and at the same time have a systematic way of displaying what they have learned. So use it how it will be most effective for you.

A note on where it looks like you might be going. Using stride length and path constraints on the obstacle course has a good potential to be pretty frustrating. A looping walk always looks funny going around corners and other places (feet slide and look wrong), and you're going to have to change actions when you get to stairs anyway. You'll probably wind up putting the same amount of time as if you had just straight animated it, but your time will be spent finagling the program instead of building animation skills. So I suggest just doing it from scratch through the course.

Also, dynamic constraints unfortunately are not a proof of skill on follow through animation. They're a really neat trick A:M gives us, and can be a usefull reference, but it's good to have the skill on your own. Alien Song's antanae was hand animated. So I'd suggest making the antanae way floppy and treating it like a dog's ears, try and get a lot of emotion out of it.

As for the walk. Good up and down. Good roll in the hips in the walk. The dynamic constraints on the antanae work really nicely. Nice toe bend as the weight transfers up the foot, and nicing passing leg shape. The feet and weight need some work. The body weight is caught and cushioned into the knee, but unfortunately the foot is still on it's heel while this is happening, and then gradually comes down to the ground. I often slap the foot down 1 frame heel contact, next frame flat foot. And then catch the weight of the body on the cushioning knee. Likewise I'm not feeling the back leg pushing off of the ground, as much as rolling forward and then collapsing akwardly. Also the feet are slipping (really difficult to not get slipping feet on a looping walk.)

Really fun model, and a great start on a walk cycle.

-Alonso

Actually, I was planning on doing it all in one single choreography action. I stopped working on him walking so I could figure out how to make him stop, and that's when I rendered this.

I'm flattered that you think I'm using a dynamic constraint for the antenna, but I animated that by hand. There's just four geometry bones controlling it, not even a control bone. I agree that it should be florrier, but I want it to have a bit of a metallic stiffness to it. I want it to still feel like an antenna, not a piece of licorice, if you know what I mean.

Also, I have been having some trouble with the feet sliding, but that's because I didn't nail them down properly before going on to the next pose.

I'll turn on the onionskin and see if I can't get his feet to stop sliding, then I'll work more on his "Downs".

Here's my project so far:

Antanae by hand?! Well never mind then, you've got follow through down cold. Good job.

With it stiff you have a nice bit of follow through you can always demonstrate, with it floppier you can use it to show more emotion. Both are good things, so whatever. It's your animation your the boss


-Alonso

He brainmuffin
Nice model and walk cycle you made
Specially the antenna looks and moves good on it .
Shame that it goes of screen.

Some nice comments for ya
Next to the slipping problem i also think that the back leg needs a strait on its contact pose together with the feet snap from Alonso, you will get a nice weight shift.
I mean when people or bipeds walk they are kinda like falling forward. moving the head back and forward will even strengthen that more. + you will have an xtra overlap

Hmm i hope that made sense, my english is really not that good anymore at 2 in the morning.

Goodluck



Come give some comments to my bootcamp
Bertmac's bootcamp I probably will give some on yours

Ok, here's an updated look.



I fixed the feet as per your suggestion, Alonso. I wouldn't have thought of that myself. I straightened them out on the "Up" pose, and nailed them down better on the contacts. I also made the antenna a bit looser. I need to figure out how the brakes work, so I can stop him on that next step.

He's going to notice the camera and do a take, then react again when the sign falls down next to him. Then he's off to climb the stairs and cross the balance beam.

Hi brainmuffin!

Very nice character you built. I like your walk cycle now, it is really grounded. You have an ambitious program streaming those next actions, but that is just more fun experimenting. Nice setup as well.

Michel

Thanks for the comments, everybody.

Animus, you've got some great stuff on your bootcamp reel from last year, I'm looking forward to seeing your new stuff.

Bertmac, you look like you're off to a great start.

Robcat, I look forward to reading more of your comments as well. You've been most helpful.

Here's what I'm up to now:







The last one is the current one. I've also attached the .mov file.

I haven't got the take quite right, but I can't seem to get it right. I'm going to start working on the next section, and I'll come back to it if I can figure it out. He's supposed to notice the camera, and do a nervous/frightened take. it doesn't seem to read right to me yet though.

Here's all of what I have blocked out so far. 7 seconds. I still need to tweak the two jumps, I'd love some C&C before I do though. Also, I stopped fiddling with the antenna, I'm going to do that once I've got the rest of him tightened up.

7 seconds seems to be just a bit too big for an animated gif, so I'm only presenting the quicktime file.

WOW looking so much better
Specially with that motion blur
But 3 comments thought

-In the last step before he looks into the cam
His right-leg seem to make a strange move
Especially his knee, together with his feet turning up.One of the two is turning to long i think.
-Then he makes that cool jump, but his left feet seems to land on the same spot again where it started. this can use a little more rotation towards the cam.
-And as last the arrow i think i needs a stretch frame before it it lands
It seems to appear to quick on the screen, now it just appears just on that spot. i dont get the feeling that it is falling out of the sky
These are just a view minor thinks off-course
I think your lil storyboard really worked out great,
Good-luck


Come give some comments to my bootcamp
Bertmac's bootcamp I probably will give some on yours

It's the slide. I knew I was going to have to fix that. I didn't like where it landed for launching the jump, and I didn't like having it land where I need the jump launched from, so I made it slide. But it doesn't look right.

Ok, I fixed the foot, and the knee, and I blocked out another 8 seconds. (It's all slow...) I need to hold the last look at the camera longer, and have him look right from the camera to the arrow, without stopping in the middle. Then I'm going to have him walk off camera. Then I'm going to do a cleanup pass, and do the antenna. I may just stop there with Mr.Ball for now. I want to move up to something with arms.

Any more C&C before I move on?

Ha nice and fast update
Indeed the feet look much better now
And because you are still working on it there not much to say before you are finished
Except one thing.
After his first jump he looks right and left. don't know but it looks like his eye is to static
maybe you can remove that by letting him look up or down when he is in the middle of the turn, so when he is looking into the cam. i know he's going thru his knees to get that arc but is does not seem to be enough

Bertmac


Come give some comments to my bootcamp
Bertmac's bootcamp I probably will give some on yours

Ok, I'm going to clean up Mr.Ball tomorrow. Between last night and today, I started blocking out a running scene using the basicguyTSM model. I've got him cornering by a trash can, on his way to jump over a waist high fence. I haven't touched the arms yet, I wanted to make sure I got the legs and the lean right on the turn first.

Here's what I've got so far:

http://amfilms.hash.com/search/Entry.php?entry=546 check out how Victor Navone handled sudenly becoming aware of the camera.

Walk in is looking good. Good antic/staging to let the audience know the arrows going to fall into the screen. Really strong foundation so far. Good timing on the hops

I would suggest the ball's gaze sweeping past the camera as it walks, or at least a more obvious showing that it registers our presence. Then I would suggest the walk slowing down slower. maybe two or even 3 steps to stop instead of just one. That final step looks odd, because it's as big as the others, if it's a smaller step the knee and foot won't come up as high because it won't be traveling as far. Pause looking at ground processing, then spin around. Good antic, but jump from there and spin in the air instead of spinning part way on the ground then jumping. I'd say a quick hold on landing looking straight at camera, then the little looking around you have. With the arrow, again jump and spin in the air, looking at it looks good.

Looks like to sum up my critique, you aren't leaving enough space for the ball to process/think, don't be afraid to have your character still, just don't do it for tooooo long.

Smart to animate the arms after you've gotten the other animation working. One trick is to go into muscle mode and hide the arms, so you can see the body better and aren't distracted by the stiff arms. The run looks pretty good, it feels a little poppy, I think this is because he comes back down so quickly after pushing off. I kind of want to see a little more power from that push off, which I guess means a little more airtime. Good leaning into the curve but I think you could start leaning a pace sooner. I think the small rock back on the torso is also contributing to that popping feel. Lead the turn with the head, he should be thinking about it as he nears the trashcan and watching where he's going to be going as he rounds it (head needs to be turned to check his path for loose chihuahuas hiding behind the trashcan). Looking good so far.

Doing great!

-Alonso

Ok, I'm gonna need some advice then.
I've got Mr.Ball in one big choreography action, that's 15 seconds long. How do I make room in there (around the third or fourth second) for the added slowdown? should I just start sliding all the keyframes over on the timeline?

I wouldn't mind even adding some more walking in the beginning, but then how do I get those keyframes in there?

Basically what I'm asking is, how do I edit what I've already got, without screwing up all of what I've already got, and having to redo it all over again?

Like with the running, if I add more airtime, then I'm changing his stride length, his speed, the distance he's going to travel. I have to reposition every keyframe I've done, and it seems like it might be easier to just start over again and try to make him move faster.

This is the kind of thing I always get stuck on. Timeline and Spline management issues. Any advice would be appreciated.

But waiting for advice gives me the perfect excuse to watch more of "Animate! with Christin McKee" which came in the mail yesterday...

I'm getting it now. I've just never really had to shuffle 16 seconds worth of keyframes around at once before...

While youre still in blocking, it would be good to fix the halting quality the run exhibits. His forward motion is rather erratic.

You might get out your dry erase, switch to an overhead view and track the hips on every frame. A running body has quite a bit of momentum and inertia. It will not make sudden jumps forward or sudden slow downs without some drastic manuver of the legs.

the left foot lefts off the ground twice were I feel it was not intended? you move the body up and the foot lifts as well. I like this but just my opinion but how about bending the arrow alot forward and then snapping it back then forth when it hits the ground. I feel it needs more movement seeing kthe speed it hits the ground.




The turn looks like it needs some more work but I have no idea how to do this myself so I will watch how you do this very carefully

Hi BrainMuffin,

I've just managed to get back to boot camp and I enjoyed looking through your posts. I actually learned a lot from your work and your critiques! At this point I don't really have anything constructive to add to the existing comments, so I'll just leave it at "Nice work!".

By the way, thanks for providing your project. Do you mind if I use your Mr. Ball model in my Mr. Ball exercises? Please let me know if you have a problem with that. Thanks! Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

Paula

Paula, thanks for the comments. I have no problem with you or anyone using my mr.ball3000 model, the only thing I ask is that you customize him just a little. Even just changing the two materials would work. That way they don't all look the same.

Lazlo

I haven't been doing much yesterday and today, due to an inner ear infection. (I got one last year around this time, too. I got it right on thanksgiving last year). So I haven't tried to animate anything while the room is spinning, and my stomach is lurching. I feel like I got drunk at a carnival, and I'm about to yarf all over the tilt-a-whirl.

Anyway, I did manage to get a little work done the other night, but I didn't post it. So here it is:

I went through the running animation with the onionskin (Sorry, robcat, I still don't have plexiglass or saran wrap to put over my laptop screen), and I fixed a few frames like this one:



The two other guys in the picture are three frames before, and three frames after.

I also changed Mr.Ball's recognion of the camera a lot. It still needs some polish, and the antenna needs to be redone too. It goes in slo-motion right now...

I really like that ver. he slows his walk down and you can feel the tension in the air with his slowly placed foot steps then the "I caught yah" quick jerk into the camera really nice showing the emotion setting the scene

My easy cheat for dealing with sliding keys around: I start at frame 500, that way I can easily squeeze 499 frames in if I need it. Generally I try and work out timing issues while I'm still in blocking stage, because I block a whole pose on a frame so I can slide that frame around and change my timing in a second. Having to change feet and stuff, not really an easy way, you could just move the whole root bone around, but then you wind up counter animating. Basicly try and figure that stuff out in blocking stage also. In blocking your trying to solve as much problems as you can as fast as you can so that you spend the least amount of time working on something that isn't working. "can't polish a turd into gold" So don't be afraid to erase or make drastic changes to whole chunks of animation, it's painful, but that's what it takes to make good animation instead of okay animation.

The slow into the stop is much better. When it's right leg swings forward the body should swing all the way to looking at the far wall, right now it feels like it's body is not lined up with the direction it's feet are going, which feels akward since it doesn't have a seperate head. It's fine to put that last leg down slowly, but distribute the weight over both once it is down, otherwise I don't believe it was on one leg before. Instead of having the whole turn as the anticipation (you're going for an a-haa whirl) I would have it casually look away (more slowly), then have the anticipation be just the quick bending of knees/drop in body. Let the bottom of the arrow show a little longer. Looks like you're going to have to redo your antanae, or at least slide the frames around, it's slowing down and speeding up in time with the robot, instead of in time with gravity. The take for the arrow looks perfect. Hope you're feeling better

For the run it looks like the 3 frames after figure could be pushed as forward as the 3 frames before guy is back. It's running to cover distance, so the push off is about pushing forward as much as back up.

-Alonso

Fun scene. The first "take" works well.

Some notes on the ball walk:

red: foot sinking into ground.

blue: toe sliding forward while foot is pushing off.

green: ground foot not on ground.

pink: landing toe-first would probably be appropriate here. Like a sneak. Right hip probably should have been rotated forward sooner. the foot is not quite making it to the ground.

the antenna doesn't seem to be behaving like a free object.

Ok, Robcat, I've got something new for you to draw on!



I'm putting off the run. I'm going to do it over again, and submit it for my advanced human movement. Instead I'm going to use this piece for my basic humanoid movement.

Over the past few days, tought I haven't been animating, I've been giving a lot of thought to my animation method. Although the straight ahead style that I'm used to has served me fairly well over the years, it tends to get rather messy rather quickly, and making major changes (Like those requested by say, an animation director) becomes a very difficult, frustrating exercise. (It reminds me of untangling marionette strings.)

I've heard a few people talk about this type of pose to pose blocking, and I thought I'd give it a try. I placed my keys on consecutive frames to begin with, and keyed everything. Then I spread them out to get the timing right, and added a few holds. I haven't done any in-betweens yet. I'm just trying to get all this tweaked right and nailed down before I move on. So far, this feels a lot more comfortable. I've got a good framework with lots of room to fit in the rest of the action, and I feel confident I can make any necessary changes at this stage without completely screwing everything up. That's the big thing. if somebody says for instance,"I think the first two steps need to be faster" I can do it, no problem. "I think his left foot should come farther foreward when he's getting set", easy peasy. I can really work like this.

I also found it much easier to stick some acting in there, like the hitching up his pants, and the little bit of "business" with twisting the rock to get a feel for the weight. And blocking it out turned out to be a real no-brainer too. I like blocking the feet by doing the "Shock-Fight-Shuffle".

Anyway, I think I'm ready to start fleshing this out, but I wanted to stick it out here for c+c first, in case there's anything really wrong. The only thing that concerns me right now is that there might be too much shoulder movement when he twists the rock.

Anyway, here's the quicktime:

As blocking that is a successful clip. The timing works for me, and I see good overlap in the way you use the spine on the lift. Put some overlap in the bending down to loosen that up too.

The foot shuffling on the gound is probably the detail most in need of fixing. With the additional weight of the boulder I doubt he could still slide his feet. He'd have to lift them to reposition them; very quick lift-and-replant. easy to add some inbetween keys.

At the end I dont think he's posed right to stop from falling back. One leg should go farther in back of him to provide some braking force.

Hmmm, I guess one foot is farther back, but if you switched the left and right it would show off better to the camera.

Of course he's lifting with his back and not with his legs... he's gonna pull something. Ouch.

Uh.... how do you make the picture move in the post?

Dhar, if you have photoshop, then you have adobe image-ready. Image Ready can open .mov files, and save them as animated .gif files. I uploaded the gif I made to photobucket, and linked to it there.

I've gone over it and added in-betweens, animated the fingers, etc. Now I'm ready to offset some keyframes and call it done, unless there's anything that I'm not seeing that needs tweaking. (although I'm thinking about doing a little more with the (his) right hand.)

No Crits? Really? I can just polish this one up and call it done?

Not one teensy little tiny thing?

Does the rock feel heavy enough? Are all of the steps quick enough? Anything?

ok here's a few quick ones...

- the prep motions all seen to be keyed on the same frames. No overlap that I can see.

- likewise his bend over. But you did offset the application of his hands onthe rock, that looks good.

- the lift is still the best part but his hips stay in the exact same spot thru out. Unlikely.

-the way he's holding that rock (with bent arms and elbows out) once he gets it up would be hard. I think it either has to be hanging at the end of his straight arms, or he's so bent over backwards that his chest is really supporting the rock. (I didn't notice that the first time)

- the backward stagger is working ok; the last recovery step forward looks floaty. Perhaps because there's no overlapping motion when he changes direction.

- he should struggle up to straight legs at the end.

- the rock pops at the very end.




- Sorry, ma, he's still lifting with his back.

It's looking pretty nice, really solid foundation to work from. Some things to consider. The steps both happen onto bent legs. Usually our legs are straight when we are stepping towards something, even if we are just adjusting weight. Raising the arm so high as it approaches the rock seems strange, we usually need a good reason to expend energy to fight gravity, a little wrist shaking for looseness I don't think you'd bother, actually stretching the arm I could see but that's not obvious here. When I reach for something usually my palm is down until my hand is near it, it looks strange that the palms are sideways the whole time. You offset the hands a little but I would recomend pushing it further away from twinning, partly it's the similar angle, it might break it up more nicely if you could find a different angle to approach. I like the little twisting. I suggest adding 1 or 2 frames right at the point where the rock will come off the ground, that extra time might give it a little more weight. I think that's the point to put the extra time because that's where the actual weight of the rock is supported by the arms, up til then it's mostly just the arms unfolding. Good spine reversal. I say push the arc of the spine even further and leave it until pushing back from the final stumble step. Strong work so far.

-Alonso

Ok, I had done this after reading Robcat's crits, but before reading Alonso's. So Alonso, I'll have to work on those issues when I next open this file, which should be soon, likey tomorrow. I take it I should drop the new exaggerated hand-flick, then.

I bent his spine further backwards, and added some struggling at the end. I also moved the hips around during the squat and life, and especially during the twist. Now it looks like he puts his whole back into that twist. Hopefully I'll finish this one off on the next pass.

Here's the update:

Awsome!

I love that shake, it really stresses....uh...stress

Here's the way I think about the forces involved...

his actual back muscles can't do much lifting*, not in that pose anyway; he's really using the built-up inertia of his upper body to yank that boulder up at the end of his outstretched arms. So he has to get moving as fast as possible before his arms straighten out.

once those arms get straight that rock begins holding him back and everything will slow down.

However as we track his back we see it actually slow down just before the rock leaves the ground, and then speed up, when he'd least be able to do so. the black marks are pre liftoff and the red ones are after the rock leaves the ground.

Suppose you tied a rope to yourself and a rock and then started running. you could run fast until that rope became tight and then you'd slow down immediately. His arms are like that rope. Yeah they might be able to do some pulling, but really unlikely in the pose he's in.


*which is why we should lift with our legs and not our back!