While I am waiting for SO animations ..I did a small animation to practice timing...
comments are welcome as always

ten bucks on the guy in blue

Much better than my Thom-V-Thom "roundhouse slap": Roundhouse Slap

(This was inspired by the "bionic belly" of a character on the (now very) old Paul Hogan show.)

So far this looks quite good.

Nice, Marcos!

That works quite well!

Here's a detail... When orange guy gets socked in the head, his head flings back real good but his neck stays sticking up as if nothing hit him.

You might experiment with the neck getting yanked back on the same frame or a frame later.

After Orange guy get s hit the 1st x he drifts way past the point where he could maintain his balance. it looks a bit like he has been magnetically drawn back up. If he staggered a foot farther back behind him he could plausibly stay upright.

Falling down is a complex thing. Having him bounce a bit is a good tactic, but some body parts may be bouncing too slow and some head back up before hitting the ground.

These are all things that can be polished out.


But this is a dramatic improvement compared to previous shots I've seen you do (which I'll admit may have been about two years ago).

What to say except 'Ouch!' Marcos.
I almost felt that so I think you can call that a success.
The sound really sells it.

Edit: After looking a few more times at it it seemed to me I didn't really get to see the reaction of the orange guy because the action happened too quickly. In other words, my eyes stayed on the blue guy and didn't get a chance to see the orange guys reaction until the very end. A delay of some kind (swaying... staggering... eyes rolling up in head... something) before he drops to the ground would give the eye enough time to catch up and see the fall. This would give the viewer enough time to see the finale in full effect.

Note: I know this is just a test so I'm not suggesting you actually add the delay here... just food for thought.
I just watched it again with sound on/sound off.
The effect I speak of (my focus staying on blue guy) seems to be there with sound on as well as sound off.
Can anyone else confirm this? Maybe its just me.

Hopefully this makes sense.
The focus does have to stay somewhere so I guess it might as well rest on the blue guy.

Edit: Why do I think this is important? Here in the forum you have people looking at the animation that will watch it over and over again. We'll see everything. If this was a standard shot from an animated sequence (from a film) the viewer gets only one chance to 'get it'. Thats the rationale for my observation that a delay or something to move the viewers eye over to the other character would be optimum.

That looks good ,poor little guy

SHTHWEET! I dig the AO...

The thing that bothers me most is blue guys ending stance. A few frames before he looks ok, but then the hips get rotated in the opposite direction of his momentum. His chest looks as if it's pointing in the opposite direction of his hips. Other than that, it looks pretty good.

Thank you for comments... I'll use all of them in a new test...

I have a question ... I create an action to blue Sam and imported orange Sam inside it.. the "SHOW MORE THAN DRIVERS" option just is showed in blue Sam ... How do I do to able it in orange Sam ????

Show more than drivers on blue sam, then go into blue sam's bones folder (not the bones folder of the action). In there you'll see an action objects folder, there you can access orange sam and his properties.

Robert ... I fixed them ... please check this take and comment, please




thanks again Rodney ....the end was very sudden, so I added a few more frames.
This is a timing test then you MUST watch it over and over again... then tell me where I can improve it ....please do it



I agree .... the rotation was wrong.. I fixed it too...


ADDED :

- More antecipation before the punch ( blue sam ) increasing the power.
- A natural reaction after a punch is trying to react... the orange sam try it
- Facial animation

FIXED :

- The orange Sam´s left knee was entering the ground

PROBLEM :

I tried and tried and tried ... to add the fluid ( blood )... A:M is crashing when I try to animate :
-RATE OF EMISSION
-SIZE...

then I tried hide the model ( emiter using default RATE=500 SIZE=3,5 ) -frame 0- and just show it when the orange sam is punched -frame 30- .. but the render time is increase to inifinite since frame 0

..... but the blood isn't important now ... the important is the timing ..... please check take 2 and comment it ...

Looks alot better.

Looks good, you may want to move the hand pointing to the camera. With a whole blue model, the hand is not visible.

I noticed this problem .. the silhouette in the final is horrible.. I'll redo it.. Thank you for comment

Whoa! Marcos!
You just smashed my critique to pieces.

I've only looked at Take 2 once and want to relay my observations.
While its only right for an animator to view their shot over and over many times you can only get the initial impression once.

What I recall:

At the beginning my focus shifted back and forth between Blue and Orange. (no bias... no particular focus) nice.
My attention immediately went to Blue and then followed him all the way to Orange with force. BAM!
I stayed with Orange all the way to the ground.
Blue regained my attention in order to close things out and deliver the final message.

Very very nice.

Now I'm going to go watch it a few more times.

I forced myself to concentrate on Blue as I watched this time.
I'm amazed to see that I had missed nothing regarding Blue during that first view.
So I think the overal timing of Blue in relationship to the whole sequence is spot on.

Now... its Orange's turn.

Update: Anything I say regarding Orange will probably be nitpicking but... here goes.
I think Orange represents the best opportunity to finesse the shot but short of adding some slow motion into his reaction I'm not sure what to suggest. Perhaps that is a clue as to where the timing could still be adjusted a little bit more? The opportunity for Orange to get a little more attention on him so we see more of his reaction seems to be directly after the hit and all the way to flopping on the floor. Orange's flail back at blue doesn't seem to have any intelligence behind it. (I realize he's dazed... perhaps that could be exaggerated?). I don't see another opportunity with Orange to exploit.

I don't think I should dare to suggest anything else than this.
This is great stuff Marcos.

I do agree that the silhouette of Blue could be stronger at the end but the message still gets delivered.

Looks better, here are some notes

Click to view attachment

Rodney ... your comments are very relevants ... I'll maintain them in my mind to the next take..

Robert .... Thank you very much for your animation´s lesson... I already watched it 4 times .. and I'll watch it over and over again... Your comments are very plausible as always ... Will be an honor work with you again in SO.
I´m working on SO´ scene right now .. and I´ll back to this exercise using your tips.

Robert... I studied your advices and put all of them in practice...

Comments are welcome again ....

Sam vs Sam - take#3 (800x480)

Very nice Marcos. One of these days I'll learn how to animate.

Hi Marcos,

I think that looks better. The flight through the air looks smoother and the body part bounces on the ground look much better.

He might be spending too much time in the air and maybe a frame or two could be shaved off the little bounces, but only experimentation would tell for sure.

That last pose is still a problem. It might work if he were wearing white gloves but a clearer silhouette would be a better solution. Here's one quick idea, I'm sure there are many others.


Click to view attachment


I used to work at a company where an old Disney animator was trying to teach us classic animation. Whenever we'd make a drawing with the hand overlapping the body he'd shout "Get that hand out of there!"

And when we'd say "that's the only way to do that pose" he'd get all huffy and grab a scrap of paper and scratch something out in about 3 seconds to show us that no, there are other ways to do that pose... all of them better.

LOL .... You are right again .... "GET THE HAND OUT OF THERE !!!!" I printed this phrase and put it in front of my chair ....



I thought this when I read the Tex´s phrase !!!!!

thanks for sketch ...

I was looking in my projects folder and found this test ... I remember that I tried to put some blood in the scene but A:M was crashing when I did it... well V15 J+ seem to be more stable with fluids, and now I got it .. here is the result ..the same scene with a hint of blood

.

Nice tip Robert ... thank you

Sorry.

this is a great test! Marcos, I still look at your tutorial on driving decals with Smartskin. I've never put it into practice but I still study it. Just watched it again yesterday. I'll use it someday for sure.

That's good Marcos. The wind up on the blue guy's swing should be at least 6 frames long - maybe longer, and he might hold for a few frames at the extreme of the wind up - would have to see a motion test.
Also, the blue guy's kick should have more of a wind up.
These fall into the topic of anticipation. According to my understanding of what I have read, anticipation was developed in order to prepare the audience that an action was coming. They noticed that if there was not sufficient anticipation, especially for a fast action, the audience often missed the action or didn't enjoy the full impact of the action. That is what is happening in your animation. I think if you give the audience plenty of time to register that a strong action is coming (the punch and the kick), then the impact will be felt much more by the viewer.

Nice Test.

Nice test, Marcos!

Looking great!