I have managed to complete the jump cycle animation. As usual I used Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit as reference for the key frames. However, I ran into a few technical problems whilst placing them. The first was that the right arm of the rig's zero position changed towards the end of the animation, meaning I couldn't make a loop cycle. Fortunately I found out the it was because, at some point, I had moved the position of the shoulder without realising. The next problem was that the movement of the arms from one key frame to the next was not direct, meaning the arms waved about, seemingly at random in between each keyframe. Because the jump is much more of an extreme action than the run or the walk, I did not think the move the arms the shortest possible distance to the keyframe location. As a result, the rotation values exceeded what they needed to be and Maya interpolated this either backwards, or rotating around twice before reaching the key frame position. When this action is squashed into only a few frames, the arms looked as if they were waving around at random. I found that the best fix was to place the arm in the position I wanted and the rest the x,y and z rotation values to zero and then move the arm back to where it was using the shortest possible route. In future I will simply have to remember to take the shortest route every time.
Although I believe that everything is there in the jump, I do not think it was executed particularly well. I would have liked to have spent more time tweaking it. Although the logical solution to this would be to just keep more focused during a project, which is something I have been working on, I work better under pressure. I will continue to work on my ability to stay focused before the deadline begins to loom, but I think a plan to avoid such problems as rushed elements would be wise. After about halfway through any project, everything needed for the completed piece, animation, sculpture, game, essay or otherwise, is there. The rest is tweaking. I should have laid out the keyframes of all three loops before begining to tweak and clean up the curves of each loop. This way I could avoid having 2 good animations and one inferior one.
Showing posts with label Animation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animation. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 February 2012
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Run Cycle Finished!
After having a play in the curves editor, I have managed to get most of the shake out of the right leg in the walk cycle by reducing the the movement of the leg on the Z axis. Although the shake is still there, it is small and barely noticable. If time allows I will return to it, otherwise I need to get on with the jump.
I have also finished the run cycle, cleaning up the curves and getting rid of any unnecessary key frames. I have also chosen to keep the hands and arms as they were after the advice of a tutor. Mark, my tutor said that he liked the arms as they were but I should lower the angle of the elbows, as they were the arms looked like they were intentionally moving as opposed to the floppy look I had in mind. Mark also pointed out that, as a run, Moom needs to spend more time in the air with both feet of the ground. With this in mind, i went back to The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams and found that Moom lands his front foot on the ground a frame early. After adjusting this, I am still not sure if this will be enough and I, again, will return if time allows. For now I am fairly happy with the run and think that it looks believable and smooth.
As Blogger seems to have trouble having two videos uploaded into one post, I will make a seperate post for the run cycle.
I have also finished the run cycle, cleaning up the curves and getting rid of any unnecessary key frames. I have also chosen to keep the hands and arms as they were after the advice of a tutor. Mark, my tutor said that he liked the arms as they were but I should lower the angle of the elbows, as they were the arms looked like they were intentionally moving as opposed to the floppy look I had in mind. Mark also pointed out that, as a run, Moom needs to spend more time in the air with both feet of the ground. With this in mind, i went back to The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams and found that Moom lands his front foot on the ground a frame early. After adjusting this, I am still not sure if this will be enough and I, again, will return if time allows. For now I am fairly happy with the run and think that it looks believable and smooth.
As Blogger seems to have trouble having two videos uploaded into one post, I will make a seperate post for the run cycle.
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Random Maya Fail.
A few minutes ago, after spending 2 or 3 hours working on my run animation, Maya decided to crash and corrupt the save. When I tried to reopen the file I found it to be empty.
Luckily after some searching I managed to find a file with the same name as the original same with a different file extension. I can only assume this is a backup file Maya makes for situations like this. The file was the moom animation BEFORE I did 3 hours work on it. Still, better than starting from scratch and I should be able to do everything much quicker now that I've done it once.
Luckily after some searching I managed to find a file with the same name as the original same with a different file extension. I can only assume this is a backup file Maya makes for situations like this. The file was the moom animation BEFORE I did 3 hours work on it. Still, better than starting from scratch and I should be able to do everything much quicker now that I've done it once.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
The Run Begins
After a lot of staring at the Maya blankly, I have managed to figure out why the back leg appears to twitch during the walk cycle inbetween the "contact" and "drop" key frames (Richard Williams, 2001). The leg becomes fully extended in-between the two frames which causes the leg to look like its shaking when played back in full time.
This problem can be fixed fairly quickly in the curve editor once I have finished the run cycle.
I have also placed all the necessary key frames for the run and the preparation for the run. The preparation for the run, after some tweaking, still feels a little sudden. Hopefully, this problem can be fixed in the curve editor, maybe by stretching the curves over a longer time period. The run itself is looking pretty good, apart from the hands, which I have kept limp in order to better illustrate the inertia put on them during the run. This looks odd and I may choose to tense up his arms and put his hands into fists to make it more obvious Moom is running.
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| The leg becomes fully extended in-between the "contact" and "drop" key frames. |
I have also placed all the necessary key frames for the run and the preparation for the run. The preparation for the run, after some tweaking, still feels a little sudden. Hopefully, this problem can be fixed in the curve editor, maybe by stretching the curves over a longer time period. The run itself is looking pretty good, apart from the hands, which I have kept limp in order to better illustrate the inertia put on them during the run. This looks odd and I may choose to tense up his arms and put his hands into fists to make it more obvious Moom is running.
 |
| The arms feel a little limp for a run. I may change them to something more obvious for a run. |
Sunday, 5 February 2012
Learning Maya & First Animations
Over the past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time learning the Maya software package. Having used 3ds Max before and knowing that I prefer modelling to animation, I felt that this would be the best thing to learn in Maya in order to get comfortable with it. I used the Digital Tutors Introduction to Modelling in Maya to partially model a swiss army knife. Because in this segment of the course we're focusing on animation I didn't feel the need to finish the tutorial, just get myself aquainted with the feel of the software before attempting animation.
Once I felt comfortable in the software and had made enough basic, trivial mistakes to try some animation. In a tutorial in university we were instructed on how to make a bouncing ball. Thanks to previous experience in 3ds Max, I didn't find the animation concepts too difficult to grasp. I am, however, entirely new to the graph editor. Once I had gotten the hang of the logic involved in using this new tool, I found animation to be a generally simpler and more enjoyable experience.
I am pretty happy with the results of the bouncing ball excercise. After seeing other people's final results I have noticed that I have gone for a much more "cartoony", exagerrated style. My squash and stretch is fairly extreme. I don't necesarily feel that this brings the animation down though. What I do feel brings it down is the sudden and extreme squash when the ball hits the ground. I feel like the amount of squash is right, but the lack of transition between the two extreme states annoys me a touch. I have tried playing with the curves in the few frames I have when the ball is in contact with the floor but I can't get it to look right, even when I add more key frames. I feel like, If I had more frames to work with, I might get a better result.
The next excercise in animation was a walk cycle using a ready made rig, sweetly named, Moom. Needless to say, this excercise was much more difficult than the previous one and required much more patience and skill. Luckily, in anticipation of the animation unit, I bought a copy of Richard William's The Animator's Survival Kit. The book contains pictures of what a walk should look like frame by frame, as well as extremly useful information as to why the illustrations work. For instance, one extremly useful piece of information was that when the front foot makes full contact on the floor and all of the weight is shifted to that foot, the bend in the knee needs to be greatly exaggerated. For some reason, when the knee is bent to a realistic level, which is only slightly, the animation looks like it isn't carrying any weight and just looks like it's "floating". With this information, I managed to get the feet moving in a convincing way. I believe that a lot of the best learning come from working something out for yourself and making mistakes. It was with this thought that I decided to work out the arms for myself. My first attempt at the arms had them simply swaying back and forth. This looked extremly unrealistic and gave no sense of inertia. When adding a bit of overlap running through the arm and down to the fingers the effect was much more convincing, even if the walk now looks a little too overly casual.
The only realy frustrating problem with the walk is that, at one specific point in the animation loop, the left leg shudders. I have inspected the curves and gone over the frames in that area slowly to try and catch the problem, but unless the animation is playing the problem doesn't visibly exist. I will have to consult a tutor on the problem. In the meantime, I am going to attempt to add the run cycle onto the walk.
Once I felt comfortable in the software and had made enough basic, trivial mistakes to try some animation. In a tutorial in university we were instructed on how to make a bouncing ball. Thanks to previous experience in 3ds Max, I didn't find the animation concepts too difficult to grasp. I am, however, entirely new to the graph editor. Once I had gotten the hang of the logic involved in using this new tool, I found animation to be a generally simpler and more enjoyable experience.
I am pretty happy with the results of the bouncing ball excercise. After seeing other people's final results I have noticed that I have gone for a much more "cartoony", exagerrated style. My squash and stretch is fairly extreme. I don't necesarily feel that this brings the animation down though. What I do feel brings it down is the sudden and extreme squash when the ball hits the ground. I feel like the amount of squash is right, but the lack of transition between the two extreme states annoys me a touch. I have tried playing with the curves in the few frames I have when the ball is in contact with the floor but I can't get it to look right, even when I add more key frames. I feel like, If I had more frames to work with, I might get a better result.
The next excercise in animation was a walk cycle using a ready made rig, sweetly named, Moom. Needless to say, this excercise was much more difficult than the previous one and required much more patience and skill. Luckily, in anticipation of the animation unit, I bought a copy of Richard William's The Animator's Survival Kit. The book contains pictures of what a walk should look like frame by frame, as well as extremly useful information as to why the illustrations work. For instance, one extremly useful piece of information was that when the front foot makes full contact on the floor and all of the weight is shifted to that foot, the bend in the knee needs to be greatly exaggerated. For some reason, when the knee is bent to a realistic level, which is only slightly, the animation looks like it isn't carrying any weight and just looks like it's "floating". With this information, I managed to get the feet moving in a convincing way. I believe that a lot of the best learning come from working something out for yourself and making mistakes. It was with this thought that I decided to work out the arms for myself. My first attempt at the arms had them simply swaying back and forth. This looked extremly unrealistic and gave no sense of inertia. When adding a bit of overlap running through the arm and down to the fingers the effect was much more convincing, even if the walk now looks a little too overly casual.
The only realy frustrating problem with the walk is that, at one specific point in the animation loop, the left leg shudders. I have inspected the curves and gone over the frames in that area slowly to try and catch the problem, but unless the animation is playing the problem doesn't visibly exist. I will have to consult a tutor on the problem. In the meantime, I am going to attempt to add the run cycle onto the walk.
Sunday, 8 January 2012
The 12 Principles of Animation
We have been asked to create a blog post detailing the 12 principles of animation as set down by the "Nine Old Men" of Disney and then show good and bad examples of them from games. This turned out to be trickier than it sounds. It is difficult to summon up 24 examples of games that have specific problems with these 12 principles from memory. The best I could do was to find a lot of retro games that could not use the 12 principles because of technology limitations. However, these games often make up for their limitations by stylising the game so that the animation flaws don't stand out so much.
1. Squash & Stretch
Squash and stretch is the act of squashing and stretching an item to give it and organic or dynamic feel. Some good examples include bouncing balls and muscles.
The bad example I chose was the original Super Mario Bro's by Nintendo. When showing people jumping they will crouch and then stretch as they jump. This is a very common usage of squash and stretch which was not found in this early platformer.
I chose the PSP platforming game Daxter for my good example. Unlike Super Mario, Daxter shows evidence of squashing into a ball before a jump and then elongating to launch himself into the air giving the animation a much more dynamic and appealing look.
2. Anticipation
Anticipation is the act of gathering energy before an action giving the animation a much more life-like feel. Examples of this effect can be seen when a character draws his fist back before a punch or when pulling backwards before a run.
The "bad" example I chose for this game was the original Legend of Zelda game for the NES. The main character never shows any evidence of drawing back before a sword strike, walking or any other action.
The opposing example I have chosen is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a later installment of the same franchise. The main character shows a subtle, but visible pull backwards when he starts walking. A similar effect is seen before many other actions in-game, such as opening chests and opening doors and performing evasive rolls.
3. Staging
Good staging is just a question of good composition. It is the act of making sure that whats going on is clear to the audience. In game, making sure the player understands the situation and context tends to be the job of the designers not the animators.
The bad example I am using for this principle is used a few times in this blog post. This is simply because it is considered a bad example of everything in game. The game is E.T. The game almost entirely relys on the player having seen the film of the same name to understand the context in which the game is set. The game gives no real clues as to what is going on, what the player is supposed to do or why the player is supposed to do it.
4. Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose
Straight ahead and pose to pose are techniques of animation. Straight ahead is used much more in traditionally drawn animation and is the act of drawing a scene frame after frame in the chronological order in which they appear. This provides much more fluid and flowing animation. Pose to Pose was where animators would draw specific "key frames" which are later connected together by more frames. This is better for keeping good composition but often loses a lot of pose and character consistency.
Since these are techniques and a means to an end, it is nearly impossible to find specifically good and bad examples for this principle.
5. Follow Through & Overlapping
Follow through and Overlapping are actions that take place after action has been performed. Examples maybe a character skidding across the floor in order to stop himself suddenly or the crouched position taken at the end of a jump.
Street Fighter II Turbo by Capcom demostrates a lack of follow through or overlapping. In the character Ryu's signiture move, Hadouken, the move is not followed up by any kind of recovery.
However, in Street Fighter IV the same character is given a head sash which gives all of his move a subtle but noticable follow through. This tiny feature gives the player the feeling that some kind of force was put into the move.
6.Slow In, Slow Out
Slow in, Slow out simulates acceleration and deceleration that the laws of physics observe every moving object must abide with (with the exception of electro-magnetic waves, including light, which neither accelerate or decelerate) .
The Atari 2600 platformer Pitfall demonstrates how lack of acceleration or deceleration in a character's walk can make that character look unatural and mechanical.
SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog shows the difference made when a similar genre adds accerlation and deceleration to a character. The movement feels much more natural and believable.
7. Arcs
Organic movement very rarely moves in a straight line. Even when a character performs a straight punch, their joints and general gesture move in a distinct arc. This is a particularly difficult one to find examples of, simply because most games new and retro, employ the use of arcs in jumps, punches and general movement.
The game which shows the most distinct lack of arcs is Pac-Man. Every corner is turned in a very unnatural and robotic why.
Space Invaders, however, demonstrate arcs in their descent. The "invaders" move side to side and then down in a continuous "S" shape. Although this still looks mechanical because the sprites jump, instead of moving smoothly from one position to another, the "S" shape gives it a more natural feel, like a feather floating to earth.
8. Secondary Action
A Secondary Action is a smaller, less noticable action added onto the main action. The idea is to give the primary action more character. The idea of this would be to have a character fiddle with something whilst talking, or smoke a cigar whilst shooting a shotgun.
Asteroids employs no use of a secondary action for the ship's primary, shooting, action.
Halo 3, however, adds character, and the feeling of force behind the shot, by adding a recoil action to the primary shooting action.
9. Timing
Timing is used for both theatrical and physical purposes. Perfect timing can be used to execute perfect comedy or give a punch extra force.
The PSX action, shooter Dino Crisis is a good example of bad timing. Demonstrating out of time, stiff looking walks and badly synced dialouge.
One generation up from this is the PS2 game Devil May Cry, which demonstrates perfectly timed combat. This gives the feeling of real force put into each blow and makes every footstep feel natural.
10. Exaggeration
Exaggeration is the act of "over-doing" an action to make it more pronounced for dramatic or comedic effect. Examples of this could include cartoons such as Wile E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny which has an almost instantly recognisable style that uses exaggeration to great comedic effect.
Some games require a lot less exaggeration than others. For example Heavy Rain takes on a Film Noir style which requires a gritty realism. This means many of the animations are not exaggerated except to make it more clear as to what the character is thinking or doing.
In opposition is Ubisoft's classic Rayman which takes on a much more cartoony , comedic style. This makes heavy use of the exaggeration principle to give both a more comedic effect and to add to the style of the game.
11. Solid Drawing
Animators require the same knowledge of form, function, tone and colour as traditional artists. Amazing animation will never look good without the decent artwork to back it up.
For my "bad" example I have to refer back to an example used earlier in the post. Even when compared to other games of the same era the artwork of the Atari game E.T. is truly aweful.
However, the game Super Meat Boy shows how a game with a pixelated style can still look charming.
12. Appeal
Appeal is, more or less, how well the principles above are executed in a way that looks unique and charming.
One last time I am forced to look at E.T. which uses very few of the above principles, even the ones that the technology of the time aloud. The game looks and feels just...just aweful.
The game I have chosen to demostrate good appeal is the action RPG, Mass Effect 2. The gameplay has it's own charming style and each character has their own believable and unique way of moving.
1. Squash & Stretch
Squash and stretch is the act of squashing and stretching an item to give it and organic or dynamic feel. Some good examples include bouncing balls and muscles.
The bad example I chose was the original Super Mario Bro's by Nintendo. When showing people jumping they will crouch and then stretch as they jump. This is a very common usage of squash and stretch which was not found in this early platformer.
I chose the PSP platforming game Daxter for my good example. Unlike Super Mario, Daxter shows evidence of squashing into a ball before a jump and then elongating to launch himself into the air giving the animation a much more dynamic and appealing look.
2. Anticipation
Anticipation is the act of gathering energy before an action giving the animation a much more life-like feel. Examples of this effect can be seen when a character draws his fist back before a punch or when pulling backwards before a run.
The "bad" example I chose for this game was the original Legend of Zelda game for the NES. The main character never shows any evidence of drawing back before a sword strike, walking or any other action.
The opposing example I have chosen is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a later installment of the same franchise. The main character shows a subtle, but visible pull backwards when he starts walking. A similar effect is seen before many other actions in-game, such as opening chests and opening doors and performing evasive rolls.
3. Staging
Good staging is just a question of good composition. It is the act of making sure that whats going on is clear to the audience. In game, making sure the player understands the situation and context tends to be the job of the designers not the animators.
The bad example I am using for this principle is used a few times in this blog post. This is simply because it is considered a bad example of everything in game. The game is E.T. The game almost entirely relys on the player having seen the film of the same name to understand the context in which the game is set. The game gives no real clues as to what is going on, what the player is supposed to do or why the player is supposed to do it.
4. Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose
Straight ahead and pose to pose are techniques of animation. Straight ahead is used much more in traditionally drawn animation and is the act of drawing a scene frame after frame in the chronological order in which they appear. This provides much more fluid and flowing animation. Pose to Pose was where animators would draw specific "key frames" which are later connected together by more frames. This is better for keeping good composition but often loses a lot of pose and character consistency.
Since these are techniques and a means to an end, it is nearly impossible to find specifically good and bad examples for this principle.
5. Follow Through & Overlapping
Follow through and Overlapping are actions that take place after action has been performed. Examples maybe a character skidding across the floor in order to stop himself suddenly or the crouched position taken at the end of a jump.
Street Fighter II Turbo by Capcom demostrates a lack of follow through or overlapping. In the character Ryu's signiture move, Hadouken, the move is not followed up by any kind of recovery.
However, in Street Fighter IV the same character is given a head sash which gives all of his move a subtle but noticable follow through. This tiny feature gives the player the feeling that some kind of force was put into the move.
6.Slow In, Slow Out
Slow in, Slow out simulates acceleration and deceleration that the laws of physics observe every moving object must abide with (with the exception of electro-magnetic waves, including light, which neither accelerate or decelerate) .
The Atari 2600 platformer Pitfall demonstrates how lack of acceleration or deceleration in a character's walk can make that character look unatural and mechanical.
SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog shows the difference made when a similar genre adds accerlation and deceleration to a character. The movement feels much more natural and believable.
7. Arcs
Organic movement very rarely moves in a straight line. Even when a character performs a straight punch, their joints and general gesture move in a distinct arc. This is a particularly difficult one to find examples of, simply because most games new and retro, employ the use of arcs in jumps, punches and general movement.
The game which shows the most distinct lack of arcs is Pac-Man. Every corner is turned in a very unnatural and robotic why.
Space Invaders, however, demonstrate arcs in their descent. The "invaders" move side to side and then down in a continuous "S" shape. Although this still looks mechanical because the sprites jump, instead of moving smoothly from one position to another, the "S" shape gives it a more natural feel, like a feather floating to earth.
8. Secondary Action
A Secondary Action is a smaller, less noticable action added onto the main action. The idea is to give the primary action more character. The idea of this would be to have a character fiddle with something whilst talking, or smoke a cigar whilst shooting a shotgun.
Asteroids employs no use of a secondary action for the ship's primary, shooting, action.
Halo 3, however, adds character, and the feeling of force behind the shot, by adding a recoil action to the primary shooting action.
9. Timing
Timing is used for both theatrical and physical purposes. Perfect timing can be used to execute perfect comedy or give a punch extra force.
The PSX action, shooter Dino Crisis is a good example of bad timing. Demonstrating out of time, stiff looking walks and badly synced dialouge.
One generation up from this is the PS2 game Devil May Cry, which demonstrates perfectly timed combat. This gives the feeling of real force put into each blow and makes every footstep feel natural.
10. Exaggeration
Exaggeration is the act of "over-doing" an action to make it more pronounced for dramatic or comedic effect. Examples of this could include cartoons such as Wile E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny which has an almost instantly recognisable style that uses exaggeration to great comedic effect.
Some games require a lot less exaggeration than others. For example Heavy Rain takes on a Film Noir style which requires a gritty realism. This means many of the animations are not exaggerated except to make it more clear as to what the character is thinking or doing.
In opposition is Ubisoft's classic Rayman which takes on a much more cartoony , comedic style. This makes heavy use of the exaggeration principle to give both a more comedic effect and to add to the style of the game.
11. Solid Drawing
Animators require the same knowledge of form, function, tone and colour as traditional artists. Amazing animation will never look good without the decent artwork to back it up.
For my "bad" example I have to refer back to an example used earlier in the post. Even when compared to other games of the same era the artwork of the Atari game E.T. is truly aweful.
However, the game Super Meat Boy shows how a game with a pixelated style can still look charming.
12. Appeal
Appeal is, more or less, how well the principles above are executed in a way that looks unique and charming.
One last time I am forced to look at E.T. which uses very few of the above principles, even the ones that the technology of the time aloud. The game looks and feels just...just aweful.
The game I have chosen to demostrate good appeal is the action RPG, Mass Effect 2. The gameplay has it's own charming style and each character has their own believable and unique way of moving.
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