Knight Attack Animation

[Janos]

Here is an animation of a knight swinging his sword. I would appreciate any advice on how to make this better.

[A2J2TIWARI]

Looks more like he's hitting a ball instead of swinging his sword. That's all I have to say 

More power, his body leaning forward, etc would add to the effect maybe; he looks so much at ease but I imagine a knight swinging his sword to slash people would be using much more power and fierceness

[Janos]

Thanks for the advice. I updated the animation to give him more of an overhead swing and made him lean into his attack. I don't want him to move too much though because I want him to stay in place and slash back and forth between two attacks.

[MysteryMeat]

Needs more motion in the legs. I'd say have him crouch a bit with the attack, would make it feel more hefty a swing.

[Janos]

I made a quick little edit with his knees bending and it made a big difference thanks for that tip.

[hapiel]

Is this for a game, or just a fun animation? If the action is triggered by a button, it needs to be instant.
If not: Take your time with the anticipation. It is rushing through the whole thing!
It should be:
Lift up the sword behind the head, small pause, bring the weight of the knight forward, then sword follows with a lot of power.

Right now his weight comes after the blow, which makes him look weak.

[Janos]

Yea this is gonna be like the main character for a game. I want to make all the animations as smooth as possible for now but yea I agree there will have to be little to no delay when you press a command before he swings. I edited the knight to make his weight shift a little before he swings his sword and also adjusted the speed to make him a little faster.

[MysteryMeat]

I tweaked the frame timing some to give it a bit more weight, and also tweaked the torso in a couple frames nearer the start to make him "lean back" a bit more.
Also, motion trail, for that extra bit of oomph.

[Janos]

That motion trail is a pretty slick addition I like it. I tried to make my own trail by making the sword wider when hes swinging it through the air. More of a blur effect that a swoosh. I don't know which I prefer

[MysteryMeat]

That's a good effect, actually. More work put in there than on my lazier one, haha.
You should have that trail vanish when the sword finishes moving though, otherwise you get sort of a lightsaber effect which you want to avoid if possible.

[Janos]

Just did a quick edit and made that change. Looks better now thanks for the tip

[wzl]

The general motion looks mostly correct. The strike is just too linear. I removed a bunch of frames, added some new inbetweens, stretched it out a bit and made him more commit to the strike.
The stretching and crouching helps to convey more intent in the strike, as if he's putting his all into it.

Also the foot sliding. Such a tiny detail, but it makes the strike look less powerful. Usually you want to stay rooted when striking someone, or you might go off balance. There is ways when you want to move your feet or legs before a strike, but that usually has certain purpose. getting more torque out of your hips, going into a narrower stance to be less targetable. In your case i see neither of these happening so it looks like a movement for the sake of movement. When you move something try to figure out why it moves.

[Janos]

I understand what you mean about the movement and having the feet planted. Your edit made him look like he strikes with way more power now. I think I was just trying to make it as smooth as possible and have as many frames as possible. Having less frames definitely gives his swing more force. Thanks for the tips and advice I will probably take your edit clean it up and use that thanks again

[Atnas]

I understand what you mean about the movement and having the feet planted. Your edit made him look like he strikes with way more power now. I think I was just trying to make it as smooth as possible and have as many frames as possible. Having less frames definitely gives his swing more force. Thanks for the tips and advice I will probably take your edit clean it up and use that thanks again

It's in bad taste to take an edit someone made for you and edit it back and use it for your own purposes. The intention of edits on this forum are to help you improve, not to make your assets better. You are permitted to take the ideas, but not the actual work that wzl did for you, excluding the rare case the editor grants you permission, however this is rarely the case, as they would not have made an edit if they weren't hoping you would learn something.

As an aside, animating things with more frames (given a consistent framerate) in between two points slows it down, as it is distance/time, or velocity. If you want a smooth strike without sacrificing power or bumping up the framerate, you can use the frames to either side of the slash frame itself on the timeline to telegraph a smooth feeling. Especially follow through can help with this.