Pirate animation

[setz]

Started with this: it was the character concept


This was the first step of my animation: blocking out how everything would move


This was the finished cycle, I detailed each frame one by one after blocking everything out as seen above.


Then I added an item to show how it would be held.

This was done for a weird game idea I had and am currently queuing up on my list of ideas I probably won't get around to actually doing, basically, you are pirating [THING], and have to protect the stream of data coming out of [THING] until [THING] has completed its download, I haven't given too much thought beyond that, but thats why his arm was static.

I'm wondering how the rest of the world goes about animation, if theres a more efficient workflow, or what. It basically felt like I drew the same thing 8 times, I feel like lining up highlights is probably more important than making things pretty on this level.

[ptoing]

Nice little character tho there are some major flaws in your animation:

• The far arm and leg move in unison, when they should be opposite, as in when far leg is forward far arm is back
• At the passing position (which should be 3 and 6, but looks like 3 and 7 in your animation) when one leg is straight down onto the ground the torso should lift, this should traditionally be highest point of the walk/run. In your version it looks like the length of his legs change.
• you seem to not have done proper keyframes and many parts look animated on the go, which usually (unless you are VERY good) yields sloppy results. I am sure you have seen this before but I shall repost it as it might be helpful (I should actually revise it at some point as it could be better)
  
• Your first frame is him up in the air, where it should probably be his heel touching the ground, and so on.
• Usually run/walk cycles should be even framed, same amount of frames per step, but in the case of having a peg leg or someone with a limp it can look nice if you make the step with the pegleg 1 or 2 frames longer, given you manage to show the added weight and all that. Here is a little pirate walk with 7 instead of 6 frames I made for Dr. Dobbs Challenge 2.
  
• Lastly the hand holding the tablet not moving at all does look really unconvincing, it would be funnier and look a lot more natural if the hand with the item would sway around in some circular or figure of eight motion.

I hope this all helps, if you have specific questions about some stuff, just ask 

[dock]

I love it, but... why doesn't the pirate limp a bit? With that much definition I'd expect some sort of acknowledgement of the missing limb!

[KevinTrepanier]

Even with a static hand in place for the item, there must be a way to stretch and squeeze the arm in a more realistic way. Also it probably wouldn't be much trouble to add a bit of movement to the box in the game to increase the effect.

[Dmartian]

Nice little character tho there are some major flaws in your animation:

• The far arm and leg move in unison, when they should be opposite, as in when far leg is forward far arm is back
• At the passing position (which should be 3 and 6, but looks like 3 and 7 in your animation) when one leg is straight down onto the ground the torso should lift, this should traditionally be highest point of the walk/run. In your version it looks like the length of his legs change.
• you seem to not have done proper keyframes and many parts look animated on the go, which usually (unless you are VERY good) yields sloppy results. I am sure you have seen this before but I shall repost it as it might be helpful (I should actually revise it at some point as it could be better)
  
• Your first frame is him up in the air, where it should probably be his heel touching the ground, and so on.
• Usually run/walk cycles should be even framed, same amount of frames per step, but in the case of having a peg leg or someone with a limp it can look nice if you make the step with the pegleg 1 or 2 frames longer, given you manage to show the added weight and all that. Here is a little pirate walk with 7 instead of 6 frames I made for Dr. Dobbs Challenge 2.
  
• Lastly the hand holding the tablet not moving at all does look really unconvincing, it would be funnier and look a lot more natural if the hand with the item would sway around in some circular or figure of eight motion.

I hope this all helps, if you have specific questions about some stuff, just ask 

You give great insights Karma.

[setz]

• The far arm and leg move in unison, when they should be opposite, as in when far leg is forward far arm is back

I did some updates to the animation. I don't think I've addressed everything here, but I've tried to get what I could between projects.
-Added some arm movement while keeping the item position stationary
-Fixed a rather embarassing blunder
-Added some aditional animation with the face, cleaning up in some areas
-Changed frame order

Some questions:
Why does frame order really matter?- I can change that when I'm coding easily enough.
Keyframes, I pretty much just blotted out the shapes as seen in the WIP animation without paying much attention to other things. Keyframes are working specific frames, and then filling in the missing frames?

For the sake of having it, here is a strip of the frames

[ptoing]

Yes, keyframing is doing the important "storytelling" frames first and then do the inbetweens.

Order is not super important but if you keyframe you start with the contact usually on walks/runs, where the heel contacs the ground.

So frames 1 and 5 should be contact frames, your frame 5 does not look even remotely like frame 1 in terms of foot position.
And then frames 3 and 7 should be the passing positions, where one leg is almost straight (usually lifting the body UP) and the other is like L so the legs together form a kinda of 4. This is also not the case in your run.

What this results in is a sloppily built up runcycle which also, probably because of this, lacks weight. To me it looks like he is just moving his legs back and forth, almost being suspended in the air. If I was you I would seriously consider redoing it from scratch more or less and doing it proper, it would be a good learning experience.

[setz]

Well, I do believe I could use the practice, but it may take me awhile: The project this would be for is pretty far-off, as I've got others to do before it can even hit the concept stage. I may also take this time to redesign the character into something more appealing.

So, when doing keyframes, how far should you typically work the frames before doing the in-between frames? Should it be to a finished level, a very rough level, or somewhere inbetween?

On character design: should I add 50 belts, 20 buckles, some striped clothing, maybe a big hat and bigger sword, and call it a day?

[ptoing]

It does not really matter how far you take the rendering in the keyframes as long as what is there suggest solid movement and weight.