AuthorTopic: Professor walking  (Read 22296 times)

Offline ndchristie

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #10 on: June 07, 2009, 04:02:41 pm
I made no insults.  There's no need to get offended, the proof is in the pudding.  You've presented your process and it's flawed.  That you animate in a segmented, piecemeal fashion is obvious from the work here and elsewhere and working like that produces bad results.  This kind of thing is what you need to hear from critique - if i simply address the piece at hand, what problems are present etc, it's not going to solve the greater problem and your process will continue to harm your work.

You don't have to listen to my advice but I hope you can see that it is directed at bettering your work.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2009, 04:06:26 pm by ndchristie »
A mistake is a mistake.
The same mistake twice is a bad habit.
The same mistake three or more times is a motif.

Offline Dusty

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #11 on: June 07, 2009, 04:27:35 pm
When you say I'm not doing it right I take offense.
Why?

Offline TrevoriuS

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #12 on: June 07, 2009, 04:35:15 pm
Don't be offended when people say your workflow is wrong. Your current results are flawed, and that can be partially caused by the workflow. Others share their workflow and you learn by taking the most logical and easy parts and combining them into your own. Just your logics in how you set up a workflow are not enough, with the opinions of a thousand people your workflow can be so much better because they all stack up good arguments you can't just come up with all by yourself. This is the way pipelines develop, through the ages by the speculation of people that talk about their difficulties and methodologies together. SO no need to take offense, we're all here to help :)

ndchristie is however correct in the fact that it's best to work out key poses entirely, and creating inbetweens and blending frames after, rather than animating a limb entirely and then animating the next limb to match it. Posing starts with placing the hips and then the rest of the torso in a balanced way, then adding feet positions and natural legs from that in a stable non gravity defying position, and the arms are the final detail, creating the actual expression. Then you of course need to tweak and improve, but after that, you've got a single keypose done. Then you go on to the next one, and can start thinking about the inbetween motion and blending of animation.

If you just start animating the legs you won't know how the torso will fit on in a balanced way, if you then animate the arms before you do the torso it'll mismatch even worse. And I think that's what you've been doing, forgetting about the torso, while it is the conjunction of all the limbs, the most important subject to work out properly. Of course any process can be justified and workable, and it's good to be skeptic about things people suggest you, but you should try them before you can say they don't work. I may be completely wrong about your workflow however, so that's for you to work out for yourself :)

Now on the professor, he just lacks a natural feel and weight. His legs raise and lower at the same speed, but lowering is due to gravity, and lifting due to muscles. Now gravity is much stronger than a muscle, so convey that difference in speed and weight. The current animation is too linear at the arms and legs, and too stiff in the overall. Why don't you rotate his shoulders while moving, and make that coat move alot more due to the body movement underneath?

Offline Gil

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #13 on: June 07, 2009, 06:45:49 pm
There is no "wrong workflow". You can suggest better workflows, show errors that are due to specific workflow, etc..., but you can't call one workflow "wrong".

I have a workflow similar to robotacon, but I've managed to work out some flaws and devised some shortcuts. I notice some new shortcuts in his work that could benefit mine, etc. It's what I'd like to call the "breath life in" method. Start by animating one part and then slowly mold and add stuff until it looks right. The workflow is much more creative that way and it allows me to work faster.

That said, I still tackle difficult animations differently with more construction as needed.

Offline TrevoriuS

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #14 on: June 07, 2009, 08:09:23 pm
I myself prefer more overview, this so called 'breath life in' method tends to take more time on tweaking then I'd want it to take, because parts become inconsistent as you can't plan your animation in your brain perfectly, you have to plan it out before polishing and blending it. Or so is my experience. Animating a single limb may give you a better grasp on the weight, though you can plan timing after making keyframes quite well, as there are not many frames in 2D art generally. In 3D CG animations you have even more control making use of keyframes and key poses and I'd lose software functionality there with your methods. But it's true that there is no wrong workflow, I'm just stating that I've found to experience alot of flaws taking away alot of efficiency in the one I think I see used here.

Offline robotacon

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #15 on: June 07, 2009, 08:29:47 pm
Here's an edit of Professor Alpha, discoverer of the channel with the same name.


The reason I posted the Professor in the first place was to discuss how hard it is to animate someone moving at a slow pace.
I feel bad for posting him at the state he was in, I know I won't do that again.

One way of slowing things down is to have different parts of the body move at different speeds like how the head now moves only in two different positions and the arm pendulum moves on 3's.

Offline Joe

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #16 on: June 07, 2009, 08:39:05 pm
Something that's bothering me is his head sticks out before his foot does.  I don't think it looks natural.  I do, however, think it's a major improvement.

Offline robotacon

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #17 on: June 07, 2009, 09:00:52 pm
Is this better?  =>

Here's an alternative run for the Rubin character with some added weight.


Offline ndchristie

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #18 on: June 07, 2009, 09:28:21 pm



There is no "wrong workflow". You can suggest better workflows, show errors that are due to specific workflow, etc..., but you can't call one workflow "wrong".

OK, I'll take that.  But when you get down to it, working general to specific with considerations for all parts at all times leads to more cohesive, unified results.  This is not always the best plan, say for a large painting, sometimes it's better to work up the focal points with only a vague consideration for subordinate elements (not how i work but ok).  Certainly in the finishing these important parts get more attention in most cases.

In an animation though, this is not generally the case.
You could take the best flower, the best milk, the best spices, and the best chicken, but if you don't follow a recipe you're only going to get a pile of food and not a meal.
Nobody will ever look at something and say "well it seems disjointed as a whole, but how good is that left leg movement!"
Not even that, but you can't even have good left leg movement unless it's relating to good body movement!  Even if you are successful at first, when you work on the rest, any and every change will affect the movement you had until it no longer looks good with what you've got.
Animating by pieces only works in select cases, particularly (as you mentioned) easy things, and things you've done a thousand times, or when you grind grind grind away blindly and like all blind methods get lucky sometimes, and this can be more creative as Gil mentioned, but is unsuccessful 99% of the time.  I recommend this aimless, searching method as a way to expand your mind beyond traditionally safe ideas - ideas you should still know because they work and they are fundamental.

Is success always important?  No, of course not.  I fail all the time and am better for it.  Challenge alone can spur growth.  But failure should generally lead to successful practices.  That is (generally) the goal of critique and it's the goal I hope to help you towards.

Quote
The reason I posted the Professor in the first place was to discuss how hard it is to animate someone moving at a slow pace.
The point of critique, which this board is partly responsible for showing me, is that you shouldn't have a preconceived agenda for your critics, but be open to their suggestions.  I benefit the most when I don't direct the conversation.

Quote
I feel bad for posting him at the state he was in, I know I won't do that again.
Sorry to have discouraged you.  But really, I think you should have posted it earlier, so that we could have helped with the overall movement.  Continuing with your current methods is not producing results.


Why does his neck move like that?  Can he magically stretch it without shifting his shoulders?  Why is one arm so much faster than the other, particularly if it is carrying some weight?

He's just dropping a lightweight motion by a pixel, which isn't going to make it a heavier animation.  In both of these cases you're moving solid, highly-polished blocks of work around and hoping they fit together better if you push and squeeze.  It doesn't work that way.

What I'm asking, if you REALLY want these animations to wok out, and what's better than tweaking and adding to two animations that already have broken systems of motion and trying to make them a system, is to start from the beginning with a more comprehensive method that is proven to work.  Is that a tall order?  Yes, it's hard to dump a lot of good work, and this is very good work.  But it's work that isn't working out, and the fact that all that effort and polish and great stuff isn't working out is, I think, a great argument for nailing down the greater movement first before investing each piece with such attention, so that when you get around to those efforts, you know they are going to work properly together.
A mistake is a mistake.
The same mistake twice is a bad habit.
The same mistake three or more times is a motif.

Offline Helm

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Re: Professor walking

Reply #19 on: June 08, 2009, 12:40:00 am
yeah robotacon don't feel insulted, I mean what the people after me said is what I wanted to say and I thought 'oh well.. perhaps he's not ready for major revisions to his methods yet' and decided to leave you alone heh. I applaud that others didn't leave you alone, though, this is what Pixelation is here for. Actually threads with this sort of turnout give me hope that the Pixelation spirit will self-sustain even if the current modship happens to collectively be abducted by aliens or something.