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Crazy Bob Animation
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These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Crazy Bob Animation // Work in Progress
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 4, 2007, 9:23am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Hi
I spent most of yesterday and last night working on a walk for my character. I ran into inconsistencies and bugs every step of the way. I was ready to return truespace. But today I do a little walk of crazy bob and encountered no problems. So I don't know if its my skeleton or what causing the problems. Now I am not sure what to do today. I am quite attached to the software and would hate to part with it, but it's a big investment for me. What do you guys think? If the problems arise with my skeleton but not crazy bob it is probably error with my skeleton right? I am figuring of taking the crazy bob rig as a starting point and altering it.
Attached is the walk of crazy bob, a little crude, not much tweaking. But I was able to do it. |
Post by trueSpaced // Jul 4, 2007, 9:54am
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trueSpaced
Total Posts: 544
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Looks good! I've always had trouble with skeletons, and I can't get anything to animate in 7.51, so it's definitely something I couldn't do... The only thing is that every time his foot hits the floor, it slides back. In my graphic design class, we did a project for an exam (two hours long) where we had to make two characters walk up to each other, shake hands, turn around and walk back. The walking was the hardest part for me, and it might sound really stupid, but it helps if you stand up and start walking normally, but paying attention to what you do when you walk. HTH!
-TrueSpaced:banana: |
Post by Forcemaster2000 // Jul 4, 2007, 3:50pm
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Forcemaster2000
Total Posts: 130
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Pretty good walk cycle 3Dfrog!
If it's the skeleton you posted in another thread that's giving you the problems, it could just be how complicated your skeleton was, compared to "crazy bob's" skeleton.
Perhaps work your way up a little at a time...the skeleton rig you posted was definitely much more articulated than crazy bob's.
I too have had my reservations about 7.51, but it seems with the more work I put into it, the better things seem to get. |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 4, 2007, 4:48pm
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Hmm, it does kinda look like the foot is sliding when his foot is on the ground. I'm gonna have to tweak it. One thing I dont do enough is act out my animations. I have to really start doing that.
So I did a little modification to crazy bob and put him here. I will do more to him over a period of time. Then I will post it on the human rig thread. But I'm gonna practice doing truespace animations with him.
Well, I decided finally to keep truespace. There's just something about it I just love. I will work through whatever problems I have. All programs have their limitations and issues. There is usually a solution to handling them one way or another.
Thanks for the comments, i will do more with crazy bob. |
Post by auragreg // Jul 5, 2007, 1:41am
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auragreg
Total Posts: 44
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for skeletons, I always had better luck with standard keyframing with JointMaster in TS4.3 or MotionStudio in TS6.5. I don't have 7.5 so I can't comment on that. |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 5, 2007, 1:59am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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yes I used to use motion studio with 6.6 and it was quite good. You can see an animation I made with it on my demo movie. It is the last animation on there with the blue guy dancing.
here is the link to the page with the movie:
http://www.3dfrog.com/movies.html
I don't go back as far as 4.3 so don't know anything about joint master. I may do animations that involve humans for the forensic thing with 6.6 and motion studio and do my own stuff in 7.51. We'll see where I can get with the bones. But motion studio had a nice system. I bought the character animation course way back too so had a good start with it. |
Post by Forcemaster2000 // Jul 5, 2007, 6:03am
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Forcemaster2000
Total Posts: 130
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3Dfrog - the changes to the crazybob rig you made are good improvements! I like the IK controls for the head and the ends of the feet. They make it much better to control him...hope you don't mind, I did a quick render of an animation with him. Good work! |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 5, 2007, 6:32am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Nice one forcemaster. Yeah I added those ik handles. I also altered the shoulder joint limits so you can have the arm swing back with it still close to the body and I changed the toes joint limits so the bend more up so you can get a better bend when you lift the ankle and you can exaggerate nfoot poses a little more.
Another tip on control, is selecting the joints and using the widget, especially on hand rotation. This seems more controled than adding the hand rotate ik handle i think.
I am finally cracking open my animators survival kit book to learn some stuff. I'll post my lessons here. So much to learn so little time :) |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 5, 2007, 11:00am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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I did some more on my walk cycle. I got rid of the foot slipping. I also sped it up. The animators survival kit says most peoples steps take 12 frames, I did these ones at 16, 12 looked so fast. My previous walk was like 30 frames per step. Now i see that it looks like slow motion. I tweaked some of the poses but think he looks kinda stiff. Anyway, I'm 100 pages into the book and it is great. |
Post by trueSpaced // Jul 5, 2007, 11:04am
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trueSpaced
Total Posts: 544
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Looks really good! :D
-TrueSpaced:banana: |
Post by frootee // Jul 5, 2007, 11:10am
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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That looks much better 3dfrog.
How did you get rid of the slipping?
Thanks,
Frootee |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 5, 2007, 12:49pm
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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I went back and keyframed the foot ik handle into the exact position on the keyframes it stays still, and I tweaked the heel and toe handles by eye. |
Post by Forcemaster2000 // Jul 5, 2007, 3:31pm
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Forcemaster2000
Total Posts: 130
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Good looking walk, fast, but then it just looks like he's in a hurry.
I'd like to know how you keep crazybob's skeleton and locks/IK handles from rendering. I've "unchecked" show skeleton, and I've gone into the LE and cannot find any checkboxes that control showing them. I've found them in tankgirl and a couple of the other pre-made characters but not in bob. |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 5, 2007, 3:44pm
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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I don't know forcemaster. I am rendering with vray and it doesnt show bones. If you tell me how you are setting up your render I'll try it on my machine. |
Post by frootee // Jul 5, 2007, 4:47pm
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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Nice. Thanks 3dfrog.
Frootee |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 22, 2007, 11:46am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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I tried a walk cycle again now with the updated rig. I think some of the ik handles i put are kinda funky because i'd set my pose, then keyframe, then scrub the time slider and that keyframe would get messed up with things popping everywhere. It seemed to really only happen to the shoulderbones and hip bones where i placed those rotate controls. I'll have to work on it some more.
But I managed to do a walk cycle. See attached. It's a little funky, i just settled on some poses because i didnt want to go through the process of rekeying the poses 100 times due to popping.
Comments and criticisms welcome. |
Post by Humdinger // Jul 22, 2007, 5:00pm
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Humdinger
Total Posts: 319
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I like it!
Starting to look very natural and flowing.
:banana: |
Post by frootee // Jul 23, 2007, 2:02am
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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looking more natural 3dfrog. Keep up the good work!
froo |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 23, 2007, 2:24am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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thanks guys. I watched it for a long time yesterday and saw some things I could make better. Will have an update today. |
Post by Nez // Jul 23, 2007, 4:56am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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The animations look amazing; there's something slightly exagerated-looking about them, but difficult to say exactly what - but it may just be a result of the non-human proportions, which would of course give a slightly non-human walk cycle.
In the last one, there seemed to be a very slight 'limp' as if he was favouring one leg over the other?
In both the last two animations, he's got quite a bounce to his step (i.e. a lot of vertical movement of the torso) - whilst this has to take place due to the bending of the legs, it's usually pretty subtle, although I'm not entirely sure why. I think it's a combination of stride length and how much the foot rises on the toes before lifting from the ground? Anyway - it's fairly unusual to see quite such a bouncy walk except in a deliberately jaunty walk - which could be appropriate here anyway (he is a 'cartoony' type character after all). The exception is people like me! I actually have quite a distinctive 'bounce' in my stride - again, not entirely certain why!
Something doesn't quite look natural in the foot 'rotation' (from toe 'touch-down' to lift - maybe you could do a close up sequence of stills following the foot motion to help look at it specifically...
I don't mean any of this negatively - I'm no expert on anatomy and my animation expertise is about as low is as possible, just seems there may be some slight tweaking needed to my (untrained) eyes.
By the way - in terms of walk speed, I believe a moderatly brisk 'typical' speed is two paces per second, so depending on your frame rate, that might equate to 12-16 frames per pace being appropriate. Your 'bobwalk' animation looked like a believably brisk walk (about my normal pace!) and the last one like a lesiurely stroll (much slower than my normal London walking!)
Keep it up - your really showing off what TS can do in this department, and whislt I'm not likely to be taking up animation (or TS7.5) any time soon, it's great to see what can be done. |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 23, 2007, 12:28pm
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Well I did some more today. It looks better but still not perfect. I think I'm gonna try some more creative walks this week. Maybe that will help me out. |
Post by frootee // Jul 23, 2007, 1:10pm
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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Hi 3dfrog.
Making progress.
The left leg and right leg do not seem to move identically. It looks like the left leg has a cast on it, and the right leg is compensating, by taking larger steps, and moving through the walk cycle a little more quickly than the left side.
BTW did you get your rig straightened out? Sorry I could not spend much more time looking into it (yet) over the past weekend.
Froo |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Jul 23, 2007, 5:20pm
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Hi guys,
I don't know if this file may help you in some ways with this but I thought I'd pass it along to you to examine just in case.
This is a BVH fast walk-cycle motion I just exported from Poser 4 for you, I had it applied to Poser's Stick Man for simplicity which will maybe help with it's use inside trueSpace on simple skeletons, hopefully that will be the case.
Let me know if it's useful or you need something related,
- 3dvisuals dude
Here's the file: |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 24, 2007, 12:23am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Thanks 3dvisuals dude. Reference is always helpful. |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 24, 2007, 11:51am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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update. I'm not doing anymore til i finish animators survival kit. Will finish reading it tomorrow i hope. |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 25, 2007, 12:47pm
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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I finished reading the section on walks in the animators survival kit today. I picked up some tips. Getting there, but not so great yet. See attached. |
Post by frootee // Jul 26, 2007, 3:39am
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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Hi 3dfrog. Making progress.
One thing I noticed is, at the keyframe where the back leg is maximally extended, there is a slight pause before the transition to bringing the leg forward. That transition needs to be smoother. It looks like, for about 3-5 keyframes that position is held nearly constant.
Keep it up man! Looking better all the time!
Froo |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 26, 2007, 4:44am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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thanks frootee. I think that happens where i run the two clips together. I'll overlap them more and see what happens. I thought it looked like that to me too but i was looking at it so long I wasn't sure. Also someone pointed out the planted foot bops up and down. I'll fix these and post later. |
Post by frootee // Jul 26, 2007, 5:05am
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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okay. So, are the first and last keyframe identical? If so, I think the last keyframe should be the pose 'just before' the original start pose.
Froo |
Post by 3dfrog // Jul 27, 2007, 4:23am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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I tried to fix the timing. I think it looks ok now. The torso stretch on the up step was an accident but I like it so I left it. Maybe it happens a little to fast though. What do you think? |
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