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3 Dimensional Chat / Character animation tips please...

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Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 8th Sep 2004 20:50
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Hi all,

Just trying to hook some tips really, mainly concearned about mechanical movements and how best to avoid them.

Like, does anyone have some basic guidelines for getting more natural movement, or anyone know some good websites they could post the links to.

Thanks.


Van-B


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Surreal Studio IanG
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Posted: 9th Sep 2004 01:29
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what program do you use - if you use something like max use the track editor in curve view to make the animation smoother


Used to be Phoenix Insane : PC Spec- AMD Athlon 2.0Ghz, GeForce FX5200 128mb, 512MB of ram, Win XP Home SP1
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Van B
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Posted: 9th Sep 2004 03:02
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I use CharacterFX, although I have Max, I don't have a lot of love for it's animation system.

I can get the movements smooth, it's really more about breaking up the smoothness, it's too soft if you know what I mean.


Van-B


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dark coder
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Posted: 9th Sep 2004 03:46
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get a loan spend a couple thousand on a mocap device and your sorted , well atleast your guaranteed natural movements.

or you can just tape yourself walking from the side and try to rotate your joints accordingly for each keyframe then it should look smooth enough


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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 9th Sep 2004 04:40
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Whenever you are creating your animations, exagerate them a bit. For example, if your character is throwing a punch, have him wind up a bit more and extend a bit more than you would in real life. The animations that I exagerate always look the best once they are running in a game. If I try to stay to realistic, the animations often look stale and less-realistic.

WOLF

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Black Hydra II
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Posted: 9th Sep 2004 04:55
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I personally think it depends on what type of game your making.

Now this doesn't come from firsthand animation knowlage, however, if you look at many different games they all have different styles.

Many games, I would say, go with what WOLF said, they exaggerate movements so that they are clearly visable. I think one way to help is to ensure the entire body moves whenever a motion is made. If you also have an animation of the model standing, then he will always be moving. Because in real life your head doesn't remain perfectly fixed all the time, it sways a tiny bit and your arms move a little.

Other than that your on your own.

"Damn had to remake account!" direct quotation from previous account.
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Ninja Matt
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Posted: 9th Sep 2004 05:15
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Don't move everything at once, is something I try to do.

So, if you've got a character that's standing and he looks to the side, don't make his whole body move at once. Start his head turning then, a couple of frames later, shift his weight slightly and finally twist his torso another few frames later.
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Van B
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Posted: 9th Sep 2004 05:26
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Ahh, I think my problem is that I'm trying to get it done too fast - like I do too much in too few keyframes and the interpolation is hard to fight against at after that. Basically I need to take my time and make smaller changes.

Thanks! .


Van-B


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zircher
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Posted: 10th Sep 2004 05:07
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IIRC, Paul Steed has some good books on character modelling and animation. Might be worth checking out the local library and seeing if they have a copy.
--
TAZ

"Do you think it is wise to provoke him?" "It's what I do." -- Stargate SG-1
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Matigus
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Posted: 17th Sep 2004 03:16
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i dont know much about the program you use but i have a system that works wonders for me. it is alot of work but you r looking for suggestions.(it only works if the thing you have uses keyframes to animate)

1)get a digital video camera and record you or someone else doing the wanted movement
2)make freeze frames of the video you made every few frames (it doesnt matter really how many apart but you need to make sure it is a constant #)
3)either transport the pics on your comp or look at them from the tv
4)and then make your model in the same pose as the pic and then goto the next pose and the next pic.
5)do this until your done and then watch your animation to c if there r ne errors

note: this is alot of work and it sounds tedious but i have gotten the best results from it without using a program

F*** the world and rock on!!
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 17th Sep 2004 06:47
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Problem sounds to be with your keyframes.

Generally speaking, what I do is the animation once using set keyframe points... say every 10 frames. (set the speed much later to compensate for everything)

Then when i come to another pass, i can tweak using other keyframes to make sure certain actions are taken to give it that edge of realism.

So say a character is scaling a wall, you'd first go over the animation with the character crawling up the wall... but the legs will look more like he is scurrying rather than using each leg and opposing arm to lift, so you then use the extra keyframes to 'pin' certain limbs in place while leaving the others alone and then when you play the animation the interpolation/IK will have taken this into account and given it a more staging animation.




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