About making and smoothing animations.

[Himperion]

Ok, i have been trying to learn how to animate for some time, but i need a serious advice in how to make then looks "natural" I'm using mdlvis for this.

One of the biggest problem now is setting the high and low peaks of the model.

For example in Stand, in some frames the model starts in a low position and reach a high peak, is obvious that the legs rotate a bit but the model stands in the same position.

So, how is that done?

The other thing is the attached model. Attack - 4 and 6 are made from scratch, i want to known what needs to be improved.

 

[Hantoo]

For Attack 6, Make it start rotating when his hand is start doing the "grab the sword with two hands pose", not after,
When It Swing the blade, Make the Blade have a little weight (Plus this one looks a little heavy), so let the blade swing abit, , Make it rotate back to the front
Could Crouch a little bit when swinging, And One Important thing that can makes ur animation looks cool, Which is Anchor your leg in the same position (Is very hard to done by me though)

Attack 4 is quite good,
I Tried to Improve it but I failed hard need more time which i can't afford

I've done some fast tweaking on attack 6, even though is not the best but :V you get the idea
(Well, I just Simply do the Anchoring on the leg and something, I am in a hurry )
Btw, Try not to use Move tool on limbs, can be use for final touch up, but, Avoid that

Those are just my preferences, every one have their own taste in animation

To make things looks natural, I think you can ask Direfury :V
Me Not good at that

What I do on stand, is Rotate the Upper Leg front, Rotate the Lowerleg Back and then stick the Origin to make the guy on the floor, so that It will go up down up down
And then All the Tweaking Comes after the Leg and Origin Done
The Main Movement I done it in 3 frame, and then Add some touch up and tweaking later
I think the stand animation is a little to slow, I use around 1000 to 3000, unless is the look left and right stand

Im not sure what do u mean ur problem is for the stand animation though

Nice and Solid Model, Good Job (And the Animation is not bad)

 

[n00b]

throwin in my 2 cents, you should download the attachment before reading this post

One of the biggest problem now is setting the high and low peaks of the model.

For example in Stand, in some frames the model starts in a low position and reach a high peak, is obvious that the legs rotate a bit but the model stands in the same position.

So, how is that done?

Both the upper leg (Bone_Leg1) and the lower leg (Bone_Leg2) are being rotated. The upper leg is rotated forward while the lower leg is rotated backwards. This makes it look as if the lower leg is staying in the same position.

Also, you will probably need to translate the model down using bone_root after doing this

I put an animation example in the model edit called 'Stand example'. Also it's not meant to be a proper standing animation, it's just for demonstration purposes

The other thing is the attached model. Attack - 4 and 6 are made from scratch, i want to known what needs to be improved.

'Attack 6' looks pretty silly because only the torso is moving. Try to act out the animation in real life, moving only your torso. It feels very unnatural, and you will realize that your legs will want move in response to your chest moving. As a rule of thumb, most animations will involve some leg movement, even if very slight. Also, acting out animations in real life is very helpful even if you feel like a retard doing it

The arms should also be contributing to the swinging of the sword. In your animation, the arms are staying still, which makes the animation look stiff

anyway I made the 'Attack - 6 fix' animation, take note of the leg movement
also it's not the best but WUTEV

i'm too lazy to comment on attack 4 but yeah it looks ok

- - -

Some general advice to making animations: you should create the 'critical points' (unofficial term that I just made up ) of an animation first, then add in the details of the animation using inbetween frames later

I left an animation named 'Critical points example' in the model. It's the same animation as 'Attack - 6 fix', except it only has 3 frames. Those 3 frames are the most essential to the animation because:

• The first frame is the start of the animation (obviously)
• The second frame is the preparatory motion before the actual attack
• The third frame is the end of the attack

Inbetween frames are automatically generated from the frames that you create. You can modify those inbetweens to add in the details to the animation. Tl;dr I basically made 'Attack - 6 fix' using only 3 frames

 

[Himperion]

Thanks, the "anchor" feature, and the info about the root bone really helped to understand some issues with making the frames of the model.

Maybe someone could cook a more comprensive tutorial than simply "start rotating bones and good luck"

+Rep to booth.

 

[Hantoo]

Thanks, the "anchor" feature, and the info about the root bone really helped to understand some issues with making the frames of the model.

Maybe someone could cook a more comprensive tutorial than simply "start rotating bones and good luck"

+Rep to booth.

Btw, anchor is not really a feature, more like things to aware when animating, it makes the thing looks alot nicer, and also, no sinking/floating leg changes things
Unless u are using something else than mdlvis, the only way to achieve this
Rotate all da bones and move the root bone

One thing
When crouching down
Leg 1 rotate counter clockwise from side view, and leg 2 rotate clockwise (thats what i find out base on my experience) and foot parellel to ground
When standing up leg 1 rotate clockwise and leg 2 rotate counter clockwise, parelel foot to ground

No sinking or floating leg, anchor one leg using the origin/center bone and try to get the other leg stay on its place (thats what i do)
And is just involve keyframe, rotating and positioning bone

Because it is really about rotate and positioning bone xd unless you are not doing it im mdlvIs

Btw, not sure if i told u in the wall of text i posted above, try not to use move transform on limbs

There arent any more button to click
You just have to worry about the keyframe, and rotation and position of the bone
One important rule is to have the foot not sink to the ground and no sliding foot
Which you are adjusting the leg1, leg2 and origin

And one thing i want to highlight in n00b 's post
This works like sketching, start from big motion to detail
Have the main movement done and then slowly move to the snall part
Which what he means critical points


Alsp, just another tip, what i do is i copy frame from everywhere and tweak it

If i have time, maybe i show how i work on my animation or maybe my anim is too worse to teach u xd

 

[Himperion]

Well, I have been working the model, hopefully when the spells are ready i could update the model.

First Spell throw is going to be the typical "heal" motion, Second a fist, third a kick.

The attachment has all the work done to this date.