Elf Animation Upgrades
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- artisticdude
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
AI wrote:As for the running, I think he's still landing a bit hard. Bending his knees further on landing might help.
I also get the feeling that he should be moving up and down more during the animation. Right now I almost get the feeling that he's semi-gliding, like he's not putting his full upper body weight into the step.wayfarer wrote:I will save me and you the overdraw but runners tend to lean a bit forward and hops a bit up and down. The whole body works while running.
As far as the archer's attack anim, beyond the 'dance move', would it be feasible for her to bring her right arm closer to her body during the preparation and fling it out during the swing, as though she were 'pushing' the rest of her body with her off arm? Currently she appears to stick her right arm out during the preparation and bring it closer to her body when she swings, and I can't help but feel this detracts from the overall momentum of the swing.
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
I think it looks a less dance-y if the non-sword arm comes across the body close to the chest on the windup rather than being flung out backwards, the sword is drawn back a little further, and she leans forward a bit on windup. Kinda like this:
I think the lean and the bigger windup make it look a little more forceful. Pulling the arm in at the start is necessary because having an arm flung out slows down your rotation - it makes more sense to keep your arm close and spin quickly while making the slash, then fling it out at the end to slow yourself down and prevent overbalancing.
- Girgistian
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
Sure. Keep in mind though, that we're looking for forceful and visually impressive animations rather than realistic kinetics and fightin'-moves.Atz wrote:I think the lean and the bigger windup make it look a little more forceful. Pulling the arm in at the start is necessary because having an arm flung out slows down your rotation - it makes more sense to keep your arm close and spin quickly while making the slash, then fling it out at the end to slow yourself down and prevent overbalancing.
Thumbs up for that, the stop is a little awkward after such a swing. Looking at that I'd like to see her pull her sword-hand against her chest during the spin, right after she finishes the initial strike.Jetrel wrote:have her do a complete-circle instead
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
My point was that having the arm out makes it look like the torso rotates more slowly and at constant velocity, which looks less forceful and more like you're just twirling around with your arms out.Girgistian wrote:Sure. Keep in mind though, that we're looking for forceful and visually impressive animations rather than realistic kinetics and fightin'-moves.Atz wrote:I think the lean and the bigger windup make it look a little more forceful. Pulling the arm in at the start is necessary because having an arm flung out slows down your rotation - it makes more sense to keep your arm close and spin quickly while making the slash, then fling it out at the end to slow yourself down and prevent overbalancing.
Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
Can't decide for or against on the presence of the elf fighter's quiver. Input is welcome, there.
These are WIPs, mostly to show my process; naturally they'll get the same shading love as the rest of the gang in the final steps of the thing. I've included a very early WIP of the fighter, for those who care to know, that was about the 5-15min stage. Naturally, the "pareto principle" applies in force, with the rest of the detailing guzzling up the other 80% of the time.
These are WIPs, mostly to show my process; naturally they'll get the same shading love as the rest of the gang in the final steps of the thing. I've included a very early WIP of the fighter, for those who care to know, that was about the 5-15min stage. Naturally, the "pareto principle" applies in force, with the rest of the detailing guzzling up the other 80% of the time.
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
Voting against, if only for the reason that it provides more visual distinction from the archer.
- artisticdude
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
I'm not a big fan of the quiver, for the same reason Zero gave above. But if it's felt that it's really necessary to give the fighter a quiver, perhaps giving him a smaller, less noticeable quiver at his belt (I'm assuming that both his bow and his arrows would be smaller and shorter than the ones carried by the archer) would be preferable. Then we'd still have the quiver, but it would be less of a focal point and would be less likely to cause confusion between the fighter and archer.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
The quiver could be OK, the sword vs. bow is distinct, the archer's hat helps too. It probably depends upon what the other levels look like. For example, the elf ranger holding a sword or the marksman without a hat.
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- wayfarer
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
Keep the quiver but change the alighnment a bit. Perhaps around 80° maybe ?
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- artisticdude
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
I was recently playing around with creating a running animation for the ruffian, using Jetrel's earlier blocking as reference (hence the ruffian's head rather than the EF's). I ended up doing a couple edits to the animation, so I thought I'd share my edit here. The biggest things I was aiming for were to have him lean more throughout the animation and to give him more vertical movement. Although he might need to lean even further, and perhaps there's too much vertical movement going on in that second step.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
When you are running with a heavy object (such as a sword) held aloft in one hand, you probably won't swing the weighted hand down that far. Other than that, looks nice (in my non-artistic opinion).
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
Further iteration:
- I think I ought to redo the sword's movement, toning down the amplitude of its swing, and changing the phase to fit more nicely with the shield.
- I really have no idea how to improve the leg+torso motion. I can't tell if I'm being hypercritical, or if there's some issue I'm intuitively seeing is wrong, but am unable to articulate what it is.
Barring any insight on the latter, once I finish the former issue, I'll move onto finishing this off, and blocking the NE anim.
- I think I ought to redo the sword's movement, toning down the amplitude of its swing, and changing the phase to fit more nicely with the shield.
- I really have no idea how to improve the leg+torso motion. I can't tell if I'm being hypercritical, or if there's some issue I'm intuitively seeing is wrong, but am unable to articulate what it is.
Barring any insight on the latter, once I finish the former issue, I'll move onto finishing this off, and blocking the NE anim.
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
Did some further attempts at the sword, nothing else was changed:
I'm liking #7 the best, in fact that one might be good to go.
(That this kind of overhaul took only 10min per try is probably a poster-child example of Why We Block™.)
I'm liking #7 the best, in fact that one might be good to go.
(That this kind of overhaul took only 10min per try is probably a poster-child example of Why We Block™.)
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Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
Seven looks the best to me. Although, now that the sword movement has been reduced, I'm concerned that the shield arm may be rotating a little too much. Maybe keep his right elbow closer to the body? Other than that it looks good.
Re: Elf Animation Upgrades
Awesome. Don't worry about any of the detail-rendering, but if you could help fix the motion in the blocking, that would rock.Sleepwalker wrote:If you could send me your workfile and I will have a stab at it soon... What I can see right now is that the animation could use a little more bounce in the step... And perhaps putting more weight/time on the leg/arm swings. Uhh, how to explain... Like increase the time that his limbs are in a stretched out position. Thus making him have more flying strides i think.
I like the seventh animation the best too, btw.
It does look pretty good, but i'd like to try something.
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