Post Fifteen

Animation

Ok long time no post, so here goes; animating this character is getting slow, it is taking about twenty four minutes approximately for one second of animation, plus the hour or so setting the scene, I definitely underestimated the time spent on doing this part of the project. I have about five seconds worth of clips that I am happy with, there are some areas of the character that have made this task very difficult to avoid such as the weird twisting in the elbow joints that spin the whole arm when the elbow is flexed, and his sleeves that just always seem to get in the way making collision a problem too. Finally the joins where the leg meets the shorts are a big problem and always poking through; so much so I have had to render two sided to save some headaches. It could have been avoided had I known what was going to happen when his legs bended at the modelling section; I could have just made a few more lines with the connect tool and hey presto fixed. Anyhow in the rest of this post I will try to explain the basics of what I am doing, we join the animation after Travis has fallen down its now time to pick himself up and carry on skateboarding.
To start the scene I am usually carrying on from the last scene so I need to reconfigure the timeline to show this and save under a new name, it becomes easier to undo this way. Down the bottom right of the UI I click on a button that opens the time configuration panel and in there I set the start and the end time in frames for this scene it will be 150frames to 180frames.
Before we start the process of moving the character take a look in the picture above; in the bottom left window I notice Travis’ shorts are poking through the floor, fortunately the camera I am using is already set up in the top left view port, and from this position we can not see that part of the leg, but it will need fixing. Travis is already getting up; his hands are on the floor pushing his weight up and his toes are against the floor suggesting the press up position, this makes getting up simple to do. I will try to move his knees up under his chest to a squat then let him stand; as I am going to sort this animation in premier I can split this scene into several one second parts

Usually I just jump right in, click the auto key and have a play with the movement so I will make no exception. There are a few things I always check, before moving a control object I make a keyframe this at least starts the animation from that point this helps if you haven’t moved a control part in a long time. I have only twenty ‘un-do’s so be careful of what is being done. And save regularly; there’s nothing worse then something happening with out a save to restart with.

I like to work in the front or back view and one of the sides, and the perspective and have sacrificed the top view for the camera, this shows me first hand what is being seen when it is moved, I also configure the render panel from time to time to just render a frame to see it in it’s glory.
Here I have given eight frames to let Travis get his legs straight for the bend and this has sorted out the short / collision problem too. Now then next seven frames will sort out his upper body too.
Ok half way through and a quick save! both feet will fly up to his chest and his knee joints will poke through his skin…aargh! As you can see Travis has a problem bending his knees, deformities appear, and I am quite annoyed that in order for the audience to see no abnormalities I can only bend his legs part of the way.
This image shows the one second animation with Travis half way completing the squat, before the next section I always like to render my scene to see if the animation worked.
It’s looking good! But one problem I see, it is the final push upwards just a little bit fast, so rather then go back and mess up the rest of the scene I can fix this when I edit the animation, I can cut that bit and slow it down, thus saving me a lot of hassle.

The next step is to reconfigure the time configuration panel to 180frames to 210frames and save the file under its new save name. Then jump straight back in and work his movement out. I should be that far enough off the ground to pull his legs up now, and then have him land on his feet and stand up. I will try for a fluid motion but let’s see where that gets us.

First thinking about it, I will swing the camera around the character to show the side view of him jumping to squat. Maybe this will look a little better, plus it saves the knee pokey bit problem in his legs being shown to the audience.
Ok all done its only been thirty minutes or so, I have completed the scene but am unsure on the camera so I copied the camera and made a duplicate and put that front on so now I render the scene and will see which render works best.
Ok first camera straight on to character and one problem I see is my characters feet after jumping; they are too slow and they don’t jump they drag, In the second render I should have fixed this, also I have sorted out the camera bob; camera should be good now, but we still have Travis’ shorts /knees/poke through problem. Unfixable at this stage.

Here is the render: (for final movie I will use alternative camera I think)