Random character design + animation

[darkshark]

I made a robot and rigged it for animation over the last two days.
The animation was quick and unrefined, but there will definitely be more to come now that it's fully rigged (as seen in the comments for the video, this is actually the first thing I've ever fully rigged).

Yep.

http://vimeo.com/19015943

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[Spenner]

It's alright, but it needs to be quicker and with less ease to all of the actions. The way it gradually ends every movement is really unnatural looking-- if it could be more aggressive, in a way, or just with less flow in the movements, it would look much more natural and nicer looking.

Good stuff though

[who_cares973]

that didnt look like a wave. looked more like a open ended fist pumps

[darkshark]

Agreed. Auto ease never tends to look realistic, haven't had a chance to really go through the curves editor yet, so I'll post up a more refined version tomorrow.
And wtf... Why does everyone think the wave looks awkward?

I'll find my camera so I can record own actions for animation reference. Does ANYONE here do any sort of animation at all?

[aperson]

Damn that looks good. I agree w/ the easing, almost all of them need to be much more logarithmic.

[Spenner]

The wave looks awkward because there's too much up the upper arm moving with the lower arm-- it should just be the lower arm pivoting on the elbow, with a little bit of upper arm movement to compensate, but it still looks too rigid because the hand doesn't move from side to side. Whether or not you can do that just depends on the architecture of the robot I suppose. So yeah, in addition to that stuff, the hand usually falls slightly in the direction the arm has swayed, after the movement.

Instead of rotating on just one axis per joint, maybe have subtle rotations in other directions. I dunno, just wave naturally and study your arm for awhile, you'll see what I mean I guess :P

[darkshark]

I'll fix the wave then xD



Does anything look off/should I add anything as far as the character design itself goes?

[who_cares973]

i do stop motion and your typical gif animations. nothing overly complex

[makdaddy]

i was going to compliment your character design solely, he's trim, clean, crisp and simple something that would be good to use in all your other animation tests too.

i have very little animation experience so i can't really comment safely on his actions.

but nice robot haha

[Spenner]

Black, to me, looks the best because the eyes are so distinguished. I dunno what white would look like with white eyes, but it would certainly bring them out more (though at that point the colour of the body plates might have to darken to bring the eyes out more).

Black looks really cool, but it would depend on the environment it's placed in that would decide whether it would bring out more or contrast too little...

Maybe, even, eyes that look more lens like or something. Or like a car headlight with those scanlines over the front of the glass, with maybe a dimmer light emitting from them... not sure D:

Regardless, it looks good. I only really question the lower ribcage, it would restrict the possibility of leaning side to side.

[rushyrulz]

The shape of the head looks a little odd to me. Maybe a little smaller and a little more rounded on the sides instead of being curve..... then FLAT.

[darkshark]

Well Vimeo takes forever to convert these things, so I'll just post the link and you can watch it whenever it finishes.

http://vimeo.com/19054502

I think I want to do some super awesome fight scenes between the black and white versions of the robots. Need awesome ideas xD

[Spenner]

That's looking pretty awesome

[darkshark]

Got a pretty good storyboard drawn up. I'm leaning HEAVILY towards the animation style seen in the "Shock" series of stick figure flash animations, minus all the clones...or hell maybe clones included. I just know I want an extreme sense of speed and a ton of weight put into each hit.

If you haven't seen Shock 1, 2, or 3, I recommend you watch it immediately lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sMgvO8It8Y

[Mythix]

Nothing to add really, it's good but it'd be foolish to think it's complete yet..
I like the design, and lol how can white eyes on black be more distinct than black eyes on white?

How'd you rig the cable from his neck though?

[LongGone]

This doesn't seem like a bot designed for speed though; It seems more like a slow, clumsy (?) multipurpose bot like e.g. in futuristic homes lol

With regards to the bot design:

-Minimalist and clean as a whole, design seems to flow well together

-Spenner brought up a good point with the lower ribcage, if its not too late you might want to extend it a little, exposing more of the steel "ribs". While I'm at this, if I'm gonna be super nitpicky I don't see how the torso/waist is actuated (?)

-Is it just me or you got the knee joint backwards? It seems that the front has more space to bend, while the rear has that protrusion that stops it bending further like (a reverse-jointed mech). Watching your animation as the bot bends, it seems that protrusion unrealistically clashes with the thigh but its conveniently hidden from the angle of the camera

-Besides that the articulation overall seems to be well thought out. Very minor thing would be that the neck design seems like its not made for sideways rocking motions. Styling on "gauntlets" means that it can't thrust its palms forward, or do pushups (unless it uses its fists rofl)

-Pardon me if I'm delving too deep in the realism of this, but be a little careful with the way the outer shell is designed. Realistically a real robot like this would have seam lines/parting lines in the shell so that they can be taken off or manufactured more practically (e.g. a parting line running between the front and back shells of the torso). It seems from this design that the parts are fabricated in hollow shells, and then "slipped" onto the internals, which is still plausible from your current design fortunately

-If you plan to make an animation with a few of these bots in it you might want to make slight head variations for each to make them more distinctive, or small alterations of styling (e.g. two wires protuding from the back instead of one, decaling/markings on the shells, different curve stylings)

(gotta say I'm a sucker for the reflective finish though. Raytraced?)

[darkshark]

@mythix, the cable that goes from his head to back? It's got a bone structure with IH controllers on it, linked to specific vertices for each bone, then each end of the bone is linked to a dummy helper on each attach point (linked to helpers in case I ever decide to detach it for some reason, and I can add individual weight to the helpers for reactor physics)

@LG, I love your in-depth stuff haha. About the legs, I already noticed that while animating, and it was on my to-do list for fixing that, but the hands you got me on...it has a small amount of clearance between the top of the hand and that forearm shield, but you're right, he can't do pushups, so I'll see about tweaking that a bit.

The torso just needs some wells cut out on the sides to allow the center spinal column to pass through, however when animating, this doesn't seem like it's been an issue, even when twisting and tilting to the side, there's still enough clearance between the torso and the hips, and the whole spinal column moves in sync with the torso shell, so it's more flexible than it looks.

I really like the thought of adding variation to each robot as well, aside from basic color changes. Also, yeah the bot doesn't look like it's meant for ridiculous speed, but ohhhhhhh I'm sooooooooo going to do it anyway haha. The story I have planned out will completely explain the high speeds.

Come Monday I'll be re-rigging it, and starting on this animation, so if anyone has any ideas they'd like to see make it into this short film, sketch it out and I'll make it!

[who_cares973]

Originally Posted by darkshark

Got a pretty good storyboard drawn up. I'm leaning HEAVILY towards the animation style seen in the "Shock" series of stick figure flash animations, minus all the clones...or hell maybe clones included. I just know I want an extreme sense of speed and a ton of weight put into each hit.

If you haven't seen Shock 1, 2, or 3, I recommend you watch it immediately lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sMgvO8It8Y

ive always wanted to do something like that but the amount of frames i would have to do is a ridiculous amount and im not motivated enough to do it =/

[darkshark]

Yeah, I want my animation to be around 2 minutes long at least, it's going to amount to like 10,000 keyframes.

This is going to pretty much be the thing that's going into my portfolio that will get me a job working for a big name studio. So I'm going to make this god damn amazing.

wc you should just try starting one, you'll want to finish it if you at least try.

[who_cares973]

add shading to the figures. its the only thing lacking in every single stick fighting animation ive seen. give it some real depth