I wanna get back into animating, but I don't really play brawl or do PSA's anymore. So if anyone has an animation they need, then make a request. I can only use Brawlbox to animate as I don't have Maya or 3ds Max. I probably won't accept all requests and only take a few at a time. When making a request, info about the character plus a few references of the needed animation would help along with the necessary files.
Here's what I did about 3-4 years ago before I stopped animating and left =/
Side Smash(s4s): original:
Side Tilt(s3s): original:
UpSmash(Hi4): original:
GettingUp: original
Dodge Back: original:
The chances of this thread dieing is probably pretty high. But I wanted to atleast try because I do like animating.
Any and all criticism is appreciated. If I make garbage, then say something because I wanna get better haha lol.
Do you need help animating anything? I wanna get back into animating and I'm looking for something to do. I don't have Maya or 3ds Max though, so I gotta use BB (unless you guys know how to use Blender for animating?).
I dunno how well this will go for me, so I'm unsure if I'll be reliable haha =/
The animation is pretty stiff. How about adding a more lively anticipation and end recoil for the flip. You may also wanna take a look at some backflip references because I'm sure no-one is able to do a backflip while being stiff as a board.
All I did was fix the wrist. The gifs are at 50fps instead of 30fps . At this speed the transition to idle looks alot better..? The left leg seems to transition fine too. But it might just be me getting used to looking at the animation too much. I also scrapped the pull back beacuse it didn't feel right. The attack is meant to launch the opponent. But adding the 2 frames pulling back made it look like the sword was stuck in the opponent. Thoughts?
Although it is a problem, it is avoidable. I remember running into the same issue before. Each time you add a new event iirc, the offset changes. In the beginning, create more than enough nops that you think you'll need in the subroutine. Or just take notes of which subactions use the subroutine, and of the subroutine offset itself. Then simply edit the subroutine to your liking.
If you don't like having to fix a bunch of references, you can go with a double reference method. Instead of the subaction offsetting directly to the main subroutine, it offsets to a reference (offset) to the main subroutine. Now whenever you change the main subroutine, you simply change the double reference.
..Wow... That animation is so smooth, excluding the gif effect. There's no way you did that in Brawlbox. I'm guessing you used the 3ds max animation converter thing and baked an IK rigged animation?
I made this post before you added more animations..It takes me a little while to make posts because I'm trying to improve my writing skills. So I avoid typing shortcuts for words and re-read what I type for mistakes and clarity.
Yeah, again I apologize for it, but I hope you got some good ideas out of it. Based on the "exploring animation territory", it sounds like you did =p. Anyways, the new animations look a lot better.
The tail animation on Wait1 looks a lot better. I can still see that overall looping problem which messes with the tail animation. Hmm, right before loop ends, the tail is sorta curled. Try to build off that flow in order to create the start and end of the tail loop. Of course, the problem is at the beginning of the loop too, so you'll have to touch it up a little bit.
The Wait2 animation looks like he's trying to do "that pose". I got a question. Is the camera viewing the side of King Cold? So basically, he's turning to face the side (in game) to do that pose? What if you kept him in the Wait1 orientation and did that pose without the turn? In-game, it might be easier for the player to view it from the the Wait1 orientation without taking away from what you were trying to express. Plus that removes the need to re-orient his whole body like you had to.
AttackDash13 looks real nice. It's good enough that the small issues would barely be noticed in game. Personally this is my favorite of the 3 animations.
When he tenses up to do the elbow hit, try also to do the "negative" with the the front leg. Almost like the front elbow and leg are in sync, make it so the leg quickly moves forward and nearly stops abruptly (with a little recoil of course). Also think about that backflip video I posted. In this case, during the load up, extend his whole body, legs included, more vertically (not exactly vertical).
This is a bit more of a polish criticism, but try to "leave the right arm behind" when he explodes into the hit. During the loadup, look at where his right arm is. Try to anchor that fist in the air, for the most part, around that area. This goes back to the inertia idea and the snake-like chain reaction delay.
I'm sorry. There was quite a bit I could talk about - and did. This is a warning of the upcoming wall of text. I added bold colored headers so it's not so monotonous along with a few other things. There's a bit of redundancy, but I left them in there because I was unsure about whether to keep them in or not.
---Start
A Chain Reaction
The tail can be animated more naturally. At the two critical points in the tail animation, when the tail is nearly leftmost or rightmost, the tail seems to "jerk". At the rightmost point, it does seem to flow, but the problem is still noticeable. The left most portion of the animation shows this issue clearly. When animating something like a tail, try to think of a whip. The movement of a whip is like a delayed chain reaction. Try to move a cord or rope in an up down zig zag rhythm. You'll notice a "bump" appear that "moves" throughout the coord. At the end, this bump snaps the rope.
*This "chain reaction" can be used for more than just rope-like limbs. Now that I'm overlooking over my post, this is like inertia except it flows through the limb.
*I've also noticed the front foot sliding a bit. This is a minor issue I have and is entirely my opinion, as is this entire post. Im unsure if you're having trouble orienting the foot to stay in place or simply let it be because it didn't bother you. If you are having trouble but can't "fix" it to place by just animating the leg and foot, then you might be forgetting about the waist. You can move bones higher up in the hierarchy to move a certain limb. In this case, you can try to move the waist and or hips along with the legs and foot so it stays in place. Previously, anchoring of the foot might've been otherwise "too complex" to do by just moving the foot and or leg.
This animation needs quite a bit of polishing. The idea of the animation itself is pretty simple. The character is basically doing a back flip and whips his tail as the attack (I think?). However, it's actually quite a bit more involved to animate something like that while trying to retain a fluid animation.
Lots of Body Parts and Subtle Movement
One issue I can clearly see is that it's stiff. Don't just focus on animating the obvious or common body parts (the arms, legs or head,etc). Remember you have much more parts to work with. Could you do a backflip with a straight back, stiff arms and legs, - and no load up? I think it would help to use a simpler animation concept. Let's say you wanted to pick up your keys that you just dropped. You bend down and grab them, then stand back up. How do you do this? You don't just use your arms. Your legs, waist, chest, head, and just about every subtle movement make up the entire action (animation). Subtle movement, although commonly ignored, is important in making an animation come to life. Sure you can get by with animating only the "important" and "obvious" parts but the animation will remain stiff and lifeless. The really subtle movements should be done as polishing. *Once you have your overall keyframe animation that you think looks really nice, break it up into pieces. I mean don't make all actions start at the same places for the entire animation. Imagine punching. You key frame the load up, the "in between", and the extension. The fist might be keyed along with these at first, but later should be broken apart. The fist should be mainly keyed at loadup and extension. I'm not saying not to key the intermediate frame for the fist, just "break" it up so it flows better into the extension.
Let's take the example of a real life backflip and analyze it bit (click the spoiler below)
The first is the loadup. The person bends forward to ready and position himself to do the backflip. He doesn't just do a back flip, he gets ready to do a backflip. This is usually a bit slow compared to the backflip itself, which is pretty quick. The loadup movement might also be in the opposite direction of the actual action (bending forward). Note that right before he goes into a backflip, he pauses, then goes into the jump. Combination of Motion
You'll notice the arms coming forward quickly and the kid (who appears to be static) pushing himself up with his legs. He continues the arm motion throughout the jump until he tucks. This is a subtle thing to notice (well lots of things in animation are subtle), but important. The animation isn't one single movement, it's a combination of sometimes continuous motion. A bit of Physics, Rotational Inertia The main idea I want you to know about rotational inertia is this: Objects rotate faster when their mass is closer to their center (of mass). If you notice, the boy rotates faster after he tucks than when he was extended.
Center (Of Mass)
Ignoring the rotation for a moment. You'll notice the center of his (mass) body, moving as one fluent motion. This is an important idea to remember. Understand where your animation's center of mass is and how it should move. The kid has no control over how his center moves while in midair, and thus it is similar to that of a object thrown in the air- which is all he did. Recoil
When he stuck the landing, you'll notice that he shakes. He does not just stand up. He must stabilize himself and become tense, otherwise he will snap and get hurt. "Snap and get hurt" might've been the wrong phrase to use. If he does not stabilize himself on the ground, he will continue to rotate. To be blunt, if he does not tense (and stabilize) his whole body, his face will slam into his knee caps....The idea here might now be a bit obvious...But it might be easily forgotten when making an animation.
*This animation is a great example of when recoil can be used.
Exaggeration
Although sometimes not realistic, it is sometimes needed in an animation. Exaggerate the animation at critical moments. At a glance, I'd say the critical moments of this dash attack are the beginning, the loadup, the extension, caused by the quick attack and recoil (pulling back). Exaggeration is also a great way to add personality to the animation.
Inertia
Now, I'm having a bit of trouble describing this idea easily. The most evident place where this can be applied is right before the (headbutt?) - in the load up, and at the end of the (headbutt?). Inertia can be mistaken for recoil because they are a bit similar. Inertia is the affect of an object wanting to continue doing what it's doing, whether that's staying still or moving. Recoil is more or less like the effect of attempting to [stop] a motion (eg. the inertia of the motion).
Anyways, after the headbutt the animation kind of just snaps back to idle. There should be inertia wanting to keep the character moving, and a recoil affect for trying to get the character back to idle quickly.
----End
I'm just all over the place because this is a big post and I'm losing sight of what my initial motive for making the post =p. I was just going to post a thing or two...but I ended up just making a post about quite bit of animation ideas. However, I hope you atleast consider my advice and ideas. Sorry if i sounded rude in some parts, or was too ambiguous. The key ideas (bolded) should be something you should look into though. They're not all formal concepts. I won't lie some of these "key" concepts were just analyzing your animations and were simply there to sum up my thoughts on that point.
Please don't get discouraged by this post. If anything, I hope this helps other animators reading the post to become a bit more interested and maybe inspired by animation. I love animation, but haven't done so in quite some time. I haven't animated with BrawlBox in over 3 years =p and I know how painful it can be. Animation is not a simple process. It can be tough and complicated. But in the end, when you create that amazing and fluid animation that breathes personality and life into your character, it'll be well worth the effort.
Im sorry, my laptop is messed up and it was about die. So I made the post even though it's unfinished. I'll try to finish the post and edit this one if no one else posts before I finish.
I'm sorry. There was quite a bit I could talk about - and did. This is a warning of the upcoming wall of text. I added bold colored headers so it's not so monotonous along with a few other things. There's a bit of redundancy, but I left them in there because I was unsure about whether to keep them in or not.
A Chain Reaction
The tail can be animated more naturally. At the two critical points in the tail animation, when the tail is nearly leftmost or rightmost, the tail seems to "jerk". At the rightmost point, it does seem to flow, but the problem is still noticeable. The left most portion of the animation shows this issue clearly. When animating something like a tail, try to think of a whip. The movement of a whip is like a delayed chain reaction. Try to move a cord or rope in an up down zig zag rhythm. You'll notice a "bump" appear that "moves" throughout the coord. At the end, this bump snaps the rope.
*This "chain reaction" can be used for more than just rope-like limbs. Now that I'm overlooking over my post, this is like inertia except it flows through the limb.
*I've also noticed the front foot sliding a bit. This is a minor issue I have and is entirely my opinion, as is this entire post. Im unsure if you're having trouble orienting the foot to stay in place or simply let it be because it didn't bother you. If you are having trouble but can't "fix" it to place by just animating the leg and foot, then you might be forgetting about the waist. You can move bones higher up in the hierarchy to move a certain limb. In this case, you can try to move the waist and or hips along with the legs and foot so it stays in place. Previously, anchoring of the foot might've been otherwise "too complex" to do by just moving the foot and or leg.
This animation needs quite a bit of polishing. The idea of the animation itself is pretty simple. The character is basically doing a back flip and whips his tail as the attack (I think?). However, it's actually quite a bit more involved to animate something like that while trying to retain a fluid animation.
Lots of Body Parts and Subtle Movement
One issue I can clearly see is that it's stiff. Don't just focus on animating the obvious or common body parts (the arms, legs or head,etc). Remember you have much more parts to work with. Could you do a backflip with a straight back, stiff arms and legs, - and no load up? I think it would help to use a simpler animation concept. Let's say you wanted to pick up your keys that you just dropped. You bend down and grab them, then stand back up. How do you do this? You don't just use your arms. Your legs, waist, chest, head, and just about every subtle movement make up the entire action (animation). Subtle movement, although commonly ignored, is important in making an animation come to life. Sure you can get by with animating only the "important" and "obvious" parts but the animation will remain stiff and lifeless. The really subtle movements should be done as polishing. *Once you have your overall keyframe animation that you think looks really nice, break it up into pieces. I mean don't make all actions start at the same places for the entire animation. Imagine punching. You key frame the load up, the "in between", and the extension. The fist might be keyed along with these at first, but later should be broken apart. The fist should be mainly keyed at loadup and extension. I'm not saying not to key the intermediate frame for the fist, just "break" it up so it flows better into the extension.
Let's take the example of a real life backflip and analyze it bit (click the spoiler below)
The first is the loadup. The person bends forward to ready and position himself to do the backflip. He doesn't just do a back flip, he gets ready to do a backflip. This is usually a bit slow compared to the backflip itself, which is pretty quick. The loadup movement might also be in the opposite direction of the actual action (bending forward). Note that right before he goes into a backflip, he pauses, then goes into the jump. Combination of Motion
You'll notice the arms coming forward quickly and the kid (who appears to be static) pushing himself up with his legs. He continues the arm motion throughout the jump until he tucks. This is a subtle thing to notice (well lots of things in animation are subtle), but important. The animation isn't one single movement, it's a combination of sometimes continuous motion. Center (Of Mass)
Ignoring the rotation for a moment. You'll notice the center of his (mass) body, moving as one fluent motion. This is an important idea to remember. Understand where your animation's center of mass is and how it should move. The kid has no control over how his center moves while in midair, and thus it is similar to that of a object thrown in the air- which is all he did. Recoil
When he stuck the landing, you'll notice that he shakes. He does not just stand up. The idea here might be a bit obvious...But it might be easily forgotten when making an animation.
*This animation is a great example of when recoil can be used.
Exaggeration
Although sometimes not realistic, it is sometimes needed in an animation. Exaggerate the animation at critical moments. At a glance, I'd say the critical moments of this dash attack are the beginning, the loadup, the extension, caused by the quick attack and recoil (pulling back). Exaggeration is also a great way to add personality to the animation.
Inertia
Now, I'm having a bit of trouble describing this idea easily. The most evident place where this can be applied is right before the (headbutt?) - in the load up, and at the end of the (headbutt?). Inertia can be mistaken for recoil because they are a bit similar. Inertia is the affect of an object wanting to continue doing what it's doing, whether that's staying still or moving. Recoil is more or less like the effect of attempting to [stop] a motion (eg. the inertia of the motion).
Anyways, after the headbutt the animation kind of just snaps back to idle. There should be inertia wanting to keep the character moving, and a recoil affect for trying to get the character back to idle quickly.
I'm just all over the place because this is a big post and I'm losing sight of what my initial motive for making the post =p. I was just going to post a thing or two...but I ended up just making a post about quite bit of animation ideas. However, I hope you atleast consider my advice and ideas. Sorry if i sounded rude in some parts, or was too ambiguous. The key ideas (bolded) should be something you should look into though.
Please don't get discouraged by this post. If anything, I hope this helps other animators reading the post to become a bit more interested and maybe inspired by animation. I love animation, but haven't done so in quite some time. I haven't animated with BrawlBox in over 3 years =p and I know how painful it can be. Animation is not a simple process. It can be tough and complicated. But in the end, when you create that amazing and fluid animation that breathes personality and life into your character, it'll be well worth the effort.
I haven't gone through the tutorial myself, but, from what i skimmed, it might give you a bit of insight about how to render fur, or atleast the concept of doing it.
The animation could use a bit of work, but i guess its alright for a stream. The center of the character seems to move at different rates instead of a near constant and steady one. Overall the animation is quite static. If the head were to oscillate back and forth, opposite to the body, it may look better and more natural. When the hands touch the ground, they slide instead of anchoring to it. It seems like he's trying to walk instead of crawl. His forearms don't look like they're even supporting the upper body during the crawl.
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