Cineversity

With the walk cycle,
I can get the walk cycle legs just fine, but I can’t seem to get the arms to do a regular motion. Some aren’t meant for the arms while others don’t work for the arms at all, for me anyways.

Hi Jamestown,

Is it possible to attach a scene file here. Otherwise it is difficult to tell what happens.

All the best

Sassi

Here’s the scene.

Yes, I see the problem, and to be honest, it is a little bit more work than what was done so far.

Rick and Bret discuss this here pretty nicely:

http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/cineversity_live_2011-10-19  ...around minute 40.

For a more complete overview, if some parts are not clear:
http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaylist/cmotion_overview/cmotion_overview_part_1

All the best

Sassi

Good news, I’ve got the arms to move.  Except now his stomach is doing weird things.  Is this also explained in this video too or is there something small I have to do to change that?
Also, I convert the hypernurbs and it disconnects.

Sounds good, you make progress.

The problems that you face are not related to the CMotion use. The weight of the joints needs to be adjusted. In the image you can see that (switching off Subdivision Surface [HyperNURBS]) the arm is also weighted to the body. This is not covered in the theme of the CMotion tutorials.

If you go with this three part series:

http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaylist/weight_painting

You should get an good introduction to that work.

My best wishes for your character-developement!

Sassi

Thanks Dr. Sassi, looks like your patient has been cured for now, he can walk around and move properly.  Next it would be good to learn how to make the facial expressions.

Very nice, Jamestown.

My tip for facial expressions would be, to have a look into the Pose-Morph tag. Perhaps check it out on a new object first. Some sketches on paper what you like to achieve in each pose might support your work.

An little bit older introduction to such work is here: http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/butterfly_rigging_and_morphs_part_1 starting in the middle roughly of it and continues in the next part.

Good luck

Sassi

I don’t know why, but he cannot walk now.  I click on ‘add walk’ and for some reason he is just not walking with his skeletal frame.

Hi there,

I selected the character object and pressed the “Add Walk” button once. I pressed the play button and the joints started moving. See attachment.

In other words I cannot reproduce the problem, and if you continue to have that, you need to contact the support.

On favore I have to ask, please do not rename the zip file, as after uncompressing the resulting file is somewhere else in my “download folder”. Thank you.

All the best

Sassi

https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share?s=Qfk3s17BQAgmsE8R_Wtekk

I was able to fix his motion cycle for now.  And I would like to know, what would be a good tutorial for non cyclic actions?  Such as jumping, hitting, throwing, etc?

Sounds good, Jamestown.

A non cyclic action. Well, I what is a good tutorial, would be my first thought, based on your question. After ten years doing tutorials and getting feedback for them, as well have watched around 5,000 from other people, the only answer I can give (if limited to a sentence is): A tutorial must fit to you, not the tutorial is per se good. Yes, there are sloppy once based on an fresh understanding of the subject and well researched tutorials, mostly based on a proven practice (with a feeling to give enough information for the next step as well as for the context)

I know, not the answer you were looking for, but I had to exclude the term good. Well, I don’t, as the only great tutorial for non cyclic actions are the real world. Get your camera and film people or let them act what you like to do. Film yourself. Then use the “Controllers” of your rig and set these movements in key frames. Every large studio depend on exactly this observation. Yes, some larger libraries exist, some even for free. Google it. However, any preset, any plug in that helps an beginner to avoid diving really into that stuff is a waste of time, if the target is to be an artist.

What tutorial? Well, I would go and use the search engine here in Cineversity. First click on “Show ALL”, then use the “Discipline” selector and click one time on “Character”. Currently it shows 361 entries. Perhaps too much to start. If so, go to Instructor and click one time on “Bret Bays”. (After he finished these series for Cineversity, he went straight to Disney Animation and has already worked on several Feature Films, e.g., Frost.)
If that is not enough, click on Kai Pedersen (He went after finishing up his series to teach in a Canadian Film school since.) I think these are the two leading Character-Animators here, with a proven success. There are more people to name, especially Keith Donavan if you like to get the Basics of Character-Animations. Not that I exclude here someone on purpose, but these three certainly deserve to be named first. Anyone else here has a reason to be here, but to name all, means to give you no direction.

The short answer might be that the you will find mostly content that enables you to do such movement. But not so much a “step by step” animation class. Animation Mentor would be here certainly a way to go, if a deeper knowledge is wanted. In fact, I would go that far, that a good character animator is as well a good actor. Movements of the body are expressions. To convince an audience these expressions must follow our perception from reality, or go extreme in a comic way. Each target group is used to a certain movement and expression. However, with the Animation System/Clips and Layers, you can use quite some stuff from libraries. Always a question of quality.

Again, for me, to operate a rig with controllers is a question of your artistic observation, not a question of procedurals.
If you like to learn this in a course, my best tip would be “The Animator’s Survival Kit” since long a classic, as book, later on DVD, but now as well as iPad version. Which is a great app, for me certainly the most exciting application in 2013 for that skill to have. For starters a must have.

All the best

Sassi