The Energon Pub

So I did an animation on DAZ|Studio and I'm not totally happy with it (mainly cos its my first ever).

Was wondering if anybody could give me a few pointers with Key-Frame Animation to make it look a little smoother and less like... an animation.

Please, no suggestions of other programs to use, that tends to happen

Here's the animation as it is. I want to make the camera a lot smoother, and her head movement to be more natural. I know she's totally static.. any tips there would be awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSKaw_u2T7k

Thanks!

My suggestions, and it's been a long time since I've animated but. I would try to play around with the speed that your frames move in and out of the keyframe when the camera begins it's rotation. That should help you smooth it out some.

More importantly though look at where your keyframes are in the animation. They are the most important part of the animations. They should set the tempo.

I would also begin the head rotation before the camera rotation. It will look more dynamic, and you will be able to see the movement better.

I don't know the program that you're using at all so I can't help you with anything there. I'm sure there are others on this site that have done stuff more recently than me and can help you further.

Geekee1 wrote:More importantly though look at where your keyframes are in the animation. They are the most important part of the animations. They should set the tempo.

Can you explain this a little futher?

Thanks for the time. I just imagined there were some rules that were universal for Key Frames for getting smooth, realistic animations. That's what I'm after. I'm really, REALLY new to this stuff. Literally this morning. What I'd like to know is how to move the camera and then slow it into its final position, rather than just stop suddenly.

Changing the cameras direction smoothly (and seamlessly) would also be very helpful...

Keyframes are typically the most extreme parts of your animation, they define the movement. For example, if you were animating a bouncing ball you would have a keyframe the ball at its highest and lowest points.

The camera problems that you are having are going to be specific to the program that you are using, so I can't help you there much. Try to find something like "slow in" and "slow out" in your keyframe options.

Another important aspect of animation is called "squash" and "stretch." This is the dynamics of the object that you are animating. Going back to the ball example, the ball will "squash" when it hits the ground, getting shorter and fatter. It will "stretch" as it leaves the ground, making it longer and skinnier. Good animation relies alot on these principles. You will typically greatly exaggerate the poses in your keyframes to make it more dynamic.

This is a very basic example and keyframes aren't only used for the most extreme positions, but they are the framework for your animation.

I saw the movie. I can see why you're not happy, it's way too stiff.

Gekee1 pretty much nailed it.

Also if you want to know more about animation I can't recommdend this book enough.

http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Classical/dp/B0007D9VAK/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201360960&sr=8-1

Recommended by the professionals. It's practically required you own this book if going into animation. It may not include exactly what you want but it will help you to understand how the animation process is done and teach you some of the principles of animation.

Damn, Geekee did a better job of explaining it than I could.

For some advice, I'd say play around with it a bit more, have a file you saved just for experimentation.

Then play with it. For the camera, try adding in a few more keyframes to slow it down before it comes to a complete stop, or dick with the speed of the frames for the camera.

To make the head move more naturally, and smoother, it looked natural up until the body turned causing the head to stop and start moving with the sudden jerk.

To fix that, I'd say just move the body, it looked like for the last turn, the body and head were selected for the rotation, instead of just the body, I'm not entirely sure.

But just experiment, play around with it. The best thing you could do.

Geekee1 wrote:The camera problems that you are having are going to be specific to the program that you are using, so I can't help you there much. Try to find something like "slow in" and "slow out" in your keyframe options.

This function apparently doesn't exist in DAZ|Studio.. Nor in Carrara Pro 5 which I'm also playing with when DAZ can't do something I want it to. Could you explain how the same effect could be accomplished with key frames? I can't imagine how it could be done...

Geekee1 wrote:Another important aspect of animation is called "squash" and "stretch." This is the dynamics of the object that you are animating. Going back to the ball example, the ball will "squash" when it hits the ground, getting shorter and fatter. It will "stretch" as it leaves the ground, making it longer and skinnier. Good animation relies alot on these principles. You will typically greatly exaggerate the poses in your keyframes to make it more dynamic."

I'm very simple, could you explain how this could be applied to my animation or an animation with a human figure?

Many thanks for the help!

Senor Hugo wrote:Damn, Geekee did a better job of explaining it than I could.

For some advice, I'd say play around with it a bit more, have a file you saved just for experimentation.

Then play with it. For the camera, try adding in a few more keyframes to slow it down before it comes to a complete stop, or dick with the speed of the frames for the camera.

To make the head move more naturally, and smoother, it looked natural up until the body turned causing the head to stop and start moving with the sudden jerk.

To fix that, I'd say just move the body, it looked like for the last turn, the body and head were selected for the rotation, instead of just the body, I'm not entirely sure.

But just experiment, play around with it. The best thing you could do.

Wow, didn't realise more people had contributed.

The body was entirely static throughout the entire animation.. a flaw, I know. I just about understand how to make movement be logical (weight shifting, etc) but I just can't make it look smooth enough on screen.

Can you explain a little more how adding keyframes can slow down the camera movement (and, I'm guessing, any figure movement its also applied to)?

Its just I'm not likely to attempt anything until I fully understand it in my head. I'll play with the program a little more though, obviously... See what I can learn.

Thanks for all the help, guys!


EDIT:

The way I understand speed in terms of Key Frames is simply that.. the closer the key frames are together, the faster the movement will be. I'm not sure how else to mess with the speed outside of messing with the frame rate...

Man I'm such a noob X3

Meverix wrote:

Senor Hugo wrote:Damn, Geekee did a better job of explaining it than I could.

For some advice, I'd say play around with it a bit more, have a file you saved just for experimentation.

Then play with it. For the camera, try adding in a few more keyframes to slow it down before it comes to a complete stop, or dick with the speed of the frames for the camera.

To make the head move more naturally, and smoother, it looked natural up until the body turned causing the head to stop and start moving with the sudden jerk.

To fix that, I'd say just move the body, it looked like for the last turn, the body and head were selected for the rotation, instead of just the body, I'm not entirely sure.

But just experiment, play around with it. The best thing you could do.

Wow, didn't realise more people had contributed.

The body was entirely static throughout the entire animation.. a flaw, I know. I just about understand how to make movement be logical (weight shifting, etc) but I just can't make it look smooth enough on screen.

Can you explain a little more how adding keyframes can slow down the camera movement (and, I'm guessing, any figure movement its also applied to)?

Its just I'm not likely to attempt anything until I fully understand it in my head. I'll play with the program a little more though, obviously... See what I can learn.

Thanks for all the help, guys!

Well what I learned, is if you add more keyframes near the end of where the camera stops, it's last keyframe, you can have the camera move less, so it seems to slow to a stop, so the actual stop is less noticable.

for instance

SK = Start Keyframe
EK = End Keyframe
K = Keyframe

SK_________________________KKK EK
|___________________________|_|_|__|

Edit: fixed the example to actually show what I meant it to show

Senor Hugo wrote:Well what I learned, is if you add more keyframes near the end of where the camera stops, it's last keyframe, you can have the camera move less, so it seems to slow to a stop, so the actual stop is less noticable.

for instance

SK = Start Keyframe
EK = End Keyframe
K = Keyframe

SK KKK EK
| ||| |

Wow, thanks for explaining that so well! I totally get it now. I'm gonna try that out, see how it goes...

Thanks a bunch!

Senor Hugo wrote:Well what I learned, is if you add more keyframes near the end of where the camera stops, it's last keyframe, you can have the camera move less, so it seems to slow to a stop, so the actual stop is less noticable.

for instance

SK = Start Keyframe
EK = End Keyframe
K = Keyframe

SK_________________________KKK EK
|___________________________|_|_|__|

Edit: fixed the example to actually show what I meant it to show

I'm trying this technique.. but it doesn't seem to work. Is there anything else about it I should be aware of? It seems to be doing the exact opposite, speeding up instead of slowing down...

Meverix wrote:

Senor Hugo wrote:Well what I learned, is if you add more keyframes near the end of where the camera stops, it's last keyframe, you can have the camera move less, so it seems to slow to a stop, so the actual stop is less noticable.

for instance

SK = Start Keyframe
EK = End Keyframe
K = Keyframe

SK_________________________KKK EK
|___________________________|_|_|__|

Edit: fixed the example to actually show what I meant it to show

I'm trying this technique.. but it doesn't seem to work. Is there anything else about it I should be aware of? It seems to be doing the exact opposite, speeding up instead of slowing down...

Doh, man, I'm so sorry. Yeah, it is doing the exact opposite, thats because I told you the opposite of what to do. I really need to brush up on my animating.

Try doing the opposite of what I told you to do. Since putting more keyframes at the end is speeding up the process, put the keyframes closer to the start, space out the added keyframes, and have the major camera moves there, that should slow the camera movement down.

Senor Hugo wrote:

Meverix wrote:

Senor Hugo wrote:Well what I learned, is if you add more keyframes near the end of where the camera stops, it's last keyframe, you can have the camera move less, so it seems to slow to a stop, so the actual stop is less noticable.

for instance

SK = Start Keyframe
EK = End Keyframe
K = Keyframe

SK_________________________KKK EK
|___________________________|_|_|__|

Edit: fixed the example to actually show what I meant it to show

I'm trying this technique.. but it doesn't seem to work. Is there anything else about it I should be aware of? It seems to be doing the exact opposite, speeding up instead of slowing down...

Doh, man, I'm so sorry. Yeah, it is doing the exact opposite, thats because I told you the opposite of what to do. I really need to brush up on my animating.

Try doing the opposite of what I told you to do. Since putting more keyframes at the end is speeding up the process, put the keyframes closer to the start, space out the added keyframes, and have the major camera moves there, that should slow the camera movement down.

Yeah, I tried that. Does what I want of it, but its just a bit.. rough. Guess I'll have to perfect it. It starts of very slowly, then suddenly speeds up incredibly fast...

What I have so far is (for a speeding up AND slowing down), is the star frame, a small gap (allowing for slowing up), then a series of keyframes, then another small gap and the end frame... As you might imagine, its very choppy. I guess I'll have to increase the closeness of the keyframes as the camera 'speeds up' and decrease as they slow down.. No? How many frames apart (in a 25fps animation) should they be as it speeds up, is in full motion, and speeds down? I'm no good with numbers...

Here's an illustrated example of the bouncing ball. I've marked the keyframes, which is what most of them are. There is one "in between" which will be automatically made by a program, but in traditional animation you would draw. And actually there would be more frames anyway.

Also note that the frames are closer together near the bottom of the bounce, this represents the pull of gravity speeding up the ball and the springback as it begins to rise again.

Geekee1 wrote:Here's an illustrated example of the bouncing ball. I've marked the keyframes, which is what most of them are. There is one "in between" which will be automatically made by a program, but in traditional animation you would draw. And actually there would be more frames anyway.

Also note that the frames are closer together near the bottom of the bounce, this represents the pull of gravity speeding up the ball and the springback as it begins to rise again.

Thats helpful, actually.. Starting to really understand how the physics work.

Usually I just use my mind to play certain motions in super slow-mo.. done okay for me so far.. well...

Do you know of any online tutorials for animating human figures? I need something a a little simpler than a walk-cycle to start me off.

I don't currently know of any tutorials. Professional animators will use mirrors and record themselves to study the motion. Act out what you're animating and feel what is happening with your body.

Okay then, thanks for all the help. Guess now I work on mastering keyframes..

Only problem is my computer isn't so perfect, so I can't really preview my animation before rendering, and I can't scrub through it to get an accurate preview. I don't get to see it until its finished. That 12 second clip I posted took 3 hours to render, I can't afford to really play around with it much...

Thanks for everything, folks!

Well, I'm jealous.

Nice texturing job.


As for tips, you shouldn't have the grin happen right after the head movement. You should make it start to happen while the head is still moving.

Also, you shouldn't have movement that just starts and stops. The movement should speed up at the start and slow down at the end. I'm talking about very subtly short durations of course. Is there any kind of "graph editor" like in After Effects where you can plot the rate of the movement and make it not so static?


But damn. Good work man.

Dark Zarak wrote:Well, I'm jealous.

Nice texturing job.


As for tips, you shouldn't have the grin happen right after the head movement. You should make it start to happen while the head is still moving.

Also, you shouldn't have movement that just starts and stops. The movement should speed up at the start and slow down at the end. I'm talking about very subtly short durations of course. Is there any kind of "graph editor" like in After Effects where you can plot the rate of the movement and make it not so static?


But damn. Good work man.

Unfortunately no. DAZ|Studio is as basic as they come. I've been trying to perfect speeding up and slowing down, tricky without some actual buttons to simply press.

As for the texturing, you've got various other artists to thank for that. The mesh too.. the whole physical form actually... i just dressed her and animated her... sigh.