3dioot's polybook

3dioot Awesome job man. I like the expressions you've been getting out of baker. I can tell you're having fun with the rig. I personally like the eye dart on the first one. As people have said, it looks glitchy, but I think its only because the dart is too big. If you make it a little more subtle (lessen the amount of travel by maybe 50%)it will probably bring a bigger feel of life to the shot.

The second shot, to me it feels a little strange to not have a blink between the turn. We blink not only to keep our eyes from drying out but as a way to reset what our brain is focusing on. The only other thing I see is be careful losing the pupil in the corner of the eye. His right eye (screen left) crosses so far at one point you lose about half of the pupil. Take that separate eye control and bring it back just bit. 

Cool stuff man. Keep going!

3dioot Awesome JW, good your having fun! I like the expressions. Phil has said it all feedback wise. Keep up the fun times 😄👍🏻

phoenix4690 

Thank you very much! Sorry for my late response. Last weekend the flu caught up with me so I haven't been very productive. Of course it cleared up in time for work though! I can't wait to try out your suggestion on the eye dart. I really want to keep it because I feel it adds life but haven't quite nailed it. I am excited to try if this will make the difference.

Interesting observation on the eye blink! (or lack thereof) I've read up on them and "transition" eye blinks are a thing. I didn't know! How cool. :) And very useful, now I have a reason to make characters blink.  I will also take care of the pupil. I was aware of that rule but it still slipped in.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback!

ssmurfmier1985

Thanks Miranda, I certainly will!

phoenix4690 and ssmurfmier1985 
Here is the current status of Stomp's walkcycle. Almost finished, still have to animate the antenna. Its surprisingly elusive or perhaps its just late.. haha XD

PS
I may or may not return to character ball, right now I am looking forward to playing with these robot characters :p

3dioot Looks nice so far! 😊

I do think theres a bit of knee popping, frame 11-12 / 23-24 / etc., so maybe smoot that out a bit?

PS that doesn't count as winning from me if you skip stuff 😛

3dioot Looking good so far. I agree with Miranda about the knee pops. The feet might be coming up too high (left foot at frames 9/10, right foot at 21/22) lowering it just a bit might smooth out the knees in the next few frames. There is a head rotation downward that I'm catching at around frame 7/8 and 18/19. Feels like its popping. If you wanted to, just as a way of experimenting. Try making the passing foot pass closer to the posted leg. It will add a bit of an appealing arc to the foot rather than the feet going straight back and forth. I hope that made sense. Then when the foot comes back down, vary the placement just a little bit differently than the last one. It would provide a little bit of variation. That's not required of the exercise but as I said...fun to experiment if you want.  Doing really good overall- keep at it!!

3dioot Nice work!

phoenix4690 and ssmurfmier1985 and @waylow 

Hey Miranda, still being that great accountabillybudy I see! Not letting me get away with skipping exercises huh? I guess that's a good thing (grumbles below breath).  ^_^

I see what you mean at those frames but to be honest I find the entire knee popping thing a little confusing. I thought I understood it at one point. Let me share my confusion, maybe you, Phil or Wayne can clarify this for me. What I thought knee popping was is getting too close to a fully stretched leg. This is a side effect of how Inverse Kinematics works; the closer you get to a fully straight solution, the more it "speeds up" which leads to that snap which looks very unnatural. There are solutions for this btw, so called "soft IK" but Stomp does not have that and neither do the rigs I could find for free so its still good to learn how to deal with this.

Now, I have done my best to avoid full lock out. In fact, I think I have avoided it when I scrub through the cycle at low speed. This is not to say you are wrong, it does look jittery at full speed. But this is my dilemma. I could limit his stride or just offset his his hips to be a little bit lower and this would give more leeway to the legs. However I feel this leads to a very spongy walk without any vitality. When I am honest, I think this walk I made already looks quite muted, quite constrained. Its boring. Its a simple cartoony character and I would love for him to have a little more pizzazz than he has right now.

I am also reading a book called animators survival guide which has a huge chapter on walks. Long story short, shape reversal is important. With a leg that would be Bent vs Straight. If I remember correctly the front leg should be straight on contact and the leg that pushes should also be straight on the up. This also makes sense to me from a mechanical point of view and its how stuff seems to work in the real world as well when I look at the below reference video:

Now walks are different and that is a very energetic walk but am I just missing the mark here? Is knee pop something other than avoiding a straight leg? Am I straight leg obsessed (SLO) and do I need help? Share your thoughts please. XD

Phil thanks for the great feedback man. I see what you mean about the foot being lifted. I think Wayne mentioned in one of his comments on this exercise that the toes kinda lead in the foot swing from the back to the front. I had some trouble interpreting your feedback until I remembered that. When I looked at it again I saw the feet being "lifted" instead of finishing the swing properly. Thanks!

I think I know what you mean with the head, there is a pretty sharp change of direction there as the head reaches the lowest point and changes from lagging behind looking up to lagging behind looking down. I'll try to smooth it somehow. In general with follow through I am finding I have a hard time to do that on the key poses. It feels like I need to offset those keys to get what I want but I've been refraining from trying that since Wayne does not do it and I am worried I am making things more difficult for myself.

I am definitively going to bring the feet that swings forward in a little bit! I can see that removing quite a bit from the "roboticism" this cycle now suffers so heavy from. I think I will save the placement variation for now. This is still just a cycle for now so to do what you suggest I would have to repeat the cycle with a modifier and then apply it. Essentially make a cycle of 3 subcycles. Thanks for all the suggestions though, very much appreciated.

pprocyonlotor Thanks John!

3dioot My Stomp walk cycle is still in the popping stage so I'm curious about the response and advice from phoenix4690 and @waylow 😊🍿

3dioot A knee pop is a spacing error that results in the leg going from a straight position to a bent position (or bent to straight) usually over a single frame. When played back it looks like the knee is popping in and out of place. It can also look like the characters knees are wobbling around. Its usually a sign that you have some body mechanics that aren't quite right. When I trouble shoot knee pops I look at the hips first. Is there enough twist in the ZRotate? Is the center of mass moving from one foot to the next properly? Is there too much/little ZTranslate down in the down position? Is there too much/little ZTranslate up in the up position? Make sure the hips, or in this case the head, is correct. (in your shot I think the hips/head are fine)
When the hips are looking good I'll take a look at the feet. Are the toes peeling off correctly? Is the gait of the character proportional? Is the ankle following the correct motion trail? Are the feet slowing down when they shouldn't be? As you've pointed out, an over extended leg can cause these pops as well, so be careful you don't have that happening.
All while you're checking these things out, be sure to be tracking the knees and keep an eye on the motion trails.

For the situation that you are in, the hips are fine. The pop is happening to the leg in the air, so the hips have no influence on it yet. Tracking the left knee I can see starting at frame 10 and 11 the knee is sticking in the same position. Then it pops on frame 12. On frame 11 take the foot control and try to get the knee in between where it is on frames 10 and 12. It might only take some Ztranslate...you'll have to experiment.
The same thing happens to the right knee starting at frame 22.

Making these changes might be a little bit easier if you widen the gait of the character. I usually use the characters feet as a measuring tool for this, try to widen it by another half a foots worth and see what happens. (for a vanilla walk I'm usually shooting for 1 or 2 foot lengths wide on the gait)

I hope this helped, let me know if there are questions and I'll do my best to answer. 

phoenix4690 

Awesome feedback, gave me some things to work on and some new ideas.

The only thing I am not completely clear on is the third paragraph where you refer to the gait "width". Are you talking about the distance between the feet when facing the character head on? Or are you talking about the stride, i.e. the distance a foot travels along the direction of the walk in one step? I think you mean the latter right? If you could clarify that bit that would be great!

Right now I am working on improving him, if I run into more stuff as I get along Ill make certain to let you know.

Thanks so far!

PS
Not to be a pushy a**hole, but when are we going to see new stuff from you? I want to see those Ianimate skills in action! <3

3dioot My bad man, I meant to say stride. So from the side view. I look at the gap between the back foots toe to the front foots heel. I'll try to keep 1 or 2 foot lengths worth of a gap.

Nah that's not being pushy. Its a good question. I'll try to update my Polybook tonight about what I've been up to and whats to come. Long story short, my wife and I are  expecting our second kid to arrive into the world in the next month or so. Its been a very busy time. There is nothing new right now. I have some smaller goals and some bigger ones that I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on though. I'll get into the details later.

phoenix4690 That's exciting news, congrats Phil 😊

ssmurfmier1985 thanks Miranda! we are really excited. 

phoenix4690 

Thanks for the clarification! It helps a lot because I now have some reference to shoot for. I have already adjusted his stride and, while the knee's still have their own issues, it feels better already. Turns out his stride (measured from toe to heel) was like half a foot; very short.

I also found a neat little "trick" to see the motion path for the knee. You can show FK leg bones on Stomp without having to switch over to FK. This means you can turn on the motion trail for the head of the shin for example and get a much better insight into what's happening. You were spot on with your frames, its jerking back and forth over those three frames!

I also understand it much better conceptually now. Turns out its not so much about the knee locking out, its about smooth arcs! Locking the knee out makes it pop "back" compared to where it was, that messes with the arc (or spacing) and that is what you have to compensate. That does not look so bad when scrubbing (slowly) but does result in jitter at full speed!

Its funny, I've been watching lots of animation critiques lately by a professional animator (critiquing 11second club) and it reminds me of the comments on arms that come back again and again. Arcs, arcs, arcs! And no IK on the arms unless you have too! While its great to use IK on the legs it does mean you have to be super careful with the arc of the knee since its indirectly controlled by the IK target. Its very much the same thing! :)

So with that out of the way: congratulations! I totally understand the family expansion comes first! :D When you have the time/feel ready I look forward to your future plans.

I feel its so long ago I posted I almost have to reintroduce myself here but yes, I am still animating phoenix4690 and ssmurfmier1985 :)

This has been quite an adventure, I hope both of you do not feel I have ignored your advice. It has definitely helped me conquer this (in more ways then one).

I first tried to tackle the knee pop by balancing the different "parts" against each other as you suggested Phil and to be honest I found this incredibly hard. I felt I was totally changing the walk instead of making little tweaks to fix the knee. In the end I just could not fix it that way.

This tilted me badly because I really wanted to be able to fix the knee pop without being dependent on rig specific features. I totally fell into the trap of "I should be able to do that in X manner" instead of just working with what I have and my current skill set.

So I went of tangent and instead of focusing on finishing the animation I learned how to do soft Ik in blender (want to learn rigging too after all), got pissed of at motion paths going out of sync and started writing a python script for it (yes I was that desperate to give myself an excuse to not tackle the kneepop...) and finally tried to tear the stomp rig apart to maybe implement the soft IK at which point I thankfully realized I was running away from what my next most productive step really was: finishing Stomp's walkcycle.

So I still had to fix it and I had seen the extra knee controls. Essentially a stretchy control for the knee on top of the IK chain. I wanted to use those to fix it but I needed to give myself "permission". I know that sounds really effed up, and it is. This art/animation dream is as much about personal growth as it is about me developing my skill set.

What thankfully happened was that someone I am subscribed to on YouTube actually released a new video on how to fix knee pop in various ways. Number one was to use the stretchy knee control that is also on Stomp! Now I was finally "allowed" to use the "easy" method and it was really easy to fix it. Since the motion path updates automatically for edits you do in the viewport i had all popping fixed in less than 30 minutes.

Here is the video for others to enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLAnfsNqCQ0

I felt really stupid for making it so difficult for myself and my intention is to avoid these pitfalls in the future. I wasted a lot of time and ended up feeling bad. I felt like sharing this so I can let my "failure"  go and who knows, maybe it will trigger a chuckle or two in recognition. ;)

Here is what I consider, for now, the final cycle for stomp. I know I left some improvements in the open but I really want to build up some momentum and move on. That does not mean I am not open to feedback of course! Please share if you have any. :)

3dioot  We all take our own path to the goals we seek to accomplish. Looks like you got to where you needed to be. :) Its looking really good man. Take this momentum into the next one. If you ever find yourself going down the rabbit hole again and just want to get out, feel free to reach out. There are always multiple workflows to a problem and I am more than happy to demo some of mine if that will help. The stretchy tweak bones are great, I should have mentioned them. Just be careful not to rely on them unless you need to. They can add a layer of complexity that is harder to control as actions get more and more complex. I'm super happy you "allowed" yourself to use them though cause it worked out great and you're learning new things. Keep going man, happy animating.

phoenix4690 Thanks Phil, your kind words mean a lot. :)

I fully intend to contact you next time I end up 'down the rabbit hole' (quite a fitting description). Sometimes I just need a little nudge to get going again so I really appreciate having the option to contact you.

Looking back its kinda funny how I went through "all that" without making a single post about it. It's like I get so focused on solving the problem at hand that sometimes I forget I have people around for tips and encouragement. My friends have pointed that out to me as well that they would have loved to help (even if its just by listening) if they only knew. It seems I suffer a little from that too in my online conversations. ^_^

Don't feel bad for not mention the stretchy controls. From what I've read online about knee pop "experienced" animators are supposed to be able to fix it without these kind of aids so I understand you not suggesting them to me as the first solution to try. At the moment I just see them as a way to polish after I've made things as smooth as I can without them. Its also pretty easy to just remove their keys and make big changes to the overall animation when you have to.

I will definitely keep on animating, moving up to a full character now! Quite excited! =D 

So, with my previous life lessons in mind I decided to share a little more of the wip stages. I didn't get as far as I would have liked this weekend but progress is still progress so yay me. :)

I am trying to follow Wayne's workflow and rough everything in first. This is the lower body roughed in. It took some fiddling before I had Rivet walking properly without him slowly doing the split as he got further away but I managed in the end. Turns out it's because his feet are not properly aligned to the world so you can only use world translations in the viewport itself. No fiddling with key values directly! Once I realized that things got a lot easier.

Also lost some time because I got confused on where to put the translation and rotation for his hips. Apparently with this char (or this lesson), the translations go on the torso bone and the rotations go on the hip. I am not certain I understand fully why but it is what it is.

I look forward to roughing in the top and start polishing the walk. He is walking right now but not in a very smooth manner haha. Hopefully that will be fixed next time I post. :)

Hey phoenix4690 and ssmurfmier1985 and @waylow !

I think I'll just stick to an update after each weekend, its a good 'deadline' and will encourage me to share something every week. :)

I am not progressing as fast as I would like but here is the latest version of Rivets walk. The arms feel pretty smooth to me at this point, the head still needs some love and the legs still need a lot of work. I added the toe flop just to see how it would look but I think I made the stride length way too short again so I am increasing that next and see where that gets me. 

I've also been working hard on trying to be more productive and not spend so much time on getting things 'perfect' (its also pretentious to think I can, I am just a beginner after all). Its disheartening to look back and see how long I am taking for these exercises. Somehow I end up in the zone of diminishing returns each time where I am just making minute tweaks to one thing (or worse; just thinking about it) instead of getting on with it and finishing the exercise. This means I get no pay off, feel like I am not making progress and is really taxing on my motivation.

I've started reading a book with the title 'Fail fast, fail often, fail your way to success' which is proving to be quite an eye opener for me. After reading a few chapters its pretty clearl I've been going at it all wrong. ^_^ The book is adamant about action being the best path forward (and it is of course) and shows the value of many small steps over lofty grand goals. In a way it encourages you to take the easy steps right in front of you, following your curiosity and they emphasize the necessity of a happy mindset if you want to be creative.

It's awesome. Do any of you have books that really made you change the way you look at your work or life in a positive way? :)