Animation exercises to try.

mmoir

Hey all,

  I just found a site that has some basic to advanced exercises to learn to become a better animator.  I thought it would be good exercise and fun to do . If you want just do one of the level 1 exercises and post your animation links here.   I will post one of my attempts shortly.

 

Level 1 Exercises

(Do not discount their simplicity! Here you have the principals of animation, which all other animation is built on. They are worth your time and effort.)

1. Ball Bouncing in place, no decay (loop)
2. Ball Bouncing across the screen
3. Brick falling from a shelf onto the ground
4. Simple character head turn
5. Character head turn with anticipation
6. Character blinking
7. Character thinking [tougher than it sounds!]
8. Flour Sack waving (loop)
9. Flour Sack jumping
10. Flour Sack falling (loop or hitting the ground)
11. Flour Sack kicking a ball

http://www.animationlive.com/51-great-animation-exercises-master/

Toyen

Makes me wanna try the blinking and thinking one!

deathmaster_sr

I wonder if i could put all 11 in one video...that would be a good test of my abilities as an animator.

 

chickenman

I think I will have a try at this once I complete your training and reviewing PhilW's animation in his tut's. This will just reinforce what i am learning.

mmoir

Okay,  here is my attempt at the first exercise. Ball bounce with no decay and loopable. I guess I could have the ball stretch out a bit in the air half way up the bounce. 

 

https://youtu.be/Vs5TqOX3Esg

PhilW

Animating a flour sack was a standard animation training method used by the Disney studios!

DUDU

Mike made us a tuto on Carrarators :

mmoir

Dudu,

  I forgot about that one .

Toyen

Guys Im trying the thinking one! So far, it looks like Eva 7 is plotting something : D : )

Dartanbeck

I love this quote from the article:

Whether your a student or a veteran animator the learning never stops. The quickest way to improve your skill is to practice.

It's amazing how much time I've spent just running the same motions at different timings just to compare the rendered result. Never forget to render out your tests and observe them in real time and be very judgemental! ;)

For those whom have moved into upgrading to 8.5, don't forget that we have new features in the graph editor and in the Animation menu that makes animation creation in Carrara even more flexible.

mmoir

Toyen, the thinking one will be tough.

Dart, good ideas.

Also, I have built a "Flour Sac" character with a  bit of a rig setup for people to use.  I will upload it in a bit.

 

argus1000

Dartanbeck said:

For those whom have moved into upgrading to 8.5, don't forget that we have new features in the graph editor and in the Animation menu that makes animation creation in Carrara even more flexible.

If you're talking about the featutes under "Animation", "Filters", consisting of the "smooth", "reduce" and "sample"  functions., they work more or less. The "smooth' function works if you're carful with it. The "reduce" and "sample" function don't work at all. I wrote a ticket on it but, as everybody knows, Daz is soooo attentive to everyting relating to Carrara...

Dartanbeck

Try to NOT forget to animate the fingers of your characters! It's one of the things that can make them look non-mannequin! 

Toyen

I find animating the hand very hard : D mainly because I was too lazy to set up the humanIK rig in Maya so I am animating by just rotating the imported bones : D

Here' s a still : D Eva plotting world domination : )

While I was animating her, she suddenly reminded me of actress Mia Wasikowska : )

I mean, there is some resemblance, or is it just me?

Perhaps Eva was inspired by her : )

Dartanbeck

Toyen said:

I find animating the hand very hard : D mainly because I was too lazy to set up the humanIK rig in Maya so I am animating by just rotating the imported bones : D

I've never really been a fan of relying upon IK to create a pose, so I always do each bone separately. It doesn't take very long and gives a nice, personal touch to the pose.

Very nice contemplation pose! I can totally see the Mia resemblance! ;)

Steve K

PhilW said:

Animating a flour sack was a standard animation training method used by the Disney studios!

Off topic, but I can't resist.  Flour sacks can be good live action characters, also:

mmoir

Hey all,

 Here is the Flour Sac model for people to use to do these animation exercises.  I will call him "Frankie" for now.  Frankie is rigged with bones but also has a couple of control rings as well, I don't know how well he will animate but it should give you something to start with. Here is the file and an image of Frankie.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/asfo7r7wfy6pozr/FlourSacRigged1.car?dl=0

Dartanbeck

Thanks Mike!

Here's Frankie Flour Sack sporting his new UV Mapping and cloth texturing ;)

Love how Frankie's rigged. Really nice subject here!

DesertDude

Thanks mmoir for the push and inspiration (now I need to push myself...). And thanks for the free model! Very interesting "control rings"...that magnet deformer has been hiding in plain sight now for years! Cool stuff!

Dartanbeck

DesertDude said:

Thanks mmoir for the push and inspiration (now I need to push myself...). And thanks for the free model! Very interesting "control rings"...that magnet deformer has been hiding in plain sight now for years! Cool stuff!

Where?

Looking all over the place and cannot figure out how to set this kind of thing up!

DesertDude

Here ya go Dartanbeck, have fun!

 

edited to say I did not create that tutorial, found it YouTube because I didn't know how to use that magnet deformer either. :)

mmoir

 I was trying to mimic a basic rig used in a Modo animation tutorial  using Carrara and I was looking for ways to transform a mesh other than Morph targets . Morph targets are  limiting in that you can only have one morph target for a specific vertice. I figured out that the magnet deformer might work , it took a while to figure out how to set it up but at least it sort of works like in Modo.. 

mmoir

Toyen, Nice start on the thinking exercise.     For me it depends on what I am trying to animate as to if I use IK or not.  

Toyen said:

I find animating the hand very hard : D mainly because I was too lazy to set up the humanIK rig in Maya so I am animating by just rotating the imported bones : D

Here' s a still : D Eva plotting world domination : )

mmoir

Desert Dude,  I used a tutorial very similar to that to learn how to use the magnet tool.

 

mmoir

Dart, Nice texture for Frankie.

Dartanbeck

DesertDude said:

Here ya go Dartanbeck, have fun!

 

OMG Thank you SO MUCH!!! I'm gonna use the heck out of that feature! Weeeee!!!!

Thanks Desert Dude!

...and Mike for using it forcing this whole conversation in the first place! How cool!

 

mmoir said:

Dart, Nice texture for Frankie.

Textured with a nice preview icon in the browser and an official name: Frankie

It's a much happier flour sack now! You'll see! ;)

mmoir

Okay , here is a link to my Exercise#2. clip.   I put a Sphere in the scene, hit "Ctrl+G" to Group the sphere with itself. I animated the forward motion of the sphere using this Group container .. I moved the Hotpoint of the Sphere(not Group) to the base of sphere or on the Floor and animated the Squash and stretch with the Spheres manipulator handles. I added the sound in Corel videostudio to make it a little more interesting.

https://youtu.be/9kkEYJZFj-s

Dartanbeck

Nice bounce anim, and great rendering! Also, I recognize that "boing" voice from some tutorial videos I own! ;)

Great job, my friend!

mmoir

Dart, thanks.

mmoir

Hey ,   here is my falling brick animation exercise. Even with these simple exercises I find you still have to learn things to complete them.

https://youtu.be/wma2p_vJuVI

 

3DAGE

Great work mike :)

loved the little fly.

Animation is a learning process,. you're learning how things work, and why things happen,.. all the time,. that's what keeps it interesting,.. there's always a new puzzle to solve.