Quote from Xyskal

Abomination #5

Okay, movie clip runs, not my sort of thing but I'll give out my C&C's based on that.

1.) When doing movie clip runs, they're generally used on figures that aren't focused too much. Why? That's because movie clip runs tend to be flat and unvarying. The tempo of the run is constant and it just looks terrible generally. I know Terkoiz uses these but the thing is, he knows when to use it and where to place it so it wouldn't attract that much attention. The beauty of animation is adding variables with your actions. With running, your animation would look so much better and much more dynamic by adding a frame for this step or making the next step a frame shorter. Play around with the frames and see what comes up well but definitely for now, STAY AWAY FROM MOVIE CLIP RUNS (And while I'm at it, from other movements too)

2.) Body stretching and retracting. Okay, I'm pretty sure in a run, you bounce up and down and you almost got this but you only let the head stretch up and down when it's supposed to be the whole body doing that. Outstretch all of the limbs in the extension and contract them in the pullback. However, this isn't always the case. It depends on the type of run you're doing (A jog would have less stretching than a full extended run).

3.) The foot man. The foot! This is why I dislike movie clip movements because achieving the timing is ridiculously hard. This is what I mean by knowing when and where to place the movieclip runs. It's clear as day of how he's sliding his way to the right rather than actually running because his foot continues to move even though it shouldn't. The worst part about it is, I don't even have to check it frame by frame to see that bit, meaning, this would turn off the immersion immediately to most viewers.

Personal Note: I'm seeing improvement in the figure and consistency but I think that's because it was animated in a movieclip and just looped rather than animated individually per run cycle. I'm not saying using movie clip loops are bad. In fact, they save time and gives your animation a sense of dynamics when done properly. However, with your current skill level, stay away from those for now (You can use them for effects though) as what you should be aiming for is improving your animation knowledge and skills and the only way to do this is to actually animate each movement yourself. By using the movieclip, you're taking away this concept by acting "lazy". Anyway, keep it up!

I've been trying to not use movie clips for running/walking animations, and it hasn't been going well. It always just looks so.. jittery and skippy. I don't know why, and the things you said are very valid concerns animation wise, but I think the overall negative affects this would have on my animations now far outweigh the negative effects of trying to draw the walk/run cycles frame b frame. I have no solutions for this. I figured out how to do walking/running animations by thinking about it really hard, but that hasn't worked on this. Do you have any suggestions?




Abomination #5.12.226

Abomination #6

Your problem in running here, as far as I can see, is that you're being too conservative. My run takes only 4-5 frames at most and even that feels a bit slow. Experiment and remove/add frames. Maybe double frame on the key frames (Initial pose, lift, and extend) and then single frame the in-betweens? Go experiment and keep practicing until you reach that "run cycle" you always envisioned. By the way, the body's vertical position isn't constant when you run. It bobs up and down whenever the person lifts and extends respectively.

Don't worry about having a hard time in animating running (Or any certain movement for that matter). One of the fun parts in animation is hitting walls like these then thinking of numerous ways on how to overcome it and then finally, actually breaking through this barrier. Some finds their answer through their own style and others do it by copying other animations and very rarely, some people create something new altogether.

I made this and thought it was pretty okay up until the last part.

Abomination #7 it's very far from done, but I wanted to know what I did wrong on it.

Oh and thanks Zero. I'll try not to worry about these things as much in the future.

I'm also working on the weekly for my clan, which I think has started off much worse than the other animation i'm working on did.
Abomination #8

So, anyone know any interesting ways to do text?

What is the guy doing in Abomination 8?

Oh wait, I put the wrong link in that one. That's a friend's RHG.