Here's some finished examples of the AFG assignment:
"Telepathic Kayla" by Joanna Lee
"Chaingun Chip" by Kyle Remus
"Eugene the Soldier" by Taylor Holmes
A basic video-game character set including Idle, Run, Idle2Run, Run2Idle, RunJump, and 3StrikeAttack and Description.txt
Each animation in the set accounts for an equal portion of the assignment grade, so you cannot afford to skip any part. For final hand-in, all the animations (except the 3Strike) should be play-blasted with a common 3/4 view camera so the individual movie files can be strung together to appear as one continuous action. All animations (except the 3Strike) should be presented as a 'treadmill'.
Idle, with 2 Character 'gestures' (8-10 sec long.)
Example: "Jimbo" Character Description
"Jimbo" is a girthy angry woman who is slightly unhinged. She has a bum leg on her left side that drags a bit when she moves. This makes her even more furious. Her eyes don't quite align and she is always looking for a new target for her ire. She really likes to poke people, stabbing them with her meaty fingers and scowling the whole time.
I sum her up as: Pokey, Limping, and Furious
I sum her up as: Pokey, Limping, and Furious
For the idle animation, start with a basic milling loop (3-5sec long). We'll extend it later
Get a rig (Morpheus, Malcolm, Mery, your own creation, or any other stable humanoid rig.) and open it in Maya. Using the character description and the principles of good posing (silhouette, line of action, balance etc.) create a base pose for your character. All animations will lead out of and back in to this pose, so choose wisely. Try to pick a pose that looks ready for action because for playable characters, your base pose serves as your anticipation. Use the pose and compare method to create the best possible pose you can.
Once you've created your base pose, start to animate a basic breathing milling cycle 3-5 sec long. Look for places to put "figure 8" shapes in your movements of the hips. Try to build asymmetry in the posing. Remember to exaggerate the movement.
Watch the video below to see how the base idle is started:
Idle, Extended (8-10 sec long.)
Now that you have your basic breathing milling cycle, we're going to add a couple of character gestures. These are basically little moments of acting that help to show who your character is. Maybe they stretch and yawn in boredom. Perhaps they look around, fearful and paranoid. For your character, shuffling their feet might be a natural bit of behavior. Use your character description as a guide and come up with two bits of action that break out of, and merge back into, your basic Idle. Gather reference, either filming yourself or going online for video, to help guide you with posing and timing. Your Extended Idle must be a loop, so make sure your first and last pose are the same. Remember your 12 principles and have fun with this.
A few tips:
Don't keep your feet locked in one place the entire time. Small steps and shuffles can add a lot of life to a character. As long as you get them back to the start position by the end, everything will loop nicely.
The character "gestures" are simple bits of acting that help reveal who your character is. They should be no longer than 4-5 sec each. A brief look around, a shuffling step, a stretch and yawn, or a threatening gesture are all examples of quick little character gestures.
Watch your character balance in your posing. Use the tightrope and the plumb line trick to help assess this. Good movement mechanics are important - no sliding or slipping feet!
It's much easier to go broad with your movement and then soften it, than it is to take something small and subtle and make it bigger. Exaggerate!
Run. A treadmill cycle (8-24fr long.)
Using the lessons learned from the generic walk cycle, you'll build a run animation based on your character description. We can use Preston Blair's run cycle as a starting point, but we'll need to find more reference to personalize this piece. Along with good mechanics, this animation needs to clearly convey who your character is; how they would move and emote. |
| click on this image to see full size |
Careful planning and gathering additional reference is critical here. Find some video online or shoot some video of yourself moving "in character" to help guide you.
Don't forget that when the feet are in contact with the ground they need to move linearly, at a constant rate of speed. Both feet must also move at the same rate. This will be important for the transition animations Idle2Run and Run2Idle.
Idle2Run & Run2Idle (18-30fr. each.)
Transitional animations are critically important to creating smooth natural movement on your game characters. These type of animations do not loop, they just play once between one cycle and another. The goal is to create a quick and efficient bridge between two animations where straight interpolation won't suffice. In this assignment we'll be bridging the gap between your idle animation cycle and your run cycle.
Match poses
It's important that we have a perfect match between the animations so that when they play there are no hitches or pops. when it's done right, the character should smoothly move from idle to running. Use Pose2Shelf to create a shelf pose for the last/first frame of your idle cycle. We'll be using the run animation to build the Idle2Run, so we don't need to make a shelf pose for the run last/first frame. Remember if you later revise either of these animations, you'll have to fix your match pose for them.
Ground Speed
The next thing we need to establish is ground speed during your run. During your idle, ground speed is 0 units per frame. The Idle2Run animation needs to ramp up to your run speed smoothly (ease in/out). Once we have the match pose for idle. Open up your run animation and save it as Idle2Run. Grab the "All_Anim" and following the method shown in class - apply forward translation keys so that the feet of the character appear to lock. Shift the entire run animation down the timeline so that you have some time to get your character up to speed. 18-30 frames or so.
Build the Transition
Place your idle match pose at the start of the animation and then animate the transition between standing and running using good mechanics of balance, thrust and weight shift.
3 Strike Attack (3-6 sec.)
Use the Idle shelf pose you created for the Idle2Run as the starting pose for this animation. This attack needs 3 strikes of escalating power and intensity. There must also be some element of forward movement with each strike; stepping, leaping or skipping forward. The character must start and end in your idle pose, but the end position will be forward of the starting position. You can use pose2shelf or poselib tool to copy your idle pose. Make sure the style and quality of movement is evocative of your character description. Make use of a simple primitive object to work out timing and spacing, especially for any jumping of leaping.
To recap - here are the criteria:
- 3 melee attacks, armed or unarmed
- Each strike is more powerful than the last
- Animation starts and ends in idle pose.
- End idle pose is forward of starting position.
- Each attack has some element of forward movement
- Animation must match the character description
- Length between 3-6 sec
 | ||||
| Rough drawings to plan animation serve as clear visual guides. |
Here's the rough animation:
Running Jump (12-30fr.)
The simplest way to build this animation, is to take your run cycle and insert a jump in the middle. Use a primitive sphere as a guide and remember that exaggeration is especially important in games animation. Have your character jump at least as high as 1-2 times their own height. Assume this behavior is for a non-player controlled character (AI), so big anticipation and recovery is acceptable and expected.
