Aloha From Mars: Walk Cycles

[Match-Boy]

Aloha

After making IK rigs for my characters I started on testing them out for animation. They are posted to my site and are in Quicktime format. It helps if you loop the movie to see how it cycles as each film is one complete step.

The films can be seen at:
http://www.match-boy.com/Movies.html

You can find the render posts of my characters in the gallery of see them on my site at:
http://www.match-boy.com/Aloha.html

So thanks for looking and I look forward to your feedback.

Matt

[Dirk]

Hmm, what codec did You use? I can't play the movies, and for unknown reasons, Quicktime refuses to download the codecs.

[Match-Boy]

hmnn??

Thats strange Dirk you are the first to have a problem seeing them. They are outputted using Quicktime 6 with animation compression and color reduced to thousands.

Matt

[Dirk]

maybe I have to reinstall q-time, it says "internet goodies" or so are defect. Hope I can fix it, Your characters look wonderful strange, like to see them in action.

[Match-Boy]

Dirk
Have you been able to see the clips yet? I need some feed back to help improve the animations.
So please give some feedback everyone or are you all having trouble seeing the clips?

Matt

[Dirk]

Yes,'ve just tried it, reinstalled Qtime with internet goodies, now it works.

The matchboy walkcycle looks very cool, suits the character very well. The two arms move different, the left arm is more straight than the right arm, but thats maybe intention. The head could have a little bit more movement, I think.

the first Morphin - mov.... well, he doesnt move his head, so he looks unnatural. And, the movie crashes Quicktime at the end - strange...

Pose of Doom.mov: I cant load it, gives me a 404 - File not found. (Maybe because of the Spaces in the filenames?)

Blinky%20BabystepsWEB.mov: looks nice, but played as a loop, its somehow not really "round". Is there a frame missing? Or did'nt You use "ease in, ease out" for all keyframes at the beginning and end of the loop?

LBC%20SteppinWEB.mov: Feet are great, the arms move somehow in contrast to the rest of the body: the body is very "stiff", while the arms are very "wacky". Maybe the arms shouldnt be so "wacky" (too much keyframes?), and the body should maybe have some additional movement. maybe the head should bounce a little bit in and out of the collar? What about the hair?


Midgit%20StepsWEB.mov: Hmmm, the body moves through the loincloth. The legs move in a strange way sideways. Body and head should have more movement.

Volume.mov: hey, this looks really strange. This is really different, looks more like a stop-motion than anything else. Whats this in frame 161? :D

[Match-Boy]

Thanks Dirk

First I apoligize if my movies crashed your computer. I forget that PC's have problems with spaces.

These clips are the first things I have ever animated in 3d and were more for testing out the rigs. I know there is a spike as the loop hooks back into itself. Its due to the keys coming to a stop and start. I needed to add a pre and post key.

The Midgit walks through his grass skirt as I need to fix the weight maps on it so that the legs have less influence on its motion.

As for the mouse animation I did that with replacement animation. So the mouse every frame is a complete model into itself. The director I did the animation for wanted it to look like stop motion rather than the smooth fluidity of CG animation. And yes you saw what you think you saw on that frame.

Matt

[Don_Drennan]

Originally posted by Match-Boy
Aloha

With that subject "Aloha From Mars" I was imagining Hawaiians on Mars.

Anyway, looks like a cool character.

Is that supposed to be flames on his head? If so, I think that needs some more work, it looks more like smoke, but it looks cool otherwise.

-Don

[Match-Boy]

Hey Dan,

Check out the other characters besides Match-Boy and their animations. I have some Tiki style cloned midgits that I think might be more what you had in mind.

The story I am doing the Characters for is called Aloha From Mars in case you were wondering. Plus I put it in the title of my posts for these characters. Makes it easy to have continuity rather than just having the character names.

And Yes I am well aware of the smokey look to Match's flames. I have tried out the realistic flame style of hypervoxel. I have those great classroom dvd's on the market. But I just don't think it works with the character. Too real looking for a cartoon character. But it looks nice. The style it is now keeps him rooted as a cartoon style I think.

I should post examples of both styles and see what people think.

Matt