Random character design + animation

[LongGone]

Re: Random character design + animation

This doesn't seem like a bot designed for speed though; It seems more like a slow, clumsy (?) multipurpose bot like e.g. in futuristic homes lol

With regards to the bot design:

-Minimalist and clean as a whole, design seems to flow well together

-Spenner brought up a good point with the lower ribcage, if its not too late you might want to extend it a little, exposing more of the steel "ribs". While I'm at this, if I'm gonna be super nitpicky I don't see how the torso/waist is actuated (?)

-Is it just me or you got the knee joint backwards? It seems that the front has more space to bend, while the rear has that protrusion that stops it bending further like (a reverse-jointed mech). Watching your animation as the bot bends, it seems that protrusion unrealistically clashes with the thigh but its conveniently hidden from the angle of the camera

-Besides that the articulation overall seems to be well thought out. Very minor thing would be that the neck design seems like its not made for sideways rocking motions. Styling on "gauntlets" means that it can't thrust its palms forward, or do pushups (unless it uses its fists rofl)

-Pardon me if I'm delving too deep in the realism of this, but be a little careful with the way the outer shell is designed. Realistically a real robot like this would have seam lines/parting lines in the shell so that they can be taken off or manufactured more practically (e.g. a parting line running between the front and back shells of the torso). It seems from this design that the parts are fabricated in hollow shells, and then "slipped" onto the internals, which is still plausible from your current design fortunately

-If you plan to make an animation with a few of these bots in it you might want to make slight head variations for each to make them more distinctive, or small alterations of styling (e.g. two wires protuding from the back instead of one, decaling/markings on the shells, different curve stylings)

(gotta say I'm a sucker for the reflective finish though. Raytraced?)

[darkshark]

Re: Random character design + animation

@mythix, the cable that goes from his head to back? It's got a bone structure with IH controllers on it, linked to specific vertices for each bone, then each end of the bone is linked to a dummy helper on each attach point (linked to helpers in case I ever decide to detach it for some reason, and I can add individual weight to the helpers for reactor physics)

@LG, I love your in-depth stuff haha. About the legs, I already noticed that while animating, and it was on my to-do list for fixing that, but the hands you got me on...it has a small amount of clearance between the top of the hand and that forearm shield, but you're right, he can't do pushups, so I'll see about tweaking that a bit.

The torso just needs some wells cut out on the sides to allow the center spinal column to pass through, however when animating, this doesn't seem like it's been an issue, even when twisting and tilting to the side, there's still enough clearance between the torso and the hips, and the whole spinal column moves in sync with the torso shell, so it's more flexible than it looks.

I really like the thought of adding variation to each robot as well, aside from basic color changes. Also, yeah the bot doesn't look like it's meant for ridiculous speed, but ohhhhhhh I'm sooooooooo going to do it anyway haha. The story I have planned out will completely explain the high speeds.

Come Monday I'll be re-rigging it, and starting on this animation, so if anyone has any ideas they'd like to see make it into this short film, sketch it out and I'll make it!

[who_cares973]

Re: Random character design + animation

Got a pretty good storyboard drawn up. I'm leaning HEAVILY towards the animation style seen in the "Shock" series of stick figure flash animations, minus all the clones...or hell maybe clones included. I just know I want an extreme sense of speed and a ton of weight put into each hit.

If you haven't seen Shock 1, 2, or 3, I recommend you watch it immediately lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sMgvO8It8Y

ive always wanted to do something like that but the amount of frames i would have to do is a ridiculous amount and im not motivated enough to do it =/

[darkshark]

Re: Random character design + animation

Yeah, I want my animation to be around 2 minutes long at least, it's going to amount to like 10,000 keyframes.

This is going to pretty much be the thing that's going into my portfolio that will get me a job working for a big name studio. So I'm going to make this god damn amazing.

wc you should just try starting one, you'll want to finish it if you at least try.

[who_cares973]

Re: Random character design + animation

add shading to the figures. its the only thing lacking in every single stick fighting animation ive seen. give it some real depth

[darkshark]

Re: Random character design + animation

Shading? It's going to be in photorealistic 3d, not some 2d sidescroller.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Random character design + animation

shock's got nothing on xiaoxiao

[revolutionomega]

Re: Random character design + animation

Dude check out on the NG main page entanglement 2. Some sick more 3-d-esque stick-figure fighting.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/559446

Love the animation so far, pretty much agreed on all points, and just work on making the majority of the joints move together I guess.

Have you ever used the program alice? It's terrible but funny.

Here's what I mean:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheRevolutionomega#p/u/7/lp4dEB6cHKw

[darkshark]

Re: Random character design + animation

@Rubix, WHAT. Xiao Xiao is garbage compared to shock.

@revolution, yes I've used Alice, its the most horrible 3d/programming program ever.

[darkshark]

Re: Random character design + animation

Just now watched that Entanglement video lol. I really really like the first scene with the teleporting. Could really be something I'd like to animate.

It could also play into the current storyline, because the hyper-speed was going to be a sort of overdrive time dilation generator built into the robot, so teleporting could be a wormhole generator or something.



**Just made this in After Effects.

http://vimeo.com/19147467

Just reminds me how much I love that program, there's not one single keyframe in the whole thing, everything is dynamic and ready to be overlayed onto any footage (the underlying footage also distorts)
Totally badass.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Random character design + animation

@Rubix, WHAT. Xiao Xiao is garbage compared to shock.

@revolution, yes I've used Alice, its the most horrible 3d/programming program ever.

Xiao Xiao was like the original -- Shock kinda copied it

[Reincarnate]

Re: Random character design + animation

That Entanglement vid was sweet

[Spenner]

Re: Random character design + animation

That static/distortion effect would be so much cooler if it was full of random patterns, and randomly glitching rapidly back to the regular screen back and forth a couple times before finally showing itself.

But that's a neat and handy effect without even any keyframes to be associated with it o_O

[darkshark]

Re: Random character design + animation

What do you mean by random patterns? I just uploaded another version that has a variable noise filter on it, so when the screen gets distorted, there's a ton of noise, otherwise there's only a little.

I'm trying to find a torrent of a particular plugin for AE that should be able to do this distortion way better than the effects I have available to me right now.

http://vimeo.com/19151283

Again, Vimeo takes forever to convert.

[Mythix]

Re: Random character design + animation

The "scanning" lines that float up and down when you can actually see what happends seem to float too irregularly for me.. As in, if they sort of snapped from the eyes to his forhead, then the distortion, then some sort of note, distort, snap to cheek.. Get my point? I'm bad at explaining it would just make it more roboticishilysh. Yes.