4 comments so far.

1. Will June 18, 2009 at 1:36 AM
   Ah it works =) and it looks great, i certainly can't see anything wrong with it =) good work
   -will
2. Ian June 18, 2009 at 5:05 AM
   Hey Raye
   
   Very Very nice. Good poses, heaps of energy, and a nice sense of weight.
   
   I can think of one little thing.
   
   Its something that can happen a lot in 3D anim. I bet your main controler (or whatever controller you used to plot the path through the air) folows a nice arc. BUT this is creating a problem for you because of the way your characters poses change through the jump. At the start of the jump the arms and legs ar back which means the pelvis is at the front of his total mass, towards the end his legs and arms are forward so his pelvis is at the back of his total mass.
   
   Its his mass that needs to follow that nice arc not a particular part of the body, like I said, this is a common 3D problem because the controler is moving a particular part of the character instead of moving from the middle of the character.
   
   The test is to squint. If I squint at your jump, I see a sudden surge in forward movement towards the end of the jump. Have a go and see if you can see it.
   
   I'm afraid that unless he had big wings attached to his arms he can't really make himself accellerate in mid air.
   
   The solution? Well it aint pretty, but its yet another moment that proves you can't trust computers to inbetween for a second. I would find the translate axis for the characters forward movement in the graph editor and ad a key on it for every frame the character is in the air (you can do this with a function called "baking" it down that you could look up). Then manually adjust the position for every frame so that the total mass of the characters slowly decelerates as it moves forward.
   
   Hope that made sense.
   
   If you think thats bad, you should try a summersault in 3D where a rid will have the character rotating around a point that isn't in its center while also following an arc through the air. You just have to key the characters position in the air on every axis for every frame.
   
   You could also check out this post to see how I draw a circle around the main bulk of the character to track its mass instead of a point on the character.....
   
   http://sbit-animation-centrala.blogspot.com/2008/06/animation-ramble-appealing-arcs-happy.html
   
   :)
3. Raye Newman June 19, 2009 at 7:40 PM
   Thanks for the detailed feedback Ian, and you're right the main controller was the pelvis. I'm having difficulty trying to decifer your message, I think you might be pointing to the peak of the jump where I've put a strong arc on the y-axis as he lands. The last point of contact to the peak is fairly even but then he stalls and drops suddenly. Was you also trying to say something about the body being to far forward in the landing?
   
   Nevertheless any feedback is better than none and I appreciate the two of you giving comments, cheers.
4. Nathan Green June 21, 2009 at 6:51 AM
   Raye this is fucking awesome. The motion blur is a nice touch. We are now rivals and we will battle at dawn.

Something to say?