I heard your requests for an example review to be posted to the blog.
Below, is a review I completed for a submission to my $50 review post.
No need to reveal who the animator is.
This is just to illustrate what a basic review would entail.
Below, is a review I completed for a submission to my $50 review post.
No need to reveal who the animator is.
This is just to illustrate what a basic review would entail.
General Notes:
The run looks like a puppy and pretty cartoony.
If that is what you are after then great!
It's very cute and bouncy and makes the hippo/dino feel like a baby.
But, you wanted a more realistic hippo run with weight, below are my suggestions.
Before you ever animate a creature or character ask yourself these questions:
Is the creature/character a king or a minion?
Is the creature/character young or old?
Is the creature/character very large like a giant robot or smaller like a mosquito?
Then, download a realistic reference, even if you are going after a cartoony performance.
All exaggerated motion is rooted in reality.
Think about when a boxer is hit in the face.
The body creates the most distorted shapes when pushed to it's limits.
This only happens for less than a split second, so you feel the weight of that impact and would never see that distortion unless you have the still photo.
Notes on improving the mechanics of motion:
The BBC Motion Gallery is the best place to start to find great reference footage.
I found this hippo run as a reference for you.
I found this hippo run as a reference for you.
You can see that the run cycle has at least two feet on the ground almost all of the time. Your cycle moves more like a bunny hop with the back feet working like rear wheel drive. This is a choice, but the choice makes the creature feel more light and cute than a hippo/dino creature. This is tough because the creature design has much longer legs in the back than the front.
You can choose to bring the hips down lower to compensate for the front, or you can choose to make it run like a t-rex/kangaroo with the front paws completely up in the air. Since you are already working a quad run, I would try to mimic the hippo in the reference and keep the hind legs compressed. You will have to rotate the hips up to compensate for this lower translate on the rear.
If you want the creature to move more realistically and have more weight, I would create a run closer to the one in this video were the feet are offset instead of doing the bunny hop moving together.
I am glad you were able to send me the maya file.
This helps me see the motion from all angles.
This is probably just personal preference, but I hate IK spines or automatic spines of any kind.
Torque through the spine of a creature is critical to describing weight.
In my world as an animator I want full control of the everything the character does.
I dislike rigs that tell me what is going to happen by countering a pose I make on the tip of the spine or vice versus.
I playblasted the cycle from the side with only joints turned on.
The controls on this spine, keep the center of his back really tight and it's not absorbing the torque this run would generate. So, all of the motion that should be happening in the back is happening at the head making his head flop around like a rag doll.
Since you are stuck with this rig, I would try my best to get the bouncing action to happen in the back/shoulders and not the head.
I made a few minor changes to the motion in Maya on your curves, just by scaling and sliding their timing and already got more torque happening in the spine instead of the neck and head. Below, is a quick playblast after I adjust the waves of weight that move through the shoulders through the spine and down the tail. Watch the cross control above his shoulders to see how the spine has a lot more rot in it, yet the head is absorbing this rotation and not bouncing as much. I worked on the tail a bit more too, but this is to work with the cute bouncy cycle you have created. Once you create a run cycle closer to the reference the tail should be more for balance than secondary kind of action.
A great way to work out a tail action is to get acetate and put it in your screen. Then draw a dot for the hips translate keys. After your have a dot representing the up and down the hip trans as your creature moves through space, connect the dots. That path is the same path the tail should be following.
The best thing you can do is look at that reference from BBC. The bull hippo in that reference is definitely moving with front wheel drive propelling him forward as the hind legs try to keep up. Use the shoulders more and offset their motion from the rest of the body. This bull moves more like a grown dog than a puppy.
Once you get the right run cycle going on the feet and all of the weight shifts happening in the spine, you can add details like splayed and gripped toes as he pushes off the ground.
Great work! I can't wait to see the next pass!
I made a few minor changes to the motion in Maya on your curves, just by scaling and sliding their timing and already got more torque happening in the spine instead of the neck and head. Below, is a quick playblast after I adjust the waves of weight that move through the shoulders through the spine and down the tail. Watch the cross control above his shoulders to see how the spine has a lot more rot in it, yet the head is absorbing this rotation and not bouncing as much. I worked on the tail a bit more too, but this is to work with the cute bouncy cycle you have created. Once you create a run cycle closer to the reference the tail should be more for balance than secondary kind of action.
A great way to work out a tail action is to get acetate and put it in your screen. Then draw a dot for the hips translate keys. After your have a dot representing the up and down the hip trans as your creature moves through space, connect the dots. That path is the same path the tail should be following.
The best thing you can do is look at that reference from BBC. The bull hippo in that reference is definitely moving with front wheel drive propelling him forward as the hind legs try to keep up. Use the shoulders more and offset their motion from the rest of the body. This bull moves more like a grown dog than a puppy.
Once you get the right run cycle going on the feet and all of the weight shifts happening in the spine, you can add details like splayed and gripped toes as he pushes off the ground.
Great work! I can't wait to see the next pass!