Quick test animation

[Poptoogi]

What's up y'all! It has been too long but I'm getting back into the swing of things and working in AS again! I made this test animation with a character based on myself but I used some Robert Downey Jr. lines from "Tropic Thunder" because, well....why not? It's a great movie! I'm revamping my character creator and starting this off as the base model now. A little more organic and cartoony than the last version. It's really just a test for movement, target bones and seeing if I can still lip sync. Did some background artwork in illustrator as well (can't see the whole layout in this shot) and I'm hoping to create a large collection of cartoon objects and backgrounds. But yeah, thats it. AS still rocks the cassaba!

[Danimal]

Looks very nice. Great movement in the arms and the bends look perfect. Is this smartbones? Layers? What's your technique?

[sbtamu]

Looks great. About the only thing I can suggest is the furniture looks like they are being viewed from an elevated POV but the character is being viewed from eye level.

[Poptoogi]

Looks very nice. Great movement in the arms and the bends look perfect. Is this smartbones? Layers? What's your technique?

Thanks Daminal! The arms, legs and body have smart bone movements assigned to them and the hands and mouths are switch layers. The feet are locked with independent angle and target bones so I can grab the waist and make subtle movements without a lot of work. The way I work is to first, do the lip sync all the way through because it is the most time consuming. Then I go back and do all the facial animation, creating the small gestures that, to me, make the character come to life I think. Paying real close attention to the audio clip to and thinking about how my face would look if I said those words. And last, I do the body and limb movement with that same thought in mind. This process is easier for me because only one task is focused at a time making it much, much easier to come together as a whole. I don't want to think about hand positions at the same time I'm lip syncing and what not. Here is a picture to show you the breakdown of the character. All of the highlighted layers are switch layers. Some of them are only switch layers because I'm using this as character as a character generator in which you can make hundreds of characters from one file. Different accessories, colors blah blah blah. Its and update of my first character generator that I had stalled out on because it looked too stiff this one is a lot better artistic wise. If you'd like to see how that works just check out my old video on the character builder!

[lwaxana]

Looks great. About the only thing I can suggest is the furniture looks like they are being viewed from an elevated POV but the character is being viewed from eye level.

I know you're focusing more on character stuff with this test, but I love the way the couch and chair look stylistically consistent with and complement the character. They just need some tweaking to look convincing for their position relative to the camera. Anyway, I think the new character style looks great, and interested to see how you've adjusted your character creator for the new style!

[Danimal]

Cool video - thanks for posting! Really involved character creator!

[Poptoogi]

Another test with the same character model. Smart bone movements haven't added to the shorts so they're aren't moving properly but this was a test to see how if I could make a slow motion movement at the beginning and also animate the arms while the rest of the character is in a jumping loop. Target bones were used to anchor the feet.

[Poptoogi]

So I've been working on a new character creator and I wanted to show you guys what some of the variations look like. As you can see I've only got a few clothing options for shoes, tops and bottoms but the amount of hair styles and accessories is pretty large. This is a small example of of types of characters that can be made with the version I've made so far. I'm hoping to make at least 20 different assets for to each switch layer giving this version hundreds if not thousands of combinations of characters. The reason I'm making this is really to be able to create animations with the ability to drastically change the appearance with little or no work after the fact. I'm just posting progress on the forum so I can remind myself to keep at it and get it finished!!! Even with the limited amount of clothing, you can see I can already make some pretty nice combinations! As always thoughts and suggestions are welcome!!!!!

[lwaxana]

Those characters look awesome! I love how clean everything looks and the way the line colors are coordinated with the fill colors.

[neeters_guy]

Looks ready for prime time. You must start a web series immediately!