RigTest (dynamics + smartbones) and/or Dancing Cheerleaders!

[ddrake]

I've been working on trying to standardize the styles of rigging with my most main characters, or at least find some kind of consistency. One of the things I think has been working effectively is using bone dynamics in combination with smart bones. Tonight I was just playing around with characters to see how those elements look.

Here's a clip testing the "gut bounce" of a larger character.



But since my highest clip view count to date has been the cheerleader dance, I figured I'd throw in a little more testing with one of the other cheerleaders. Mostly just to see how the hair is working and then a little bouncing at the end.



Basically, I'm looking to work on subtle ways to incorporate secondary movements of things that round movement out well, without anything looking ridiculous or overtly distracting. Not calling anyone out in particular, but to be blunt, I think at some point or another we've all seen some pretty extreme and bizarre AS boob motion from some of these threads.

[Danimal]

The jiggling of the belly and the boobs add a nice touch of realism, though they happen a bit too slowly, like it's zero gravity or something.

[ddrake]

...though they happen a bit too slowly, like it's zero gravity or something.

Yeah, I agree. I think the settings for hair sway are a little easier to get looking right. Trying to simulate malleable larger mass reacting to gravity is trickier. Although, I think part of the issue is that the speed of the animation itself isn't all that accurate to gravity either

Perhaps if the falls happened faster, and adjusting the damping more? I guess I'd rather it be more subtle but accurate, than eye catching but strange looking.

[dueyftw]

Change your timing. Push all those keys that are spread out on the time line together.

You have a four second jump. Bring it down to less than a second.

The cheerleaders is better, I would speed up the head turn in the first 5 seconds.

Dale

[lwaxana]

Looking good, especially the cheerleaders! I think the gut bounce could be quite a bit more pronounced without looking zany. It's hard to tell because it's so subtle... does it continue to go up when the character starts to go down? I think more drag on the stomach would give more illusion of a semi-independent mass.

[ruscular3d]

Cartoon mode is exaggeration in many of the movement. Does the road runner really run like he does when he is chase by Coyote??
Pushing your movement is just a way to make your rig work and when you have it working then you can dial back the effect at your discretion. First make the laws of physics work and then put in the brassiere support afterward, so to speak. Most actors are not afraid of going too far, hence the over actors, and the beauty of toon animation is that it's more acceptable to push your realistic human motion.

Just as you setup your face rigging you want a little more space for exaggeration in the lip poses. Otherwise it tend to look stiff and rigid. I teach Tai Chi and many time I stress in letting go and release your tension of reservation in movement in order to execute the motion and rhythm of the forms.

If you don't mention the name of the person that you are critiquing then I have no idea what you are referring to. No frame of reference of what you didn't like.

Full frontal boobies bounce is extremely a problem because you are talking about dynamics on both the x and y axis. I would wish for a new constraint bone that allows for dynamics on both axis. If you had a a chance on how I fake that effect with using 2 bones for each axis. If you have a better system, I am interested in hearing them.

[ddrake]

@ruscular3d

Yeah, I think I pretty much agree.

I'm consistently frustrated after the fact that I don't tend to push exaggeration with my style, and the only excuse I can offer is that I know it's a weakness, but a lot of what I'm sharing is test work and hopefully I can push further with future finished products.

The essential paraphrased lesson is not to try to animate something that looks like it was captured on camera, but to create something that cannot be captured on camera.

As far as critiquing the "boobies," I just meant that I was taking a different approach to finding a method I found effective but not distracting. I didn't name names because that's not necessarily everyone's approach to their animation, and sometimes one might be looking to animate bouncing breasts to the point of distraction for their own vision/purpose.

My attempt was in using smart bone actions in conjunction with dynamics so one can animate the extreme positions of a bounce of body mass and have a little more creative control as the shapes react to physics. My test here only uses a dynamic horizontal bone to alter shapes as the figure moves up and down, but depending on design I think a second smart bone influencing the lateral movement would work well with breasts and bellies alike. I have already tried using that technique for segments of hair, with good (albeit subtle) results

Unfortunately though, I don't have a better approach than using 2 bones with dynamics on both axes. This was mostly another test of incorporating smartbone animation into those fluxuation with bone dynamics.

[ruscular3d]

I had an idea , and then pretty much revert back to the same 2 bone spring for each axis. It was good to know that the spring and bounce setting were incrementally possible to the .1 at a time.

We need a x and Y lag constraint feature.