Full body view--pros and cons

[human]

When your character has a rubbery cone for a body and pipe-cleaners for legs, I'm sure the audience is more willing to suspend its disbelief.

However, in the context of a solo newbie trying to animate a realistic character, it's been my experience that opening up the camera view to include the full body length increases the difficulty dramatically. (I remarked on this concerning the rotoscoped cowboys).

This would provide plenty of incentive for framing the composition at higher than knee-height. And that's obviously a very common practice.

So my first question is: is the problem of full-body animation so much taken for granted that people don't remark on it?

My next question is: is it also true that opening up the view to a medium-shot/full-body composition is important for breaking the monotony and claustrophobia of a camera that's always in tight?

Should the additional body language of a full-body walk be viewed as a justification for going to all the extra work?

After all, I feel that if I just chucked it and restricted my efforts to a more tightly-framed shot, I could actually make some progress with this!

On the other hand, here's four key poses I have laboriously worked out for a full-body walk:



Wisdom would be welcome on this (including feedback on the poses).

[Genete]

Without the intention of make any bad critic to your great effort on making an animated character like that (complex one) I only wanted to say to you that I fell his is a little ... short. I prefer that kind of character to be taller. If you go to realistic drawings the proportions are very important from my point of view. Also maintain them during animation is also a very important thing.

Why don't you try to do better a full body set of poses with a more simple character (less detailed like rplate's ones) and when you're happy with the poses and the proportions go for the complex one?.

Regarding to the film makers concepts I'm not able to give you any advise.
Good luck.
Genete

[Dr. Nick]

Yeah ~~ full body animation for humanoids is hard! There are very many degrees of freedom to contend with ~~ especially with a character as detailed and complex as yours.

Now as to your question; "is it all worth it"? Well ~~ I can't tell you anything as an expert (obviously ~~ I'm not!) But as a consumer I can tell you that I would find animation limited to head shots and upper-body busts would get very boring very quickly. The larger picture question is what are you trying to convey? How important is it to your overall story/picture to show the full character? Example, if you're telling the story of Marianella ~~ then you need a few scenes showing her crippled walk to convey part of the the suffering she has to endure... That's the problem with animation. The end result is more than just a single sketch which is why I'm learning fast that it's really hard to produce good animation as a solo effort (though it certainly has been acheived and by many members of this forum)!

Finally with regard to your key poses ~~ It's really hard to comment on them without seeing how they translate into the animation. I mean, if you haven't already tried to work with them in a timeline, it seems like you're gonna find issues with they way the vector graphics morph between the keys. Are you adding and subtracting points between keys? how does that work?...

[Mikdog]

When your character has a rubbery cone for a body and pipe-cleaners for legs, I'm sure the audience is more willing to suspend its disbelief.

What's that?

[human]

it seems like you're gonna find issues with they way the vector graphics morph between the keys. Are you adding and subtracting points between keys? how does that work?...

No, currently I'm using vectors (Illustrator) to define key poses, which--as you see here--appear in bitmap format.

I'm not planning on using vectors to generate the animation, but rather pixel-based morphing.

I think there's too much "stuff" here to be animated with Anime Studio, even if I were more experienced with it.

[human]

I only wanted to say to you that I fell his is a little ... short. I prefer that kind of character to be taller... Also maintain them during animation is also a very important thing.

The character is almost 8 heads tall--which qualifies as "heroic proportions" even by modern standards (and modern standards are pretty demanding--a point which I return to.) See here:



Have our expectations have been distorted by the exaggerations of pop culture/comix?

[human]

Aha.

On the first three models, the arms are too short!

It's a big deal.

Genete, does that help explain what you were picking up on?

[Genete]

Yeah! The overall body proportions are OK according to Leonardo's Vitruvian Man but I still feeling that the arms are short as well as the hands.
I don't know exactly the reason. Maybe the pose. It seems that the camera is below his hips and it makes the framing from bottom to top... I don't know ... Image number three (from the left) is the worst (from my honest point of view).

Please human. It is a positive critic. I fully admire your art work and I know you will admit those positive comments to your drawings.
I haven't good drawings skills but as a human I have my brain adapted to see human figures (repeating "human" too much seems that I'm making a joke with your nick name ) during all my life (like everyone) and recognize non proportional figures.

I hope it could help you with your project. Sorry if my comments hurt you.

Best
Genete

[human]

Sorry if my comments hurt you.

It's understandable you would see my comments that way, but my frustrations were not directed at you but rather exactly as I wrote: namely, I think people in general prefer more exaggeration in the stature of their heroes than is in good taste.

Pop art teaches us to expect arms and legs that are too long, waists that are too narrow, and chests that are too short and barrel-shaped. This is supposed to be athletic, but I find it the opposite.

Having said all that, you were correct when you tried to help me. The 3D iClone model I was working from was defective, for complicated reasons I won't go into. I had corrected the leg length by the time you saw these models, but I had yet to realize that the arms were so far off.

Thanks for the feedback--it definitely did not hurt my feelings.

[slowtiger]

Maybe you tackle this problem in a too academic way?

Don't depend on any "wisdom" written down. The proportions of a human body are highly individual. You should design your character exactly the way you feel it's right. If you think the arms are too short, make them longer.

Of course there is a habit in cheap animation series for TV to not move the characters at all, if possible, and to avoid anything which causes technical problems or is too time-consuming. This is one reason why the kind of shot europeans call "american" is so common: it shows the characters from the knees up, thus avoiding all problems with contact of feet to ground or with walking.

You shouldn't plan from that point of view. I recommend that you draw a complete storyboard of your film and use shots exactly the way the story needs to be told. Only then you can start and design your character according to that storyboard.

[toonertime]

I assume this is Walt Whitman you are animating?

Anyway, an observation is that his long coat is making
his legs look shorter.

One of my favorite Whitman poems is The Spider.

[human]

One of my favorite Whitman poems is The Spider.

Tooner, I discovered that Walt based this poem on a previous poem by a Quaker bachelor poet in England named Bernard Barton.

I've showed that Barton's poem is, in turn, a re-telling of Sir Walter Scott's story about King Bruce and the spider.

"Noiseless Patient Spider" is a marvelous poem and much-loved. People often think of it as a premonition of the Internet.

It also has the focus and brevity to lend itself to animation.

That's not the poem I'll be using, though. Would you like the secret source of the script for my project?

[toonertime]

Interesting background on the Spider. All poets
are pirates and plagarists.

What secret script would you be referring to?

[human]

What secret script would you be referring to?

Perhaps I exaggerate. When I say "secret," all I really mean is that I haven't discussed with anyone the story I'm trying to animate. No big deal, really.

But it's interesting to think that the following few lines could constitute a rather dramatic script:

/////////

As nearing departure,
As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.

I shall go forth,
I shall traverse the States—but I cannot tell whither or
how long;
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my
voice will suddenly cease.

O book and chant! must all then amount to but this!
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of me? . . .
And yet it is enough, O soul!
O soul! we have positively appeared—that is enough.