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Most effective layer to animate horse walking/running?

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2015 9:54 pm
by Hartknocks
So i've looked at tutorials for it, but is it possible to do it with bone rigs? I started trying with that but it didn't turn out so well. Or should I make the frames of the horses legs and use switch layers, or frame by frame?

Re: Most effective layer to animate horse walking/running?

Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 1:56 am
by Víctor Paredes
I don't have a tutorial at hand, but you should check the Animator's survival kit by Richard Williams.
Also, here's an interesting old thread about horses:
viewtopic.php?t=11208

Re: Most effective layer to animate horse walking/running?

Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 2:07 am
by funksmaname
you can do it with bones, probably easiest... get a good reference of the key positions like
Image
then create a bone rig and put them in the positions of the image (move the image for each reference)

Re: Most effective layer to animate horse walking/running?

Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:46 pm
by Hartknocks
Víctor Paredes wrote:I don't have a tutorial at hand, but you should check the Animator's survival kit by Richard Williams.
Also, here's an interesting old thread about horses:
viewtopic.php?t=11208
Cool, thanks for this. I planned on looking all this stuff up, but before I started I just wanted to figure out which way to start doing it, seems like a bone rig is the way to go.

Re: Most effective layer to animate horse walking/running?

Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:47 pm
by Hartknocks
funksmaname wrote:you can do it with bones, probably easiest... get a good reference of the key positions like
then create a bone rig and put them in the positions of the image (move the image for each reference)
Sometimes I forget I can bring an image in AS and then just use the frames as reference. Apparently I like to try to reinvent the wheel!
Thanks!

Re: Most effective layer to animate horse walking/running?

Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 5:00 pm
by Víctor Paredes
Instead of tracing the image frame by frame, I recommend you to check which are the important keys of the movement and trace them at first (or use them as reference), because, if you trace the movement frame by frame, you probably will get a very shaky unnatural movement.
Once you identify and use the main keys as reference, go for the in-betweens, but always prioritizing how well your animation is working, rather than how similar the individual poses are compared to the reference. Probably there will be poses you will discard, in order to get a smooth movement.
Timing is very important and that can't be read on image references. Even if you are using a video as reference, your animation timing can be different, because your character is different and lives in a different world.

Re: Most effective layer to animate horse walking/running?

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 1:10 am
by Hartknocks
Víctor Paredes wrote:Instead of tracing the image frame by frame, I recommend you to check which are the important keys of the movement and trace them at first (or use them as reference), because, if you trace the movement frame by frame, you probably will get a very shaky unnatural movement.
Once you identify and use the main keys as reference, go for the in-betweens, but always prioritizing how well your animation is working, rather than how similar the individual poses are compared to the reference. Probably there will be poses you will discard, in order to get a smooth movement.
Timing is very important and that can't be read on image references. Even if you are using a video as reference, your animation timing can be different, because your character is different and lives in a different world.
I'll keep that in mind, thanks!