Sit to Stand Exercise

Working on a little animation exercise right now.
Here is the first part!

Blocking No.1

I suggest making the poses more asymmetrical to make it feel more believable.
Here’s something you should check out, legendary Glen Keane animating

Thanks for sending me that link. Helped me a lot. Here’s some progress I managed to fit in today.

You’re welcome.
I like the overlap that you added on the neck and head. Here are a few things you could look at:

  1. Anticipation.

  2. Overlap and breaking up of joints.

  3. Symmetry.

  4. You could show him anticipating the move by adjusting his feet and getting them ready to carry the weight of the body. So one of the leg can move back in position and then he starts bending forward.
    like in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISumYiH-lm8
    You can even try it out yourself, unless you are really conscious about it, 9 out of 10 time you will move your feet first.

  5. Everything in you blocking starts to move together and comes to stop together, which if why it looks really rigid and unnatural. By overlap and breaking up of joints i mean things moving at different speeds. Think of the hips, torso and head as elements with separate weights attached together. Then depending on which body part you decide to lead with the rest follow. Majority of moves in our body originate from the hip, so when in doubt you can start with that.

  6. Symmetry: Your starting pose, end pose and a breakdown in the middle are the golden pose in this animation. So, if you cant work on your breakdowns to avoid symmetry. You should spend time on the golden poses and make sure their isnt a symmetry in your poses. It doesnt show weight in the character. Unless that is what you are specifically going for.
    A quick google search and i found this, which illustrates my point. Look at the hips and legs, i would tilt the shoulders and head in the opposite direction, upper body seems a bit off balance in this.


Hope it helps,
Cheers.

Here’s some more progress. I took in what you wrote and decided to animate the character in a tired/frustrated mood.My idea is he just sat down and now he has to get up again to do something.

Good stuff, and BlenderArien has given some good advice already. (The symetry was going to be my first comment.)

Your latest version is looking a lot better and I like that you’ve introduced some attitude.
However, now that he is looking tired and frustrated, the stand up seems to be too quick. When his body pops forward at around fr20, there seems to have been no anticipation leading into it, and he seems to move too fast for his mood.

A similar thing is happening at the end, where there is a lack of ease in, overshoot and settle. Don’t be afraid to add these things in your blocking; it makes the later polish pass go a lot quicker.

Good stuff Nathan, keep it up!

Am loving every piece of advice in this thread…the latest version is looking great…though i think its too fast too…
Keep it up!!

Thanks guys for the critiquing. It did look like it was a bit too fast. I added anticipation at the start and then him standing up slower than before.

EDIT: I just noticed that fr117 onwards his feet are moving a bit weirdly. I’ll fix that for next time.

I’m up to the splining stage now.
The animation to me feels like it’s floating too much. Gonna work on it more tomorrow.
Any tips??

Hey Nathan,
Apologies for the lack of reply. I got a bit busy with work and couldn’t do this test. Did this in the morning to elaborate on the point i was talking about. Ignore the penetration, i would concentration on that at a separate pass.

Splining is a lot of fun if you have a blocking and anim pass tied down and you are adding garnishing on top of your animation. Like a move that could be fast here or a slower there or a jitter or an interesting arc.
On the overall animation, i would suggest,
Remove the first sigh or give it more time. The sigh to that fast head movement feels unmotivated. I see you have just splined that part. So, i am going to talk about the first part alone. Think about why floating happens. Its a lot to do with the spacing of your body parts. Things like shoulders, elbows, knee, toe, fingers all of them need to have proper eases which would give it a sens of weight.

What is your aim with this test and how much time do you want to spend on it?

Cheers,

Hey.
Sorry for the late reply. I just finished my second splining pass. I took into account what you were saying and hopefully it shows.
I am feeling like I am so close to finishing this animation.
Should be just a few adjustments left I think.

My aim is to animate a tired and frustrated character that looks believable (I don’t know how else to explain). This should be the last week that I’ll be working on it.
Thanks for the help btw!

Super cool! I see lots of improvements. The feel is there now.

Small suggestions to try :

  1. Let the shoulder move up a frame or two before the neck n head starts bending. Also, have a single frame difference between the two shoulders. Same while coming down.
  2. Give the head looking motion (around the 3 sec mark) 2-3frames at the begining and 5-6 frames at the end settle.
  3. Add just a small movement, nothing that catches the eye, to the hips like a slight up or shifting on the chair. Also to the knee of one of the leg or the heel of one of the leg for the first sigh.
  4. Check how the heel rotation comes to a STOP around the 4 sec mark. Ease into that. ALL THE MOVEMENT COME TO A STOP AT THAT FRAME. Have them ease in. And offset them by single frames.
  5. Clean the arc of the head, their is a pop in the rotation when it is coming down around 6th sec. Also, both the feet are moving/rotating the same amount in the same no of frames. Have a difference of a few frames. Increase decrease the amount as well.
  6. Also the shoulders would be up and out as they are supporting a lot of weight (around 5-6th sec mark).
  7. Everything comes to an abrupt stop at the end! Offset them. let the arms have a swing and then come to settle. The hips can overshoot and then come to settle. All these can be done in the graph editor by tweaking the curves a bit.

Looks really cool. Good job.

Cheers.

Took in all of your suggestions and I am amazed at how much difference it makes. Thanks BlenderArien for the help. Anymore suggestions? If not I think I shall call it finished :slight_smile: I’ll wait till tomorrow to start rendering it just in case you have anything else to suggest.

Great! Nicely done.
There’s always room from improvement, Nathan. I think you can call this done and start something fresh. In a while, you will see things in this, you don’t like yourself.
Having said that, I would change how the hip comes to a stop at the very end. I would add around 3-4 frames of easing in and then a 10-15 frame super minute motion. Minute stuff, just to make sure that end doesn’t feel like a POP. Other than that, lets render this out.

Cheers. Happy animating.

Yeah I totally agree. I’ll fix that last bit and then render it out tomorrow. Thanks

Almost finished. Here’s the final draft. Keep an eye out for the final animation coming soon.

Here is the absolute Final animation. No more changes for this one.

And here is the progression.