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An Archer Animation Proposal


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Yes, I think her draw is aimed at an enemy at medium or close distance. In the game maybe we can have 2 or 3 animations, for 2 or 3 distances? A long range archer animation would look a lot different than when shooting at a closer targets.

What makes you say that? all that would change is the angle. You bring to a full draw no matter the range.

also her bow arm is moving way too much, of course it is a WIP though...

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Second that LG fast way to repetitive strain injury only drawing half way ok with toy but with a real weapon no way,have good look at the real shooters always to full draw even exaggerating the style check out some formal Nihon archery or what some players of that art call Zen Archery for reference thinking the arrow into the target or as I factiously call Archery for Geeks,

Enjoy the Choice :)

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First thing I see is that the elbow is too high the action should parallel to the ground and is therefore much easier on the skelet/muscle system and a smoother motion. Have look at some over the Mongolian videos again watch the start of the draw notice that the bow is high and lowered as the arms separate with the bow arm straight forward the string arm naturally bends at the elbow parallel the ground with the wrist in a lock just below the jaw which places the string over the right eye so you can aim the darn thing ;) Hope that doesn't come across as sarcastic but it is as an instructor once hectored me with a long time ago.Try to set some key poses the work on the tweeners by adding some constraints been doing a bit of experimenting myself with makehuman/blender-cycles rendering just a lighting test so far will share when it's ready :)

Enjoy the Choice :)

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First thing I see is that the elbow is too high the action should parallel to the ground and is therefore much easier on the skelet/muscle system and a smoother motion. Have look at some over the Mongolian videos again watch the start of the draw notice that the bow is high and lowered as the arms separate with the bow arm straight forward the string arm naturally bends at the elbow parallel the ground with the wrist in a lock just below the jaw which places the string over the right eye so you can aim the darn thing ;) Hope that doesn't come across as sarcastic but it is as an instructor once hectored me with a long time ago.Try to set some key poses the work on the tweeners by adding some constraints been doing a bit of experimenting myself with makehuman/blender-cycles rendering just a lighting test so far will share when it's ready :)

Enjoy the Choice :)

I always had to make my elbow go that way when I was an archer. Also when shooting when no visor, I had to draw only to the eye... Plus I would like to know if greek archers shooted like mongols ^^ I'll make a new variation

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Second that LG fast way to repetitive strain injury only drawing half way ok with toy but with a real weapon no way,have good look at the real shooters always to full draw even exaggerating the style check out some formal Nihon archery or what some players of that art call Zen Archery for reference thinking the arrow into the target or as I factiously call Archery for Geeks,

Enjoy the Choice :)

It seems obvious that her draw is a quick draw for close enemies. But it is still a good animation.

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nice, still don't know about the his little bow as he takes out an arrow.

then again I usually shoot with a quiver on my hip

So do I. I figured out it would be easier to pick an arrow by bowing than being straight =)

I'll attach the anims if someone wants them. I made incremental saves so I have one for each video =)

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i think you should first get a nice looking stance with the armature/body. The firing animation should not have the unit moving from ready to attack. Should juyst be attack. Any transition between states should be handled in a different way not yet in the game. That's why i post video of the girl shooting bow. I like her confident strong stance (regardless if she is using a full draw or short draw).

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For the standard archer animation, I made an idle where the archer would have his arrow already drawn and resting on the bow ready to shoot (archer_ready). The firing animation would be just aiming and shooting, then picking a new arrow and rest it again in the bow to begin the loop again. I think this could look pretty good in the game and lower the starting animation frames so the arrow would be shot earlier in the animation loop.

The problem I see with Stan's animation is that now it is playing slow, and remember that we want the animation to loop and it will play much faster, which will make the non-smooth movements even less smooth.

This is a very nice example of a good draw-shoot animation: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19490&p=301834

It's short, loops nice and the pose is very natural.

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Check the last step he makes to return to original position. It's just too quick. If you manage to stop the video where he starts to make the step forward is less than 1/3rd of the timeline.

Don't try to work on a fast loop. Just try to balance the number of frames from start to the shooting, to resting again. start - shoot - back to start. The speed of the animation can be tweak later.

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Very robotic and harsh movements. Stan please, try your best with the animation until you can't see where it can be improved and then ask for feedback.

I'm sure you can see how harsh the movements are. There are plenty of tutorials about animating with curves and how to smooth between keyframes, start from there.

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Somehow smoothing the movement out is the keyword I think. The stance looks good (at least that is what I think)

Some read stuff:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Animation/Editors/Graph/FCurves

This books contains loads of info (and also with regards to animation) and explains very much:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Basic_Animation

And if it helps:

http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/animating-a-character-in-blender/

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Books/Essential_Blender/06.1.Character_Animation:_Hands_on

Edited by niektb
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