Topic: Achieving Lifelike Animation
Hello. I'm pretty sure if you clicked this thread you are looking to find out how to make your animation look more real. Because my post in the Resources section has not been reviewed for about 2 months, I decided to make a topic on this. Here are some tips:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, getting good looking lifelike animation is an art; kinda like getting a painting to look lifelike. The more you animate, the better it'll look (hopefully) There's no magic formula, but here's some tips that I've learned over the years:
Ease in and ease out. That means that when something is moving, it starts out slow, gets faster then slows down again. The only exception is when something runs into something else, then it can stop suddenly.
Avoid jitter. Jitter is basically when you accidentally bump the minifig when you're trying to move it's arm or head or something and you try correct it in the next frame. GET RID OF THAT! If you accidentally bump the minifig, do your best to put it back where it was with the onion skin. Then, in the next few frames, continue that same motion but ease it out.
Play stuff back all the time. Whenever, I capture a new frame, I play back the animation from the beginning to see if it all looks good and flows well. sometimes, I'll go a few frames before playing the animation back, but i'm constantly playing it back. If it doesn't look good, throw it away.
PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE Take a look at my earlier films... Everyone gets better over time as they practice more and more.
-Stan the Lego Man
In addition to easing in and out, you also need anticipation, bounceback, and inertia.
Anticipation is when a minifig is going to raise his arm, he moves his arm back a little bit before he brings it forward. The more forceful the movement he is about to take, the more anticipation is needed.
Bounceback is when after the minifig raises his arm, he puts it down and the arm swings back and forth. It's basically the opposite of anticipation. Again, the more force in the movement, the more bounceback.
Inertia is when the minifig's arm is raised, the body moves back a little. Other parts of the minifig are following the primary movement. This is also known as secondary movement. Moving the arms while walking is another example of this.
-minifig051
