Lunar Archivist's Modeling Thread :)

[Lunar Archivist]

The walk/run cycles aren't too bad, if a bit 'robotic' - even taking the character into account you can look at any of Mega Man's cycles in his games and there's a lot more hip/spine motion going on there, especially his big sprites in Marvel Vs. Capcom:



Granted these are drawings that aren't conerned with his giant wrists existing in 3D space.

I don't use biped rigs any more (Digital Tutors have a great series on character rigging in Max) but his feet appear to have some IK issues with wobbling as his feet slide across the floor there. The arcs on his limbs and center of mass are on the right track though, maybe his neck could do with being angled ever so slightly more forward.

His wrist appears really weird during the pitching motion like it's just kind of juddering about without travelling on smooth arc (trying keeping the elbow straight as the arm swings forward). That pitch all seems a little weightless - the windup is kind of half-hearted and then he very slowly tosses the ball in a jittery stop-start motion as he steps foward (the IK solver on that foot appears to be wobbling a tiny bit too here) before coming to a sudden halt halfway through balancing himself.

I really recommend reading up on the 12 principles of animation, especially squashing and stretching and exaggeration for a character like that, as well as anticipation and ease in-ease out.

Thanks for the feedback. Comments on your comments:

1. I was only able to take the hip and spine motions so far because I wanted to minimize clipping and bizarre deformations. The Kotobukiya plastic model kits this was based on can't even assume many of the extreme positions this 3D model was forced to. I'm going to have to go back and reweight the thigh and hip areas and rerender this again sometime.

2. The IK issue was something that I was aware of, but, before you gave it a definitive name, I couldn't figure out how to google the problem so I fix it. I'll have a closer look at it for the next demo reel.

3. The pitch has fewer issues now that it previously did. I'll try and incorporate some of the changes you mentioned, but, to be honest, I used quite a few real-life references while doing this and none of them had a straight arm while the arm swings forward. The wrist looks odd because it continues moving backwards when the arm stops moving, something which is also seen in real life. I noticed this as well, but I was doing my best to mimic what I was observing.