Wolf Animation

I've noticed on pass 3, that the head looks a little like he's head-bangin' as his head returns from the sharp dipping motion. The second pass I think looked a lot nicer and fluid, since he tips his head back slightly as it dips rather than doing the head-banger stare.

It looks freaking awesome though. Like, if the purpose wasn't to over-analyse it... you could easily get away with using that as a final product.

~Sol

I've noticed on pass 3, that the head looks a little like he's head-bangin' as his head returns from the sharp dipping motion. The second pass I think looked a lot nicer and fluid, since he tips his head back slightly as it dips rather than doing the head-banger stare.

It looks freaking awesome though. Like, if the purpose wasn't to over-analyse it... you could easily get away with using that as a final product.

~Sol

Rhythm is good <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

But you're right, it could use some smoothing out. I'll address this as well. And thanks for the compliments! I want this animation to be as close to perfect as possible, simply because it will be the most common one you see. For the others... I doubt I'll be over analyzing quite as much <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Out of curiosity, how are you animating this? I presume hand drawing "body parts" then hinging them with bones in Anime Studio, or something? The result is far better than anything I ever achieved in AS.

I usually resort to manual frame placement in Photoshop, and baking the frames in. Even then, I've had limited success though mind you, I have only animated like 3 things ever xD I think my third attempt was 500x better than my second, which was 1000x better than my first...

You are making me feel like doing some animation :/

~Sol

Out of curiosity, how are you animating this?

I'm using Photoshop for the most part. So each frame is just one layer, rather than a body and four separate legs for a total of 5 layers. Originally I intended to build it up that way, and animate the legs in Anime Studio, but from the limited experience I have with animating trees I learned that raster images don't bend well with bone animation. Since I want this one looking the best it can, I decided to paint each main frame separately, and then tweak them in Anime Studio so they blend well.

4th pass is done, and my head is hurting now from working on this and nothing else <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/GIF-4.gif" border="0" />

The legs should now look a lot smoother as they hit the ground, but the front left leg seems to kick or spasm when it's in the air, so I'll have to fix that. Smoothed out the head so he doesn't seem to be rocking out <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />, and edited the tail a teeny bit. Also brought the rear end down a touch, but it may still need to be lower.

Going to take a break from this run animation for a day or two, since it was driving me crazy today. I'm not sure if I've made it worse with this update! So as usual I'd love to hear your critique, but I'll let it all settle in for a day or two before putting your awesome feedback into effect.

Many thanks <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/Wolf-GIF-1.gif" border="0" />

Fifth pass. Hopefully, that's it until I know exactly how I want him to look (head needs a lot more work) and I know exactly how the engine will work physics-wise. Then I can fine tune the animation's speed and frames. That tail seems to hang a bit at the top, and the hind legs need smoothing out as they draw into the body, but otherwise I think I'm pretty much there.

Anyone think I've missed something? I've brought his rear end down a lot more now, on Lucid's recommendation, and the head shows a lot of movement now - hopefully without too much of a head-banging look <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />. I've also re-worked the front legs so they don't seem to kick out or spasm in mid-air (see fourth pass for comparison). Other than adding in more frames to smooth it out, I'm not if anything else needs altering.

Many thanks for all the help on this one. Your feedback has been really insightful, and I've learned a lot from it. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Wow Silver, that's looking rather kick-ass now... very fluid and it seems to move well, to me at least.

Keep it up! :D

~Sol