Yeh, it's definately not smooth. There are snippets of it that look quite good, but you'll definately need to correct the jerkiness. Animation isn't an exact art that we can say "enter these values and press ok" and it will look good, you really need to do some reading about the 12 principles of animation [Link to en.wikipedia.org] (this just outlines what they are, there are better guides out there) and if you can get your hands on it, try and get a book called "The Animators Survival Kit". It's also good to watch animated movies for reference, which is probably more fun. There's no real easy answer sorry to say, it just takes a bit of hard work.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

x2

I'll also note that there are some nice tools in the 3dsmax track editor to help paint in and simplify motion.

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what they said. also, the second kick pose is off balance. the characters body should be leaning back, weight on the back leg as he is kicking. if you tried that pose in real life you would topple over. Beyond that try and find videos of martial arts and use them for reference. dont copy them exactly but take note of where their weight is and how they move etc. you could also try and add some character. maybe make him cocky or sneaky as he tries to kick the other person or something.

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and it's a story that might bore you, but you don't have to listen, because I always knew it was going to be like that.

Sometimes observing yourself in a mirror is a big help. Practice goes a long way too.

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Chris

x2
And get your self a small mirror for your work station.

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We are talking about the same thing aren't we? HAHA

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Chris

Oh.. I thought you meant a big mirror... One he could do kungfu moves in front of.

edit:
yeah... same thing.

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I did mean a big Kung fu mirror. When you said "small mirror for your work station"
my mind just went to the gutter for a second, and I thought whaa? That's sick! What are you doing. Sorry I couldn't convey that in what I wrote.

ANYway, Ive seen Pixar folk with mirrors, it's a logical thing to do,....Observe what you want to create.

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Chris

Yes. Mirror good. Fire baad.

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Also, I know you have a project to complete but with anything like this the best way to understand it is to start out simple. just animate a sphere and figure out how to make it move smoothly around, One object with keyframes on it is alot easier to comprehend than a whole rig, especially a biped rig with its planted keys and IK FK blending etc..

do a bouncing ball succesfully. then move on to more complex things and they will work out alot better. Biped is a bitch of thing even for seasoned professionals so its gonna do your head in if you start out with it.

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I found that giving a simple object like a ball a personality through animation to be quite a good learning experience. It sounds a bit wierd but if you can get an inanimate object to seem like it has a personality, that's a really good start.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Oh man, Watch the short on the Wall-E DVD, Burn-E.

You basically have a box with two points of light for eyes. I watched that again and again. It is amazing how much emotion the animators got out of that.
I loved it!

Fire do burn.

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Chris

My revised edition
[Link to www.youtube.com]
The requirement the animation must establish aniticipation, follow through, ease, weight, timing, and secondary motion

Would you please tell me what you think? Thank you.

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Its looking a bit better, as gustave says its hard to give advice about animation its like trying to tell someone how to write a poem. but, i think what your missing from the point of the exercise is that all those principles are supposed to work together to describe an action in a readable way. Just one good kick would do it.

each action needs to have three parts:
the anticipation>the action itself>then the follow through. otherwise we cant tell whats going to happen and the action seems disjointed.
within this you need to break it down even further into smaller anticipations that are a bit exaggerated from real life . for example.

1. your guy is standing.
2. he leans forward a little.
3. over say 5 frames he lurches back raising his leg (focusing on the pose so it looks natural. good weight distribution, maybe slide the foot back)
4. another ten frames later he is still in the same pose but everything moves a small amount further in the same direction. (follow through)
5. Then theres another small lurch back over 5 or less frames.
6.then quickly into the kick pose.
7. a small amount of follow through then.
8. pulls his leg into his body leaning back.
9. then down to the standing pose again.

remember to move all the animated objects like hands, back, centre of mass etc. each time so nothing stops still on its own causing a jerky flow to the motion.
the exception to that is the feet which often need to be planted.

Not sure if that helps at all, Good luck with it though.

On the walle point I totally agree. I think pixar are just showing off these days. the actual movie of wall-e seemed like they said. hey lets see if we can pull off an emotional story with a box and a sphere, geniuses. man would I love to spend a few months learning from those dudes.

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x2
I'll add: start over.
Read what we wrote. If you don't understand one of our comments, just ask! We're all nice people!

Look at this Muay Thai 3d animation for you entertainment:
[Link to www.youtube.com]

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my revised edition:
I already added some small in between action for anticipation and follow through
[Link to www.youtube.com]

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I see improvement. But that side kick is way too weak. It has been since your fist render. If someone tried to kick me like that I might not even notice.

Some of your motions are WAY too fast. Spread those keys out.

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I can see some improvement too. Biped is seriously the worst place to start learning how to animate. It works so differently than other animation in max. I would highly recommend finding an alternative rig. I think 3d total has some pre rigged characters you could download and use instead of biped. or you could try cat. its alot better.

[Link to www.3dtotal.com]

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you really have to look at where the characters weight is in every pose. on the first kick the character is leaning back, weight on the back leg. he looks balanced he's compensating for the kick.

the second kick is still horribly unbalanced. as he kicks his body, his weight should move back above the leg that is planted on the ground to compensate for kicking his leg out.

i agree biped is horrible. probably the best rig i have used for max is this one [Link to www.3dluvr.com]

i'm sure theres more out there but this one works, its simple and it looks good.

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and it's a story that might bore you, but you don't have to listen, because I always knew it was going to be like that.

x2

I'll take it one step further. Leave bipedal animation for later.
Animate a cylinders as a character. In fact a good animator at siggraph presented an animation where cylinders were jumping around and doing very funny things.
Please consider that an option.

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i've seen many demo reels floating around with animated fruit boxes/ juice boxes. a lot of them get heaps of character into the animations. it would be a pretty simple rig too.

theres also a couple of flour sack rigs floating around. thats an old disney classic. you can get heaps of character out of them while maintaining volume with squash and stretch etc and again its such a simple character.

a ball with squash and stretch is good too, not only for the basic principles but if you can animated right you can make it appear cocky, confident, scared whatever.

man i'm really stressing character a lot here, maybe too much.

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and it's a story that might bore you, but you don't have to listen, because I always knew it was going to be like that.

It's fun stuff.
I had a bunch of cylinders storming a beach getting shot up. They had helmets and guns. There were large explosions and bullet holes followed by tracer rounds. It was a saving private Ryan rip off with cylinders. If I can find it, I'll be sure to post it.

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That's a nice rig.
Here is another nice set of rigs.
[Link to www.bauervision.com]
Scroll down to "family of rigs"
There is a man, woman, boy, girl, cat, dog, and a "thing" with morph targets.

This thread has really encouraged me to give character animation another shot.
In previous attempts I always gave up because I got little results from time spent.

There is a lot of good advice here, not the least of which is, "start over"
As you create frames scrub the slider. When you see the animation start doing something you don't like, don't be afraid to undo. Even if it means starting over.
Practice and patients!

Just a fellow beginner pointing out what has helped me so far.

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Chris

my revised version, I've just fix the unbalanced error
[Link to www.youtube.com]

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