Blocking in a horse run. Have done a fair bit of work on the legs, but the poses aren't reading too strong on the back legs so I have to fix those. Apologies for the crappy quality, just starting out with maya and haven't got the hang of playblasts at all yet, had to run this through Premier. It also runs a little fast after premier (f***ing hate that program)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1637572/Horse%20W.I.P%2001.mov

(best use quicktime for this, you can scrub; hit CTRL+L to loop ;) )

Crits welcome.

Biggest problems atm are that the legs aren't quite there in terms of spacing and co-ordination/body mechanics, and that the spine isn't doing anything (I assume you simply haven't started the spine yet).

I would recommend trying not to do this animation in 'parts'. I get the impression you're tying to nail the legs before moving onto rest of the body, but it's all connected. When you start trying to animate the spine it's going to effect the legs, neck etc

Easiest way is to open up the playblast in Quick Time pro or After Effect (maybe works in premier too) and export in h.264 quicktime movie. It does the job quick and easy.

Cheers I'll address all those issues.

How do I open a playblast in quicktime pro? Everytime I save it, it saves out as individual images...

Playblasts...way easier in Maya 2011. Almost finished with this.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1637572/horse.mov

Looks good but please use views from the side as well when you want criticism. Also use more loops than just one. You can set the post and pre infinity on the animated parts to cycle and then just increase the length of the sequence(maya).
I feel that the front legs' clavicle(shoulder?) as well as the upper thigh should be more animated(or maybe it's just the skinning). Right now it looks pretty stiff in those parts.
What references did you use?

Edit: I was gonna look up some refs for a horse run cycle and found out that your animation actually looked according to the reference sheet :S
It still however doesn't look as dynamic as I would have made it. You should exaggerate the pose of the legs more, especially the front legs when they are in the furthest away position from the body if you understand what I mean.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/4/4a/20061016205922!Muybridge_race_horse_gallop.jpg

I second what Goraaz said, it'd be much easier to critique if it had a few loops.. maybe make it like 4 or 5 seconds.. its a nice start though for sure.

Your wish is my command:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1637572/pc_horse_03.mov

I see some issues with the back legs now...why is it they only present themselves when you've uploaded a playblast? lol gonna fix that.

Cool.. its got some very nice movement to it. The first thing I would say is that the head seems to be going in a very forward backward motion, but not too much vertical motion, try working in some more bend in your neck bone(the first one, or possibly the second) for some more natural head motion, and add it on the followthrough when the head is coming back up to get that nice arcing motion.

The front legs look really solid but agreed the back ones need some work. (I think but could be wrong - that the back legs could benefit from more of a bend in the lower back after they drive off the ground.)

Lastly I would say get that tail moving.. some motion in there will add to it 100 fold.

looks a lot better from where it started. good job.

Good, much easier to watch now. From what I can tell by your latest playblast is that you seem to have animated the legs and head/neck but not as much the rest of the body. There is hardly any up and down movement on the body which makes the horse look a bit weightless. Both the front legs and the back legs' root joints should move up and down. But I think the biggest problem here is the different poses you have throughout the sequence. They don't look natural enough and the front legs almost move in a cartoony fashion, I'm guessing that's not what you're aiming for. Check the picture I linked in my previous post. You should start by following it exactly image by image and then alter it so that the flow will look better.
Also the skinning of your mesh isn't quite right either, you have to have the whole thigh follow the thigh bones(it reaches up to the butt almost on the backlegs for instance).

I think the model looks great though and I'm sure the end result of the animation will look great! Your sense of timing is good and I have no crits there. Keep up the good work!

Cheers. The model is not mine and unfortunately I don't know much about Maya apart from animation so I think skinning probs are gonna have to stay like that I'm afraid. I'll fix the other stuff though. New playblast sometime tommorow

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1637572/push_01.mov

Light push, starting it again though, cause its shit.

The wall looks almost totally weightless. You should have the character struggle a little bit before managing to push it forward(even thought it's a light push).

Oh I binned that, gonna start again completely Didn't really look so hot.

Early days on this run...still have to start on actual timing, and it's very robotic because everything is pretty much only rotating on the Y axis for now...

You Tube

Gonna call this done unless anyone has anything to add

You Tube

My rotation gizmo in Maya is mis-behaving...the axes aren't staying where they should, they are moving and are diverging so I can't select them, and even if I could, they would rotate at all sort of weird angles. I am using the Moom Rig at the moment. Anyone know how I can fix this? Also, how do I get the gizmo to rotate under local rotation instead of world?

Thanks in Advance.

Gimbal lock, suck balls.
Try select your curves in the graph editor and go under > curves > euler filter

Check this out if it's not working. (or check it out anyway)
http://keithlango.com/tutorials/Gimbal_Solving.mov


To open the tool settings, choose rotation mode, click the middle button of the three buttons in the upper right corner. Local should be the standard setting.

yep euler filter is good for gimbal lock, also remember to zero out your poses when blocking in, it'll help 90 percent of the time to avoid gimbal lock.

Originally Posted by Blenderhead

My rotation gizmo in Maya is mis-behaving

It's not gimbal lock, the problem is with the actual gizmo...



See? The red axis is missing altogether in this one...but on other limbs, the axis will have moved closer to another axis, making it look like a spherical pie chart or something Anyone come across this before?

Also, the scene file for this animation was bloody massive, so in the viewports I'm having clippin problems. Anyone know how I can extend the boundaries there?

Anyone?

don´t animate in gimbal-rotioan mode.
Also change the roation order at the transform-node to YZX or ZXY

Originally Posted by Blenderhead

Gonna call this done unless anyone has anything to add

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg4Rr3w3pGo

Your hips are complete stil. The hip is rotating in the direction the leg goes, so at the contact-pose witht the left leg in front it rotates in this direction on Y (Y= maya, i mean horizaontal, you you know what i mean)

Hey regarding the run, there's a lot of stuff to say but honestly the easiest thing is to say this:

Aquire the animators survival kit by Richard Williams, find the page where theres a run cycle drawn from the side. read that section and trace that cycle in 3d, play through that exact cycle and work out why it looks great.

Also, open up some decompiled game animation from Valve. Assuming you don't know how to do this, PM me and I will send you files. Go through their runs and walks frame by frame and work out what's happening.

Hi Dude, how do I fix those things you said? Kinda new to Maya.
(and yeah, hips are hella mobile now. Worked on it lots since that upload . Cheers! )

dunno if maya has got it, but using quaternions eliminates gimbal locks, but i think there's some drawbacks to it, like no linear interpolations or somesuch.