How to Animate Fight Scenes. The things to consider and how to go about it.

Hello HypefroActive fans and welcome to another stunningly exciting edition of animations on HypefroActive. This episode kicks off from when i last blogged, even if i said i wouldn't want to bore you with my progress and yeah... i'm doing it again, i'm breaking my promise and i'm sorry about that but it cant be helped. Alright as you know we are in the month of January and HypefroActive will be going full throttle on animations and this takes effect from the beginning of the year. So let's get started.

Well as you know, my primary focus is on the newbie and that's why i'm here to help and encourage the newbie which brings me to the shot i'm rolling out next month. The shot has two characters in it with the scene not yet determined but i've began animating. It's a fight scene, low poly but i'm hoping i get the moves right and make it as interestingly comical as much as i can and not forgetting the realism which is of course why i'm embarking on it in the first place. So, i've got for you guys a couple of shots from my work-in-progress WIP. So far, for me it's coming out really nice and the best of all is that both characters are rigged in 3dsmax CAT, with everything  animated from scratch and that means there's NO element of MOCAP in it, just manually created animation frames.

So how is it i'm able to animate or come this far doing this fight scene you ask? well, let's just say i know one or two things about it plus i watch a lot of television and i love fighting sports. From wrestling, boxing, the martial arts and everything in between. Well almost about everything in between. So for me, animating a fight scene would be challenging as with other artists but would be interesting as well. Because the idea of bringing things to life through animating alone is something special how much more when you do uncommon things with it, in extra-ordinary ways. Now one thing that i've come to realize is that, everyday we live, all that we pick up from watching movies to interacting with other people including all other things that may not look important comes into play when animating. So nothing is a waste as no knowledge is lost because these little things that you ignore are what you actually are animating, for how are you able to animate what you do not understand. Sometimes, it's not just the principles of animations that counts.
Certain dance steps would require that you understand the dance move enough to be able to animate it. Take for instance a Michael Jackson dance move. Lets think about it and break the possible key challenges down so that we understand a bit of what it is to animate anything at all. In MJ's dances, he does the tap dance for a while, twists and turns 360 or so, then do a couple of weird hand poses, grabs his zipper area, and don't forget the signature kicks and moon walk. The list is endless but the point i'm trying to make here is that, for you to animate an MJ dance you have to consider as well as know how to do all of these things. Because in the process, there'll be need for you to test these things out, more like acting them out to see what moves and when. And this is the formula for creating virtually anything animation-wise even if there's a lot more to it, but it all begins with testing things out. Yeah, now you get my point.

Anyways and as usual, i'm posting these images from my WIP so that you see it first and when i'm done again with it, i'll post the finished shot here first as well. So until we meet again, let this images inspire you or better still find something to inspire you to create Awesome animations and in no time you'd be a Pro just like the ones in the Big Studios.

How to Make an Animated Fight Shot: Animating a Fight scene.

Hello HypefroActive Fans and welcome to another exciting edition of Animation on HypefroActive. Wow, it's been quite a while with the holidays and all and the first month of January is gradually fading away. Ok, so last year i finished up with this Dance Anime shot http://youtu.be/sgnhTnzCnHE. It was quite an experience animating with the manual custom rig. And i promised to animate a fight scene when i resume blogging this year. Well that time has come, so lets just sit back relax and follow on how i do the Jackie Chan thing.

What exactly is the nature of the fight scene? Yeah, the fight is going to be martial art - like just like you see in the big studios that create fighting games like Mortal Kombat, Tekken and all those wonderful games displaying their fighting styles in 3D. As usual, i'm keeping to low poly and this time ofcourse because it's a fight scene, i'ld be having more than one character to animate. I'll be bringing the other guy from the last Animation i did. As a matter of fact, that's him in the above image half camoed up. All i did wad remodel him to look different. If it saved me time? Hmmm, i don't think so, because now i have to re-distribute the edge loops of the model to bring out this new one.

What about Rigging? After a careful thought i've resolved to use the CAT rig for so many reasons including it's ease of setup. And in about one click or so, i could transfer Animations from one character to another of similar rig or even on the same character on a different timeline. The CAT can be of great advantage when thinking or considering the commercial angles to animating characters as explained above. I could even recycle the fights if i like or add a little touch here and there to make a move different from it's original. Also, the CAT has a robust feature for hand poses called the "digit manager". This helps stores presets and what ever set of poses for the hands, ranging from the punch, point, grapple and virtually anything you can think about that you can create and want to store as a preset to be used in later time in any of your CAT animations. Very useful
feature if you ask me. And eerrr i've forgotten about the wrist twist for the arms, these are the bones in the lower arm called the "radius and ulna" in real life but is represented by the "wrist twist bones" which mimicks and enables twisting of the character model's hand without rupturing. So, the second image and third images explains what i'm talking about and i've had to ri- rig the model to include this feature, this time with the biped rig in CAT so that i can have the advantage of accessing the pelvis rotations. Maybe, i'll find the time to explain the parts of a rig probably in my next post. I think it would be better doing that that having you read up all the bla bla of my animation update.

In general, i think i've improved over time and become better at animating and all the experience gathered are what i hope to bring to the table to make it as top notch as possible. Originally, i was supposed to have three characters fighting on set in a winner take all at the same time. Boy, wouldn't that have been something? Sure, but that would also mean more work. Well, maybe that will happen later in the year. but for now, i'm sticking with two Characters, no Vfx stunt, just simple but good animations and i hope to be done with it as soon as possible. The scene is not going to be complex but i hope to improve a tiny bit on the polygon count which i've already started doing with the model. Ok, that's it for today. You can reach me on chimatic@gmail.com for any inquiry.

See you guys on the next edition and until then, keep Animating.

Why you should Learn how to Animate in 2D or 3D in Six weeks. The principles and how they are applied.

 Hello HypefroActive fans and welcome to another exciting edition of Animations on HypefroActive. Wow, it really has been a long time since i put anything new here and i want to use this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New and Prosperous Year. Last year was good, filled with a lot of challenges from the point of a Newbie. This year, i'm stepping up a lot things and will start with Animating. The Newbie feel will still be there but making it a bit more advanced like an "Advanced Newbie". Then all other things will follow in small amounts. Well it's a new day and a new year and let's get into it like this.

So, You've bought all the animation softwares, migrated from one software to another or you originally wanted to be a very good animator or want to produce your own animated feature but for some reasons things are not working quite like you've imagined it to be. well i feel your pain but the good thing is you are not alone.

Trying really hard to stay on the Animating subject, i think it would be a lot easier if i digress or expatiate a little bit. There is a lot that comes into play when you start talking about animating. Having a great story line all lined up with story board illustrations are not enough as the end of it all would still be to bring them to life which is your goal from the on-set. Still, a lot of artists would get into wars of what software is better than the other and blablabla. And when i listen or read about these sometimes i begin to wonder which is more important? The software or the Artist? Make no mistakes as even the west where all these originated from agree that while there are softwares that are industry standards, pulling off simple animations doesn't really take all these into cognizance as the principles remain the same no matter what software is used and it all depends on the animator and how well he is able to interpret actions. But for the record and regardless of whose ox is gored not with an intent of causing any form of discomfort as i apologize in advance, MAYA & 3DSMAX stands out in the 3D Animation software category if you are talking "industry standards" and why, is a topic for another day.

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't" ― Margaret Thatcher. It means more than trying to make the software you use important, why don't you try doing something appreciable with it then the rest lies with the audience to ask "what software it is that you use or used". Fact is Africa is over a hundred years back when it comes to animations and whether you like it or not, it's not of any importance but what is, is that knowing that you are this far away from the rest of the world and looking for a way to bridge the gap is what would count. It's like the soccer clubs and i'm not trying to mention names but it's absurd when some fans argue that one Club A is better than another Club B even with all it's ground breaking accomplishments and present form. Whereas, the best way out of it would be knowing and accepting your present situation and making efforts as well as strategies on how to improve on it. What i'm trying to say is that some things cannot be argued and you can do a lot more as an artist by actually doing stuffs rather than talking about it.

Animating no be gragra ooo!!! You have to be with a steady mind to do that because there is a lot of thinking involved as it is dynamic in nature. How? You could say that you want somebody coming into a room, grabs a chair and sits down folding his legs. the next hour or so and while animating you could change your mind and say, Ok you want him jumping or hopping into the room and at the end lying on the chair. And it goes on and on like that. the possibilities on how to execute these actions are endless but in the end you still have to be able to Animate all these or at least think about it.

Why Animating no be gragra? Wetin dis one dey talk sef? Yeah if you are good at modelling and there comes this day that you wake up from sleep and say to your self "Hmmm, i want to do something new today, i want to animate. Good call, so you fire up your software and you come up with a three minutes story. Nice, and you begin animating. two hours later you hit a road block and you try again but the road block wont go. then you try from another perspective but it's still there staring at you in the face like "what'chya gon do about it? Then you try to cut that scene or action off, re-modelling the story and probably cutting down the duration to thirty seconds and you encounter another one, then you'll begin to appreciate this Bible chapter i've put up here for only those wey don go, na only dem truely know. At this point, you could choose to quit or become even more determined and conquer. The choice is yours and nothing is impossible because you could as well achieve this feat by yourself if you have eight hours everyday for six years to throw away or at least fifteen hours everyday for like three years to throw away or come with me on a six week journey into Animating.

The intention is not to scare but to prepare all aspiring animators towards what they are most likely to encounter on there journey towards animating. There are no short-cuts. every move, pose and frame created has to be earned plus with a lot of patience. Keep Animating, you can do this. Also, you could read this up here on this blog. Tt's talks generally about Animation but hinged on the nature of Animating. I would recommend that you read this as a newbie http://reidchannel.blogspot.com/2014/03/character-animation-how-do-i-start.html and maybe browse through to see some other things that you might be curious about.

The truth is that, the first thing in learning how to animate is not animating in itself. The first thing is freeing up your hard drive (mind), visiting various other blogs and maybe reading comics and just letting go of all the care in the world. Get in tune with this new found love and flow like water. Because if you don't flow like water then you'll always get stuck and maybe frustrated and probably change course. If you need help or more info, i'm at chimatic@gmail.com or you could meet me up here.