Dive animation

Did this for the animation challenge.

http://www.cessen.com/storage/pictures/the_dive.png

Small (320x240 25fps): http://www.cessen.com/storage/video/the_dive_small.mp4 387 KB MPEG-4
Large (640x480 24fps): http://www.cessen.com/storage/video/the_dive.mp4 1 MB MPEG-4

The small one conforms to the required format for the challenge. I actually animated for 24fps, but the challenge required either 25fps or 30fps, so I just set the small one to 25fps. Don’t think it affects it that much.

And, as promised, here are all the blend files from the project: http://www.cessen.com/storage/misc_files/the_dive.tar.gz

I save in versions, so there’s a lot of blend files in there. But I guess that means it also documents my process somewhat, which some people might find interesting.

Good job! Nice subtle movements preparing, and good anticipation and result. Top marks :smiley:

Excellent!!

Looks very impressive, and thank you for giving out the blend files, I will be studying them closely. :o

That’s a real show of for blenders good animation system. Realy well done!

:o really impressive!
you certainly have a knack for body gesture animation, and a good sense of humor, too! :slight_smile:

Thanks for the compliments guys!

[Kothe]:
there are definitely things about Blender’s animation system that are nice, but there are also some features that are severely lacking. So don’t hold it up on too much of a pedistal.
I know it will only get better, though. And I plan on helping that process along. :slight_smile:

After messing with my dive animation most of this week, and getting frustrated working out how to make him leap in a nice arc, I have to say I really love the way your guy leaves the ground. I’ve played that bit back and forth just watching him follow the curve from squash to stretch.

It will be interesting to take a look at the blends and see how you did it. I didn’t want such a powerful arc as yours but I did want some fluid movement. I just kept fudging him until it was nearly almost acceptable :slight_smile:

THAT’S AWESOME!

Post it at CGtalk for the good of Blender!

Best Blender animation I have seen so far! Two Thumbs way up!

Only crit, the explosion was a bit out of place despite how well it was done :slight_smile:

Thats sooooo good!
it is really ansome!!
But why did’t you use armatures? 8)

But I really like it!

Thanks everyone, I’m glad you like it. :slight_smile:

redbyte:
I posted it on cgchar-animation.com. It’s a rather low-traffic forum, but the people there are often very critical (in a friendly way, of course), which is nice.
Not sure if I’ll post it on cg-talk. I’m kind of iffy on whether it’s good enough (not trying to dis elysiun…). But rest assured that when I produce something I think is good enough, I will post it there. :slight_smile:

Silverframe:
I did use armatures. I didn’t use them directly to animate with (I prefer oversized animation controls), but they are used as part of the rig’s internal structure. They are hidden on the third layer.