This is another attempt of me trying to do basic character animation. I am much more pleased with this than my previous attempts and really pushed myself to try to do more elaborate actions and sequences. There is still a bit of jankiness with some of the animations, particularly with characters walking and turning, or turning on the spot. Sounds like it should be easy! But I found it one of the more tricky aspects to get right; trying to match up the rotation of the root bone with the walk cycle of the armature etc.
For the style of the animation I wanted to try to emulate the '80s type stop-motion animation using clay characters, like Morph or the Plonsters etc.
One of the great tools I learned that really helped me get to grips with doing more elaborate armature animations was using the NLA (Non Linear Animation editor). It can be frustrating and confusing, but even with a basic understanding of it you can save heaps of time by using loops, speed controls, modifiers and more. Iām glad to hear they will be improving it in the future, it really does need some of the rough corners smoothed off and more logic put in to the user interface. For anyone wanting to have a go at learning it, I recommend the YouTube channel CGDive for some great tutorials about the NLA.