Hey guys,
I have been playing around with animation in blender for a little while now and I was wondering if any of you could offer a critique of this animation I have been working on. I feel like I have trouble showing weight in animations so if any of you could offer suggestions on how to do that better or anything else that needs improvement I would really appreciate it!
It’s good, but it needs to show the feeling of the weight. Slow the animation down when he’s picking it up and putting it down.
Yeah, I think the timing needs a little work. The weight should slowly come off the ground, then it can increase speed up to the end of the first lift. Here’s why - the hardest part about moving a heavy object is getting it started to move. Remember this from science/physics classes - ‘a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion’ ? It’s hard to lift at first, then once the weight is moving it becomes easier to keep it moving. Also, maybe add in a little struggle as the character first starts to lift the weight.
As he completes the first stage of the lift, add in a bit of overlap/follow thru, (one of the 12 principles of animation, if you don’t know them, google them). The weight should go up slightly past where it stops, then drop back down to a stop for the 2nd stage of the lift. Then repeat this for the 2nd stage of the lift…
As for putting it down, that can happen fast. It’s heavy and he struggled to lift it, so putting it back down is like a controlled drop.
Hope this helps,
Randy
Thank you both for the suggestions! I have had limited time to work on this the past couple of days. I have started to try to improve the timing and I am also trying a different ending to the animation. There are a lot of minor issues with the bar path/grip on the bar but I have ignored that for now and am trying to focus on the bigger details. I still am going to try to add in some overlap and follow through later. Here is an updated version. I still have a lot I plan on doing to this so any other suggestions would be great! Thanks again for the help
Here is the updated version:
just simply watch a reference video of someone lifting a weight and go from there!