

If Only 3D Animation Were This Easy [video] - tylerlh
http://kotaku.com/if-only-3d-animation-was-really-this-easy-511467250

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thangalin
The dance moves were 1920s-style Charleston and Susie-Q followed by the Bees
Knees (sometimes called breeze-in-the-knees). Interestingly, back in the Savoy
Ballroom days, true Lindy Hoppers could tell if someone really knew their
stuff by whether or not they raised their foot during a Susie-Q. From 1:02 to
1:05, the character's right foot appears slightly raised. Obviously not a true
Lindy Hopper. ;-)

Lifted foot aside, the body motion for the vernacular jazz dance moves is
quite authentic. Nice work.

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okamiueru
Care to explain what you mean by the lifted foot? Are you talking about
pivoting on the heel, and lifting the front part of the foot, during the Susie
Q? If so, I've never heard of this being seen as a sign of knowing their stuff
or not. I just considered it a variation, some people pivot on the heel, some
on the front part.

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thangalin
Lifting the ball of the foot while pivoting, rather than resting it on the
ground. The pivot is always on the heel, as far as I know. Raising the front
of the foot off the floor is not following Frankie's form, if you will. Here's
a good demonstration by Al and Leon:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psZB6t4P-QI>

Watch the front foot. There's a very slight momentary lift (during the set-up
for the slide), but the slide action occurs along the ground.

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shurcooL
That was really well done and funny! The ending comment had me laughing.

It reminds me of a similar video Animator vs. Animation.

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Sambdala
Link for anyone interested: <http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/animator>

It's interesting to go back and look at some of the semi-old-school viral
content once in a while.

I'm a little surprised Albino Blacksheep (and fetchfido.co.uk apparently) is
still running to be honest.

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Bjoern
I love this. Can anyone recommend me a good blender tutorial? From very basics
to character rigging and the more advanced stuff? Also going into scripting?

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jckt
I mostly learned Blender myself (3 years ago...good times). I remember using
this: <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro>

It also recommends this book:

[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Blending_Into_Pytho...](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Blending_Into_Python)

for scripting (though it's still a WIP).

Back then it had far less chapters, and so I had to mostly rely on the
documentation/experience, but it seems like it's got much more stuff now, so
you should really check it out! Happy Blendering.

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Bjoern
Thanks!

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ganarajpr
Am I the only one asking the right question? This video is not a just-for-fun
video. It is a cry from the animators of this world that they want better
tools. We, as tool builders, programmers, need to listen to this. There is a
problem here that can be addressed. There is a market here that can be
capitalized.We are all a bunch of hackers here. What is it that is preventing
us from creating tools that make creating animations even easier?

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xyzzyz
_What is it that is preventing us from creating tools that make creating
animations even easier?_

Probably the fact that this is a hard problem. Seriously, hundreds if not
thousands of people are working on creating tools for animators, for 3D
software companies, movie and game studios. If it was easy, it would have been
solved by now.

~~~
ganarajpr
Not really true. They are still building tools that were like other older
tools ( but with more complexity ). As far as I can tell nobody ( nobody I
know) is thinking "How can I make this easy ? " Most of the tools these days
are build around the same thought process. I will build a tool like Intellij
but will add 2 extra features like cloud sync and another thing. But that is
not what we need to do. That wont "change the game". Everytime we look at
something and plan to disrupt it, we cant disrupt it by adding one more
feature to a product that already exists. You need to think ground up. This
also relates to people not thinking big. Its a hard problem. I understand that
it is. But, someone has to go after the hard problems. I am looking for that
someone.

If we look at Brett Victors inspirational videos the one thing I can take away
is "Change the game". If we play the same game as before things wont change
much. So, creating animations is a hard problem to solve. But, can someone
change the game ? For centuries, extracting aluminium out of its alloy was a
hard problem, or extracting mica. Once it was done, it changed the game.

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thenomad
Speaking as someone with 17 years' professional animation experience, I've
seen a lot of people try to come up with newer, better, easier ways to do
animation. I've tried most of them, because my workflow revolves around doing
things in the fastest, easiest way possible.

What am I currently using? 3D Studio Max. (and Motionbuilder, and some high-
end mocap technology, and a lot of outsourcing.)

Seriously, it's a hard problem. I'm not saying "don't try", but it's a hard
problem.

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colinjenken
Have you had a look at the Source Movie Maker from Valve?
<http://www.sourcefilmmaker.com/>

It's by for the most interesting development for animation that I've seen for
years. In about an hour I was able to produce 15 sec of reasonable good
animation the first time I used it.

Their process is more akin to Photoshop than anything else as it's a
destructive process rather than procedural.

I found it quite enlightening.

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rhokstar
Seems like the animator attached motion capture to the rig. Awesome job. Very
awesome if the animator did everything manually.

~~~
mvarner
Judging by the logo at the end, I'd say this was a project for a character
animation class--so no mocap. :)

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spyder
NaturalMotion's Euphoria engine is one step in this direction.
<http://www.naturalmotion.com/products/euphoria/>

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thelukester
What 3D design/animation package was that done in? It's too blurry for me to
tell. Looks a little like Blender but I haven't played with it in years now.

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yohui
The video shows Autodesk Maya 2013 (as you can see in the window's titlebar
and the task manager). It seems fair to assume that the video itself was made
using it, too.

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thelukester
I'm stuck on a bus to BKK with only an iPhone, so I can't watch high-res or
zoom. Thanks for answering my Q. Great animation.

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Sonicrida
Is Maya a good starting point for someone who wants to get into 3D animation
and modelling?

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Zoepfli
No. I tried starting with Maya once and the cornucopia of options left me
stumped.

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colinjenken
Blank canvases can do that sometimes ;)

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malkia
At work MotionBuilder is the king, while Maya is for modelling.

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thenomad
Yeah, I'd call Motionbuilder the king for character animation, too. Lovely
tool.

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thdn
Nice work, until the annoying scream. Thanks we have ctrl + w

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yeahsure
Very nice. Wish he would have changed the 0.1 fps though

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deevus
Oh god. The comments on Kotaku.

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bromagosa
Indeed... I hope these guys are joking:

«I just watched the video, but I'm confused: What program do I have to use to
communicate with my computer like this?»

«This is not real and such systems do not exist.»

«You can't be serious»

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disturbedfood
Well the first one is the beginning of a comment thread, the other two are
replies to the top one. If you click the top one you see that there are
multiple replies and he appears to be a troll.

