Post by joshuaggranberg on May 3, 2010 19:17:41 GMT -5
×X×'s's Pivot Tutorial
1a. Getting to know ( Pivot )
1.) Controls:
“Play”: View the frames in sequence.
“Stop”: Stop animation from playing.
“Repeat”: Tick to make your animation loop, or play repeatedly.
Scroll Bar (Located next to “play”): Adjust frames per second, or the speed of the animation.
“Stickman”: After loading a figure, its name will appear here. Click the downward arrow (drop-down bar) to view the list of figures currently loaded. “Stickman” is the default figure. To load others, create and then save them. (See section 3.)
“Add Figure”: Add the currently selected figure to the animation.
“Edit”: Change the dimensions of the joints of your stickman. (Length, thickness, static/dynamic segment, toggle segment etc.)
“Centre”: Move the highlighted figure’s orange joint to the centre of the screen.
“Flip”: Make the highlighted figure “mirror” itself, e.g. this bracket “[“ going “]”.
“Colour”: Change the highlighted figure’s colour. (I don’t recommend blue, red or orange, as this interferes with the animation.)
“100”: This figure denotes the percentage size of the highlighted figure. A higher number means a bigger figure, while a lower number means a smaller figure.
“Front”: Move the highlighted figure to the front of the animation, blocking your view of those behind it.
“Back”: Move the highlighted figure behind the other figures.
“Next Frame”: Capture the screen as a frame, and move onto the next one.
“File”: Make a new animation, load a paint background, clear the background, create a figure, load a figure, open an animation or save an animation.
“Options”: Change the dimension values of the animation, or the size of the animation.
“Help”: View legal data about the Pivot Stick Figure Animator program.
“Exit”: Close the program.
2.) Simple Figure Operation:
Each figure has a number of “joints” (the red circles). Click and drag the red circles to move each joint. The orange circle (the origin) moves the entire figure. When un-highlighted, all the joints will be displayed in blue. When you click “next frame” and move a joint, you’ll see a grey outline of where it was in the last frame. This is called the “onionskin”.
3.) Accessing Models/Animations:
To load a saved animation:
1) Click “file”.
2) Click “open animation”.
3) Find the animation you want to load and double click it.
To load a saved model/figure:
1) Click “file”.
2) Click “load figure type”.
3) Find the figure you want to load and double click it.
1b. CREATING MODELS
To create a model, click “file” and then “create figure type”. This opens up a new window. Here you’ll see a straight line and a few buttons on the left. Highlight each button to see its function.
“Add line”: Create a new line segment to attach to the model.
“Add circle”: Create a new circle segment to attach to your model.
“Toggle segment kind”: Change the segment from a line to a circle, or vice-versa.
“Change segment thickness”: This edits the thickness of separate segments. By setting thickness to 0, you can make “invisible lines”.
“Duplicate segment”: Makes a copy of the highlighted segment, which can then be attached to another segment.
“Static/Dynamic segment”: Dynamic segments can be moved around in animations. Static segments cannot be moved.
“Delete segment”: Removes the highlighted segment from the model.
“File”: Here you can start a new model, open a saved one, save the current model or add the current model to the animation.
“Options”: Here you can undo a mistake made with the model or switch to edit mode.
“Edit mode”: This mode is used to change the length of a line or circle on your model.
I recommend that you only attach one segment to the master joint, and continue constructing your model from that new segment. If you attach two or more segments to the master joint, you won’t be able to rotate the entire model without leaving half of it behind. This obviously doesn’t apply to stickmen.
1c. WHERE TO START?
First of all, you have to be sure you enjoy pivot. If you do, try animating small things like fights between two stickmen. When you get bored with that, have a look around the veteran and elite galleries. You’ll more than likely see a lot of inspiring stuff, which you could try yourself in your own animations. Entering competitions and collaborations will also inspire you to animate better. When it comes to the actual animation, you’ll want to make your animations as smooth as possible. Even if it looks crap, as long as it’s smooth, that’s all you want. As you practice more and more, you’ll be speeding up without even knowing it, and your movements will slowly but surely get more realistic. It took me over a year to start animating movements at an intermediate standard; so don’t worry if this process takes ages. It will, and there are no shortcuts around it. Practice, practice and more practice.
1d. LEARNING BASIC VITAL MOVEMENTS
This section is for perfecting the most basic and useful movements you’ll need in your pivot career. The number one and most important rule is that every joint must move in every frame. Even if it’s a tiny, indiscernible move, it still adds to the realism of your movements. There are rare occasions where this rule doesn’t apply of course. Particles and foot joints on the ground are good examples. But for the most part, it’s the key to realistic animation.
1.) Walking:
Learning how to make a stickman take a step is the most important thing, ever. It’s pretty much impossible to animate anything realistically without steps. Anyway, here’s how you do a left to right walk cycle:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, about to move off.
Frame 2: The right arm moves forward slightly, the left moves backward slightly, the origin moves forward slightly, the right leg moves back slightly while still on the ground, the left leg moves forward. The spine leans forward a tiny bit.
Frame 3: Same as frame 2, except the right forearm moves forward slightly more than the right bicep. The left arm stays straight however. The right leg stays on the ground in the exact same place, the left leg rises more, the left foot also rises slightly. The origin moves forward.
Frame 4: Same as frame 3, except the left forearm curves slightly toward the body of the stickman. The origin moves forward.
Frame 5: Same as frame 4, except the left foot touches the ground. The origin moves forward.
Frame 6: The left foot stays where it is, the right thigh comes forward, the right shin goes back, the right foot is still touching where it originally rested, the right forearm keeps curving forward, the right bicep moves back, the left arm moves forward. The origin moves forward.
Frame 7: Same as frame 6, except the right foot leaves where it originally rested and rises into the air. The origin moves forward.
Frame 8: Same as frame 7, except the right shin now moves forward instead of back. The origin moves forward. It is vital that the two legs and arms now cross over each other at angles, to simulate a realistic crossing over of limbs. This part of the walk cycle is probably the most important for realism.
Frame 9: The arms and legs move apart again, continuing their original paths. The origin moves forward.
Frame 10: The left arm moves forward, the right moves backward, the right leg moves back while still on the ground, the left leg moves forward. The origin moves forward.
Here’s one I made, following my own tutorial:
2.) Running:
1: Running is naturally a fast motion. Speed is better than smoothness, but speed results in choppiness. Finding the balance between smoothness and speed is very difficult. In my opinion, 4 frames per stride is the best for speed, and 9 is the best for smoothness. 7 is the best for realism.
2: When running, the camera should be following the stickman. Usually you’d have the arms going back and forth in a moving camera run. You’ll get a normal looking run out of that. However, if you animate running with a stationary camera, you have to find something to do with the arms. To alleviate the choppiness, you can try a masking blur (See my third general tutorial). Also, you could occupy the stickman’s arms with a machine gun or a sword or something; otherwise you get an extremely choppy animation. This point isn't "pivot law" per se, it's just one of those things you can't really get around.
3: There is a “vital frame” theory for running, or so I call it. Even if you animate running as you imagine it in real life, in most cases it won’t look right in pivot. The most important vital frame is the one where the legs and arms cross over each other. One limb must be angled slightly, while the straight one crosses over it.
4: When running, both feet come off the ground longer than the feet on the ground. Don’t go nuts with this though, otherwise your stickman will look like he’s floating. One frame’s difference is enough.
5: Running adds motion and “cinematic speed” to your animation, which means animations with running in them are better than ones where the stickman is moving around the same space all the time.
6: Keep the stickman leaning forward while running. It makes him look like less of a loser. Yeah.
7: When the front foot slams down onto the ground, make the head bob down slightly on the next frame, and then resume its position the frame after. Also, the spine moves up and down slightly and rythmically while running. Don’t overdo either of these, they’re really just small details if you’re after some s**z running.
8: When the stickman is standing stationary, about to run, lean forward slowly and move the arms less intensely as you would when in full, fast running. Make him crouch slightly on the front knee, and then you can take off into the main running.
9: Download these running animations, and study the frames.
3.) Combat:
Learning how to animate fighting is a great way to learn how to animate many diverse movements, not just punches and kicks. Fighting animations are also the most popular kind, so, you may as well learn now.
3a.) Punches:
Punches are the most basic building block of a fighting animation. Chaining a series of fast punches and combining them with blurs and tremors can make an animation very exciting for the viewer. Here’s how you animate a few different types of punches:
Punch from a standing start:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, legs apart, spine curved, arms loose.
Frame 2: The right arm moves forward, the left bicep moves backward, the left forearm contracts slightly and moves into the bicep. The right leg slides forward on the ground slightly, and the left stays where it is. Both leg’s knees drop slightly, making the stickman crouch.
Frame 3: Same as frame 2, but each movement is more pronounced.
Frame 4: Same as frame 3, but each movement is more pronounced.
Frame 5: Same as frame 4, but every joint except the arms slow down.
Frame 6: Same as frame 5.
Frame 7: The right bicep moves back, but the forearm still moves forward. The left leg is brought forward. The origin rises over the right leg. The left arm is almost folded into one joint. It’s important that you don’t fold them perfectly; otherwise it looks like your stickman has lost half his arm.
Frame 8: The right arm comes back, with the forearm bisecting the torso. The left arm should now be hidden inside the right arm, to suggest that the arm is going straight through the stickman. It looks unrealistic, but no one notices one frame.
Frame 9: The left arm fully extends out, making the punch look explosive and fast. The right elbow is pointed backwards. Don’t ask me why, it just looks the most realistic to have it like that when the punching arm is fully extended.
Frame 10: The punching arm stays extended for one more frame, to emphasise the locked out arm. The rest of the limbs start to drop.
Here’s one I made:
Now, that looks mega boring right? That’s why you’ll have to do combos. Here’s how to do a simple three-punch combination.
Three Hit Combo:
Frame 1-9: Same as above.
Frame 10-13: You simply repeat frames 7-10, but the right arm drops faster to make way for the left arm to punch.
Frame 14-21: The two arms rotate in a circle, with one arm folding almost double. Have the arms form a vertical line as the left leg crosses over the right leg during the step. Also, the right foot should be rotating backwards to allow for the knee joint to bend. If you don’t animate the foot rotating, your stickman will look reverse jointed, or as if his knee was broken.
Frame 21-26: Move your stickman into a gay bruce lee stance.
Here’s one I made:
Two types of punches will get old fast of course. Try animating different kinds of punches like haymakers and hammer blows. If you need inspiration for different types of punches, watch some Homoshokaiden or Shotokan videos on Google. Uppercuts are fairly popular, so here’s how you animate one.
Uppercut:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill.
Frame 2-8: The right foot slides forward until there’s a medium sized space in between the two feet. The left foot stays where it is. Both knees bend forward. The spine slowly bends backward into a slight “C” shape. The left arm pulls back in preparation for the strike, the right arm sticks straight out in preparation to pull back to add power to the strike.
Frame 9-11: The legs lock out and cross to jump, and the arms cross to punch. The right arm remains straight. The left arm, once crossed over, goes to head height on the 11th frame. The front leg that has crossed over comes just above waist height with the shin pointing downward.
Frame 12: The punching arm locks out and points to the sky, the neck leans left to make way for the shoulder, the lower leg moves to the right and the lower knee points to the left.
Frame 13-17: The top leg moves around the waist, still bent double. As it moves away from the waist, it folds out again. The 2 arms simply rotate in an anti-clockwise circle around the head in synchronisation with the legs. The spine curves in the direction of the higher leg. This series of frames suggests a slightly 3D rotation. In the meantime, the origin is coming back down to the ground.
Frame 18-23: Make the stickman land smoothly. When he hits the ground, his head drops slightly, the spine curves in the opposite direction as he’s facing and the knees bend.
Here’s one I made:
3b.) Kicks
Kicks add an athletic type of skill to your fighting animations; however, they’re fairly difficult to animate properly. There are way too many types of kicks for me to animate them all, so I’ll just deal with some of the basic ones, and maybe one technical kick. Here’s how to animate three basic kicks:
Straight Kick:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, legs apart.
Frame 2-5: The origin moves forward and down slightly, the arms move apart, the right foot stays where it is, the right knee bends, the left leg comes forward and stays straight. The spine curves back.
Frame 6-10: Pretend the left leg is an arm. Now animate this “arm” as if it was punching. Behold, you just animated a kick. As the leg comes to the waist of the stickman, start moving the arms back towards each other, and curve the spine in the opposite direction. When the leg is fully extended, leave it like that for two frames to emphasise its impact.
Frame 11-15: Drop all the limbs and straighten the spine.
Here’s one I made:
If you feel that this kick is too much like a punch, you can try animating a snap kick. This is how you animate it:
Snap Kick:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill.
Frame 2-4: The left leg is moving forward, bending back as it goes. The right knee bends, the right foot stays where it is. Both arms are moving forward. The spine is curving backwards slightly. The neck moves down slightly, but the head stays up.
Frame 5-6: The stationary leg is crouching slightly to bear the entire weight of the body on it’s own. The kicking leg comes forward quickly, knee first, with the shin trailing behind. On the second frame, it snaps straight out suddenly to suggest an explosive, fast kick. The arms pull back fast to add power to the kick. The origin slows it’s movement forward to counter the force from the kick.
Frame 7: The kicking stance lingers slightly to exaggerate the force of the kick. However, all the limbs are still moving very slightly forward.
Frame 8-14: The kicking leg drops, the stationary leg straightens, the spine straightens, the head comes back up and the arms return to their original position.
Thrust Kick:
Frame 1-5: The exact same as the snap kick, described above.
Frame 6-7: The knee keeps coming up and doesn’t straighten out.
Frame 8-9: The kicking leg now straightens completely out with the foot pointing upward and slightly toward the stickman, to suggest that he’s kicking with the ball of his foot. The arms start coming back down.
Frame 10-14: The leg comes back down, the spine straightens, the stationary leg straightens, the head comes back to it’s original position and the arms drop.
Here’s one I made. It’s simply an edited version of the snap kick, seeing as they’re both so similar.
Now, those kicks don’t have much visual appeal or skill in them. You can try all kinds of kicks, like knee strikes, aerial kicks, donkey kicks etc. Watching videos of Tae Kwon Do experts really helps for finding new types of kicks to animate. My favourite would have to be the heel drop, so I’ll show you how to animate it.
Heel drop:
Frame 1: Your stickman has both arms behind his back, and the legs are apart.
Frame 2-4: The arms move backwards, and trail in the onionskin. The origin moves forward, the spine curves forward, the head moves back, the kicking leg comes forward, the right leg stays where it is and bends slightly to bear the weight of the stickman on it’s own.
Frame 5-11: The spine curves backward, the kicking leg comes straight up to the head of the stickman, the head leans forward, the stationary leg is still crouching slowly and the arms come up to meet and catch hold of the kicking leg. This helps the leg to tense and therefore give more explosive power and speed.
Frame 12-17: Every joint straightens out, the arms pull back fast behind the stickman to add power to the heel drop, the kicking leg drops in the space of 3-4 frames, the stationary leg locks out, the spine straightens and the head comes back up.
This is of course a very advanced move; it took me ages to figure out how to do it realistically. This is what you should be looking at when you’re finished:
Wow.. I'm out of breath. Hope you all enjoyed my tutorial and learned a little something.
The end.
1a. Getting to know ( Pivot )
1.) Controls:
“Play”: View the frames in sequence.
“Stop”: Stop animation from playing.
“Repeat”: Tick to make your animation loop, or play repeatedly.
Scroll Bar (Located next to “play”): Adjust frames per second, or the speed of the animation.
“Stickman”: After loading a figure, its name will appear here. Click the downward arrow (drop-down bar) to view the list of figures currently loaded. “Stickman” is the default figure. To load others, create and then save them. (See section 3.)
“Add Figure”: Add the currently selected figure to the animation.
“Edit”: Change the dimensions of the joints of your stickman. (Length, thickness, static/dynamic segment, toggle segment etc.)
“Centre”: Move the highlighted figure’s orange joint to the centre of the screen.
“Flip”: Make the highlighted figure “mirror” itself, e.g. this bracket “[“ going “]”.
“Colour”: Change the highlighted figure’s colour. (I don’t recommend blue, red or orange, as this interferes with the animation.)
“100”: This figure denotes the percentage size of the highlighted figure. A higher number means a bigger figure, while a lower number means a smaller figure.
“Front”: Move the highlighted figure to the front of the animation, blocking your view of those behind it.
“Back”: Move the highlighted figure behind the other figures.
“Next Frame”: Capture the screen as a frame, and move onto the next one.
“File”: Make a new animation, load a paint background, clear the background, create a figure, load a figure, open an animation or save an animation.
“Options”: Change the dimension values of the animation, or the size of the animation.
“Help”: View legal data about the Pivot Stick Figure Animator program.
“Exit”: Close the program.
2.) Simple Figure Operation:
Each figure has a number of “joints” (the red circles). Click and drag the red circles to move each joint. The orange circle (the origin) moves the entire figure. When un-highlighted, all the joints will be displayed in blue. When you click “next frame” and move a joint, you’ll see a grey outline of where it was in the last frame. This is called the “onionskin”.
3.) Accessing Models/Animations:
To load a saved animation:
1) Click “file”.
2) Click “open animation”.
3) Find the animation you want to load and double click it.
To load a saved model/figure:
1) Click “file”.
2) Click “load figure type”.
3) Find the figure you want to load and double click it.
1b. CREATING MODELS
To create a model, click “file” and then “create figure type”. This opens up a new window. Here you’ll see a straight line and a few buttons on the left. Highlight each button to see its function.
“Add line”: Create a new line segment to attach to the model.
“Add circle”: Create a new circle segment to attach to your model.
“Toggle segment kind”: Change the segment from a line to a circle, or vice-versa.
“Change segment thickness”: This edits the thickness of separate segments. By setting thickness to 0, you can make “invisible lines”.
“Duplicate segment”: Makes a copy of the highlighted segment, which can then be attached to another segment.
“Static/Dynamic segment”: Dynamic segments can be moved around in animations. Static segments cannot be moved.
“Delete segment”: Removes the highlighted segment from the model.
“File”: Here you can start a new model, open a saved one, save the current model or add the current model to the animation.
“Options”: Here you can undo a mistake made with the model or switch to edit mode.
“Edit mode”: This mode is used to change the length of a line or circle on your model.
I recommend that you only attach one segment to the master joint, and continue constructing your model from that new segment. If you attach two or more segments to the master joint, you won’t be able to rotate the entire model without leaving half of it behind. This obviously doesn’t apply to stickmen.
1c. WHERE TO START?
First of all, you have to be sure you enjoy pivot. If you do, try animating small things like fights between two stickmen. When you get bored with that, have a look around the veteran and elite galleries. You’ll more than likely see a lot of inspiring stuff, which you could try yourself in your own animations. Entering competitions and collaborations will also inspire you to animate better. When it comes to the actual animation, you’ll want to make your animations as smooth as possible. Even if it looks crap, as long as it’s smooth, that’s all you want. As you practice more and more, you’ll be speeding up without even knowing it, and your movements will slowly but surely get more realistic. It took me over a year to start animating movements at an intermediate standard; so don’t worry if this process takes ages. It will, and there are no shortcuts around it. Practice, practice and more practice.
1d. LEARNING BASIC VITAL MOVEMENTS
This section is for perfecting the most basic and useful movements you’ll need in your pivot career. The number one and most important rule is that every joint must move in every frame. Even if it’s a tiny, indiscernible move, it still adds to the realism of your movements. There are rare occasions where this rule doesn’t apply of course. Particles and foot joints on the ground are good examples. But for the most part, it’s the key to realistic animation.
1.) Walking:
Learning how to make a stickman take a step is the most important thing, ever. It’s pretty much impossible to animate anything realistically without steps. Anyway, here’s how you do a left to right walk cycle:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, about to move off.
Frame 2: The right arm moves forward slightly, the left moves backward slightly, the origin moves forward slightly, the right leg moves back slightly while still on the ground, the left leg moves forward. The spine leans forward a tiny bit.
Frame 3: Same as frame 2, except the right forearm moves forward slightly more than the right bicep. The left arm stays straight however. The right leg stays on the ground in the exact same place, the left leg rises more, the left foot also rises slightly. The origin moves forward.
Frame 4: Same as frame 3, except the left forearm curves slightly toward the body of the stickman. The origin moves forward.
Frame 5: Same as frame 4, except the left foot touches the ground. The origin moves forward.
Frame 6: The left foot stays where it is, the right thigh comes forward, the right shin goes back, the right foot is still touching where it originally rested, the right forearm keeps curving forward, the right bicep moves back, the left arm moves forward. The origin moves forward.
Frame 7: Same as frame 6, except the right foot leaves where it originally rested and rises into the air. The origin moves forward.
Frame 8: Same as frame 7, except the right shin now moves forward instead of back. The origin moves forward. It is vital that the two legs and arms now cross over each other at angles, to simulate a realistic crossing over of limbs. This part of the walk cycle is probably the most important for realism.
Frame 9: The arms and legs move apart again, continuing their original paths. The origin moves forward.
Frame 10: The left arm moves forward, the right moves backward, the right leg moves back while still on the ground, the left leg moves forward. The origin moves forward.
Here’s one I made, following my own tutorial:
2.) Running:
1: Running is naturally a fast motion. Speed is better than smoothness, but speed results in choppiness. Finding the balance between smoothness and speed is very difficult. In my opinion, 4 frames per stride is the best for speed, and 9 is the best for smoothness. 7 is the best for realism.
2: When running, the camera should be following the stickman. Usually you’d have the arms going back and forth in a moving camera run. You’ll get a normal looking run out of that. However, if you animate running with a stationary camera, you have to find something to do with the arms. To alleviate the choppiness, you can try a masking blur (See my third general tutorial). Also, you could occupy the stickman’s arms with a machine gun or a sword or something; otherwise you get an extremely choppy animation. This point isn't "pivot law" per se, it's just one of those things you can't really get around.
3: There is a “vital frame” theory for running, or so I call it. Even if you animate running as you imagine it in real life, in most cases it won’t look right in pivot. The most important vital frame is the one where the legs and arms cross over each other. One limb must be angled slightly, while the straight one crosses over it.
4: When running, both feet come off the ground longer than the feet on the ground. Don’t go nuts with this though, otherwise your stickman will look like he’s floating. One frame’s difference is enough.
5: Running adds motion and “cinematic speed” to your animation, which means animations with running in them are better than ones where the stickman is moving around the same space all the time.
6: Keep the stickman leaning forward while running. It makes him look like less of a loser. Yeah.
7: When the front foot slams down onto the ground, make the head bob down slightly on the next frame, and then resume its position the frame after. Also, the spine moves up and down slightly and rythmically while running. Don’t overdo either of these, they’re really just small details if you’re after some s**z running.
8: When the stickman is standing stationary, about to run, lean forward slowly and move the arms less intensely as you would when in full, fast running. Make him crouch slightly on the front knee, and then you can take off into the main running.
9: Download these running animations, and study the frames.
3.) Combat:
Learning how to animate fighting is a great way to learn how to animate many diverse movements, not just punches and kicks. Fighting animations are also the most popular kind, so, you may as well learn now.
3a.) Punches:
Punches are the most basic building block of a fighting animation. Chaining a series of fast punches and combining them with blurs and tremors can make an animation very exciting for the viewer. Here’s how you animate a few different types of punches:
Punch from a standing start:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, legs apart, spine curved, arms loose.
Frame 2: The right arm moves forward, the left bicep moves backward, the left forearm contracts slightly and moves into the bicep. The right leg slides forward on the ground slightly, and the left stays where it is. Both leg’s knees drop slightly, making the stickman crouch.
Frame 3: Same as frame 2, but each movement is more pronounced.
Frame 4: Same as frame 3, but each movement is more pronounced.
Frame 5: Same as frame 4, but every joint except the arms slow down.
Frame 6: Same as frame 5.
Frame 7: The right bicep moves back, but the forearm still moves forward. The left leg is brought forward. The origin rises over the right leg. The left arm is almost folded into one joint. It’s important that you don’t fold them perfectly; otherwise it looks like your stickman has lost half his arm.
Frame 8: The right arm comes back, with the forearm bisecting the torso. The left arm should now be hidden inside the right arm, to suggest that the arm is going straight through the stickman. It looks unrealistic, but no one notices one frame.
Frame 9: The left arm fully extends out, making the punch look explosive and fast. The right elbow is pointed backwards. Don’t ask me why, it just looks the most realistic to have it like that when the punching arm is fully extended.
Frame 10: The punching arm stays extended for one more frame, to emphasise the locked out arm. The rest of the limbs start to drop.
Here’s one I made:
Now, that looks mega boring right? That’s why you’ll have to do combos. Here’s how to do a simple three-punch combination.
Three Hit Combo:
Frame 1-9: Same as above.
Frame 10-13: You simply repeat frames 7-10, but the right arm drops faster to make way for the left arm to punch.
Frame 14-21: The two arms rotate in a circle, with one arm folding almost double. Have the arms form a vertical line as the left leg crosses over the right leg during the step. Also, the right foot should be rotating backwards to allow for the knee joint to bend. If you don’t animate the foot rotating, your stickman will look reverse jointed, or as if his knee was broken.
Frame 21-26: Move your stickman into a gay bruce lee stance.
Here’s one I made:
Two types of punches will get old fast of course. Try animating different kinds of punches like haymakers and hammer blows. If you need inspiration for different types of punches, watch some Homoshokaiden or Shotokan videos on Google. Uppercuts are fairly popular, so here’s how you animate one.
Uppercut:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill.
Frame 2-8: The right foot slides forward until there’s a medium sized space in between the two feet. The left foot stays where it is. Both knees bend forward. The spine slowly bends backward into a slight “C” shape. The left arm pulls back in preparation for the strike, the right arm sticks straight out in preparation to pull back to add power to the strike.
Frame 9-11: The legs lock out and cross to jump, and the arms cross to punch. The right arm remains straight. The left arm, once crossed over, goes to head height on the 11th frame. The front leg that has crossed over comes just above waist height with the shin pointing downward.
Frame 12: The punching arm locks out and points to the sky, the neck leans left to make way for the shoulder, the lower leg moves to the right and the lower knee points to the left.
Frame 13-17: The top leg moves around the waist, still bent double. As it moves away from the waist, it folds out again. The 2 arms simply rotate in an anti-clockwise circle around the head in synchronisation with the legs. The spine curves in the direction of the higher leg. This series of frames suggests a slightly 3D rotation. In the meantime, the origin is coming back down to the ground.
Frame 18-23: Make the stickman land smoothly. When he hits the ground, his head drops slightly, the spine curves in the opposite direction as he’s facing and the knees bend.
Here’s one I made:
3b.) Kicks
Kicks add an athletic type of skill to your fighting animations; however, they’re fairly difficult to animate properly. There are way too many types of kicks for me to animate them all, so I’ll just deal with some of the basic ones, and maybe one technical kick. Here’s how to animate three basic kicks:
Straight Kick:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, legs apart.
Frame 2-5: The origin moves forward and down slightly, the arms move apart, the right foot stays where it is, the right knee bends, the left leg comes forward and stays straight. The spine curves back.
Frame 6-10: Pretend the left leg is an arm. Now animate this “arm” as if it was punching. Behold, you just animated a kick. As the leg comes to the waist of the stickman, start moving the arms back towards each other, and curve the spine in the opposite direction. When the leg is fully extended, leave it like that for two frames to emphasise its impact.
Frame 11-15: Drop all the limbs and straighten the spine.
Here’s one I made:
If you feel that this kick is too much like a punch, you can try animating a snap kick. This is how you animate it:
Snap Kick:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill.
Frame 2-4: The left leg is moving forward, bending back as it goes. The right knee bends, the right foot stays where it is. Both arms are moving forward. The spine is curving backwards slightly. The neck moves down slightly, but the head stays up.
Frame 5-6: The stationary leg is crouching slightly to bear the entire weight of the body on it’s own. The kicking leg comes forward quickly, knee first, with the shin trailing behind. On the second frame, it snaps straight out suddenly to suggest an explosive, fast kick. The arms pull back fast to add power to the kick. The origin slows it’s movement forward to counter the force from the kick.
Frame 7: The kicking stance lingers slightly to exaggerate the force of the kick. However, all the limbs are still moving very slightly forward.
Frame 8-14: The kicking leg drops, the stationary leg straightens, the spine straightens, the head comes back up and the arms return to their original position.
Thrust Kick:
Frame 1-5: The exact same as the snap kick, described above.
Frame 6-7: The knee keeps coming up and doesn’t straighten out.
Frame 8-9: The kicking leg now straightens completely out with the foot pointing upward and slightly toward the stickman, to suggest that he’s kicking with the ball of his foot. The arms start coming back down.
Frame 10-14: The leg comes back down, the spine straightens, the stationary leg straightens, the head comes back to it’s original position and the arms drop.
Here’s one I made. It’s simply an edited version of the snap kick, seeing as they’re both so similar.
Now, those kicks don’t have much visual appeal or skill in them. You can try all kinds of kicks, like knee strikes, aerial kicks, donkey kicks etc. Watching videos of Tae Kwon Do experts really helps for finding new types of kicks to animate. My favourite would have to be the heel drop, so I’ll show you how to animate it.
Heel drop:
Frame 1: Your stickman has both arms behind his back, and the legs are apart.
Frame 2-4: The arms move backwards, and trail in the onionskin. The origin moves forward, the spine curves forward, the head moves back, the kicking leg comes forward, the right leg stays where it is and bends slightly to bear the weight of the stickman on it’s own.
Frame 5-11: The spine curves backward, the kicking leg comes straight up to the head of the stickman, the head leans forward, the stationary leg is still crouching slowly and the arms come up to meet and catch hold of the kicking leg. This helps the leg to tense and therefore give more explosive power and speed.
Frame 12-17: Every joint straightens out, the arms pull back fast behind the stickman to add power to the heel drop, the kicking leg drops in the space of 3-4 frames, the stationary leg locks out, the spine straightens and the head comes back up.
This is of course a very advanced move; it took me ages to figure out how to do it realistically. This is what you should be looking at when you’re finished:
Wow.. I'm out of breath. Hope you all enjoyed my tutorial and learned a little something.
The end.
ing knew it, you liar.