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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects Expressions tips on animating human figures/charachters

  • tips on animating human figures/charachters

    Posted by Tristan Tumble on June 20, 2005 at 11:12 pm

    hi there,

    I’ve done alot of compositing/motion graphics work, but i was asked to do a characther animation, and since i’ve never done anything like that in AE, like animating -arms/legs/face..etc. so i was hoping to get a few tips form people who have done this before. (this will be a simpler version of the bewitched style characthers)

    I plan on making about 10 faces in ilustrator, each face for a different expression, but then once it comes to moving arms/legs i fear it will be a huge chalenge in making it look half decent. is there anyway to parent limbs together so that when you move the arm everything else reacts properly? i know in some 3d programs arms/legs move when the body is moved..

    or am i looking at every limb having to be manualy animated? any and all tips would be welcome, or any online tutorials ..
    thanks!
    tristan.

    Mike Clasby replied 19 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • Nathan

    June 20, 2005 at 11:33 pm

    I did a southpark style animation for uni. The big thing I found was to pay attention to detail when parenting and setting pivot points. Other than that it was pretty straight forward.

  • Mike Clasby

    June 21, 2005 at 12:20 am

    Checkout Dan Ebbert’s Animating a Walk cycle:
    https://www.creativecow.net/show.php?forumid=2&page=/articles/ebberts_dan/layer_looping/index.html
    or double click Dan’s head above and see all his great tutorials.

    You’d have to do seperate illustration for straighton and 3/4, but they’ll work too.

    If you pick up a copy of The Animator’s Survival Kit
    by Richard Williams ($19 at Amazon), you get a host of walk cycles, sneaking, etc.
    Just set the first pose, the mid gait, and copy the first and put it at then end (and tweak a bit, of course, after you preview), then AE does the tweens.

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