I have been working through the rigging course but I haven't actually animated anything in a hot minute, so I made a quick creature. His mesh is just a skin modifier and he's rigged with a modified Rigify cat rig (I custom made the face!). I tried using a cloth sim to get some folds around his joints, but the effect is subtle.
I would really love feedback on how I could improve this. I know there's some sliding, but I'm mostly curious on how I can make it less muddy and have more character. Pajamas is supposed to be silly and kind of floppy with exaggerated movements. I think I could make have a lot more appeal, but I'm not sure how!
I love it! Such a cutie!
Becky is happy, Pajamas is happy, I'm happy, Wayne is tired. He deserves to own a Pajamas once we perfect cloning and gene editing, that would be a nice gift.
Hi Becky,
You asked for some feedback.
I have some here - hope it helps.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/00467qb9bqwq3u20uhmsf/becky_crit_01.zip?rlkey=6hmh8vccgomxuukc1uykqoyy1&dl=1
Wow!! Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to leave such detailed feedback--it's really helpful! You were right that I animated the walk cycle and then attempted to layer root motion with the NLA editor (which ended up being a painful endeavor LOL). Had I set it up properly, I feel it could have worked OK for an application like this, but I'm very curious about the proper way to move a character through space. I'll take another pass with the timing of his steps and add more vertical movement to his head and hips. Again, thank you so much for putting so much effort into the feedback! Pajamas and I both appreciate it so much 😁
No problem, Becky.
You should take the animation bootcamp if you haven't already ;)
But one nice middle ground between an in-place walk cycle and a translating cycle is to animate the character moving through space but then translate the Root backwards at exactly the same speed (like I did on that image plane).
Then you can mute or unmute the Root animation to switch it from either style.
Hope that helps.
Looks so awesome, if Pajamas's were real, I'd want one as a pet. As long as they're like giraffes and not tigers. I'll see if I can get Wayne to look at your animation and give you feedback.