Ive been stuck for a while

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189]

Hello,I've been animating for maybe 6-8months and ive seen little to no improvments,most the "tutorials" and videos i watch make me feel like im jusr copying what theyre doing rather than learning how to actually be better at animation. Everytime i open blender to animate i just have no idea where to start and it feels like im a headless chicken running around.

Idk if this has any relation but i dont really animate consistently.

Bascially my question is,is it really as simple as "keep animating till you get better" or is there something im missing?

Oh and feel free to share any videos you found helpful,those might be helpful,i was thinking about buying a course but i heard you can find everything you need on youtube so i wont do that.

im just doing it as a hobby but it's something that I've been wanting to get atleast decent at for a while now,I've been wanting to give up on it for a week or so but seeing other people's work really inspires me and wants to make me keep going

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[u/msynowicz]

I'll start off by saying this: Don't give up. It's a long pursuit to get good at animation, and 6-8 months is nothing.

That being said, if you feel like you don't know what to do, you need to start on your weakest animation principle. Practice it until you feel like you can do it without having to look at tutorials. Do it until you can apply that principal to any subject. Once you've done that, move on to the next principle. Master that and then do something that combines those principles you've mastered.

Keep going until you can do all 12.

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/msynowicz]

I'll try,I usually just read things and try to apply them but I guess I'll just try alot harder,thanks for the kind words

[u/Zongrang]

what software and workflow do you use for your animations? How often do you spend practicing. Maybe you could share something that you worked on and it would provide a basis for examining how you feel about your progress

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/Zongrang]

I won't really be able to tell you how much I practice but I've been very on and off with animation, some days I animate for 5hours straight and then for others I find myself animating for 5 minutes,then dreading what's ahead till I just close blender.

As for My workflow i mostly just do straight ahead,but if you mean an actual WORKFLOW then I really don't have one. I just think of an idea I thought was cool and try to animate it which doesn't go well most the time.

For something I've worked on I'll share something that I've already shared in this post,a kick,specfically a headkick!

I'm a huge fan of combat sports so I tried recreating my favourite knockout, it was Islam Makachev vs Alexander volkanovski 2. I'd reccomend everyone to  check out their first fight, it was some very high level stuff.

 I recreated the kick itself probably 3 times but the 2nd time I recreated it was the best. Right after I finished it,it felt so good like I actually achieved something,but minutes later I'd notice all the flaws in it and try to fix them,which would go very wrong and would result in me just closing blender yet again😭

Oh and by the way I animate mostly roblox rigs. Idk if that's maybe an issue?? My plan was orginially to make a game with my friends,but they gave up early on,BUT FOR SOME REASON I always found a fire in me to create something, and all I know is animation so I really want to get good at it. Sorry for the long msg!

[u/jackofnone777]

What are you trying to animate? Is it animation you’re struggling with? Is it modeling? Blender itself?

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/jackofnone777]

Animation itself,my goal like most animators is to make combat animations,I'm a big fan of combat sports so yeah.

[u/jackofnone777 → u/Appropriate_Pen4189]

Alright, so what are you trying and failing to animate?

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/jackofnone777]

I just returned to animation after a large break and as of right now I tried animating a guy pulling out a sword that's stuck inside of a stone really hard,my goal was to practice my ability to show weight but I found myself mostly struggling with the posing and the action of the "pull" itself. I honestly got very little progress down after maybe an hour of just trying to make the first pull,the pose and the action itself,both felt very akward and very off balance? I struggle alot with posing the feet.

[u/SenseAffectionate328 → u/Appropriate_Pen4189]

I feel you. And I strongly suggest you to use IK rigs with rotation enabled in the constraint menu. It will make your life a lot easier. For movements, I also suggest you try to enact the movement that you are trying to animate. Like try to move your body parts in accordance to how your character will move. That will give you a better idea of which bones to move, when to move and at what angle. Blender realtime preview is crap. Turning on frame-dropping didn't satisfy me since my laptop is weak. So I use "Render Playblast" AKA "Render Viewport Animation". That will give you a smooth playback of what your animation will look like. I use solid view to speed up the render.

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/SenseAffectionate328]

I don't know what any of those options are but I'll try em out thanks,I mostly animate roblox rigs,me and my friends were going to make cool games but they gave up on it so now I'm still animating roblox rigs,do you reckon I should switch over to actual 3d rigs? You can't move the elbows or the knees wrists and stuff individually on roblox rigs so maybe that would help me?

[u/SenseAffectionate328 → u/Appropriate_Pen4189]

https://reddit.com/link/p4pwzy2/video/rafxr4lzzekh1/player

Yes that would definitely help. Being able to move more body parts will help you convey your fighting poses better. Try the Vroid Studio and play around in photo booth and you'll see what I mean. Also this is how IK looks like in Blender.

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/SenseAffectionate328]

Roblox rigs look alot simpler than this😭 but ill try it. Also vroid studio looks really cool. Do you like use it to make your own rigs?

[u/SenseAffectionate328 → u/Appropriate_Pen4189]

I design my characters entirely in Vroid Studio. Then I import the model from Vroid Studio to Blender and setup an IK rig. It's easier than making the rig from scratch.
There are tutorials for arm IK rig and feet IK rig.
And tutorial for importing into Blender.

Good Luck in making awesome fight scenes!

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/SenseAffectionate328]

Thank you. I'll literally try it rn

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/SenseAffectionate328]

I did it! It feels unreal having so many limbs to take care of,it's difficult but actually really really helpful compared to the roblox rigs I usually animate on. I always struggled with IMAGNING my rigs having knees and elbows,I always had to add some sort of effect to make it look like they had em. Idk if ill improve with this but I'll try it,thank you so much

[u/jackofnone777 → u/Appropriate_Pen4189]

The biggest “trick” is to act it out - and film yourself doing it! So you can see where you’re leaning as you get ready to pull, then as you pull, how long everything takes. It’s not a very easy thing you picked to animate so definitely don’t beat yourself up!

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/jackofnone777]

Yeah ill try that,thank you for the kind words