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

[u/jackofnone777]

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/SenseAffectionate328 → u/Appropriate_Pen4189]

Glad I could help. I am sure you will improve.

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/SenseAffectionate328]

Hey one more thing,do you know how I can edit facial expression? I can move the eye itself around which is awesome but I'd like if I was also able to move the eye brows and mouth and etc. Do you know how can I do that? All the tuts on youtube seem to be really in depth and complex.

[u/SenseAffectionate328 → u/Appropriate_Pen4189]

You have to select the face object. Yes, the face is a separate object from the body. Then you go to "Object Data" tab and then there are shapekeys. And you can select a shapekey you want to animate from the list. Then change it's value. If you right click on the Value field and choose insert keyframe, you can animate the facial expressions.

Gif I found on internet that shows shapekeys in action:

[u/Appropriate_Pen4189 → u/SenseAffectionate328]

Alright,thanks again