I’m beginning to grasp how to construct an ok looking static pose for something like an idle loop in 3D animation, but as I’m going through a blocking phase in a personal project (not the video above) I’ve noticed that my poses where a character is punching something or doing something like an extreme pose just looks pretty bad. Like a static pose but their arm is out kinda thing.

This kinda thing is far out from my level (super beginner) as I’m taking a mentorship that focuses on nailing the fundamentals right now, but I truly do love making 3D animations so I do some side projects here and there.

(The animation attached is highly unfinished and abandoned because I made some changes to the rigs that I couldn’t translate into the current animation. And in regards to the posing question, I’m mainly asking for the taller guy)

  • Here's my thoughts:

    1. You should try adding variations in the speed. Right now it looks like all the movements are moving at equal speed, which is medium paced. It would be more interesting to see some punches that are very fast and consecutive, rapid punches. And then some which still hit fast but have more wind up showing more power to the hits.
    2. You should have them move around more rather than staying locked in the same spot. You do have some movement, but it's very little. Having the character on defense getting pushed back and trying to gain distance would make it less static and more interesting.
    3. You are missing the "Impact" of the hits. For example when the left character does the leg kick. Itadori puts up his arm to block it, and the kick doesn't make his body move at all. His arm doesn't even move from the kick. The fact that every hit doesn't have any effect, makes them feel empty. There's no energy to any of the movements. If you have the kick against Itadori almost knock him over or at least pushes his arm inwards from the impact would add a lot to the animation.
    parent
    1. ⁠Oh ok yeah, got it! I’m pretty bad at adding any kind of spice rn, this helps though!
    2. ⁠Gotcha I think I was just following the reference way too closely
    3. ⁠Ah I see alright! This is another issue of following the reference too closely i think, Toji is a strong ass dude he would not be throwing light hits lmao you’re right
    parent root

    What reference were you using?

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    Ah yeah I see the issue with this. They aren't actually hitting each other in the video, so they are having to act out the "Impacts" which they don't always do.

    But the reference video isn't as noticeable because there's a lot of movement going on. Even the blocks that don't have impacts, still have their entire body moving and reacting to it, even if the arms are not getting pushed back.

    Go to the 50 second mark in the video when the guy does the kick and the girl blocks it. Use the <> keys on they keyboard to go frame by frame. When his kick collides with her arm as she blocks. Look at the rest of her body.

    1. Her left foot steps back, then her right foot steps back. So she's actively retreating during the block, and changing her stance.
    2. Her head is curling down to be protected by her left arm. She's not leaving her head exposed.
    3. She's pulling her right arm back and twisting her torso to bring her left arm forward. This lets her keep her arm close to her head while doing the block. She's twisting her body into the block.

    In your animation you have Itadori putting his head down during the kick block, and his left arm moving. But you don't move any other part of his body. You aren't twisting his torso. Also you have his left arm spread out at the moment of kick impact, unlike the reference where her entire body, arms included are close together.

    Also look at his hip placement in relation to his back. Yours looks like he's arching his back, backwards from the hip and then curving forwards to the head. In the reference video her back arches forward. It could just be the pants, if they are sagging. He looks like his body is in a U shape centered on his lower back, but it might just be the model.

    parent root

  • Good advice already, so I just wanted to make a statement about what you're struggling with.

    This is going to be a big reason why a lot of 3D animation and art has suffered/taken so long to get to where it is, now. 3D requires a lot of effort to create the same stylisations and effects that traditional 2D art and animation has.

    You will need to create better viewing angles.

    Squash and stretch to distort and emphasise things.

    Slow down and speed up things to create impact or suspense.

    Check out DBFZ animation comparisons. You can see how the Animation looks compared to what the player see's. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8uAjDPfcV7c?feature=share

    It's also a great guide in how you can cut-up scenes and create better poses for motion.

    parent

    I never noticed that, I’m going to be thinking about that for a while lmao. I feel like it’s so easy to make a more “realistic” 3D animation by accident so putting it this way helps a lot. Thanks for the video too!

    parent root

  • First things first is you need to step back from focusing just on posing, in and of itself.

    You need to be considering what's called blocking. It's how characters are arranged in a camera shot, in relation to each other, and the environment, and the viewer. You'll stop asking "how do I make this pose cool or good" and start asking "what am I trying to tell the audience, and where in the frame am I trying to make them look?" Considerations and priorities should shift to such things as "I want to show character A is in control, so I'll place the camera low, creating a power status of them being above the viewer." or "I want to show this character as desperate yet powerful, how do I combine both those emotions in their pose?" Every pose is an opportunity to tell the audience something about the characters. Are they aggressive? Calm? Goofy?

    The poses should all be in relation to the camera, as well. If you want to want the audience to follow the fist of your character as they throw a fight-ending blow, you have the fist out in its own space, isolated in the frame, centered, establishing it as the most important element, told by the pose. The audience instantly looks at and locks in on the fist. Every pose after that should visually emphasize the fist until you are ready to move on to the next story beat.

    You should be thinking, where should the viewer be looking? At the character's faces? At a body part that is being hit? At the fists/weapons being used? Compounding on that, you'll have to think about where the viewer was looking in a previous shot and how that informs the next shot. This is a massive opportunity. If the focal point of the end of a shot overlaps with the next one, and the next one, and then the next one, you can direct the viewers eyes. If you want chaos or stress, you can make the new focal point in a new location.

    The point is intentionality. You should build your poses around these storytelling choices. Everything serves the story, always.

    parent

    I see I see. I’ll be coming back to this comment a few times while I animate another scene, i’ll do my best to digest everything you told me and put it into practice 👍 I do struggle a lot with intentionality along with exaggeration, so yeah I’ll just start focusing more on the emotions like you said as well. The other comment about focusing the camera how you want it for which part of the story you want the audience to focus on helps as well. Thank you so much!

    parent root

  • The choreography looks very familiar. Did you reference it from a movie scene?

    parent

    Nope just a random fight choreo online and then I took a big punch from a random movie scene for the last part. Choreo

    parent root

  • I would recommend to use keyframes, which are basically your "main pose" like those dragonball fighting scenes that showed you like shoom woosh and then just one striking pose of goku vs whoever in turn, those are keyframes, so look at k-pop demon hunters as reference the fight moves quick and briefly stops at those keyframes the "cool poses"

    parent

    Ahhh ok I get what you mean, alright I’ll keep that in mind thanks!

    parent root