New skills - Puppet Animation Basics (With Sub-Zero)

Hayo my peeps!,

TL;DR – I make some basic animations. I maybe able to do my porn in an animation one day maybe? Fun experiment when on this semi hiatus. Files attached. Hopefully a good start.

-- THEORY --

Yo yo yo - So with the recently instilled troubles with my limited creation smut time I needed to keep my hand in the game and be creative to take my mind off troubles (coz there is a lot going on right now in the world too o_0) and decided that while I have time away from my usual crafting content it maybe a chance to learn a new skill or two.

I've wanted to do this for a while and recently got the opportunity – puppet animation! The act of taking a 2d image and animating it into life. I had to get some new software up and running (and learn a whole new program and skill set... but we'll get to that later)

You actually see the technique done in say some computer games with a more limited budget who can not hire out a full studio to rig 3d models to maybe do all cut scenes while still making the world come alive. If I where to use an example if you take the videos from the game Dawn of War 2 (youtube example link). It starts with kick ass full 3d model animation but between levels it uses this technique mixed with environmental effects / sound to make it pop.

So that was the goal, to learn the fundamentals of being able to do this to hopefully add to my skills – then after I've done the basics maybe I can apply at some point to my own kink art here maybe to mix things up?

In theory you could do it with any 2D static image as it can be for drawn art, honey select edits or even photomanips (which would be a fucker, as the skill bar for doing this perfectly at photo levels is chuffing silly hard to do convincingly and not exactly time productive) but it could be done for any of them I guess? I could even go back to existing 2D art and do the same thing to them if I had time.... what a thought!

-- ART PHASE --

I was going to do a custom hand drawn character to began to draw her, but decided it maybe best to just take some art and make sure I can do it before wasting a load of time before I even make a start at the process. The fact I'm tying this means it worked out but not all experiments do!

I managed to find this shot of Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat in a pretty fun pose. The resolution size was good enough and while some lower quality noise pixels can be see on close up / zoom in it would be easier to use this then anything too HD requiring more time to match its standards.

I cut up Sub-Zero at the joints (ironically fitting I guess) so that his limbs where detached and things like the ice blast ball where taken off firstly. Then it meant painting on bits that are behind parts you can see or extending the limbs in a convincing way that when it gets moved about it works.

The example above shows anything not faded out (the original image) where areas I'd painted on and the extra bits you have to do to make this process work. It takes a little time to do this and make work / look like it belongs (and things like painting the pattern on Subs chest with a repeating pattern was a ball ache, lol) but this will give freedom when making the final animation to make it shine.

You just have to guess what things look like under covered up limbs and what you might need for when the animation starts.

-- STARTING UP PROGRAM --

Now the puppet has been created it was imported into the new program with the layers I had just created in the art program so you can manipulate each part you cut out (head is separate to body, upper leg is separate to lower leg and foot etc.) and we can then start the magic from our preparation.

At this point I came into this project with NO IDEA how to interface with the program or what I was really doing other than messing around. The odd tutorial helped online where to look for things and ideas on it, but I decided to mostly learn as I went; with outside advice lightly guiding me on this one.

Having a character statically pose is one thing (as I have done for years being an artist of the 2D) but then having them move around is another. I had a very simple idea of him moving up and down breathing, maybe waving his hands around but aside I went into this very blind!

The advantage this program has is that you can links parts together and how it merges animation key frames together unlike other options in the past and while doesn't make it do all the hard work, some very annoying parts it takes out and can make easier. Example would be if he tilts his body aside you don't need to move his arms to attach / move with him rather than floating in mid air each frame. Very useful.

You can also pick the area something will spin for rotation, pinning an anchor point at the same time so things like arms will tilt in the right area that just make sense to the model. I could see the possibilities as I discovered it.

-- ANIMATION --

Without the ground work going in, as soon as you move him all the 'cracks' of a 2d image come out. While we are used to 3d models as soon as you move him a single tilt away from his original position the problems become VERY obvious! But with the work in place it mostly just worked with only minor things to add.

Now I'd got things set up it was a case of moving him around and trying to see how it would all come together. Without boring people it mean learning more about keyframes, blending animation cycles, moving through the timeline and matching things up and a good few hours scratching my head getting to together.

Eventually the general pose came together and the idea that he was going to loosely control the ice ball power and bob / tilt slightly became the goal. I tried being smart and cleaver to make off timings and make it look more organic, but that does have some heavy draw backs and paid for my unstructured testing later

Then after a good few hours the basic final form was mostly there. Having to set looping animations in code was one thing that made it pop off even if it wasn't the smoothest animation ever, it was a rough 'good enough' start.

-- EXTRA TECH --

I then had to learn about masking in the program and how that can be trouble on a moving animation (and the loops you need to jump through to make that work well ¬_¬) but getting that right did wonders for the final thing.

Lastly was the idea of glowing lights from the ice orb that pulses and decided to make it shine brighter as he goes closer to it with his hands (like he's putting more power into controlling it) and alike the art program the simple light trick helps bring a image / animation alive, so that was a good thing to learn early even if basic (this can only be seen in the animation files rather than the gif below).

-- CONCLUSION  --

Hopefully you've seen the results of this first test from the higher quality files attached or this gif above. I was crazy happy how it just came together out the blue and worked out with the results. Knowing I could do this with any works and the scope it gives is crazy good!

If I was to do this properly and focus on more parts I'd consider things like his hands being separate (maybe fingers also?) his pauldrons bobbing independently as well as say his eyes maybe moving around also if it was a big important project and something to consider in the future.

Also retrying with smoother animation would be key. I got better as I went on and some of the jerky nature of him could be smoother. I still feel it is within reason and passable at this stage all the same however. For me learning from scrubbing through the timeline manually and putting in frames is probably the best lesson I learnt here as I went on.

I also now know that doing a puppet animation like this would benefit from a drawn character and using smart layering much like I somewhat do. Much alike alternative picture versions with extras I include in the art (extra / changed body parts) the theory is true of  making a model from scratch. By over painting / changing the limbs onto separate layers maybe a little longer to craft but would give more options down the road for sure!

--

So that was something a little different but please know that I'm thinking of ways to make this work in my patreon artwork as best I can tastefully and likely as one offs. I can foresee trouble that very exact textures (like skin tone) done at a HD quality may look clashing  / hard to do and maybe there is limited scope for this kind of thing in my smut artwork.... but... it is kinda cool and fun to do all the same!

Hope you liked it! I'll see how everything works out this more and will report in with anything new with me and maybe able to get out some artwork for you – we'll just take that as it comes. Have a good one - Sius