I did something rather interesting. I went to the GMC to request an animation from a specific person. This person in question is taking requests from a topic that has over 425 replies. This person in question, absolutely fails when making a walking animation.

I thought that this person could use a little help, he is good at posing, pays attention to some detail, and would benefit greatly from a little help.

I asked him to animate this character (someone I'd already animated):

<p align=center></p>

I asked him to make that guy walk, so I could prove my point that he could benefit from a little advice on the walk cycle. He animated it, and did about as expected.

Here is my animation versus his, his in yellow, mine in green:

<p align=center> vs </p>

*note* Since there seems to be some confusion, 1) I don't need an animator, as I am perfectly capable of animating stuff myself (and I was just testing him to make a point), and 2) The one with the green background is one I did myself, a while back.

I sat down, gave him a lengthy explanation, and several extremely helpful pointers on walking animation, as well as an overview of what a walk cycle really is, with an example, and outlining the differences and number of frames. I also described the technique of onion-skinning, something he claims to use.

I received a reply, an unexpected one. This person said he used onion skinning, and that he merely completed requests, and didn't bother animating them well unless asked specifically.

It seems to me that:

1) If someone is requesting an animation, they always want a good animation.

2) It doesn't take much more work to make a good animation than it does to make a crappy one. Sometimes, good animations are in fact easier to make,because of predictable changes in shape and motion.

3) He claims he only does a bad job like the one above if he wants to complete it and doesn't really care about it. Yet, in every single walking animation by him, there is something wrong. For example, here is his avatar - his best animation that I could fine - it looks like a Halo Zombie:

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You'd think he'd spend more time on his avatar than anything else, since it represents him, or at least do his best job possible. His spriting is fairly good, but his animating sucks. Jerky, stiff, and unnatural.

He basically only animates the legs, the rest of the body is held rigid. Braiiiinnnnssssss…..

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It saddens me to see stuff like that - this guy is getting replies like 'omg awesome best animation ever!' and he can't even animate a simple walk cycle. I was trying to be helpful, give him a few pointers, and instead, I'm brushed off.

May he have many happy hours doing bad walking animations, as he will probably never get better at it since he doesn't listen to sound advice.

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Anyways, down to business, comment on this part or else I'll kill you and feed your liver to the owls.

Oh, and bump this - I've seen far too many noobs asking for pendulum examples, and this was last up 6 months ago.

Now…

I've been making some tilesets, and stuff for my game. Here, have 3 more pictures!

<p align=center>Bits of grass and stuff

Inside somewhere dark

Something green - it'll make a superb miniboss

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Yeah, the character from above is in the game. Sexy lighting, no?

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Happy birthday, Arc!