Valve's Meet The Team Animation Method

[sleepy]

Hey guys, just starting out with SFM animation, and looking to improve the quality of the animations I produce, I've done a relatively ok amount of research before I started, In my current animation I'm using Pose to Pose - spline fill animation technique (The method where you keep turning on and off splines to help predict the next inner pose). While looking for inspiration in the valve meet the team shorts I noticed that the graph editor in specifically "meet the engineer" has zero graph data, while the motion editor contains all the information, would it be fair to assume that because of this, (not even the signs of keyframes or bookmarks) that valve used a motion capture device (i.e the extremely expensive motion capture suits) or animated everything via the motion editior?

On a side not, if there are any professional animators out there with extensive hours in SFM, what processes do you use (in order) to produce high quality realistic movement. Do you start with any particular bone i.e the pelivs/ hips? Also if you're starting a new animation what do like to try and animate first, or do you simply use blocking? also do you prefer pose to pose or straight ahead animation? thanks (any other tips would be useful)

[Zappy]

All I know is that VALVe used motion capture for some of the scenes in Expiration Date... but Meet The Engineer is from 2009 or 2010 or something like that. Beyond that, I also know that the official Source FilmMaker tutorials cover a way to animate using the Motion Editor, so it's completely possible to do so, and I also know that when applying/removing inverse-kinematic rigs, all keyframes of affected bones are removed. It's entirely possible Meet The Engineer was animated solely with the Graph Editor, but applying/removing IK rigs removed all the keyframes (while still keeping the animation data intact).

But regardless, I fail to see how whether a team of people doing something one way has to decide whether you do something else in the same or a different way...

[sleepy]

Originally posted by Zappy:

All I know is that VALVe used motion capture for some of the scenes in Expiration Date... but Meet The Engineer is from 2009 or 2010 or something like that. Beyond that, I also know that the official Source FilmMaker tutorials cover a way to animate using the Motion Editor, so it's completely possible to do so, and I also know that when applying/removing inverse-kinematic rigs, all keyframes of affected bones are removed. It's entirely possible Meet The Engineer was animated solely with the Graph Editor, but applying/removing IK rigs removed all the keyframes (while still keeping the animation data intact).

But regardless, I fail to see how whether a team of people doing something one way has to decide whether you do something else in the same or a different way...

You misunderstood me, I never said that what valve or anyone else does will influence me to do one thing or another, I'm just getting as many opinions as possible, i.e. I will probably always use the graph editor, even if a pro uses strictly the motion editor, but it's interesting to find out why they may feel it to be superior and what benefits that it can offer over the say the graph editor, again, I'm new to the whole animating thing but there is literally years worth reading information out there of tips, guides and styles of animation from those people of all different animating ability.I simply would like to collect bitesize, applicable tips to use in future animating.

[Zappy]

In that case, all you need to know is that professional animators may use the Motion Editor only, exclusively the Graph Editor, or maybe both. It all comes down to personal preference, really.

(I prefer the Graph Editor with its keyframes, but I'm by no means a professional animator. I'm actively trying to be a silly-looking animator, actually.)

[Paintbrush Poltergeist]

Originally posted by Zappy:

All I know is that VALVe used motion capture for some of the scenes in Expiration Date...

This.
Would it have killed them to fix all the clipping?