My Video Animations

#1 Right now they are good for a first pass - you've got the basic motion in there you want, now you can go back and begin to refine it. Try to avoid that floaty slo-mo "underwater" feeling - a common thing you see in beginner animation (and believe me, I used to do it too) is to use too many in-between frames (IBs) between key poses.

Basically you want your animation to be a sequence of strong poses, ie (you'd actually use a few more key poses in these examples, but I've simplified it here for clarity): pose 1 relaxed holding gun, pose 2 in firing position.

Rather than letting the PC do a linear interpolation for the IBs, use your f-curves (or just more keys) to ease him out of and into the next pose. The amount of ease will dictate his intent: if he's just seen an enemy you'd use less IBs and less ease (especially coming out of his first pose) to get him from pose 1 to 2. If he's just at a firing range and therefore not in a hurry you'd use more IBs and more ease, especially to get him into the firing position. And it really, really helps to act out the action yourself. Also remember a gun has weight, if he's just shouldered it his body is going to shift to keep his balance, and there's going to be some follow-through once he hits that firing pose. More so the faster he does it. And finally, remember that human limbs tend to move in arcs, not straight lines.

Try this out: animate a head turning over 6 frames, it looks pretty robotic. Go to the mid point between both keys and have the head dip slightly then play it back - it looks a lot more natural. Then try sliding that midpoint key closer to each of the extreme keys and see how it affects the intent or "emotion" of the animation, then try adding varying amounts of ease to each main key (not the middle one) and see how it looks. Even moving a keyframe on frame can change the whole intent of a character's motion. Same goes for arms, legs, whatever...

If you can, pop in a DVD of an animated film (some anime would be great for the style you are working in) and step through some of the animation a frame at a time. You'll quickly get a feel for the sort of timings and poses you should aim for. A great way to learn is to pick a scene from an animated film, break it down and try to duplicate it yourself (obviously you'd only ever do this while learning - never for a job!). Another good source to see examples of strong posing is in comic books.

Also, as I mentioned before, get into the habit of not letting the software interpolate between poses for you, as it's a good way to end up with really robotic animation. For action scenes I tend to animate stuff on twos or even ones (a keyframe every two or one frames) as it gives a lot more control...

Finally, it can really help to concentrate on getting the animation right before worrying about textures and lighting.

Well, my render's done - back to work now!