Hey everyone!
I spent the last ~year learning character animation from scratch, and I'm finally able to share my massive project with you all.
Character animation is one HELL of an endeavor, but I think having that ability truly does set your work apart. First I learned hand animation, then learned to work with free mocap from online, and then Rokoko sent me a motion capture suit - which is insane powerful. These four animations were all made using the motion capture suit. I think of the raw mocap data as a great base to work with. A lot of people get discouraged by the mocap animations coming out janky, but it's important to realize that it's not far from studio quality. Now, understanding exactly how to cleanup the mocap data was what took me probably 4-5 months. I went through a cascadeur workflow, but eventually realized I could emulate those tools inside of Blender. Now I can have a great animation from zero to complete in probably 6 hours from putting the suit on. I also feel like a superhero wearing it.
In terms of environments, I include the workflow for that in my YouTube video. Yes - I also created an in-depth YouTube tutorial to go along with all of this. Think I would leave you in the dark about these methods!? Go check it out!
Thanks!