Sunday, February 28, 2010

Great examples

Check out Marcelo Sakai's reel if you haven't already:

Marcelo Sakai animation reel


and here Lukasz Burnet's clips, showing a huge variety:
LukeBurnetTestAnim

Stephan Brezinsky's old lady with the speaker is awesome!
Reel Stephan Brezinsky

And here Uldarico Lim Jr's reel:
Demo_2009

Red Light Guy - Joseph Tayler




This clip is really great! The timing is awesome, from the little antenna down to the broader moves.

The beginning antenna part up to around x81 when it disappears is great. My only nitpicky thing would be around x22. The antenna is controlled by the guy and it's very purposeful during all the moves, but when it comes down at that point, with that rebound, it feels like it's just falling down and bouncing, which makes it less intentional and more like a loose object. It's obviously not a deal breaker, but just a tiny bit out of character thing. If you ask WHY is this antenna around, then judging by the anim, it's to observe the area and the timing suggests precision. I would also have it disappear a bit faster, take out 2 or 3 three frames, almost eliminating the upwards move of the red light part. Right now the entry is pretty much taking as long as the exit. Since the antenna checked everything, it can hurry to get to the point. So I would add the 2 or 3 frames you're taking out of the exit to x62, like it's taking on last long look, then it quickly disappears.

Some stuff will change once you go more into spline mode. For instance how the lid gets pushed up and to the side is a bit fast. Especially from x96 to 97. It's a one frame move and makes the object look very light. Give this enough weight while maintaining the cartoony-ness.

The screen left leg on x113 is a bit unclear silhouette wise. Careful about foreshortening limbs. The thigh/knee part is bent towards us in front of the hip, so when you squint, it looks like a short leg. Yet the screen right one is much longer. That one is a tad too bent backwards, breaking the knee joint. Once you spline it out and it's over one frame, such a broken joint frame could work, but right now it's on there long enough to register, and it makes for a weird silhouette.

The entrance of the guy could be a tad faster (up until around x130), for a snappier surprise reveal of who was behind that antenna. Once he hits that pose around x130, repose his right arm a bit. Silhouette wise it gets lost in front of the blue body. Since everything is blue-ish and dark in this shot, silhouette is very important. Same goes for the pose around x180. The screen right arm gets lost as well. Either move is out screen right so it's a silhouette in front of the wall, or make it clearer in front of the stomach, so you can get a color on color silhouette.


For more about that, see this post for example:

Clear silhouette - confuse your audience
silhoutte
Power of silhouette


I love it when he puts the lid back on top and waits right before he does, checking again if the coast is clear. Nice touch! I also like how he puts his hands flat down before the turnaround.

The poses from x293 to x312 need to be stronger. During that section he feels a bit casual. The stealthiness and careful nature is gone, it's another weird character break. It looks more like an athlete getting ready for the jump and roll. The jump and roll is great though. Another moment where you break the joints, but this seems fast enough for me and I think it works better than the entrance of the guy.

The last antenna thing has the same bounciness like at the beginning, which I mentioned before. Again, I wouldn't do it (feels more like it's there for cool animation than character), but no deal breaker and if you feel strongly about it, keep it.

All in all, very cool! Move on to splines and put in the finishing touches!

Cheers
JD

Reminder! Go step by step!

This is more of a general topic post, so anything that's not specifically a feedback/critique post, will go to the main Spungella site, but I'll post a link here so you don't miss it.

"Reminder! Go step by step!"

Shot ideas - Ismini Sigala

a creature (i think there's a decent dino rig lurking around, there's big dino project coming up in london need to try out some creatures)


A bit broad! :) Is it a creature fighting? Creature movement study? Creature vs. human? Either way, love creature stuff, so hell yeah, go for it! Always a good challenge. Check out creative crash, there are a few dino rigs on it:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/?sorted=true

and other one which i ve kind of started... basic set up man and dog (great dane rig) man comes in shot absorbed in his book, his hand going backwords and gets stopped abruptly (because of dog on lead) he gets frustrated rolls eyes something like not really careful and starts pulling lead whilst back to his book. dog comes into to shot sniffing here n there...man just notices for a second (glancing from book) and motions him (head or something) to move one (kind of stop fooling around way) dog shoots off forward with man flying off or dragged....


That's a great idea! Lots of physical stuff. Pretty tough shot, with guy walking, reacting to leash, then dog mechanics, pulling and acting on top of that. Very cool, I'd go for that! Make sure that the dog sniffing is suddenly attracted to something awesome (at least in his mind), so that we see the dog reaction first before he speeds away pulling the guy with him.

For help with animal movement, check out this monster pdf about Animal Locomotion, very helpful!
http://spungella.blogspot.com/2010/02/animal-locomotion-for-animators-by.html

Shot ideas - Aziz Kocanaogullari

1st shot - it's a bit of an unconventional dialogue but I've wanted to animate to that dialogue for a long while and I guess i just gonna go for it, you know, just so i'll have some fun animating rather than thinking what I should do strategically. So the dialogue is here: http://www.azizk.com/boo.mov . The shot is in a radio station, camera's set up looking straight from the front at the girl and the guy who's running the show. It has that stupid radio jingles that's promoting the radio station itself in the beginning so in that section, I'm hoping i can show the characters off a bit. (I have the guy in mind a bit more cheerful, carefree type of guy where the girl is kind of uptight and cares about her work). So I'll hopefully show those character when the jingle is playing and then there are like 2 more lines and a bit of laughter. So I kindda feel like it'll be a fun shot. What do you think about this?


I think that could be very interesting, I like your character ideas. It would be cool to see someone in the back booth counting down and signaling the guys when they can start to talk.

I would cut the last little part, where the guy goes "I got..." or whatever he says. Just have the laughter.


So this alien comes in to the scene from camera left as if looking for something, looking all around. He doesn't have the tentacles, just arms with no hands. Then he hears someone coming and suddenly stops. The tentacles come out and he throws them up, off screen and pulls himself up - again off screen. Then we see a huge, built guy (totally giving the bad guy vibe) run in looking for the alien, with a gun. Long story short, the alien's going to pull him up using his tentacles. Kind of like a physical / entertaining shot. Again, thoughts?


Could be fun, there's definitely room for a lot of complex physicality once the guy gets pulled up.
Once the alien comes in though, is he frantically looking around trying to hide? Is he scared? Or is he angry? Does he care at all? If he's cool about it, maybe the tentacle comes down in a playful manner behind the guy, before he pulls him up? Does the tentacle tap him on his shoulder beforehand? Or is it more violent Alien style? Just think about WHY there characters are there and give them a reason for every movement.

Dog - Aditi Bhandari



Alright, here my 2 cents:

Guy first:

The walk feels a bit cycle-y and the last little turn before he exits frame feels too robotic, it's around the x148 area. I like that you have him not following a straight walking line to add some complexity to it though. Try to drag the arms a bit more during the turn. Right now you can feel how the body and arms and bags all turn at the same time.
The bags also don't feel heavy enough, given the visual thing of how you packed them to the top. If you track your up and down of the bag, it's too much, plus the bag rise too quickly, which kills the weight as well.


So reduce the up/down to a bare minimum.
A detail note: since you have sausages dangling, animate them dangling as well, would be a nice touch. :)
Something about the feet feels a bit mushy. Track the feet after they plant. I see a little slipping in his left foot from x121 to 123. Bigger slip on the other foot from x133 to 134. That foot also seems to be going through the ground, looking at x138 to 139. Careful when you go from foot roll to regular flat foot, from x145 to x146. The angle of the rotation is suddenly different over one frame. On x145 to the ball of the foot is higher and if you'd separately rotate the toes down, the whole foot would point down in a much steeper angle than you have on x146. You could argue that the foot rotation starts to flatten out as he moves it forward, but that's not reflected in x147 to 151, the angle stays pretty much the same. The left foot slides forward on the ground from x156 to x157 and even more. It might not, but visually, you don't raise the foot high enough for the step forward, so it looks like it's sliding forward (and it doesn't help that the toes are bent up during that section).

Now the dog:

He looks fantastic! Great detail work and complexity in his movement and path! The little bounces during the beginning sniffing/walking are cute.
At x126, I would have him turn his head already towards the guy and the bags. The smell is so fresh and new, he'd react to it immediately. Visually it would be almost like this: the guy/bag goes in front of the dog, covering it up, then as the head gets revealed, he's finishing up the turn to looks towards the guy, kinda like a funny reveal. So, have him turn the head earlier, then hold that (with a bit of a drift and head follow) until x144, where you have him go down.
The part where he gets up and pulls the lid down, x61 to x147, is a bit rough. The back paws feel very locked until his back right one takes a little step back (during which the left one is still locked though). The body raise to get to the lid feels good, but the drop after that is a tiny bit even. The right paw/leg that goes up with it is also even in it's timing going up/down, plus it could need a bigger arc, the up/down is very straight.
Once he goes up to x110, his body feels like you got about 2 keys on them. :) It freezes almost, especially the right hanging leg. There's a tiny drift in the body, but that's not quite enough, plus the head goes forward and visibly stretches the neck forward a la Go Go Gadget! From x121 on to about x136 the body is pretty much frozen, the right leg is in a straight line frozen as well. Add more keep alive and a nicer pose to the leg/paw until x143. Even though head turn, the rest is still too frozen.
Once he's down, I feel like he's too careful. He moves very carefully between the lid and the grassy patch. A bit too clean for a street dog. It would add a nice bit of complexity to have him step over the lid, so you can see the interaction between the dog and the wobbly object.
The jump towards the guy is cute but seems to slow down after around x177. One tip off for that is his right leg. The spacing is very big from x176 to x177, then to 178 very small, there's no more up in Y. The body spacing is also getting smaller, adding to the slow feel. The back paws don't really land on x184, the paws don't plant, they just stick in the air.

Now this would be more of a change, but my wife just watched the clip after having been on a walk with our dog and she said this:

The dog would sniff the ground all the way up until the head reaches the trash can. It's a bit too human to look up beforehand. They sniff everything and follow a trail. So from x45 to maybe 55 he's head would be down until he touches the can, then sniff up, look up into x64. Again, quite a change and maybe a little bit of an extension to the shot length, but I thought it was an interesting comment.

Alright! Despite all that, it looks very very cool, well done!