Friday, August 13, 2010

Michael Baran - Snowman - Feedback




The clip looks definitely better! I wouldn't change camera angles so late in the game since you're working on poses that work for this current camera. Breaking up the shot can be nice, but is not needed. If you break it up, you could add a close up when he stops rolling the ball and catches his breath, after that you can go back to the previous camera.

Animation wise it's coming together, but the arcs still feel a bit blocky, as if you keys on linear instead of spline. In terms of detail you'd have to work on finger poses (they stay mainly the same, especially during the very last pull/push). But before you get into that I would concentrate on the believability of the weight and the timing between poses.

Let's take for instance the first two pushes and then the segment where he steps away from the ball. Look at the timing and arcs of his arms. They kinda float up, then to the left then down. What I'm missing is a nice flow and rhythm of movements. Both arms move almost in sync. The root's movement also feels a bit blocky. Without contrast of movement and proper weight (like arms around x65 to x95) the animation tends to feel slow motion-y.

I would pick out separate sections, for instance the first push, then the 2nd push, walk backwards, side steps, etc. and work on those sections alone, separately, until it feels right. Shoot reference, act it out, time out how your arms swing and move. And try to act out exactly what you animated there. Try to pantomime your exact timing of animation and you'll notice areas that feel off.

Without specific timing the clip ends up being just about mechanics and the personality of a character is lost. The closest you get is during his pause where he wipes off his forehead and at the end during the finger taps.

I hope this makes sense...

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