Atle Hillmann - Car crash - Critique

Hey,

alrighty, what I would do now, is hide the eye controller box and put it geometry for the floor, so we can look at intersections. As he's looking around, you want the root to be involved as well, so as the hips are moving around, we need to check it against the floor.

Overall, you're on the right track. What stood out were the IK arms and some fast timing here and there, but you're doing good!

- main area to work on for the next pass (for the same section and beyond) are his arms. The tricky thing about IK arms is that they move independently from the body and in some cases (depending on the rig) also independently from the hands. Looking at your arm/hand that holds the car, the wrist is locked in the same orientation throughout the whole shot, as well as during major body movements, like from x29 to x40. Same goes for the other hand, albeit in a less pronounced way, except from x118 to 123, where the hand goes down and screen left in a very linear way, with no arc and not chest nor shoulder movement is visible, which makes it stand out even more as IK
- that last section with the hand is also too fast; you'd think that he'd be more careful, now that he's found the piece and has the hand so close to the car
- the head turn from x60 to 66 is also a bit too fast; this feels more like he caught some burglar :)
- as mentioned at the beginning, during all those turns with the upper body, you will have to involve the lower body and hips; they are locked right now are not reacting to the body. The legs will move and shift as well, when he turns around (which in turn will have an effect on the feet, otherwise you end up with the locked wrist IK look again)
- his left knee will move when he takes his hand off, since there is a weight change as the hand is not resting on the knee anymore
- lastly, watch out for pops like on x41 to 42 (his left leg)

One more tip for IK arms. You want to emulate FK arms as much as possible. When the body rotates, the arm rotates with it. Of course you don't want it all to happen as one unit and at the same time, so you offset the arms a bit, depending on the action. But even then, it will still feel like the body is influencing the arms, which is more believable, than IK arms, where they are completely detached.

Hope that makes sense!
Cheers
JD

Roman Kobryn - Kill - Critique

Very cool! It's really coming together!! Here my thoughts:

Body:

- there's something linear either in his chest or root at x121 to 122, when the body goes up and then screen left; I'd smooth out that transition more; actually, during that section, he seems to lean over to his left, but then his left leg gets off the lower window/balcony thingie, so he would be unbalanced, yet he raises the leg to x123 and then not much more until around x130. So this looks more like he's leaning over to his left, to then push off the left leg which makes him lean back to his right, so in that case, I would keep the left leg where it is a bit longer, like around x135 and don't have any up movement from x120 to 125
- eye closing at x106 feels even in timing
- on "HIM", could add a little bit of eye brow movement, where they move towards the middle, just a bit, for a little crunch; subtle, but it would add a touch or tension
- this could be nothing, but watch out for his left hand/forearm going through his back from x47 to 80

Lipsync:

- the "Jesuit" part looks great!
- after "rebel", I'm not too sure about the upper lip being so high. I like the idea of keeping the mouth open, but when I watched the clip for the first time, that part felt weird.
- "both" you could push the "B" shape (curl/roll in the lips more) and the "TH" shape; you want to show a separation between the "O" moment and the "TH" moment, so "O" will have the mouth corners further in, so that it can relax out a bit on "TH"
- "Him" needs curled in lips as well; nothing crazy, but just like the "B" moment, there needs to be a difference between a default closed shape and a lips pressed together shape
- lastly for "Man" and "me" the same, but a tiny bit, more subtle than the previous shapes, but all for contrast

I'm sure you're aware of it, but just in case, make sure to color his eye balls white and give him a different shirt. :)

JD

Mike Wilson - Espresso - Critique

Your new version looks a lot better, nice job making the tweaks!

The first few things that still stood out though were:

- screen right hand around x172 and on, is still in that flat pose and creates a weird silhouette. Plus it makes him lok too controlled and elegant, yet he's yelling and upset, so the fingers fight against that mood.

- "going" mouth shape still feels flat. The "i" part could be exaggerated, so it's more "Go-iiing", with one corner of the mouth higher than the other

- flip through x248/249 and you'll see how the screen right arm is locked and that ends up being an abrupt stop as the arm goes up. Don't stop the momentum so hard, finish the upward move with an arc and a down movement for a settle

​ - x252 on, his turn back to us, the head is better, but the upper chest feels like it's just moving in Y; would be good to add a bit more complexity to it

That's it! You're almost there!
JD

Alon Helman - Jump - Critique

I'm not too concerned about the speed. It works for me now, but it's hard to know how much faster you went. You can always render it faster with the speed that you like. Also depends how stylized you want to go.

The changes work pretty well, especially the added frame in the root. I'm still not a big fan on his right foot pose at x18. I would rotate that more in, it looks kinda broken. You could start on x16 with a more inward tilt and rotation and then go further on x18.
This may sound picky, but his right foot feels like it's slowing down before the impact a bit too much. I would delete x27 and go from x26 to 28 (so x28 happens on x27). It won't be super harsh because the toes are still up for one frame and then there's a full plant. That will soften it enough. But right now it's a bit too soft.



I'm a bit hesitant now about the speed up, after looping it for a while. And only because of his head spacing from x16 to 18. It's already borderline fast, so with a speed up, that will get too fast. You will have to adjust that if you speed everything up.

Sorry if I didn't see that before, but at the beginning, when he leans screen left, his left foot is moving as well, so there's nothing that motivates the root translation. You need that foot to be planted so that it can push the root screen left. If you delay the foot from getting of the ground it might make the step before the jump a bit too fast. If that's the case, just add a few frames to the beginning of your shot, have him lean to the left during those added frames so that the weight distribution is working better and then lift the foot for the step and push off.

On x21 I would bring the arm a bit more back so that you have a cleaner silhouette and make a fist (the hand pose feels a bit soft).



You can open up the hand after around x26.
Watch out for hand/floor intersections on x31 and 40+.

Hope that helps!
JD

Bruno Andrade - Dino Fight - Critique

Hahahahaha!! That's kinda brutal!!

My first impression was, too bad I missed the fight! :) Maybe you can cut on action where the dino is falling down? But that might be too much. What's your story behind this?

Pose wise the kid feels pretty good. I would maybe get a stronger silhouette at the beginning. x1 his axe is in front of the body, with the screen right edge aligned kinda with the right edge of his arm. x99 and 105 have really strong posing, so I would make x93 a bit more dynamic as well.
After the slash on x115, it would be cool to feel more of an impact in his body. I think that the axe also comes off too softly. It would be cool for the axe to be stuck in the body a bit more, so when he pulls it out, the dino body gets pulled with it for a moment and then plumps down when the axe gets out.
In his last poses, like x191, I would angle the axe a bit more down vertically, so that it looks heavier. It might get trick with the silhouette, but after a big fight, and given his panting at the end, he should be more tired and not able to hold that axe so easily with one arm. Or, he's using the axe as a cane, with the blade on the ground and he's leaning on it for support. Maybe?

JD