Edwin De Loor - Baseball and Reach - Critique

Alrighty, here we go.

First off, usually animators send me one clip. If there's more (and that's fine), it will take longer feedback wise. Just a heads-up.

Let's take a look at the baseball pitch:

- I'm a bit confused about that one, since it looks so similar to the last version. It will also help to get a little bit of history regarding the shot and how far you want to take it.

- there are two things that stand out the most upon initial viewing:
> the way the root moves up after the throw
> the way the shot ends

As mentioned earlier, you want to make sure that the shots you work on look like they're taken out of a sequence, meaning, it should feel like something happened before and that something will happen afterwards.
Right now it ends like a robot is being shut off or the actor is waiting for the director to yell "Cut!".
So for the ending, think about what the character is going to do after the throw. It doesn't have to be another action, but just the beat will be enough, so that you can cut on action and not after all the movement is stopping.

The other thing is the root movement from here:

 to here:

The timing and spacing of the SL leg and the root feel even and slow. The sense of weight could be stronger.
The back leg and the head also rise at the same rate, giving it a weird mirrored look.

There's a lot of forward momentum being generated by the swinging arm, yet all that momentum and speed dies off once you raise the root with the leg at that speed. And after that movement you have him get to this pose:

... by having the leg come down and the body rotate up, but without any weight shift.

I'd recommend to bring his right leg forward and down a bit sooner, so that after the throw the body has to take a while to stop that forward momentum and the imbalance forces him to bring his right leg forward. But once it's forward and down you have to put the weight on it. Right now it doesn't look like he's putting the weight on the right leg. I would flatten the foot, adjust the hips (SR side goes up since the weight is on that side) and at the end bring the root SL for the balance adjustment.

- watch out for arcs; for instance the SL arm (his right) going up until x9 and then suddenly down. That looks like a linear key.

- for the antic pose at x14, I would push the hip more; don't have his left hip be in line and right in front of his right hip ball, twist it more around and raise it:

- his shoulders could start to move up a tiny bit from x4 to 11, so that they're more influenced by what the arms are doing

- his left leg seems to travel in a flat arc from x16 to 24, which gives it an IK look. Counter that with more of an arc.

- watch out for line of action and try to avoid angular poses, like this:

I would tweak it so that there's more of a flow between the legs and the body.

Start with this, as some of the notes will change the anim pose wise and timing wise quite a bit. Later on we can go into more detailed aspects (like foot polish, etc.).

Ok, let's take a look at the "Reach" clip.

You mention that this is still in progress, so I'll give you my initial broader impressions.

- biggest thing that stood to me were his arms, especially at the end. They felt very IK-ish. This is mostly due to the even timing (mostly when he lowers his arms) and how the wrist rotations feel detached from the forearm. Wrists usually stay in line with the forearm, unless there is some dramatic overlap or drag or something else that asks for it. But the moment you have an arm drop, where the arm is changing orientation, and the wrist stays in the same rotation for a few frames, it's an IK give away. Same goes when you track the path of the wrist and it's moving in a straight line as opposed to a clear arc. That's another give away.

- as you continue, make sure that you have the proper ease in and outs, so for instance, as his left leg goes up, it comes to a very abrupt stop at x56, as if it hit an invisible wall

- same goes for full extensions of arms and legs; right now you pop into those poses, so they will need softer ease ins/outs as well

- another thing are his hips. Take the move from x39 to x49. Despite the movement and balance shift during that section the hips don't get affected at all, so watch out for that.

So overall, it's on the right track, it's just fine tuning arcs, adding the proper weight shifts and finessing the timing here and there. You're on the right track!

Hope this helps!
JD