Arthurnal - Music - Critique

Alright, that looks already very promising!

I know it's a detail thing, but I like his hair. :)

Speaking of detail, the eye highlight is a bit funky, since the white highlight is not in the same spot for both eyes:

It gives him a cross eyed look.

- At the very beginning, the eyes dart to the right and then back to the left. I would have only one side in there. I you have eyes darting left and right too fast it looks like a pinball machine. He looks crazy with his eyes darting around. Simplify!

- same thing from x30 to 48. I like the reaction, but again, his eyes dart around left/right/left/right

- on "section", around x99, you have him look down and to his left. This feels strange to me because during this section of the dialogue he's explaining to the invisible guy what happened. So to me he's focused and should be making constant eye contact. I wouldn't have him look away.

- on "music" you bring his hands up:

I'm not too sure if that pose is working. What's the story point? What is that hand pose supposed to tell the audience? Is it enhancing the dialogue? And as he goes back, he keeps both hands up for a while. So you're starting to repeat the poses and he looks more like he has handcuffs on. This part is the one that works the least for me (only the hand part).

- the ending works because it's much more subtle and I like how the small movements reflect how helpless he is and that something perfect doesn't need grand gestures. Not sure if I'm making sense, but I like it. :)

Great first pass though!

JD

Arthurnal - Girl Fight - Critique

Hey,

Your shot though looks absolutely awesome! And since it looks so awesome, I'm going to be super picky. :)

 

First off, the effects you added are very cool and it's something I wanted to do on future shots for myself as well. So you're a great motivator to go in that direction! How did you go about adding the effects? My route would have been to draw individual frames in photoshop and to add them to poly planes as textures one by one.

 

The most successful effects are the sword streaks and the sparks resulting from the spark blows. The robot punch streaks are mostly okay, but there are few I would tone down by a lot. 

- the first punch I would tone down by a third

- 2nd punch tone down by half

- third punch keep the way you have it; that intensity needs to be so big and bigger than the first two because it's forcing her biggest reaction as well (jumping away from him)

- 4th move slamming her down: x162 tone down by half, x163 by a third, add effect on x164 as big as original x163, keep x165, make 166 twice as big and x167 as big as original x166. Her ground impact needs to be more prominent with the effect.

- 5th move, his stomp, would tone down by 60%

- 6th punch on ground I would reduce the streak in the air by 50% but add a bigger on the ground, more horizontal than vertical

 

Animation wise here my thoughts:

 

Robot

- on her sword strike at around x115, I would clench his fist (left hand in frame) to show some reaction to that sword blow

- after the punch on the ground around x222, the robot just stays put and kinda waits for her to cut off his arm; I would add some business to him, an adjustment to make it less static

- when his feet are in the air, I would rotate the fingers in

- and on the plant, you can bring them out again and to the side, to show the pressure of the foot and the squash

 

Woman

- for a cleaner silhouette I would have the blow on x258 end more screen left, so it's not hidden in front of her left leg

- for the ending I would have her keep the sword up until the robot is fully down, in a cleaner and more dynamic pose, more dynamic than my crappy drawing, hahaha

and then have her go into the sword down pose after x310. It's a bit rushed at the moment.

 

Hope this helps!
JD

 

 

 

Arthurnal - girl fight and cockroach - Critique

I think the first shot looks awesome! I don't have that much to say, it's look really really cool! My only tweaks would be:

x75ish, on that pose, her left arm is behind the sword and it makes for a muddled silhouette. I would bring out the arm and put it higher:

- when she jumps up, it feels like she jumps and then sticks in the air; if possible, continue her upward arc:

- when she gets grabbed, even though it's a fast move, I would drag her upper body and especially her head a lot more; so from x142 to 143, on 143, the head would be tilted way towards the pose she had on x142:

- when she's on the ground and about to get stepped on, she feels a bit stiff when looking up (I know you would after such a slam but still, hahaha); I would tilt her head up more, and I would also spread her left hand's fingers, so she doesn't push herself up with her fist:

- after the roll back, she's in a three point landing pose, which is by now very cliched; you could argue that by having her left arm in front of the left leg it's not looking like a three point pose, sure, but if you had to go for that pose, I would at least bring the arm in:

Again, it's not my favorite pose, but at least she's not jumping and landing, it's more a roll and getting into that pose. But what I would try, if you have time, is to bring her right arm down on the ground, to make it messier. I don't think she has to have a "cool" pose at this point. She was almost stepped on, she has to regain the upper hand, so by having at that point a messier pose and not so heroic, you make the audience think "Oh, she's not that cool looking anymore, is she actually going to get defeated?". But then she powers forward and slices the guy and all is well again. So that little misdirection could be cool. What do you think?

All in all though, it's looking very cool!

For the cockroach shot, I thought that the look was great (did you model all of the set?). As you mentioned, fix the two things listed but I have some other points, seeing this render:

- everything is fairly grayed out, but the skateboard is much darker and therefore stands out; on top of that the edge is right where his leg is, forming an odd visual tangent. I would grey out the skateboard a bit more and move it a tiny bit to the left:

- with the new set, the cockroach is hidden by the bag while it enters the scene. I almost missed it and was looking at the guy until he reacts. I would have it enter higher in frame, so that we can clearly see that it's coming in:

- not sure if it's because of the render, but after he rolls on the chair, looking at the cockroach, he shakes a bit; seeing it now, I would amp up that shake, and make it a bit faster, it barely registers.

That's it otherwise! Really nice job!

Cheers
JD

Arthurnal - Obstacle Course - Critique

Hey,

so you're saying you did this shot in three days??? Holy moly, that's awesome!

Here my thoughts:

- I need a frame counter in it :)
(will use quicktime frame counter)
=> it feels like the camera is a bit too close up until x72:
- the guy is hugging the frame too much at the beginning:

- same thing around x35

- and then later around x51

It's okay to missframe so that the it looks like the camera guy has a hard time finding the character, but in your case your character is consistently hugging the top frame, so that you want to yell at the camera guy: "Frame up!!". So you either frame up to follow the guy more or you pull the camera way so that there is more head room.

- anim wise I feel like the drop around x24 could use two more frames, it feels a bit fast

- same with the up on around x31, I'd add two frames as well during that move

- I'd add a frame or two at x113, when he jumps up; from the antic to the jump you have a linear key, which makes that jump a bit poppy at the beginning, so ease out of that antic more

- same during the last swing around x151, I'd add a frame or two as well, it's just suddenly zippy in that section

- and one more frame after at x175 after he slides down; he slides and then pops into his roll, but at x175 he could be closer to the wall with that added frame. If you really want to keep this and the zippiness, I would at least rotate his chest and head back on x175, so that it feels like the feet are stop the slide and the body snap forward because of that, but it's just the lower body and the chest and head drag for a little bit before he dives into his roll

Once okay to be zippy and fast, but there are section where the body movement is finishing an action through physics (like the first hop around x23), so when a character is supposed to land, but it looks like he's being pulled down because he's so fast, then it feels weird (at least to me). It's as if some outside force helped him with that movement.

But overall it's a great clip with a lot of cool moments and ideas.

JD

Arthurnal - Cockroach - Critique

Hahahahaha, awesome change during the chair rotation! Love it! That pose is much more in character!

Alright, here my thoughts for the rest of the shot:

- the beats of him looking at his phone and then the cockroach work a lot better, it's much clearer now
- the head stretch at x20 is still too big, plus it's stretching in the wrong direction; with your current shape, he would be going down, but since he's going back, the head would stretch/drag horizontally, not vertically:

Either way, I would reduce that stretch by 30% and have it go along the red arrow
- I'd reduce the head stretch on x31 and 32 by 30% as well
- same stretching direction problem on x131; he's moving forward (horizontally), yet the stretch is vertical:

- I'd reduce the head stretch on x165 by 15% and the one on x245 by 30%
- when he goes forward from x142 to x154, the SL finger pose is the same; I'd start with what you have, but end up on x154 with the fingers flat, so that it looks like he's really stretching forward to grab the phone

- lastly, watch out for the SL hand spacing when it goes off the chair; on x99 it's on the chair, on x100 it's very far off, then from x100 to 101 it sticks in space (IK), then on x102 it goes back SR, and only then you have uninterrupted spacing, so ease out of that x99 pose more

Nice improvements, great job!!

JD

Arthurnal - Cockroach - Critique

Alrighty!

So first off (again), the shot looks great, a lot of fun to watch!

Here my impressions:

- watch out on x6, the eye line suggests that he's already looking at the cockroach

Make it clear that he's looking at the phone; you can bring his head up for that:

That way you can have a clear head move, where he looks down, to show the audience that he's looking down and noticing the cockroach.

The stretch on the head is massive:

I would reduce those by 70%. With squash and stretch you want to feel it, but not see it. Right now, during all those moments, I can clearly see the head being stretched.

The only time it worked better, was around x165:

I would reduce the head by 30% and then it will work.

There's a moment that acting wise doesn't work for me that well. When he's on the chair, you have him almost look at the cockroach around x46, but then he slowly rotates around:

until he quickly snaps his head back SL (screen left) to look at the cockroach. What's confusing about this is that you're establishing how afraid of the cockroach he is, yet during that time he is turning his back towards his feared enemy and doesn't look at him for a long time. With that move and the quick head turn, which looks like "HA! I see you!", he come across as more confident and less scared. Yet once he gets up, he's still hesitant and scared. So you're breaking character here and it feels more like an animation moment that you had fun with, but didn't stay within character.

Another moment in that vein is around x185:

After he fumbles for the phone he lands has the cockroach right in front of him, and then doesn't move. If he's so afraid, I would have him take a quick step SL right after the landing. Or lift his left foot away from the cockroach. Anything that shows that he doesn't want to be near it.

Hope this makes sense!
JD