Jero Maggi - Jump - Critique

 

00:00:00:28
Make sure to twist the hips in Y and also sideways. The leg that's forward will rotate the hips that way and the weight bearing leg will have the hip up on that side.

00:00:00:28
So his left hip will be forward and up. His right foot won't be flat on the ground due to the angle of the leg and his right knee will be more SR for a better silhouette => if you do the squint test it looks like he has a really short leg without moving the knee over.

 
00:00:01:21
When the shin is really low and you don't have your foot roll, it looks like you will pop his Achilles heel. Act out that pose and you will see what your foot does.

00:00:02:06
Bring back the shoulders fully when you pull back the arms.

00:00:02:11
Foot roll on his left foot (Achilles heel)

00:00:02:14
Shoulders down

00:00:02:18
Shoulders forward and up and rotate hips depending on which leg is forward

00:00:02:23 
Same here, bring up the shoulders so that they are not on the same level as the top red body line. Hips need rotating.

00:00:02:27
Shoulders up

00:00:03:03
- shoulders up - bend his right leg a TINY bit, so it's not super straight, that way it will feel like the line of action goes from his body straight down his leg - angle of both feet feel too similar, gives it a twinning feel

00:00:03:07
Bring shoulders down a little bit and bend arms a little bit, so that they are not overextended.

00:00:03:11
Same here, bend arm and bring down shoulders. The overlapping timing though is a lot better than last week, nice job!

00:00:03:17
Shoulders lower, foot roll on his left foot and bend arms. Once his arms are fully taking the weight of the body you can bend the arms more and bring up the shoulders: - bending because of the weight of the body on them - but arms can't go lower because of the ground, so they will push shoulders up

00:00:03:23
Bring back the elbow, so that it bends the arm visually the other way and bring up the shoulders.

00:00:02:19
Overall the movement up can be faster.

Jero Maggi - Jump - Critique

Starting from this moment on the timing feels feels too slow. It's as if he goes into slow motion mode.

This is the section that doesn't work as well. Once he lands you get to that pose and it has his head already curled down. He would be first fully extended body wise, then the body curls forward because of the compression and the head would drag, then the body would stop moving forward and that's when the head would move forward.

It feels like his arms are super extended but the head is kinda scrunched together. Does the rig let you extend and move the neck forward more?

Don't forget to a foot roll so that the shin is not compressed. You'd pop his Achilles heel. :)

Jero Maggi - Sit Down - Critique

Yep, this looks a lot better, nicely done!

I got some picky notes and I would starting thinking about your next exercise. Do you have a preference and what you would like to do? I'd recommend a jump at this point, but if you prefer something else, let me know!

Okay:
- the arm pose from x0 to 22 still feels a bit forced; a big factor are the hand poses, which don't feel natural:



The outstretched fingers and the vertical rotation feel force. I'd look into poses like these:



So for your SL one it would be something like the red circled one, silhouette wise. The SR one wouldn't be so flat towards us and not have the wrist so vertical, it would follow the forearm a bit more:



- watch out that your hand is not locked in space, like after x15, which gives it an IK feel



- watch out that the pupils are visible and not disappearing around x26 and or getting into a cross-eyed pose



- the SL hand is drifting up his thigh from x57 to 73; I'd stabilize it and give it a more solid contact with the leg

- when he sits down, the pelvis kinda sinks into the chair from x50 to 54. It's good that it's not super sharp, but this feels a bit too soft and drifty. I know it's minor, but I would have only one or two frames of cushioning, but at a little overlap in the head on the frame of impact, so that the head rotates down a bit, showing us how the sitting stops the root but the momentum and "shockwave" travels to his head where the head continues down to finish the momentum. Hope that makes sense. :)

- lastly, I would soften the stop of the head going down at x75, it almost locks into place at the end.

You're very close!
JD

Jero Maggi - Sit Down - Critique

[question about what and why it's locking wrong from x43 on]
It's all moving together and with even timing, but it's good that you "see" that something is off. :)

Try this, scrub back and forth through the scene from x20 to 32 and you'll see how the body parts are moving separately, but when you scrub from x45 to 60, it looks like you just animated the root so that the whole upper body rotates up and back.

You will have to offset the chest and the head more. The head could look towards us. He could change his arm pose so that the chest rotates towards as well (less than the head). The head/chest/body movements also have to start and end at different times, to make it feel more organic.

One last thing, speaking of scrubbing from 20 to 32. If you look at the root, it's moving pretty horizontally from left to right:


Everything needs to move on an arc (even if the arc is very small). Now think about what the legs are doing to the hips and root.


Root is high because SL leg is straight up, pushing root up. As he transitions from left to right, the root will dip, but when he's on the right side, the SR leg will push the hip and therefore the root up again. My green curve is exaggerated, but that's the idea. And if it means straightening the SR leg a bit more at x29, then that's okay.


Hope that makes sense! :)

JD

Jero Maggi - Sit Down - Critique

This looks great! You pick up really quickly! :)

Here my thoughts:
- I wonder if you should rotate the head towards us a bit on x0 (for that pose) as he looks back, so it's not so 90 degree rotated
- around x48, when he's sitting down and has his hands on his legs, I would bring up his shoulders, so we can feel that he's propping his arms on his legs and therefore pushing the shoulders up a bit
- as you spline this, you can add a little overlap in the head after x50; his root comes to a stop and that sudden stop makes the head go down a bit (imagine walking and stopping quickly while keeping your head loose, it would bounce forward and down, finishing the forward momentum)
- moving on to spline, you can start thinking about finger poses so they get out of the generic x0 & x62 poses
- you might have to extend the shot a little bit, but maybe not; right now he leans back and you almost want to feel how the back hits the chair and stops and the head does a little overlap there

That's it though, looking great!

Jero Maggi - Sit Down - Critique

Hey, this is a great start, nicely done!!

Here my thoughts:
- first frame, love the arc going from the screen right (SR) foot up to the head; in that pose though, it looks like all the weight is on the screen left (SL) leg, which means that the hips would be up on the SL side


- once you're adding more breakdowns, watch out for the x7 to x8 section, it's a big move over one frame, so if you'd spline that now, it'd be way too fast; so as you continue to put in more break downs, slow that part down by a few frames
- as he's leaning over to the other leg on x8 though, the weight would shift over to the leg, so the hips would go up on the SR side





Think of it as the contrapposto pose:





- you might have to adjust the timing of how is sitting down, depending on what you're going for. Right now it looks like he's very careful about it, which is fine, if that's what you're going for. If it's a more regular sit down, the root might go down and accelerate a bit and plop into the chair; if you'd spline this, it would look a bit even; if I space out the root spacing going down, I get this:



As you can see, the red lines are pretty even.

- watch out for the upper body movement from x34 to 35, it's really big for over one frame and therefore pops up; add a few more frames in between those two poses to slow it down a bit

- for a little detail thing down the road, as you add more breakdowns and get into splined curves, think about adding complexity to little moves; again, nothing to worry about now, make sure that the main timing and weight is working correctly, this is just a sneak peak:
> from x7 to 8, the SR foot is in the same orientation, but you could have his left foot turned inward a bit more on x7:



Then on x8 and on, as he's rotating his body away from the chair (from his perspective he's turning to his right), the heel turns outward to the pose that you have on x8.
That's more polish stuff for down the line but you're already in such a good spot for your first animation of this type, that I'm confident you'll understand it as you progress.

Can't wait to see the updates!! Nice work Jero!

Cheers
JD