Eric Chiu - Creature run - Critique

Alright, about the shots!

What stands out a bit in the first shot is the section right after x243. His forward momentum slows down dramatically. It doesn't feel like the object slowed him down though. If you're running into something that fast, then your body will squash and compress given that you're into something. The momentum still has to go somewhere, even if there's an obstacle stopping you. Imagine a water balloon being thrown into a wall. Well, it hits it and stops, but it starts to squash and expand. The forward movement doesn't just stop.

You can continue with the individual movements that you have, like how he's coming down to x253, but overall he should be positioned closer to that dividing line. But in order to sell the impact you could lower the head less and then over two or so frames bring it down to what you have on x241, so that it squishes the creature together as well before it pushes the block away.

Smooth out the jump transition no x197 a bit more. On that frame to 198 you can see in the spacing the sudden speed increase.

The 2nd shot is clear and cuts well with the first one. But I would push it once you start polishing it. For instance, the roar has the mouth just opening in one axis, you can tilt the head sideways. You can also add some high frequency jitter in the head, to sell the tension and ferocity. Can you animate the ears? What about eye lids? Anything to push a pose change detail wise.

I would also make that first leg lift sharper by a few frames. It's a bit soft and takes away from the just previously shown anger when it roars.

Sweet shot! Keep going!

Cheers
JD

Eric Chiu - Creature run - Critique

(there was a comment about animating to camera)

Yeah, absolutely, cameras can be a pain. Often times I do a duplicate when there is one with camera shake and have no shake in it (you don't want to have smooth arcs while the camera is shaking, so don't check spacing on a shaky cam). And for traveling cameras I check perspective mode.

Yeah, the jump is floaty, you could try 50% faster. In quicktime I changed the playback speed to 1.5 and it felt better.


You also still have that turn pop, from x149 to x150. Looking at the image, I tracked the spacing of his left jaw side line, starting around x146. The red lines show you where the jump is from x149 to 150. #1 (green) is frame 148, #2 is x149, as you can see the spacing is pretty small, and it was small a few frames before. But then to #3 you suddenly have a big spacing gab. With such a big head a quick one frame move like that sticks out.

The charge is not too fast, but you need to consider the physics and mechanics of him charging. The charge starts at x239. His front left foot is on the ground for one frame. On x238 his right one was on the ground for two frames. During all that time the back legs were off the ground. Would an animal of this size be able to suddenly charge using only his front legs, or even only one? That just feels off. I would start the charge at x233, so that the animal is using the back legs to push off and the front legs afterwards to lunge forward to help with the momentum, like a human with his/her legs and arms for the swing. Then you transition into a faster run and it will feel more motivated by the actions of the animal.

Let me know if that doesn't make sense.
Cheers
JD

Reel 2009 - Eric Chiu