Raluca Feresteanu - Dragon - Critique

Hi,

here my notes:

- there's a sudden slow down in its forward path after the wing flap; yes the flap would slow it down, but the transition would be smoother:

- same thing when it slips and falls down; the root has a sudden drop but that feels more like it's being pulled down than gravity:

- the crawl up feels too even and the movements could be more complex; a frantic scramble with feet slipping would have a nice feeling and good contrast in timing:

- finish the arc you start; dragon pushes off but then suddenly moves down, resulting in a weird and flattened arc:

- the landing is too soft; the flaps are not big and fast enough to really slow down the descent; looking at the drawing, your Y curve flattens out too much and with the current flaps, your curve should more like the curve on the right; a good mix inbetween with stronger and faster flaps (and more of them) would be the ideal solution:

Hope this helps!
JD

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Hey,

 

that's looking awesome!!! Super cool blocking, I love it!! Great to see how you went with that idea!

 

My only two concerns are for the beginning and the end. So:

 

- at the beginning, when he comes down from the wall, he's covered by the tree a lot. I would bring him more to the right, into the empty space. Maybe put the tree a bit more to the left, or do both, but whatever you can do to make him more visible.

 

- the other part is at the end, once he pushes off the big tree, he steps over her face and has the foot in front  of her. That feels a bit awkward to be standing over her and potentially stepping on her face. :)

I would have him behind her at all times. The tree can still fall down to the left, but maybe a bit more diagonally, so that he can stand behind her and still grab the tree? I hope that makes sense.

 

- and to elaborate more on the beginning, I would add another tree to the right,

so that his choice of breaking through the trees makes more sense. Otherwise he could just go screen right, around the tree and to her. With all that empty space SR, why kick the tree SL?

 

And the camera is fine, the angle works for me. Would be cool to have some handheld feel to it, but I would worry about that at the end. What Maya are you using? You can send me this file and I can play around with the camera feel so I can show you a playblast for reference. What do you think?

 

Cheers

JD

Raluca Feresteanu - Ogre - Critique

Hey,

 

alright, here my thoughts on the shot:

 

- first off, I think you did a great job incorporating the reference into your animation, but I would turn the ref plate off and tweak the anim from there. Some moves, even if they match the plate, can look a bit funky.

- watch out for the beginning pose changes. From x1 to x9 it moves a bit pose to pose, where everything starts and stops at the same time; it almost feels like a dance move.

- his left arm pops a bit during the up down move around x21. I would slow that move down a bit.

- from x38 to 43, I would ramp up the drop of his root, to add a bit more weight. The chimp is smaller and lighter than what this ogre looks like, so we have to push the timing here and here

- from x36 to x43, I would rotate his right first towards his body a bit (you can try to keep the fingers down); right now it gets into IK land, where the arm/elbow is moving a lot, but the fist isn't; it also gives it a broken wrist look at x43.

- his right fist around x54 could have stronger contact with the rock; it feels a bit floaty

- I know that's not your fault, but the geometry has some funky deformation at x59 in the hip/back/belly area; maybe you can tweak the hips for a nicer shape?

- on x64, his right foot could have a bit of foot roll dialed in, so that the shape down his leg to his foot is less of an L.

- I would ease out of the rock grip a tiny bit on x86 to 87 (his right arm), it's a bit too linear in spacing and slow it down a tiny; might be the distracting ref plate popping in/out, but it fees like that big arm is moving really fast down to x92

- looking at his left foot from x93 to 101, I would introduce more sideways tilt, so you get rid of the IK feel and broken ankle look

- around x111, the thumb pose is too mirrored and looks a bit weak, I would lower the screen right one

- his root has a sudden forward acceleration from x123 on, which feels like a pop; it also drags the feet forward (screen right) too fast, so smoothing out that root movement will help a lot with the overall feel of the swing hang time and direction change

- his left elbow pops from x136 to 138

- same too fast direction change from x148 to 149 and then 150 (sudden screen right move from x149 to 150); the root also stops its screen right movement super abruptly on x151 to 152

- his right foot also moves too fast from x143 to 145; there's small spacing before that, then visually the foot covers a lot of ground over two frames and then suddenly small spacing again, which makes it look poppy

- visually, his right arm pops away from x162 to 163; it have one more frame with just half of the hand and some fingers behind the tree

Hope this helps!

Cheers
JD