Animation Critique thread
polycounter lvl 11
Hey guys, i'll be posting some animations over the next 3-4 weeks to get critiqued and blasted.
I'm focusing on animation for school, so this needs to be the absolute best part of my portfolio.
Here's a run cycle.
i'll get the other ones converted over to a montage MOV later so you guys can scub by frame by frame.... sorry about the quality right now.
I'm focusing on animation for school, so this needs to be the absolute best part of my portfolio.
Here's a run cycle.
i'll get the other ones converted over to a montage MOV later so you guys can scub by frame by frame.... sorry about the quality right now.
Replies
However, from what I can see, one of the largest problems with your run is that the speed at which the foot moves is not constant while it is in contact with the ground. The foot goes back about 3/4 of the way, and then slows down. That means the entire person just slowed down instantly and then sped back up again as he was running. Running is a constant speed.
The whole body needs to start rising earlier than it currently does. There should be a more continuous up and down motion, rather than quickly go up, quickly go down, then remain level for a bit, then repeat.
His left leg kicks out much faster than his right one.
Some overlapping head motion would suit this character well.
I don't think his hips are moving much at all. They don't seem to be rotating to support the support leg and I can't tell if his hips are translating back and forth over his support leg.
The right hand out stretches at an odd position, which looks ok for zombie run, but when it starts coming back, the change is too jarring and unnatural.
Nothing else for now, although I'm sure there'd be more to talk about after those fixes. And I haven't seen it in real time yet, so I can't comment that much.
Nice start, it has a lot of originality to it.
Edit: You might want to try some more normal run cycles with a basic character before you start on zombie ones.
boom chica chica
How the right arm snaps forward could be tweaked a bit to be consistent with how it flows going to the back.
Good characterization. Good ankle rotation detail.
Head secondary looks like it's floating. Bobble head doll effect.
Left arm forward stroke follow through could be tweaked a bit more to make it look more organic. I think the overlap between bicep and lower arm could be more apparent. It's piston like with it's current motion. You could rotate lower arm slight up as it swings back towards chest. Is it an injured arm, why you posed it like that? If so, I think you can minimize it's range of motion. Sure, zombies don't feel pain but you can show lose of muscle control (assuming it's an injury or zombie induced paralysis).
I agree with the hips comment above. But I assume that's a skinning issue. If you can rotate on the z should look better.
yeah, could be more fluid.
www.virtuosicstudios.com/junk/runtest2.avi (2MB)
Left leg is still an issue for me though. Right leg looks sweet the way you have it, but left looks like it has mind of it's own in comparison (needs slight overlapping keys). If you can watch it running a distance as opposed to in place, maybe you can determine if that leg is a glaring issue or not.
Polish for right arm could just be slight overlapping motions between upper and lower arm. You can go stiff, but slight overlap will help I think.
Yeah, I like that left arm pose. If you can make his left hand broken and "dead" with dangling secondaries you win.
Some new hip rotation there looks okay. Yeah, I can go with the head tweeks too. You can exaggerate it without the bobble effect, but right now conservative is okay. Have you done any attacks yet? That's one way where you can determine how his head or other parts of his anatomy should animate (as an individual zombie-like person). With exaggerations you can come up with in dynamic actions, you can go back to the run or other boring actions and incorporate more specific characteristics or mannerisms for his head, etc. (assuming you didn't get any prior directorial requests).
He's pretty much a generic lab experiment/zombie... that's why he's in the blue scrubs... anyways the pose is his characteristic. A zombie/monster that has normal posture isn't interesting. So in all of his animations i'll have him hunched over like that, holding his arm at that angle... sort of like a hunchback.
I have to do 7 animations for him.
Idle, Run, Walk, Attack, Block, Jump, and Death.
I have the death in it's final stages (I dont finalize an animation without getting a critique from you guys first)... but i have reiterated on the Run like 5 times already, and it's still not done, so i have been revisiting the Idle and the walk that i have produced... I'll probably remake them.
Magic: what do you mean by overlapping motions? i dont quite understand.
Update: Here's a WIP of the death animation:
http://www.vimeo.com/3205961
If you didn't know you can open up .avi's in quicktime
http://www.virtuosicstudios.com/junk/walk.avi
wiki definition: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Traditional_Principles_of_Animation:Overlapping_action
Keth Lango tutorial: http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/overlap/overlap.html
and that head movement reads "sassy" to me, thats the only way i know how to explain it.
the timing of the cycles seams good. as well as the spacing of the walk seams pretty well. . spaced.
haha sassy zombie anyone?
i'll fix the toe slap, and try to incorperate some of the overlap stuff.
Before i start i gotta give credit to Helixx for the original concept sculpt that i traced my topology for this one over.
Notes before critiquing:
Shorten the video, and make sure scales are right.
Other than that, does the layering work? should i cut parts out? should i just include things relevant to animation and rig, and ditch the stuff related to the model?
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