Animation exercises

bejkon

Sup lads and ladies,

Making my own thread now cause I feel my vimeo links get lost in the What are you working on thread amongst all the hipoly and handpainted glory.

Seen a couple of animation threads with some really useful advice in them and it would be neat to get some crits.

Two lipsyncs
http://vimeo.com/9798719
http://vimeo.com/9618700

Today I sorta "finished" a walljump
http://vimeo.com/9915351

Mezz

Good stuff. Yay more animators!

Your lip syncs seem to be a bit off on some of the mouth movements. From what I can see, sometimes they look on, but a lot of the time they only seem to be vaguely close to proper mouth positions. Are you looking at a mouth position chart while you do these? I always had those around when I've done a lip sync. Failing that, there's always a mirror!
The acting is alright, but I think you need some snappier movements... they seem to drift from movement to movement. When we gesture, we usually take pauses in between movement.

Today I was looking at a whole bunch of vids on YouTube of wall jumping, so the action is pretty clearly in my mind. As such, I can better critique this piece.
You've got good movement in there, but I think some areas need to be adjusted. When he first jumps up to the wall, I feel like he should do it more forefully--he should jump higher up on the wall, and from a bit further back. He seems a bit too close to it atm to get the right amount of momentum from it.
When he gets to the top of the wall and tries to pull himself up, he seems to take too long. He'd either take up that much time and effort if the wall was a LOT higher (and you'd need to stretch out his arms more, to use to pull up his body), or he should be able to get over that wall in half the action you have right now.

You've got some good stuff going, keep at it!

DrunkShaman

Nice! If you do not have a cartoon concept while you were doing the exercises...I'd side with Mezz and suggest you pretty much the same thing he / she suggested.

DerDude

nice jump and good execution. Good job. But for me there are some timing-issues that are a bit off. I would do the jump to the top faster, everything seems to have the same movement, there should be a bit more like fast-slow-fast, fast to the top, slow at the top, fast down to the other side. Anyway nice animation

gabbaii

in the ice cream animation, when the older character says "do you use real ice cream,"
his lips are moving a little slower than the audio

pretty good job though

bejkon

sup!

I'm definitely going to work more on the wall jump and make it puuurfect:)
Going to adjust the timing, make the wall taller, make the first jump more jumpy and not so lifty, hands grabbing the top earlier and make the feet feel less "sticky".

As for the lipsync, I don't feel super exited working on those but the actual lipsync really needs another pass.

Thanks for the crits!

Ok heres a thing I'm working on right now. Hes swinging from one platform to a bar and then hes going make some cool aerial stunt and make a nice landing. Going straight head on this one, seemed like the right thing to do.

http://vimeo.com/10075298

Also, is it possible to embedd vimeo? i guess not cause I never seen it before on pc. Should I go with youtube instead?

Hows this link working out?
http://s3.amazonaws.com/videos.vimeo.com/172/178/17217863.mov?AWSAccessKeyId=0MG9FJ7W1FZ5MBJXGS02&Expires=1268271131&Signature=4zouWhxZhrb3l7EsIHG7zVo2afg%3D

bejkon

update

http://vimeo.com/10100894
Click on "download this video" if you want to view in quicktime.


I'm having a hard time getting the arcs right. I have redone the last jump from the bar many times now and I'm still think it looks kinda iffy. The landing i unpolished, haven't touched the arms.

I lhave learned alot of ik/fk blending while working on this. Feels good man.

bejkon

Here is the wall again, a bit taller. I kinda like the timing of the pause, only made it a little bit shorter.
http://vimeo.com/10209133

Added a cut in the acrobat animation to show the anticipation a bit more.
http://vimeo.com/10212133

And heres two doodles:
A guy that helps another hurt guy to cover.
http://vimeo.com/10212203

Poleclimb.
http://vimeo.com/10212434

warby

love there is not enough animation around these parts of the internets ! or the world for that matter

Mezz

Nice!

The wall jump anim is looking better, I only have one beef with it now: I think the arm needs a bit of an adjustment. It doesn't feel quite right as it reaches up for the wall. My suggestion is to try to make it 'pop' more. Instead of the slow, even-spaced reach that it is, try to keep it bent more until he gets near enough to the top that he can extend his arm and grab the edge right away.

The acrobat jump is looking nice! No crits from me there.

The guy helping the other guy is pretty good for a doodle, you just gotta loosen up the main guy. Work his torso (it's really stiff atm).

I think your problem with the poleclimb is a: the anticipation is very weak. He needs to jump higher, and get more force out of it. And b: he should probably be using his feet more, and they should grab onto the pole and help push him up as he goes.

Your stuff is looking good though, keep at it!

bejkon

Late reply here

You are right Warby, would be really nice to se more animations.

What is the most active animation forum? is 11 second club and Strut your reel the is the only i can think of.


Hey Mezz!
Totally agree about the arm, needs more contrast.

Glad to hear about the acrobat jump, I'm kinda happy with it.

The hurt animation is quite sloppy, thinking of maybe give it an overhaul if I don't come up with something else to animate.
It's funny how incredible light the hurt guy feels when his shoulders getting lifted in the beginning

Probably gonna bin the poleclimb:\

Thanks

bejkon

Pink ball to the head

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7179363/DavidG_Boll_i_Fejan.mov

ZacD

I was entertained, didn't notice anything that seemed too off.

bejkon

Glad to hear it man

tda

This is good stuff dude! I've done animating for a spell and while i didn't exactly rock anyones socks off at it, i know how difficult it is. Pink ball is really nice, great emotion in the hands and face.

bejkon

Thanks tda:)

finally got around getting a hotfix for maya so now I can get playblasts in the right framerate.

Heres a basic walkcycle i did a while ago when I tried to cleanse my soul from mocap work.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7179363/walkie.mov (2mb)

Mezz

The left toe stabs through the ground at one point, and your legs seems a little stiff... but otherwise looks good! Nice movement and flow overall.

bejkon

Thanks man

Yea Im aware about the toe but it's strange cause shits perfectly mirrored, think i'm going to frame by frame it.
Another strange thing is that it doesnt loop properly in maya but it's fine in the playblast, maybe 2011 needs another hotfix:shifty:

Going to play around with his knees a bit more.

Saman

Your walk cycle looks great! I agree with Mezz but other than that I have no critique.
However I have some critique about your ball in the head animation. The pelvis shouldn't be moving about as quickly as it is in the beginning of the sequence(when he's walking). It should be slightly delayed from the feet movement.
Great work though!

bejkon

Glad you liked it man and I agree about the hips, in fact I'm not happy with the beginning at all. I'm probably going to revisit it someday because i think the fall turned out quite nice and maybe try to add some more time before the ball hits.

Heres the walkcycle again with fixed toes and I pushed the extremes on tran y and x on the root. I also made the knees curves more curvier to make it a more loose. Also added a an extra camera angle for your viewing pleasures.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7179363/walkie2.mov

Mezz

Nice, looking better! I think I'm getting into the nitpicky stages now, but I just have a few comments.

For a guy who carries so much weight in his middle and has such small legs, I feel like he should be swaying more from side to side. I've observed various people with larger stomachs/torsos that seem to shift weight from side to side as they walk.

Also, I find the legs still seem a bit stiff. I think this has something to do with the above point. After watching the side view a few times, I think the stiffness I'm seeing is that his legs don't look like they're taking the weight of each step. I'm not sure if you need a more pronounced down position, or if perhaps swaying him more will fix it. Trying out a few different options to see what might work could be a good idea.

Like I said, I feel like this might be a bit nitpicky, so feel free to take it as you will. Overall, nice walk cycle!

bejkon

Thanks for the crit! I think it's not nitpicky at all, this is just the comments I need.

bejkon

I made a run.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7179363/runie.mov

Mezz

Hrrmmm... I think the movement is good, but I'm just not buying the timing as a run. I'd say its more of a light jog right now.

I would try cutting out some positions in each step, or putting each key position closer together (like it's on ones).

bejkon

tyvm Mezz!

My ISP died in the ass during a thunderstorm last week and it's finally fixed, yay.

So heres a new try on the run, four frames shorter, more punchy, reworked the arms but I haven't touched the wrists.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7179363/runie2.mov

James9475

Knees look kinda bent inwards from the front, would be nice to see some very subtle movement in the wrist/hand, would be nice to see fully animated cloth on his 3 loincloth bits. generally good stuff.