Animation demo/"game" feedback!
polycounter lvl 6
G'day! :poly121:
Been working on this for a while and even though it's gotten quite far and even though it might be too far in to do any mayor changes to it, I'd still like to see if you guys can see something horribly wrong that needs fixing that I haven't noticed yet.
some shots from the "game":
There are no real textures for the characters, just some minor facial paint to not have the facials totally un-readable.. so I guess I have to figure out a way to paint some more clothes or whatever
The thing I have left to do on my "todo-list" is,
Properly animate the guard in the game over scene, right now he's just keyed a bit here and there, but I'm gonna have to go back and give him some inbetweens and have him shaking around a bit more..I guess? what do you guys think he should do?:poly141:
And perhaps do another "jump-up-on-box" animation, had two people comment on that one..but don't really know what else could be done :shifty:
I'm not happy with the guard walk at all, maybe it's paced too quick (I tried looking at it at ½ the speed and can see that it could look better slowed down a bit), but if you guys buy it then I'm not gonna pick on it I guess...or? lol :poly122:
But yeah, since this is meant as a animation demo of sorts, and I kind of want to show of some realtime cutscenes with a idle and runcycle thrown in for good measure, I haven't done too many textures (not my strong side at all) or really trying to impress anyone with models either :poly141:
The idea is to eventually have this tied into my animation reel which will feature the animations (except for the bottom 2) on my website and hopefully I'll get one more UDK cutscene done before applying for a new job.
So yeah, this demo would kind of be a fun little "game" to check out some realtime animations, sort of what Samavan did with his iPhone app showing of characters in realtime :poly136:
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygDM-Goqq8s"]alpha 0.2 - YouTube[/ame]
I am sure the intro and reason to why the boy is running is unclear since it's never explained in the video (or the "game").
I wanted to have audio in this from the beginning and have a person (guard) yell "Thief!" or "Catch the thief!" or something along those lines, from off-screen, and have the boy react to that. And hopefully that would make some sense and you'd start running..
But I put audio on ice after failing to produce a good enough soundtrack from some music samples, and just having ONE audio que in the whole game would be even more off..
So either I skip audio and just write the "story" in the manual I was gonna do (yeah..lol, about that..:poly142:) or I'd have to have some guards actually run past the camera in the intro shot.. meh.. tried it, looked kinda iffy.. could try again I guess
Anyways, long text as always the few times I come out from my lurking :poly118:
Hope you guys have some ideas on what I can fix.. not TOO big of a change though hehe, I'm not gonna go back and change any acting or do any bigger changes like that![:\](https://polycount.com/plugins/emojiextender/emoji/twitter/confused.png ":\")
Been working on this for a while and even though it's gotten quite far and even though it might be too far in to do any mayor changes to it, I'd still like to see if you guys can see something horribly wrong that needs fixing that I haven't noticed yet.
some shots from the "game":
There are no real textures for the characters, just some minor facial paint to not have the facials totally un-readable.. so I guess I have to figure out a way to paint some more clothes or whatever
The thing I have left to do on my "todo-list" is,
Properly animate the guard in the game over scene, right now he's just keyed a bit here and there, but I'm gonna have to go back and give him some inbetweens and have him shaking around a bit more..I guess? what do you guys think he should do?:poly141:
And perhaps do another "jump-up-on-box" animation, had two people comment on that one..but don't really know what else could be done :shifty:
I'm not happy with the guard walk at all, maybe it's paced too quick (I tried looking at it at ½ the speed and can see that it could look better slowed down a bit), but if you guys buy it then I'm not gonna pick on it I guess...or? lol :poly122:
But yeah, since this is meant as a animation demo of sorts, and I kind of want to show of some realtime cutscenes with a idle and runcycle thrown in for good measure, I haven't done too many textures (not my strong side at all) or really trying to impress anyone with models either :poly141:
The idea is to eventually have this tied into my animation reel which will feature the animations (except for the bottom 2) on my website and hopefully I'll get one more UDK cutscene done before applying for a new job.
So yeah, this demo would kind of be a fun little "game" to check out some realtime animations, sort of what Samavan did with his iPhone app showing of characters in realtime :poly136:
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygDM-Goqq8s"]alpha 0.2 - YouTube[/ame]I am sure the intro and reason to why the boy is running is unclear since it's never explained in the video (or the "game").
I wanted to have audio in this from the beginning and have a person (guard) yell "Thief!" or "Catch the thief!" or something along those lines, from off-screen, and have the boy react to that. And hopefully that would make some sense and you'd start running..
But I put audio on ice after failing to produce a good enough soundtrack from some music samples, and just having ONE audio que in the whole game would be even more off..
So either I skip audio and just write the "story" in the manual I was gonna do (yeah..lol, about that..:poly142:) or I'd have to have some guards actually run past the camera in the intro shot.. meh.. tried it, looked kinda iffy.. could try again I guess
Anyways, long text as always the few times I come out from my lurking :poly118:
Hope you guys have some ideas on what I can fix.. not TOO big of a change though hehe, I'm not gonna go back and change any acting or do any bigger changes like that
Replies
Overall I quite like this and the animation you've done. Only a few things stuck out at me:
- The guard 'crushes' the apple with his foot, but I don't think you could do that, especially with those softer shoes.
-When he climbs the stairs, he seems to return to his walking pose before taking on the next step. It sort of pops and feels jarring.
-Also, the section where he runs up to the area before he climbs--after already getting a chance to see the cycle, this feels boring. Consider cutting straight to him climbing up the steps when you edit this.
Keep going, can't wait to see it done!
Really cool overall! I agree with what mezz pointed out though.
In addition to Mezz's crits:
At 0:27, where the guard drops the kid. The kids upper body bends waay too much. At least from that cam perspective. Feels a bit like he broke his spine.
At 0:47, where the guards is holding the kid in the air, after the kid does this neat "i-give-up"-motion and dangles in the air, the kid becomes way too stiff at the end.
Other than that, it's an awesome idea and very well done!
keep at it!
Hey guys, thanks for the replies and feedback!
Mazz,
I'm not gonna bother with those kind of details, whatever is possible or not and I will probably leave that part as it is. I did however want a fat guy crushing the apple when I first thought of this project, but I settled with just having the same copy paste skinny guard all over.
I've had a couple of people give me feedback on the crate animation as well! And it is on my todo-list, problem is I don't really know what else he could do to get up on those crates. A spring-jump would look just as repetitive at the end of the day you know..
But perhaps it's just a blending issue and that is whats causing the popping. I agree though, it feels a bit jarring, choppy and out of place.
This is quite a high priority I guess
The second running-part has a different runcycle! come on!! ;D
But yeah ok.. hmm.. I guess I was hoping this would have a more hectic feeling to it overall and didn't really see this part as badly paced.. Also, I had plans to have guards run towards you from the tunnel up ahead, and the player would have to make a quick decision to run up on the crates.
I don't think I will change this though I'm afraid.. too much shit that has to be moved around in the level
I also have a minecraft easteregg on the stand immediately to the left that I'd want some people to see
MiAxl,
bending way too much eh! ok! I can see that
Way too stiff at the end of the game over scene sounds like a fair comment as well. Got any ideas what I could do there? I mean, should he just dangle a bit, sway from side to side? hehe.. I don't think I want to go back and add more struggle to him after he's calmed down, but more movement should be simple and logical enough to add. Just have to figure out what kind of movement!
edit:
what if I just cut the animation short 10 or 20-so frames? :P
[ame="
I made a little video focusing on the main problem we all seem to be having.
As for his cloth going through his leg and his foot intersecting with the box, both are things you don't really see, would pay attention to or would be bothered by ingame I think, so as far as those things go I'm fine.
He starts of in a arbitrary pose and finishes in one, but a bit run-ish I guess.
Ingame he seems to snap into idle after finishing the animation, so I'll see if I can add more blending there.. of course, having him blend into a run if the player is still holding W would be expected I guess..
I'm not the one scripting this stuff, got a guy being kind enough to do it for me
I guess I'll have to go back to him, crawling on my knees begging for this fix
edit:
also, any thoughts on the guard walk animation and game over animation?:poly142:
edit2:
got some feedback from a friend on the jump-on-crate animation, so I'm gonna go ahead and try to add a couple of frames to it and have him anticipate the jump a bit more rather than just floating up on the next crate. guess it's not gonna flow as fast, but might be better overall!