Animation Demo Reel 2012 - Meredith Kinrys
polycounter lvl 8
Hey Polycount!
Finally got a new demo reel together of the animations I have done over the past little while. Hope you like!
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr1pbK2FQo8"]Animation Demo Reel 2012 - Meredith Kinrys - YouTube[/ame]
A big thanks to everyone that has passed on critiques and encouraged me along the way
Now, onwards to creating a whole new set of anims to replace these ones...!
Finally got a new demo reel together of the animations I have done over the past little while. Hope you like!
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr1pbK2FQo8"]Animation Demo Reel 2012 - Meredith Kinrys - YouTube[/ame]A big thanks to everyone that has passed on critiques and encouraged me along the way
Now, onwards to creating a whole new set of anims to replace these ones...!
Replies
cool reel. it has more animations that I'd prolly have in my reel, rather than animations that companies "want" to see, at least if I am to believe the people that have told me to put more runs and walks in my reels. fuck those people ;P
don't know how much one can crit on animations that are already in a reel, as you probably consider them done, or at least don't really feel like going back to them, fixing whatever anal remark me or anybody else can come up with, rendering it out again, placing it back in the reel and reuploading the reel.. so, creating new anims to replace the ones in your current reel, while perhaps thinking of what was said about the ones in this reel..
there's not a ton of stuff to hate on really.. it's all at a good level, the only feedback I can give you is very anal and picky and probably is just style input rather than feedback on animation principles or whatever..
I was never involved in the wall animation thread.. the run looks good enough I guess, if you're going for a realistic styled one. I'd at least hunch the runners back a bit as he's nearing the other guy, to get him more ready for the jump, right now it all flows nicely into him clinging onto the edge, rather than having him put his weight on the poor fellows back before jumping of.
the valuting over the wall is great though, no timing or whatever feedback on there, stylistically it's cool as well
the girl aiming with the gun.. I gave you some pointers in the thread so there's little left for me to say. but I noticed that both her legs hyperextend and pop as she's spinning the gun. I'm not a hyperextention-nazi and have seen it used to effect in games, but here your feet actually lift off of the ground as the ik is trying to compensate. that's the only thing I guess I can say about this. you have hyperextentions at other places, so I'm assuming you put it there and kept it there for a reason, probably the one I mentioned before where it can be used for an effect rather than being frowned upon instantly :P
(she's still blowing her head of at the end though hehe)
the guy getting half his body chopped off is good and all I guess. got your strut walk in there and all, like I'm sure lots of lead animators want to see, so they can reference that word to the other animators later as to try to sound smart..but I digress
not too much I can say about this either. I'm just a bit bothered by his head as he slaps the legs. it rotates and tilts to the right and then rotates to the left, for no reason really. I'd much rather see him having his head facing what he's about to smack. it just looks twitchy and stands out a bit too much right now.
I've never understood the crutch animation..
and the falling down the stairs animation is beyond my knowledge I'd say. think you did a good job on it even though it feels a bit off.. but I'm afraid I can't say what or how to fix it.
the 2d stuff is cool
maybe you could use the dragon as an intro to your reel rather than at the end. placing it somewhere at the bottom perhaps for a couple of seconds. since the beginnings of some reels feature the persons name and contact information for up to 10 seconds some time, having the dragon animate and actually contribute to your animation reel could maybe allow you to get away with 7 or so seconds of intro. you could cut of the part where the second fly comes in, and just end the animation with the smack/disgusted face and then start the reel! :P
so yeah.. not much to whine about on finished animations really
missing a bit of action animations I guess. I guess your style is more calm and realistic if you will? since your animations are kind of slow paced and such. well, something to think about for the next batch I guess?
It actually looks like a mime doing an act instead of someone actually shooting a gun.
the other stuff looks good, i like the wall jump especially
I think the first piece is definitely your strongest, you've got some good things going on in that one, so it's good that you show it first. That being said, I think there are a few things you could do to plus it...
First of all, I think it seems a little strange that this person is holding out their hand, but ends up getting their head stepped on, this is a bit unusual, but it does add a nice element of humor without being over the top. If you're going to go that way, I would work on squashing the kneeling character down more when he gets a foot to the back of the neck.
Also there is a segment right before kneeling character gets stepped on that he does this sort of weird lean forward motion in the spine? I would take that out
One other thing that bothers me about this shot is that kneeling character seems to anticipate he's about to get stepped on by re-positioning himself before he actually gets stepped on. I think you should either make the runner step into the kneelers hands, or delay the position shift
My notes for the runner himself are more nit picky, but be careful with your spacing, it feels like is changing speeds a little inbetween the run and the jump. Also be careful in the way that the runners hands go from running to grabbing. it looks like they sort of just float from one pose to the other. Hopefully you have reference that you can refer to for this, but I think you would want to keep the hands close to the body until after the foot makes contact with the wall, and then shoot the hands out to grab the ledge at the last second. But again, check the reference, if you do NOT have reference, you should definitely go look for some, there's tons of it on youtube if you search for parkour.
As for the rest of the reel, I really don't like the girl with gun, that one needs lots of work, the feet are glued to the ground and she's overly girly mainly.
I think I'd also take out 2D stuff in general, but the bit with the fly especially is really long and doesn't really help your reel. Especially since there really isn't a lot of 2D work in the industry these days. But it looks like you don't have a lot of content, so if you want to leave the 2D walk cycle in for now I think that's fine (though she kinda does a weird flick of the wrist) at least until you can replace it with something better.
I like how unique the crutches one is, but I think he needs to be jostled a bit more as he's falling, currently it looks like he settles too quickly.
Keep at it! looking forward to seeing more!
PS- In general, lose the unnecessary camera moves
thatanimator -- You're right, I'm not looking to redo a bunch of stuff I called done a while ago. Then adjusted and called done a second time. Now, it's DONE, and onto new stuff!
Thanks a lot for the thorough critique though, I'll be keeping a lot of what you mentioned in mind as I work on new anims!
Olli -- Thanks! Glad you're liking a lot of it. I'll tell you a secret--the girly gun shoot is the oldest (not including 2D) anim on the reel. I'd like to think it's because I've improved since then that it's not as good as some of the others. It's probably less about what style I've gone for and more just a problem with my acting ability :P Definitely something I need to work more on moving forward!
Archanex -- Thanks for the detailed response! As I was saying to thatanimator, I'm definitely calling all the pieces done and moving on to new things now. Interestingly, a lot of your critique on the wall climb is what I was hearing while working on it. I spent more hours than I'd like to admit trying to fix a lot of those problems, until eventually I had to admit it was the best I could do at the time. I'm eager to do new anims to improve on it.
As I mentioned above, the girly gun shoot is a bit older and I suppose it shows. I'll definitely look into making a new anim to replace that one asap.
I know what you mean about 2D anims not being used so much, but you're also right I don't have a lot of quality content to replace it with. I will continue to make more stuff so I can push it out.
Thanks again for the crit!! More animations on the way
Anyways, Yep you've got some nice developing work there. If you're after some crit though and you don't mind me saying so:
You could do with adding some extra weight to the bipeds by bringing in the key poses closer together. For example on the wall jump: the vault itself is rather nice. The run leading up to it comes across as a bit floaty. This could be improved on by bringing a couple of those key poses closer together, adding a bit of up/down motion to the hips, and pushing the resulting pose a bit more. Essentially the ol' 'pose and timing' principles.
Also, your reel could benefit with some creature animation. It's always beneficial to show you can do some quadropeds, or birds, or any other type of creature.
On the whole though it's cool, looking forward to seeing more of your stuff!