Animation Showreel

Dark_jediBains

Hey guys Im just about finishing up my degree in Animation and seeing as I want to go into games character animation I thought I would submit an animation showreel as my final piece. I started this project around mid April with very basic understanding of animating in 3D so any crit and feedback would be much appreciated as Im looking to further enhance my skills. Ive also started life drawing again which I found really pushed my understanding of pose and lines of action.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMbDLn6GEkk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMbDLn6GEkk[/ame]

P.S The soundtrack is a little heavy on bass lol

Dark_jediBains

Also just to add (although u guys probably know) this wasnt my character it was the Norman rig which can be found here

TehSplatt

From a showreel perspective this is not a good showreel at all. but then again maby your degree requires you to add in your tests, clean ups and finals. But for getting a job somthing like this wont do you any justice, those inspirational quotes are rather cheesey. I also feel you need to work alot more on understanding weight and momentum your sneak animation looks like hes sitting on an invisible seat and trying to drag it along. Also the constant changing of camera angles hurts my eyes and my brain. The best animation showreels i have seen are either side on veiw, slight 3/4 veiw or side by side renders one from front and one from side. This is my favourite animation reel and might give you a better understanding of a few things hope that helped in some way [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLtTKU2cScA&feature=relmfu"]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

Sukotto

How are you just now learning animation but you're working on your final project which focuses heavily on animation?

For the reel: Get rid of the camera moves, all of them. They make it hard to watch the reel, and get rid of the black background, NEVER use black backgrounds, especially for a black character like your ninja. Like TehSplatt said, get rid of the breakdowns, no employer will care about your progress, just show the final and move onto the next animation. Unless of course you're required to include those. All of your animations lack weight, timing and most of the poses are hard to read especially the attack and jump animations

The attack animation doesn't work at all, when you were filming your performance were you doing it slow on purpose or did you slow the footage down. Don't do that, your body reacts and moves differently if you're in slow-mo compared to the normal speed of the attack.

It seems like you're getting way ahead of yourself. Since this is a project you obviously have milestones and things to get done but stop and polish one of those animations, probably the walk cycle since its the easiest to do. Its better to have one good shot than a bunch of sub-par shots. Once you're finished with this project go and fix up these animations, post your progress here and we'll help and give you crits

BARDLER

Like the others have said you need a lot of work. Your animations lack any sense of believability, weight, and polish. The have tons of twinning, sliding, and popping which are some of the first things you should be looking for.

If you are finishing up your degree in animation and this is what you have to show for it, I have to ask what school you are going to? At my school this would maybe get you a C in the intro animation class.

TurboHusky

Generally speaking the sense of weight and timing is way off throughout. One thing that will be noticed right off the bat is that the sneak has absolutely no lateral translation in the hips whatsoever, which is a massive red flag for having not understood basic animation principles.

In terms of workflow I'd say it feels like the keys weren't developed properly and the breakdowns have been muddled up with them. I can't tell what's what.

There's also a tonne of popping/jerking/skipping but that is the least of your worries.

Take Sukotto's advice. Deep breath, grab the walk cycle and ease into it. Also check your workflow, start with 2 key poses for one step (I'd suggest contact and passing for a vanilla walk, these are a pretty common starting point) and develop these 2 and these 2 only so they stand alone. (Here's where you get your lines of action going.) These will give you the flavour of your walk, so make them count. The other frames then need to support/emphasise them.

Next do 2 breakdowns (your 'up' and 'down' poses), here's where you decide the 'how' you want your character to move, so you can choose to favour either of your keys. Also use the breakdown poses to introduce your drag, overlap, all that good stuff.

That should be 4 frames total for one step. At this stage just mirror them for the other side to save some pain and allow you to focus on getting 4 good frames, which is a much more manageable number. These should be all you need to make your walk look totally sweet. If it's not working with 2 keys + 2 breakdowns each step, your animation isn't going to work period, and all the inbetweens in the world won't help.

A major part of the battle when animating is prioritising your workflow. At normal framerates you're dealing with an insane amount of information, so you have to be able to pick the right poses to work with from the beginning, and know when you need to establish a pose and when you can get away with tweening.

Also gotta say TehSplatt is a little cruel posting that link, since that is one f***ing sweet reel! That's going straight to my favourites. At the same time bear in mind this is what you should be aiming for.

TurboHusky

Yeah man, hit up your tutors. They have failed you miserably.