School Animation Final

UltraLrod

This is my animation final I did for the semester. It doesn't have much to do with game animation. We were tasked to find a sound clip and reinterpret the meaning. My sound clip comes from Shutter Island. This is what I came up with. You might have to turn up the volume to hear the sound due to the fact that the clip I took from YouTube had low volume. The course at my university doesn't offer much about lip sync, but the professor taught us the basic. he taught us how to use a dope sheet for lip sync, the 12 principle of animation, and so on. Even though the class is finish for the semester, I would love any comments or critique on pushing this further. I can see this as a good piece for my portfolio. 

EVernier

I'm not sure what kind of teacher tells his students to make an acting shot without showing them first how to use the principles to achieve good body mechanics. You won't get good acting without strong body mechanics. Right now your movements are very linear, no ease in/out, a lot of moments where the characters don't move (look up moving holds), everything moves at the same time (when turning to look at something, you might have the eyes go first, then the head and finally the shoulders, for example), you need to include arcs in your movements as well as anticipation (I can see some antic here and there, which is good!) and follow through/overlapping action.

The shot is also way too long for your current skill level, 5 to 10 seconds is long enough, though it might've been out of your control considering this was an assignment.

The stuff going on in the background is distracting more than anything else. You also gotta work on your poses, they need to be more dynamic and a bit asymmetric.

Overall, you need to focus on more basic stuff to really get a hang of your principles, then apply them to body mechanics and then move on to acting. Animation is pretty tough, I'm not particularly good myself even if I started animating seriously a few years ago, but it all comes down to mastering the 12 principles.

So yeah, when you can, go back to the basics like the bouncing ball and keep posting your stuff here so you can get feedback, that's how you'll get better!

RN

Awesome post, EVernier.

Hito

I wouldn't put this on a reel, if just because of the length alone. 5 to 10 seconds is more than plenty... a different dialogue with more overt emotion would be better, as practice and reel piece.

UltraLrod

Thanks for the feedback. There's definitely a long to go with my animation skill set. 

Rmunday

Frankly the teacher is a bit silly to only show you the basics then send you off, keep at it. The more you animate the better you get. Go back and nail bouncing ball exercises, bounce all those balls. Then come back to a shorter clip and try again.