[portfolio] Nick Hester, Animation
Hello Polycount community! I'm currently trying to break into the 3d animation field. I'm applying mostly to game companies, but I'd be open to anything. Here's my demo reel and my website. Please give me any feed back, you don't have to be nice. Tell me what's bad and good, and what I should add that isn't there. Thanks!
demo reel: http://youtu.be/40pbuGFCdKE
website: http://nickhester.blogspot.com/2011/06/3d-animation.html
demo reel: http://youtu.be/40pbuGFCdKE
website: http://nickhester.blogspot.com/2011/06/3d-animation.html
Replies
But here is my crit from the other thread as well.
Ask and you shall receive
Over all, Id say your timing and your weight are the two biggest things you need to work on. But posing is also up there. The whole reel seems slow, all at the same pace, and, well, boring because of it. The reel itself is over 2 minutes long. It should be no longer than a minute. 1:30 TOPS, and thats if you have some AMAZING work (professional level) that keeps them interested. So, keep it under a minute for now.
The first half, you show 1 thing, then show it again at a different view. The thing is, you have seconds of still movement between. Slow cross fades, after the keys have finished. If you are going to show things from a different view one after another, it should cut, not crossfade, directly after the last key frame.
Ill do a quick crit of each piece.
shot 1
-you`re starting to show the weight of the weapon, but you can push it more. have it slide along the ground first, before popping up.
-The idle after is decent, but personal preference, I dont like it added on to the end of it. It slows down the reel
shot 2
-You`re going for power, but the posing, weight and timing all need work in order to achieve that. Have him really wind up to show the power, with slight moving-holds after each punch.
-starting and end frames are an A-pose. Its boring and looks like the default pose.
shot 3
-way to slow. speed it up to show the speed and the weight of the cat
-the feet go through the ground constantly when pushing off.
shot 4
-the kick is decent. the timing is alright, but could pushed further to have the real life feel to it.
-this shot feels unfinished because the last keyframe is mid recovery. Add more and bring her back to an idle or something
shot 5
-decent shot. some of your holds need more motion though. more fluidity, and more offset to give that real life feel
shot 6
-ditch this shot all together. It shouldnt be in your reel
shot 7, 8 , 9, 10 (all the robot ones)
-robot pushing a button? Ditch this shot. I dunno if hes suppose to push it and fall through the ground, but id ditch the button pushing part
-sliding down the cloth (maya cloth?) Needs more weight on the fall. Gravity,
-crawling and looking down through the hole, then crawling through it. its the best outta all 4 robot scenes. id say keep that one and ditch the other 3
shot 11
-cube guy is pretty cool. but Its slow at times. All the holds are kinda, meh.
-his attacks are slow, and could use some speed to sell the weight behind the punches
shot 12
-walk cycle needs alot of work. lots of arm popping. shoulders and hips dont seem to rotate (or is hard to tell at this camera angle). Legs are always bent. Legs tend to be straight at one point or another during a walk.
shot 13
-lip sync. id say ditch it. Theres not enough interesting movement in it, and the lips are hard to see with the colour.
I know all that probably comes as a kick to the groin. Ive been there. But you asked for a crit, so you got it. It was a quick, initial look at it all. If you want more indepth crits, or want more feedback as you progress, feel free to send me a private message and we can chat on msn or something
I do see potential though. You just need to keep at it and work on that timing / weight issue. Dont give up! Keep at it!
You should tailor your website to suit your goal, your objective. Right now it's filled with fluff, extra stuff just to add content, things that doesn't matter to the employers. It's always good to have extra skills, however if they don't fit in with your objective, then you should take it off.
The website is kind-off hard to navigate, I would never have found your 3d-stills if I had not read the text. That's one thing that should be on top menu instead of "Video".
I like that you have a lot of content animation-wise, lots of potential and I like that you're working with low-poly stuff. Always fun to see animated game-models, that's a really good thing.
I totally agree with everything he said but would like to stress that the length of the reel is way way waaay too long. the only reason why I managed to see it through to the end was because I needed something to watch while eating breakfast..
you would be alright with around 45seconds at most. go back to the first two pieces, fix them up and use them at the start of your next, shorter, reel. should give you about 10 out of 45 seconds
but yeah, there are no shots in there worth keeping as of now.. the only salvageable ones are the ones at the start, the torchlight characters.. not sure I'd want to populate a reel full of sdk/ripped characters though..
@everyone, Thanks so much for all the feedback! Don't worry about being harsh (I did have to take a deep breath every once in a while to keep from feeling so tense while I was reading all of this), I need the feedback more than I need to feel good about myself.
I had done some research and people recommended that a 3 minute reel was a good length, but I'll totally take your advice and cut it down.
I'll cut down the replays and speed up the transitions for sure. And re-do some animation.
@thatanimator, I've gotten mixed advice on the subject of using other's character rigs. Some have said, "if you want to be an animator, then don't waste your time building characters and rigs, just animate. That's all an employer is going to want to see." While some have said what you've implied in that people want to see me create my own rigs (like the blue guy on my reel). That rig only had IK arm controls, which I realized is inadequate for making walk cycles because of all the arm popping, as Slipsius pointed out.
I'm working on making another website only for my animation stuff. I know the site sucks.
Thanks for all the advice! I've got some stuff to work on. I'll definitely re-post here and/or PM you guys when I've got another version up.