Soap Opera

[smwolke]

It looks as if the animation contest for the topic of "Soap Opera" did not have enough entries to legitimize the results. So I am posting a link to my entry hoping to get some feedback.

 

 

Soap Opera Entry

 

Thanks in advance for all criticism,

 

Steve

[starwarsguy]

Cool. I am not that good an animator, so no critiques until some others post.

[Guest mrsl13]

Liked it too.....especially the camera moves....The shower..was that sprites?

 

Mike C

[ZachBG]

Hi, Stephen:

 

I feel weird doing this, as not only did I also submit an entry for the contest, but my entry came from the same jumping-off point as yours (a literal interpretation of the term "Soap Opera"). But you asked for criticism, so here it is.

 

1. It's not entirely clear whether the man in the shower is doing the singing or he's just mouthing along. If he's doing the singing, he needs to be much louder in relation to the sound effects. He is our protagonist, after all.

 

2. The man--I'm gonna call him Placido, for no good reason--never blinks, even when water is coming directly into his eyes. He does close his eyes at one or two points, but without blinks, he really seems, well, dead. Notice the next time you move your eyes to look at something. You probably blinked.

 

3. Related to that--his movements seem very linear. Go through and check the points between keyframes. Are there curves in his motions? If not, put them in.

 

4. He could also stand some anticipation. For most of his movements, Placido is simply doing his thing without any indication of where the movement came from. For instance: he leans back to hit the high note just before the toilet flush. To make it read better, he could lean forward before leaning back. Likewise with his reaction to the flush; he could go down and forward before jumping up and back.

 

I hope this critique doesn't engender great bitterness toward me and I also hope some other people will chime in. Why should image contests get the lion's share of the criticism? Come on, people!

[jamagica]

I think Zach explained all! other than those, it was pretty good...I suggest the music be increased in sound, because it was pretty soft..I know people can turn up the sound, but you want it to be loud enough at average level, so that people don't get mad if they're doing something else and suddenly if something involves a sound, it's really loud

[smwolke]

Mike,

 

The shower water was a streak emitter.

 

Zach,

 

Thanks for the comments. I also felt the character was kinda of blahhh but could not put my finger on the problem(s). Also, I would enjoy seeing your entry for the contest since Hash will not be posting them. I have been very entertained by your work.

 

 

 

Steve

[John Bigboote]

Stephen- Thanks! I enjoyed that!

 

Too bad about the contest. Did they cancel the 'Image' contest as well?

[lazz]

Yup, that was a total bummer. I had mine all ready to go with high hopes too and then WUMPH! There went the contest. Oh well. I liked what I saw, but for some reason my quicktime software was missing some stuff so I couldn't hear the music. I could just watch it. From what I could tell it looked alright. As for the lip synch I don't know, but I could focus more on the actions. From what I saw his actions were off. Like when he was washing his foot and when he jumped back at the end. In those two parts it looked as you said, a little blah. Other than that its too bad the contest was cancelled, that would've been one of the good ones I think. Have you/ Are you going to submit it to AM Films?

 

Anyways, good work!

-Robert Lazzarini

[robcat2075]

Not enough entries? (Does that mean less than four?)

 

I was sure we'd have at least a dozen singing bars of soap trying to upstage each other on this one. That shows how little I know.

 

Fine character!

 

A character like this could be done MUCH bigger in terms of his gesture and acting. Definitely more "snap" and the anticipation that goes into that. I'd also like to see him doing his various motions (like scrubbing) in time to the music to show his enthusiasm for it. There's alot you could do with that.

 

I just barely caught the idea that someone else was in the room. Maybe some different camera work to guide our attention through the rippled glass to make sure we notice.

 

I'm curious about the small scale jitter I see in his motion. What rig are you using?

 

An ambitious concept! It' s easy to sit here and comment on it but I don't think I could have done it in the timeframe allotted for this contest.

[smwolke]

In regards to the jitter, I noticed it also when the render was complete and did not have the time to hunt down the problem and finish another render. I have noticed this behavior in another animation that I worked on. Not sure what I am doing wrong. The model uses the skeleton that comes with the AM-CD.