motion test

[paradymx]

Thought I could get some opinions from my Hash bretheren on a piece of my Demo reel( I been living inCaliforina for two years now an still haven't met anyone who knows animation enough to get something other than "yeah, it looks good") My portfolio is my primary now so you probably will hear from me again if you guys don't mind.

 

dtest.mov

[John Bigboote]

I'm always good for an opinion...just not always a good opinion.

 

Overall...yeah- it looks good! But seriously, you are obviously a 'pose to pose' animator...which is good...but on this animation I think you need to experiment with some of the timings in-between some of the poses.

 

A cool thing about computer animating is it's like sculpture...you can just keep carving away at it endlessly.

 

Thanks for sharing!

[robcat2075]

Since you ask...

 

I would say that the first issue that strikes me is that he moves without showing proper weight and mass. For example, he will often move from one foot to another without really transferring his weight properly. He might step forward and then lift his trailing leg before his leading leg could ever take over the job of holding him up.

 

I think it's a good scenario and a complex one; you'll want to make sure all the mechanics are immaculate since that is what people will judge in a demo reel clip like this.

[PF_Mark]

the ball first bounce you have it starting fast then slowing down before it hits that is backwards?

 

the bounce up afte the hit is to constant it should start out fast then slow tell he catches it.

 

2nd through down the ball starts fast then slows then speeds up it should accel more with each time frame tell it hits

 

once 2nd sqash you have it going round on next frame then stretching on next and the motion up is constant again it should start fast and slow with gravity

 

the throught should start after the left foot lands or at least hte release video tape your self throughing a ball like this without thinking to much about it that has meshed me up some times

 

the rest Robert covered.

 

we have free animation courses here if you like you can join in on some

[Jeetman]

Thought I could get some opinions from my Hash bretheren on a piece of my Demo reel( I been living inCaliforina for two years now an still haven't met anyone who knows animation enough to get something other than "yeah, it looks good") My portfolio is my primary now so you probably will hear from me again if you guys don't mind.

 

dtest.mov

 

It's pretty good.

 

As Mark mentioned, your ball motion needs work. The motion looks more like a yo-yo because of how it accelerates then decelerates and accelerate as the ball is being thrown to the ground. It needs to have a constant increase in speed as it is thrown down. If you look at your animation, you'll see that this is not what is happening. You have a point that just after he throws the ball down and lets go of the ball where it slows down. This is impossible to do unless it's controlled.

 

Building on what Robert suggested: You need more overlapping motion to give more realism to the throw. Again look at the wind up and the release. It's too stiff. Even the anticipation of the throw could use a little offsetting. If you do this the movement will look more fluid. In the throw, look at the lean back to falling forward. Notice there is no (or very little) hip snap. watch a clip of a real pitcher. You'll notice that there's actually a chain reaction of movements. Each body part lags a little behind the actual throw. The reason for this is because for a pitcher to get maximum acceleration from a throw, he build the speed through the body by overlapping each movement. I'll try to give a visual....

 

The order of movement in a pitch is pretty much like this:

 

legs

hips

torso

shoulders

arm

wrist

 

Each movement builds the speed. The leg initiate the movement. The hips lag slightly but come into play as the legs are still moving into position. The torso does the same thing. The torso lags slightly but comes into play with the hips and the legs. Shoulder lags but then is moving with the torso, hips legs and so on. This happens right up until the release of the ball.

 

What's actually happening is a whipping effect. Each part moves to increase the speed of the throw. Once the ball is released, the speed is the result of the accumulation of the speeds of the body parts.

 

Right now you may be thinking,"ummm..I just wanted to know if my animation looked good LOL." If you add the over lapping motion based on this, and can get the right timing (we are talking all this happening in about 1 second), then it will look really good and if this is for a demo reel, you need to go all out and be very conscious that your motions are arcing motions. Oh and this would also apply in the follow through motion at the end. Just remember that you don't want your animation to look stiff and the way to loosen it up is to offset your body part motions a little.

 

When I heard that a 10 second clip of animation could take a week or more, I thought that was ridiculous. I mean common, it's ONLY 10 seconds right? Well, that was until I actually DID work on a couple of 10 second animations LOL.

 

I hope this helps,

George

[robcat2075]

When I heard that a 10 second clip of animation could take a week or more, I thought that was ridiculous. I mean common, it's ONLY 10 seconds right? Well, that was until I actually DID work on a couple of 10 second animations LOL.

 

Yes, 10 seconds is a long shot. Pixar animators talk of finishing 3-4 seconds per week. On the other end of the scale, I have heard of a producer (an A:M user, BTW) who hires animators to complete 8 seconds, not in one week, not in one day, but in one hour! For all of $20. Ouch.

[paradymx]

Thanks guys I haven't had a critque(bashing) like this in a while. I really miss it!!!

okay....pass #2

 

think I got the ball worked out though it does still look like a yo-yo, somewhat (i fear spreading out the timing more for gravity will sent me off the other end of the timing cliff)

 

did the first set of offseting

 

And yes the weighting was way off, Robcat i didn't really see it still you said and i compared the breakdown poses

 

free animation courses? is it under the tutorials or on another site

 

3-4 secs a week HUH? that makes me feel a little better. I been thinking i was just generally slow(started this project on Wed). the flow of those video tutorials made me think they were a standard.

 

thanks again you guys are tops!!!

 

dtest2.mov

 

(side note: are the guys at Hash off at a conference or something I been trying to possibly order/renew my subscription for the year but no ones been there(not even tech support) for almost two weeks)

[John Bigboote]

Much, much better! Man, we could have used that clip for the 'pass the ball' movie 2 years ago. (See A:MFilms...Pass the Ball)

 

I would still like to see some more 'rearing back' anticipation before he throws the ball...and some timing reworking when he gets hit at the end...maybe after he gets hit his feet leave the ground and he slides back a foot or 2...

 

Thanks 4 sharing!