General animation critique PLz!!!

[vayne108]

This is something I did last semester for my digital 2-d class, The assignmet was how-to, I decided to do how to raise a dragon. I'm posting this because I want a general critique on my animation. I hope you enjoy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLkHk22fimo&feature=channel_page

and this something I did a well ago but I haven't animationed in tradtional since:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZT73VKolts&feature=channel_page

[teddybearbones]

For the first you have a lot of floating animation where the doctor's arms drift from one pose to the next without holds or any sense of weight or conciousness of what his arms are doing. You've used primarily front and side views for your characters which aren't particularly interesting and static poses which aren't especially exciting. Additionally you have bright super saturated colours as background elements which detract from your foreground. Remember when animating digitally that all your classical concepts still apply.


For the classical piece you've used much more exciting poses with better angles on your character. About halfway through her bottom half melts into a wierd pose. Instead of having it simply morph from pose to pose there you could have her take a step towards the ball object.

Overall I'd say don't be afraid of slow-ins and outs, overshooting or having characters be mostly still. Work on your timing, acting and aim for giving believable weight to your characters. Have another look at your Richard Williams (if you don't have one go get one now, he's very helpful) if need be.

[vayne108]

For the first you have a lot of floating animation where the doctor's arms drift from one pose to the next without holds or any sense of weight or conciousness of what his arms are doing. You've used primarily front and side views for your characters which aren't particularly interesting and static poses which aren't especially exciting. Additionally you have bright super saturated colours as background elements which detract from your foreground. Remember when animating digitally that all your classical concepts still apply.


For the classical piece you've used much more exciting poses with better angles on your character. About halfway through her bottom half melts into a wierd pose. Instead of having it simply morph from pose to pose there you could have her take a step towards the ball object.

Overall I'd say don't be afraid of slow-ins and outs, overshooting or having characters be mostly still. Work on your timing, acting and aim for giving believable weight to your characters. Have another look at your Richard Williams (if you don't have one go get one now, he's very helpful) if need be.

Thanks that helps allot!!! ^_^

[Keng]

I haven't got much to say on the dragon one, but I do like your fairy cat. You have a lot of nice movements in there that you could build on. As teddybones there said, you're character doesn't have to be moving all the time. In the case of the cat you can keep pretty much all the animation you've done but just add some time onto it so that there's some anticipation and reaction time. Typically you want a long anticipation to the action, a short action, and then a long reaction.

My teacher akined it rather nicely to throwing a ball for a dog. The dog freaks out more and more as you get ready to throw the ball, maybe give it a quick fake, then pause again. The actual throw happens in less than a second. The reaction is then the dog going crazy trying to catch the ball/catching it.

You could easily split up your cat so that there's some anticipation before (s)he tries picking up the ball (put's it's hands on then there's a pause). You actually aren't too bad on the anticipation but then the cat seems to disapeer off the page too quickly. I'd like to see it stumble for a moment or a step or something after it's picked up the ball before dashing off. This will give you more of a reaction and the audience a moment's breath before the cat it off again.

[vayne108]

I haven't got much to say on the dragon one, but I do like your fairy cat. You have a lot of nice movements in there that you could build on. As teddybones there said, you're character doesn't have to be moving all the time. In the case of the cat you can keep pretty much all the animation you've done but just add some time onto it so that there's some anticipation and reaction time. Typically you want a long anticipation to the action, a short action, and then a long reaction.

My teacher akined it rather nicely to throwing a ball for a dog. The dog freaks out more and more as you get ready to throw the ball, maybe give it a quick fake, then pause again. The actual throw happens in less than a second. The reaction is then the dog going crazy trying to catch the ball/catching it.

You could easily split up your cat so that there's some anticipation before (s)he tries picking up the ball (put's it's hands on then there's a pause). You actually aren't too bad on the anticipation but then the cat seems to disapeer off the page too quickly. I'd like to see it stumble for a moment or a step or something after it's picked up the ball before dashing off. This will give you more of a reaction and the audience a moment's breath before the cat it off again.

Thanks, I love your points!!!

[vayne108]

Thanks so far guys!! Sorry I thanks allot, I'm not good with words and I don't know what else to say. Anyways what I've gathered so far is that I need to work on timing, and everything about the digital animation needs work, good thing I was already kind of thinking that my digital animation wasn't as strong as the traditional. As for the traditional stuff comes allot easer to me. PLus on the fairy cat piece he needs a more anticipation and allot more reaction, plus some gap timing. Hopefully I can post the revised version soon, Plz critique again when you guys have time it means allot to me !!!!

[Keng]

The problem with digital animation is it tends to be used more like puppets trying to act like they were all hand drawn one frame at a time. Really, they should be approached more like... well.. puppets. A stop motion-like look I think (in my opinion) is more appropriate otherwise it just looks cheesy. The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello is a good example of using very simple puppet-like characters in a stop-motion type way. I don't know if they used cut outs or if they're digital puppets, but they work amazingly well in that award-winning-sort-of-way. You can find it on youtube.

My classmates in 2D comp animation actually just finished a similar project where they had to do a short walk-cycle/story thing using puppets put together on the computer. After Effects had a really neat pin system I was impressed by that they were using. It reminded me of rigging a 3D character. I wish I could show some of them to you. The few I saw were really well done.

Or you could try animating hand drawn on the computer through use of a tablet. I prefer the flow of using paper and pencil myself. It's more forgiving I find. Especially if you're using flash and it's auto-smoothing. PS isn't too bad. Plus hand drawn is just plain fun. Nothing to limit you :D

And don't worry about having nothing to say but thanks. That's often all there is to say for all of us when we get advice.

edit: also.. I guess I'm kinda biased... I'm really not a fan of a lot of the stuff done with flash through tweens and such that's all over the place these days. Looking back your dragon snip wasn't too bad, the scientist seemed kinda stiff and the movements were all constant motion which made it seem rather slow. Even small things like the baby dragon snapping for the meat more quickly would help put some more personality into your characters.

[vayne108]

The problem with digital animation is it tends to be used more like puppets trying to act like they were all hand drawn one frame at a time. Really, they should be approached more like... well.. puppets. A stop motion-like look I think (in my opinion) is more appropriate otherwise it just looks cheesy. The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello is a good example of using very simple puppet-like characters in a stop-motion type way. I don't know if they used cut outs or if they're digital puppets, but they work amazingly well in that award-winning-sort-of-way. You can find it on youtube.

My classmates in 2D comp animation actually just finished a similar project where they had to do a short walk-cycle/story thing using puppets put together on the computer. After Effects had a really neat pin system I was impressed by that they were using. It reminded me of rigging a 3D character. I wish I could show some of them to you. The few I saw were really well done.

Or you could try animating hand drawn on the computer through use of a tablet. I prefer the flow of using paper and pencil myself. It's more forgiving I find. Especially if you're using flash and it's auto-smoothing. PS isn't too bad. Plus hand drawn is just plain fun. Nothing to limit you :D

And don't worry about having nothing to say but thanks. That's often all there is to say for all of us when we get advice.

edit: also.. I guess I'm kinda biased... I'm really not a fan of a lot of the stuff done with flash through tweens and such that's all over the place these days. Looking back your dragon snip wasn't too bad, the scientist seemed kinda stiff and the movements were all constant motion which made it seem rather slow. Even small things like the baby dragon snapping for the meat more quickly would help put some more personality into your characters.

I've never thought of it like using puppets before, I know someone at at my school ccs college for creative studies, whose into that kind of thing and he's taken a class for after effects so maybe he can sit with me and help. and I'll check out Jasper Morello, it always fun to look at new artists!!! And I've used flash about once and I found it rather confusing, but I'm going to try to get the flash class my school is going to offer next semester. Well, lasting I think the reason why the characters didn't have any personalty is that I didn't care for the characters as a creator, so the animation reflected that, plus I had only two weeks, bundled with a few other projects. But thats the way art college is.

[rattus]

i think you did really great on the traditional one!!
i really hope you will continue with paper and pencil, im inspired! =)

[teddybearbones]

I look forward to seeing your new version.


For working with cutout and 3D puppets I've found cascading joint movements (especially in the arms and spine) helps a lot for counteracting character floatiness and stiffness.

[vayne108]

I look forward to seeing your new version.


For working with cutout and 3D puppets I've found cascading joint movements (especially in the arms and spine) helps a lot for counteracting character floatiness and stiffness.

Thankies for the tip, and I was wondering I was going to do a practice animation with a eagle or should I practice with something more simple?

[vayne108]

i think you did really great on the traditional one!!
i really hope you will continue with paper and pencil, im inspired! =)

Aww.. I'm you've made my day!!!

[vayne108]

Finally got to more animation and it wasn't exactly what I though it would be. This is something I did for my Intro into 3D class. We had to model, render, and animate an kitchen appliance transforming into a robot. The programs I used was maya, after effects, garage band for the music, and final cut to pull it all together. I hope you enjoy !!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbleqiEfWpM&feature=channel_page