Animation Critique - Walkcycle (Joey)

Direct Link: Joey's Walk SIDE and FRONT

HAHAHAHAHA!

Awesome cycle, love it! Now that's what I'm talking about. He's a cocky football player, not a grey standard walking rig. Nice job!

The overall attitude comes across very well. The helmet wobble is great, nice detail.

A few tiny things. Side view, his left hand, as it goes down til frame 7, it looks like it goes down til 7, then stays at the same height for frame 8, then goes down again at frame 9. It's a small detail, but if you smooth out that spacing, then it will get rid of that tiny pop. Right now it looks like the arms starts going down then suddenly accelerates. I think that those frames I mentioned are the culprit.

The hips (front view), they seem a bit wobbly. You can a direction change in it, which could work, but it needs some love. Let's say frame 7, his left leg is up, all the weight is on the right leg. So the screen left side of the hip should be higher than the right side. You have it at frame 4 already, but that is a bit early. By frame 9 the hip goes up with the passing leg. Realistically, it should be the opposite, because now the weight really is on his right leg (screen left). By frame 11 the right side of the hip is really high up. Again, it should be the opposite. When he takes the step on frame 16, your right side of the hip is going up already, that's too soon. The weight is not on that leg yet, the foot is just starting to plant. By frame 18 the hip is up. I would delay that and have the hip down and then start the same movement up at frame 18 til 20 or 21. Your body is dipping very quickly at frame 18. During frames 16 to 19 the body (looking at the hips) stops going down, then at 20 starts the quick dip down and the up. That movement gives the character a nice bouncy feel to it. But since it's dipping that fast, he's preparing to push himself up, so he's really putting all the weight on that leg, so revisit your weight shifts on the hip.

Feet (front view). From frame 1 to frame 2, the screen right foot slides towards the right, then his heel does a sharp screen left movement from frame 3 to 4. The screen left foot is better, that pop is not in there. Except from frame 18 to 19, look at his toes (screen left foot), the move to the left quite a bit, but then on 20 no movement to the left anymore. Take frame 19 and move the foot screen right to fix the spacing.

Overall body movement (front view): Look at frame 16. He's leaning towards screen right. So he would have to move in that direction and balance himself out. But from frame 16 to 19 (looking at the hips as reference), he stops moving towards the right, then on 20 continues again. Keep the movement going towards the right, don't stop it, and maybe have him move screen right a bit more. Looking at frame 16 he looks off balance, and since he's moving from left to right with that lean, you'd expect him to move a bit further screen right in order to balance himself out.

That should be it for now. Great job, looking already really good.

When you want to make your cycle last longer and tweak things inbetween, then select your character controllers (or the bouncing ball or whatever has animation on it), in the graph editor, select "Curves", then "Post Infinity", then "Cycle". Still in the Graph Editor select "View", then "Infinity" and youll see lighter dotted version of your curves that extend beyond your selected timeline (1 to 30). If you select Curves>Pre Infinity, then you'll see the curves go into the minus timeline to the left. If you want to extend your cycle, then you need to bake out your keys. Select your controllers (or ball or whatever has animation on it), then Curves>Bake Channel. This will "bake" out the curves for the timeline that you have set. So if your cycle is 30 frames long, and you want to make your whole animation 240 frames long, then adjust your timeline, then bake out the curves and you will see that it will bake them out from 1 to 240.

As to what funny things you could add, that's up to you. Why not have a football being thrown at him. Either hard so it hits his head, throws him off balance then he has to regain his composure, and he will act like nothing happened while he does so, or someone throws the ball in a more casual way, he catches it and throws it back? Let's talk about it tomorrow and we can act some stuff out.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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Critique - Ball w/Teeth (Joey)

Direct Link: Joey's Ball w/Teeth

The following are fixed.
Now ! the box has a symmetrical eye shape.
Now !! it has a nice curve when it bends.
Now !!! it has a mouth with big teeth. ( I am working on its tongue.)
Around frame 26 !!!!, the tail has been fixed.
How do you think the way the mouth shows up on the top of the box?
Actually, I am not for sure, it looks good or not. I am thinking about
giving a little bit more overlap and follow through of the tail after
finishing animation of the mouth and tongue.

Hahaha, awesome! I love the teeth!

Well, you can have them come out like you have it now, slow and creepy,
or they can spring out, almost like a trap that opens. I like the slow
creepy way, but experiment, try different things.

The fixes you made are good, it's all working, concentrate on the
tongue. Think about how the tongue will grab the ball. Around the ball?
Around the tail? Is it a sticky tongue? Is it a snake tongue? Does the
tongue have teeth at the end?

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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Critique - Bouncing Ball (Sheba)

Direct Link: Sheba's Ball



Alright,

I will need a side view (in Maya, in orthographic cameras, choose "side"), nothing in perspective. It's just easier to critique it that way.

Let's go ball by ball.

Big one (heavy): from frame 10 to 11, the ball goes up. Treat it from a pure physics point of view. A heavy ball would not go up for no reason. Have it just roll down the object. From frame 12 to 13 the ball goes suddenly down. It should continue its arc to the right. The ball should accelerate towards the end, so that the spacing gets bigger and bigger as the ball falls down. You have the ball travel a lot of distance from 12 to 13, but then less to 14, then even less to 15, it should be the opposite. As the ball lands, there is no bounce. Even a bowling ball would bounce a bit as it hits the ground.

2nd ball (medium): This one should come in higher. If you look at the height of the scene, it should fall from above the middle. That way it will interact with the object in the middle and the heavy ball. Right now it shoots into the scene from too low a point.
In terms of spacing, the medium ball hits the heavy one at frame 20. At that speed it would bounce off it immediately and the heavy ball would move a bit due to the hit. You have another contact frame at 21, which is too much. From frame 21 to 22 the distance is not far enough, it should travel more screen right. As it moves to the right it suddenly stops from frame 25 to 26. Then from 26 to 27 it moves screen left, which can't be, it would still continue the arc towards the right. This ball then suddenly stops as well. With a medium weight ball, it would bounce a few more times before it rests.

3rd ball (light): this one enters on frame 27 a bit too low, I would have it enter from a higher point, so that there is more opportunity for bounces. Spacing wise there are some issues. It enters at frame 27 almost like a pop. On frame 26 nothing is there, frame 27 it suddenly fully appears in the scene. That would suggest something very fast, but then you have the ball go down on frame 28 with a small travel distance towards the left. From 28 to 29 the ball travels screen right, which is impossible, even for a ball that's alive. From frame 30 to 31 the ball suddenly moves to the left. Is the ball further back than the others? Right now it looks like it's not hitting the ground like the other two balls. From frame 32 to 33 there is a sharp dip down. Track your ball with a dry erase pen and you will see that your arcs are not smooth and round, they will be too linear. From 33 to 34 the ball gets bigger. Is that because it's traveling towards the camera? Remember, I need the scene in a side view, so that we can concentrate on two axis only, no depth movement, nothing in Z. But even if you treat this scene as a 3D one, the ball couldn't just land and then change direction towards the camera.

Please change your camera to a sideview and think about the spacing of your balls, and especially your arcs. Study the bouncing ball examples on our site and track those balls with your pen. Study the curves of the balls as they bounce.

Please stop working on anything else and concentrate on that assignment. You need to master correct spacing and timing before you can move on. Right now there are too many mistakes in this assignment. Think in physics, pure gravity, that's it.

Alrighty? It's getting better, there was (almost) no craziness in this clip! :-)

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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New Posts on Sunday

Hey guys,

sorry for the non-posting. I've switched to a new show at work and with overtime on the previous show my schedule just got a little busier. On top of that I'm preparing my presentation for "Animation Buffet", an idea I had for a while now but that I have kicked into high gear this week. Among the new class related posts (critique, recommendations, updates, etc.), you'll find out what "Animation Buffet" is all about. I'm really excited about it and I think if done right (knock on wood) it could really help out all the animators out there.

Stay tuned!

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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Spline Doctors

www.splinedoctors.blogspot.com/

Make sure to visit that link often because their tips are great. I will go through their blog tonight and post individual links, but you might as well just read through every post, because it's all important. I'm just going to pick out the student examples and specific animation tips but again, make yourself comfortable and check out that site.

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Animation Mentor Newsletter

Go to www.animationmentor.com and once you enter the site, you'll see a box on the lower left which will let you sign up for their newsletter. I highly recommend it because it's full of useful information, but mainly for the tips&tricks section posted by master animator Shawn Kelly.

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Critique - Ball w/ character & tail (Joey)

Direct Link: Joey's Ball w/ Tail

A quick thing about the newest clip (looking good btw!). When the ball lands after every hop, you have it on the ground for 2 frames or so, but what I would do is continue the tail motion. So when the ball lands on frame 26 for instance, the tail stays the same on frame 27 and slowly moves on frame 28. With the tail and ball staying the same, it looks like a pause whenever the ball hits the ground. To make it more fluid I would continue the tail motion throughout the whole thing. So the moment the ball hits the ground, the momentum of the tail would have it go down on the next frame, giving it more overlap and follow through.

As a whole, the tail looks a bit like a fish tail. It's not wrong, but it would be nice to see a more fluid movement every now and then, and by that I mean something more snaky, where the tail really follows the path of action.

Here are examples of what I mean:







www.cartoonsolutions.com: Follow-Through-Animation-Video-Tutorial

and:

http://hobbieam.blogspot.com/2007/02/week-7-arcs-and-path-of-action.html

as well as:

www.lostpencil.com: overlapping_tail.mov

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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Great Tutorial List

Patrick Alessi posted a great list of tutorials over at CG-Char. Keith Lango is the main contributor and his site is a must read for every animator.

The list is a response to the question: "How do I animate pose to pose?"

_________________________________

1. First you pose your character (The Major things that are going to happen)
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/popThru/popThru.html

2. Add "breakdowns" to define the arcs, eases and spacing.
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/arcs/arcs.htm
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/overlap/overlap.html
http://www.keithlango.com/wordpress/?page_id=281

3. Add secondary breakdowns where needed for more definition.

4. Cleanup. That means opening the curve editor and tweaking them to be smooth as you like it.

(You don't really have to wait til you reach that point to open the graph editor. You can start tweaking things early on.)

And... well... Keith Lango has a ton of great tutorial which you should study carefully:
http://www.keithlango.com/wordpress/?page_id=226

Other goodies:
http://www.animationpodcast.com/archives/2005/05/25/principles-planning/
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=23600
http://www.carlosbaena.com/anim_material.html
http://www.animationmeat.com/index.html

http://www.shaunfreeman.com/animating_tips/ this site has a huge list, AWESOME!

http://www.comet-cartoons.com/3ddocs/charanim/
http://www.comet-cartoons.com/3ddocs/animprocess/

__________________________________

Sweet list! Grab something to drink, get yourself comfortable and go through all of them.

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Critique - Walk Cycle (Jason)

Alright, getting there.

There are some things here and there, but the biggest one is this: his body is way too low, it looks like he's sitting. Check frame 12 for instance. It looks like his sitting on a table. The pose at frame 12 would have him fall back, he's too off balance.
Also, during the passing when the body should reach its highest point, the foot that carries all the weight is going to be flat on the ground, because all the weight is on it. Right now you are starting a foot roll moments after the foot hit the ground. Keep it planted until the leg starts stretching too far, which is the reason for the foot roll. But when your feet get off the ground, your toes are not going to be bent, because the pressure is gone, the foot is off the ground. The only way your toes would point up is if the character WANTS them to be up. Which can be a character trait if you really want to, but right now it looks like a mistake. In the front view you can see that the feet are pointing straight forward, like in the characters default pose. Humans don't really walk like that, they would point mostly outward or also inward.
Your hands are dragging too much. The overall speed of your walk seems a bit too slow. With that timing, having your hands drag that far back and forth looks like it's a deliberate move. Your arms are also bent all the time, which looks a bit odd given the timing. If a walk is that slow, it would seem that your character is very relaxed or tired, which means that his arms would be hanging down a lot more.
Your fingers are also super straight.

Posing a character doesn't stop once you animated the main body parts. A hand pose says a lot about your character. Same goes for the facial expression. The whole body counts.

Think about what kind of walk you want to do. Who and what is the character? Is it a cop? An astronaut? A stressed out housewife carrying really heavy grocery bags with flowers sticking out of the bags and flapping into her face? It's not just about the mechanics.

What I need you guys to do is to look at the examples I posted. It's good reference. Same goes for the tutorials and the work of your fellow students. But most importantly, examine your animation by acting it out. Try to walk like your character, I guarantee you that it's going to be hard in your case because of the legs being constantly bent.
Do the poses that you have in your animation make sense? How does the timing feel?

You have to think outside the box, past the basic mechanics and create a character.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

Direct Link: Jason's Walk

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Critique - Walkcycle (Erik)

Hey Erik,

nice work!

I still think that his neck and head area are stiff. It's definitely better than before. I would go for final and move on to something else. You can always get back to it at the end of the semester. It's what we call a CBB. C-ould B-e B-etter. And that's not in a demeaning way, it means it's good, move on, and if there is time at the end, get back to it, but it's good enough to move on.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

Direct Link: Eriks's Walk Cycle

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Victor Navone's Tutorial on Splines

Master Animator Victor Navone just posted a tutorial on splines and how to use them (thanks Erik for the tip!).

Click here to check it out!

And this is not a suggestion, go check it out right now. I will post a collection of links from Animation Mentor, Spline Doctors, Keith Lango, Victor Navone, etc. later on this week. There is tons of information out there, use it! Until that post, read through Victor Navone's tutorial.

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Personality

Hey boys and girls,

time for the weekly update.

Speaking of which, academyanimation.blogspot.com has new posts (I hope you are checking this site). First off, the reel on Veerapatra's animation site.

The animation on the reel is great and definitely and inspiration for other animators. I posted specific clips on our site, 3 walk cycles and a weight assignment. The reason is because they have personality. It starts simple with just adding color to your model and making it different, to establishing a character for a walk, like the cop or the dog owner. Same goes for the weight assignment. It's not just an assignment, the action takes place within a set, the character has a purpose, he's not just lifting something because that's the assignment, the exercise was taken beyond the minimum requirements.

The latest clip on our site is Joey's current Character Ball assignment. I'm not singleing (is that a word?) him out because I favor him or because he's great and the rest of you suck, but because he's great and the rest of you... noo, just kidding! But the clip is great and should serve as an inspiration and motivation for the rest of the class to think outside the box.

I understand that it's difficult to master a walk, there are a lot of mechanics and problems to think about, but same goes for other assignments. If you plan to make a living doing animation, then you need to look around and study what other people are doing. The successful ones and the not so successful ones, so you learn what to do and what to avoid. Your work needs to stick out, it needs to grab people's attention (in a good way). It needs to be original and engaging. Most importantly, it needs to have personality. Character. You can't get away with "just" doing the correct movement, the correct animation. The character needs to be alive and it needs to be unique. That goes for a ball, a flower sack, a cube monster, a human, etc.

If you have an idea but then you don't use it because it means "more work", then you might as well quit now. Harsh, maybe, but still true. Animation is hard work and you need to be willing to go the extra mile.

Think about how you can add personality to your work. Your character, who is he/she? What is he/she or it? How old is the character? Where does the character come from? In what situation is the character in your clip, what happened before, what will happen next? If your character is doing something, it will change according to his situation. Let's say he's eating breakfast. Well, the way he's eating it will be different if he's sleepy, late for an appointment, distracted, super hungry, etc.

So think outside the box for your current and next assignments.

If you are unsure about something, email me, ask me in class, don't be shy.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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Critique - Character Ball (Joey)

I fixed some small things mentioned in the class.

At the end, the box is bending and it will open it's mouth which is on the top & suck up the ball with a tongue which is very sticky like frog's. How about it?

I twisted the box when it looks up and gets angry.

Hahaha, nice!!

The ball:

- at frame 160, when he gets scared, I think you could shave off a few frames in order to make it snappier. I cut out 4 frames on the anticipation and two out of the scared-in-the-air part and it makes it a bit more frantic.



- the eyeball: it still moves a bit slow for me. With the slowing out at 156 as it looks up it takes about 7 frames for the whole move, cut that in half. An eyeball will take one or two frames, little eyedarts, most of the time. One frame movements happen in a more realistic approach for subtle detail stuff, but usually 2 frames are good, with one or two frames at the end to slow it down.
On frame 193 the eye slowly moves with the ball, I would make that move faster with two frames, make it sharper. I think the "monster" is a bit upset that the ball is on him/her, so the eye movements would be faster, more alert. At the end of 212 it looks like it takes 5 frames for the eye to move. So in general, speed things up like you have it at the very end. But the end needs some tiny spacing changes. On 227 the eye is up, then goes down on til 229. The spacing is pretty even though, I would make it snappier. So have it up on 227, the go down a tiny bit on 228 then end up where you are on 229.
I like how the head goes back on 241! I can't wait to see the ending, sounds great.

Awesome work!!

Direct Link to movies:

- Joey's Character Ball

- suggestion for "scared" part

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Veerapatra Jinanavin - Animator

Check out Veerapatra's animation site! The reels on the site are very good and I was given permission to repost some of the clips. - quicktime required - double click on movie to play







And here an excellent "weight" assignment:

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Critique - Heavy Object (Erik)

"Here comes my idea about moving heavy object. (no texture, yet.) Idea comes from some people believe aliens help human to build pyramid...what do you think about this?"

____________________________

Hey Erik,

I wouldn't worry about textures, it will be easier to judge without them. The idea is good, but just looking at that picture I would have never guessed that it was about aliens helping out with the pyramids.

That's because all you can see is the shiny tip of the pyramid. The lower part of it is hidden under the wooden planks. I would add pyramids in the background with the silver tip, that way it's a bit more obvious.
It's also not clear that the character is an alien (just coloring him green is not enough, you need to find typical characteristics of an alien).

Keep going!

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Switching Webhosts

EDIT: Everything should be working again, please let me know if there are any errors. Thanks!

Since I'm switching between hosts I need to rebuild my website folders and upload everything. So the clips for critique, as well as the scripts and the syllabus are offline right now, but they will be ready by tonight.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I will also update the critique posts with new stuff.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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Pavlor Navarro's Demo Reel

Check out this reel, in the middle, there are some good walk cycle examples.

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Spacing

This is a gif I found by Ron over at this very constructive animation thread on cgsociety.



















This little animation perfectly illustrates the results of how spacing affects your animation.

I highly recommend using the dry erase marker on your screen. Track the trajectory and spacing of your bouncing ball, or your swinging arm in a walkcycle, or the tip of a sword in a physical exercise.

Whatever you track needs to have an even and or gradual spacing from frame to frame, depending on what your intentions is in your shot. If your dots are one thumb size apart and then suddenly 3 times bigger, then back to normal, than back to big, then something is wrong and your animation will look choppy, with lots of hiccups.

I talked about arcs before and will elaborate on it later on as you get into your flower sack animation or performance animation.
Basically everything moves in arcs, no matter what, except robots. So when you track your parts of the character, then as you connect the dots with a line, it should show a line that's smooth in terms of curves. Either it's going to be flat (ball rolling from left to right on an even floor), or in a figure 8 arc, or just an arched arc. But you won't have a line that has a sudden linear change, like an L, where it goes down and then suddenly to the right, unless your object hits a solid wall. Or a ball bounces of somewhere (floor or wall or object).









Image from "The Principles of Animation"
@ www.evl.uic.edu

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Class Update

Hey boys and girls,

I wanted to apologize to those students who had to wait so long for the critique. I need to be more consistent with the time I allocate to each student. We are a big class, so unfortunately time is precious and gets used up very quickly. I will try to keep it to 5min each in order to make sure that everybody can go home at 10pm. Once I'm done with everybody I can go back to those students who need more help.

For that to work I need you guys to have quicktimes ready for critique, but more importantly you need actual work to show. When it's your turn and I hear that you had problems with your shot, then I'm wondering why you didn't email me once you had those problems during the week. Unless you have those problems Sunday night, you shouldn't be waiting til next class. The moment you are stuck, email me.

For those students who didn't make it today, please email me your work so you don't fall behind schedule.

Speaking of schedule. Please have character balls with tails ready for next week if you didn't today. If you are using your own schedule or are ahead of schedule, show me your latest character assignment of blocking of the flower sack (choose one clear emotion).
Please bring your latest and greatest of each assignment, because next week I need to grade all of you in terms of your progress.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate and email me.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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Critique - Bouncing Ball and Tail (Marie)

Alright, nice work! Very cool!

Let's start with...

Big Small Ball:

- Very good, nice touch with the stripe on the ball, the left little ball bounces with the big one hitting the floor, cool! The heavy ball is good, the right one is good too. One little thing is how far screen right the ball is bouncing after it hits the big one. Basically from frame 49 to 61, because after 62 is slows down again. So just look at your curve, there might be a sharper dip suddenly during those frames. But you got it otherwise. You can fix it if you want to, or if you want to concentrate on the tail ball that's fine too.

Heavy Bouncing Ball:

- If you label it Heavy, then you'd have to adjust the bounces at bit. Heavy is more what you had in the "Big Small Ball" clip. Apart from that, there is some spacing issue on frame 13 and on. The spacing from 12 to 13 is a bit big. It looks like the ball is being sucked down, not falling down due to gravity. So, the ball is a bit too light for "heavy", and the bounces get very quick after frame 12.

Light Balloon:

- FINAL! Nice job!

Medium Bouncing Ball:

- FINAL!

Tail:

- Good start. Two things: One, my first impression was that the little guy is happily joining his big friend, but the big guy is sad. The little guy then gets closer to comfort him. Is that it? The story didn't jump out immediatly, so I think it could be a bit clearer. Like making the big ball sigh.
The other thing is the tail. Right now it looks like a fish tail flapping. If this is your choice, then okay. I can show you tomorrow a different approach to tails. You can check out Simon's ball bounce at www.simonchristen.com for example.

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