New Wall-E Trailer
Looks soooo good! Better quality here.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Critique - Bouncing Balls with obstacles
Cool, I like the complexity of the shot. The balls need some work though.
Let's look at the yellow one:
The initial jump up due to the heavy ball crash is a bit high, I'd reduce that by 50%. The ball also falls straight down but then bounces to the left. I would add a little piece of the black pole that fell right were the yellow ball hits the ground. The little piece should be angled so it makes sense for the ball to bounce to the left. Look at the image to see what I mean (hope it's clear).
The bounces are good, but again, it doesn't make sense that it would bounce back to the left at x50. So after the yellow ball hits the heavy one at x45, keep the bounces going to the right (it could roll off the black ground at the end). Also reduce the amount of distance it travels. The impact at x50 is a bit too far to the right, go around 70% of that distance.
Heavy one:
Break the black board during the first bounce. Make the first bounce faster (like the second one), it could also roll a TINY bit to the left or right, give it some tiny life after the bounce. The falling is also a bit even. Look at the position of the ball at each frame and make sure that the distance gets bigger and bigger.
Light one:
The first bounce up is very poppy. The spacing gets huge from x10 to x11. Reduce that spacing, which will have the ball not go up as high, which is okay.
Just like the yellow one, add a little broken piece so that it makes sense for the red ball to bounce to the right. The bouncing/floating feels good, but here as well I would keep the bounces going screen left after it hits the heavy ball. Don't switch direction at x171. Yes the black ground is tilted but it would only lessen the amount of travel to the right, it wouldn't change the direction that drastically.
Keep going!
JD
Critique - Bouncing Balls
Ok, what you have going here are linear curves in your graph editor.
The balls go up and down in a very robotic way, there is no weight to it.
Look at the image with the two balls and the hand. See how straight those two lines are? I figure your curves look like that.
You need to have them like the other image with the rounded curve. Your Y curve in the graph editor needs to look like that.
Check out this site for great reference.
Basically as the ball falls down it accelerates. So the spacing needs to grow from frame to frame. So as it falls down there is bigger and bigger space between eye key/position of the ball.
The opposite happens as the ball goes up. As it bounces up it will slow down and the spacing will get smaller and smaller.
- pic source
Animation Mentor Newsletter - February 2008
If you haven't done so yet, sign up for the Animation Mentor Newsletter (free of course) @ animationmentor.com
This month you get:
Tips & Tricks by Shawn Kelly (a must read - if you're new to this, go through the Tips & Tricks Archives as well)
Video Games Triple Play
- Video Game Reel Tips
- Animating for Video Games
- Game Developers Conference
"The Park" short film by Roger Gimenez
Jason Schleifer - Mentor
Mark Behm eCritique for the 11secondclub
Animation Podcast - James Baxter
Bobby Beck's Blog
Student - Teresa Nord
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Critique - Weight
Good start, now you have to do a couple of things.
For presentation there is no need for the split screen, I'd prefer a bigger render.
Scale down the car, it seems pretty big. If you are unsure, then place Hogan inside the car like a driver.
Next I think we need to adjust the camera a bit. Looking at frame 50 or 60 the car is pretty chopped off framing wise, it would be neat to have it fully in frame.
You want to make it clear to the audience what's going on. Since you're working on one shot, you dont' have the benefits of a sequence, people don't know what happened before.
First viewing you see the guy ducking, but you don't know where he is and if the ducking is positive or negative (he could be sneezing, he could look for something on the ground or actually try to cover himself), so like you said, you should add a street, maybe sidewalk or something similar.
Then suddenly the other guy jumps in and then suddenly the car is there. It's all a bit confusing (imagine people who've never seen it). At the end you understand what happened and having the element of surprise when the hero saves the day is a good thing, but let's try to built up the tension, let's milk the moment of the bystander thinking he's going to get crushed.
Zoom out a bit so that the car is more in frame. Maybe add a shadow over teh bystander (some flat geometry with a half transparent shader on it simulating the car shadow). You can then make it bigger and bigger. That way we know something is coming, it's getting big, it's about the crush the guy and then the hero steps in and saves the day.
Now we need to figure what the bystander is doing. Why is the car flying and falling where he is. Who did that? If you had giant imprint of a creature's footprint, that would explain things. With Cloverfield released, it might not be very original, but something similar within the set explaining what's going on would be cool.
Animation wise the hero traveled quite a distence. You don't want to get the sticky landing spiderman feel. Even though he has superpowers, there's still gravity. Is he jumping that far or flying? Right now it's looks like a jump. Have him land and then take a few steps to absorb all the weight.
Wow about this (just thinking/writing out loud, no need to do it like that): The victim (standing pretty much at the center of the frame) is next to a sidewalk which has a wall right next to it. Victim looks up, gets scared, shadow grows from a dot to fullsize, showing that something is falling towards the guy. He tries to escape by taking a few steps onto the sidewalk but is blocked by the wall (ends up more screen left towards the end of frame). In jumps the hero (with those few steps added as mentioned) and gets ready to grab the car (a bit off centre favoring screen right). Car lands and pushes the hero towards the guy on the wall (so the car fall is more horizontal then vertical) but he stops sliding before hitting the victim (adding a bit more tension, "will they make it?" type of thing).
Hero then throws away the car the way you have it. Looks back in a "You're safe buddy." look and jumps/flies away with the victim looking relieved, or fainting or something like that.
Again, just throwing it out there. But it would be neat to have that shot be it's own little story.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Critique - Walk
Very cute!
Two things that struck me first were here arms (frontview), how they shoot out seems a bit too poppy, especially the screen right one from x2 to x4. It looks more like she's pushing people away. The sideview looks good, so I would reduce the outside pushing or give her more time for the swing, don't do it over 2 or 3 frames.
The other thing is her head. But in the front and sideview it feels to poppy, there are a lot of abrupt movements which gives her a bobble head feel. Look at x4 (sideview) how the head suddenly goes up til x6, then from x8 to 10 it suddenly goes down. Reduce the sudden rotation and give the overall body up translation two more frames to easy into the highest point, that will also get rid of the sudden stop and pop feel.
The legs feel good, I would just get rid of the leg pop from x9 (bent) to x10 (straight) to x11 (bent again). Same with the other leg.
If your rig allows it, take her eye aim controller and pull it away from her, so that she looks at a steady point. Right now as the head rotates her eye direction is also changing.
Nice work!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Nick Pitera
There's another interesting post @ Cartoon Brew. This time the focus is on Nick Pitera. Head over there to check out how he sings both the male and female parts of "A Whole New World". Crazy!
The post also points out to Nick's blog and guess what, he's an animator at Ringling. Multi talented indeed, nice!
"Faking it" by Amid
There's a great post at Cartoon Brew with a quote from Kevin Koch (Dreamworks Animator) which you should print out and always carry with you. :)“If you’re not in a position to make story/character contributions, if that superficial character and shallow, unbelievable story aren’t going to improve no matter how many suggestions you make, then just do the best you can. There are times when I have to remind myself that I’m a pro, I’m being paid to do a job, and the least I can do is a solid professional job. Think of those shots as a technical problems. Look for ways to emphasize the basic principles of animation. Are the arcs as full as they could be, can you pack in a touch more overlap and follow-through, are your poses as clear and well staged as they can be? If you’re stuck having a minor character walk around for no particular reason, make it the sharpest walk in the movie, without upstaging the main action. Remember the oft quoted line, “There are no small scenes, only small animators.”
I love animating.
Do you guys ever get that feeling where you suddenly realize how much you love something?
I have that with multiple things. Obviously there are moments where I could just eat up my wife and kid because they are so awesome and cute.
Or when I watch a movie on my projector on a 120" screen. I'm telling you, you never get used to it. And there's always a point during pretty much every movie where you realize how big that screen really is and how cool it is to watch movies like that.
The list can go on but a minute ago I had that same "Holy crap do I love this stuff or what?!" moment while animating on Indy. I can't believe that's a job. I just love it.
Just had to share that, sorry... Move along, nothing to see here! - pic source
Art Babbitt's "Animating Art" part 1
Check the "related videos" for the rest of the doc.
found @ Cartoon Brew
Monday, February 4, 2008
Critique - Balls
You named the clip "beach ball" but the balls feels a bit too heavy for a beach ball. If you'd call it a "medium" ball, I'd say fix the beginning of how the ball enters (it falls down straight but then bounces to the right - you need to have the ball on an arc the moment it enters frame) and then you're done.
But if you're going for a beach ball then you need to slow down the bounces a lot. Your timing for a medium is okay, so you could get away with just scaling the keys. ;)
The "light" ball looks good, there are only a few tweaks. I would add one more frame at x41 to x42. The spacing is good but one frame before impact there is a sudden increase in speed, your spacing gets too big. Same with the up bounce on x42 to 43 and the down on x54 to x55 (the up after that is fine).
Once the ball hits the wall you have one frame of compression which could work, but right now the compression from x62 to 63 is pretty small, then the ball speeds away from the wall at x64. I'd take that one frame of the compression and use it as a way to ease into the bounce away.
Check your curve on x69, the ball looses its momentum for a frame and doesn't travel enough screen left. If you step frame through it you'll notice a weird little jiggle. Use the dry erase marker at each frame and track your ball, you'll see the uneven spot of your arc. Overall I would lessen the amount of distance the ball travels after the wall hit. I think it bounces too far. Also, add another little bounce after x82 (at your current animation, once you lessen the distance it won't be at this frame anymore of course). Right now it bounces and then suddenly sticks to the floor. I like how it bounces off the wall. Once you changed the distance though it might not reach the wall or not hit it as hard, so that little bounce might get a lot smaller or it might even not be necessary.
The heavy one is too light, the bounces are too big. I like how you added the wall though, but once you'll adjust the bounce, it won't travel as far screen right. I would look at the first clip on this page for reference:
That ball really feels like a bowling ball. Try to get the weight looking like that.
Keep going!
Jean-Denis
The Art of Making Pixar's Ratatouille
THE ART OF MAKING PIXAR'S RATATOUILLE
© 2008 Ron Barbagallo
Pixarplanet points to a great article @ animationartconservation about the making of Ratatouille.
Speaking of which, a friend of mine showed me the Blu-ray features of Ratatouille on his HD projector and holy moly does it look fantastic (both the picture and the features).
The animation is just so insanely well done, holy moly indeed. You should rip the DVD, convert the movie to quicktime and then go through the whole movie frame by frame. :)
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Critique - Balls
The balls look great, there are only minor changes.
First, the colorful beach ball needs two fixes. One, right before it hits the ground it gets really fast, so add one or two frames before the impact. And two, let the ball roll for a few frames at the very end so it doesn't just stop. It's subtle, but still.
Same goes for the basket ball, it needs to continue rolling as well for a few frames.
Th heavy one is good, but I would lower the ball at x19. It feels heavy at the beginning but then you have it bounce 3 times and the last one just goes up to high, not a lot, just lower it a tiny bit.
Other than that you're done. I'd move on to another assignment while you fix this one.
Critique - Balls
The red ball's bounce feels nice, the only problem is that it keeps bouncing and bouncing without losing momentum. The timing you have is good, but after every bounce the ball would lose a bit of height.
So in your case it might roll into the block or maybe a few little bounces are left, but either way it will affect the end of your clip. But again, I like your timing so just work on gradually lowering the ball.
The green balls seems ok, although there are little areas that needed fixing. For instance I would reduce the speed at which the ball falls at the very beginning. Not by much. Right now the ball feels like a mix between a balloon and a ball. I suggest you push it so that it's completely like a balloon. Make sure that your timing doesn't suddenly change after a bounce. For instance as the ball falls it feels a bit heavier than a balloon until x90, but then it takes a lot of frames until the ball bounces up again. Compare your spacing from x89 to x90, and then x90 to x91. Your spacing after x90 is quite different and the ball is suddenly slower.
The blue ball could use a tiny bounce after the first bounce (study this reference animation):
It's okay for both smaller balls to get squished but you could also have the red ball being pushed/squished away.
I would move on to another clip and while you start on that keep working on the ball assignments, which is pretty much done.
Nice work!
Cheers
JD
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Reference and video rip
I highly recommend building a reference library. Start collecting great poses from comic books, images/clips online, clips from DVDs, etc. etc. It serves as inspiration and guide and can help you figuring out complicated body mechanics.
Check out this post about reference and this critique post for a look at how quickly you can find great reference online and how it can help.
I also recommend getting Netflix, try to watch at least one movie a week. Check the link as to why.
If you find a scene that you like you might consider getting PQDVD, which rips clips into iPod format, which quicktime can read as well. The trial version lets you rip 5 to 10mins (other packages will let you rip more but you'll probably get a watermark over the clip, which is not that bad in some cases). Obviously don't rip full movies which you don't own since that's illegal. Those packages are around $30 and totally worth it, so just get on a cup-noodles diet for a while if money is tight. :)
I personally use Cucusoft's DVD to iPod + iPod Video Converter Suite. It's a very good all in one package for $40.
Installing the frame counter script
Right click on the file and open it with Wordpad. It will give you this:
/* This file downloaded from Highend3d.com
''
'' Highend3d.com File Information:
''
'' Script Name: frameCounter v1.0
'' Author: Patrick McNabb
'' Last Updated: December 31, 2002
'' Update/Change this file at:
'' http://www.highend3d.com/maya/mel/?section=interface#2079
''
'' Please do not alter any information above this line
'' it is generated dynamically by Highend3d.com and will
'' be changed automatically on any updates.
*/
//stick this file in your My Documents/maya/4.0/scripts directory and rename it to: userSetup.mel
//it'll give you a framecounter display menu item
//if you already have a userSetup.mel file add this stuff to it:
headsUpDisplay
-section 8
-block 0
-blockSize "medium"
-dfs "large"
-command "currentTime -q"
-atr
HUDFrameCount;
// Adds menu items to control the framecounter - it'll be under display-headsupdisplay
global string $gHeadsUpDisplayMenu;
menuItem
-parent $gHeadsUpDisplayMenu
-checkBox true
-label "Frame Counter"
-command "headsUpDisplay -e -vis #1 HUDFrameCount"
-annotation "Frame Counter: Toggle the display of frame counter";
The important part is this section:
//stick this file in your My Documents/maya/4.0/scripts directory and rename it to: userSetup.mel
//it'll give you a framecounter display menu item
//if you already have a userSetup.mel file add this stuff to it:
headsUpDisplay
-section 8
-block 0
-blockSize "medium"
-dfs "large"
-command "currentTime -q"
-atr
HUDFrameCount;
Depending on what Maya you're using, the path could look like this:
My Documents/maya/8.5/scripts/
Don't forget to rename the script.
Critique - 3 Balls
Nice work on the balls!! The only one that needs TINY adjustments is the light one on the right side.
The overall feeling of it is that the ball sticks to the ground a bit before bouncing off. So during the first hit, I would delete the frames 25 and 27, 28 and 30. On the second bounce I'd take away x51 and x56.
Should be a quick fix. I would move on to another animation clip and while you work on that one, fix the ball.
Nice job!
Cheers
JD
Critique - Manager
Quick detail first. When the table moves at around x194, the hand/fingers on the table don't go with it. You'll have to really lock that down.
After not having seen the clip for a while what struck me first was his upper body movement back at around x190. It feels too quick. I would lessen the rotation back so that it slows down.
I'm pretty tired so my critique will be all over the place (sorry). Screen right fingers snap open very quickly at x129 to 130. The way the fingers curl around the pen towards x159 feels a bit robotic. I don't know if it's the speed or the fact that they are curled while it gets to the pen. Maybe it's how the arm stops moving screen left and down at around x156, could be that sudden stop that makes it feel weird.
The screen left arm movement from x143 to x152 feels too fast, give it 5 more frames, maybe a bit more.
There's still that very isolated shoulder movement from x177 to x188 (screen left one). How that arm/hand goes up to the table needs to be a bit slower. What's odd is how the arm/shoulder goes up, then later his upper moves back. You could end the arm move later and start the body one earlier, so that both slow down and merge, making it a bit more organic.
That same shoulder goes down around x261, again feeling a bit squishy and isolated, which extends to around x278 where both shoulders go up. Looks like you want to avoid twinning but now their timing is almost too separate. The down movement of both shoulders is also too quick, give it a few more frames.
Lipsync seems pretty good, but what I would add now is a little bit of asymmetry. Check x234 for instance. It's very defaulty and that general shape is visible across the whole clip. You have changes in it of course, but now you need to add some fleshiness to it and play with how much each side of the mouth is pulling. Try favoring just one side (add a left side pull back or smile at 20% for instance).
I would start fixing the shoulders and arms and then take care of the other notes. After that let's take another look.
Cheers
JD
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