WIP - Game Character/Animation

[Houkah]

I thought the best animated part was his last jump where he grabs the lamp post to balance him/itself. Also good is when he walks w/ the big ball and kind of stomps his feet while walking. It's a little too sharp but at least you're giving the impression it's heavy. Might want to tone down how hard the stomping is though. When the character picks up the ball and starts leaning back the ball doesn't seem to have too much weight. I think this is because there are too many keyframes or not enough easing in when starting the motion. As soon as the ball leaves the ground i think it should be pretty quick to the next pose which would be the character leaning back w/ the ball. In contrast the motion of the char. putting down the ball is well timed. The bit that i think needs more work is when the character jumps onto the 2nd platform and is off balance. Something just seems off there. Also the star background in this section i think should be animated. Since the stars are motion blurred to look like they're in motion it's a little strange that they don't move at all.

Hope you don't mind the critique, I know how hard it is to produce a short animation. I think it's a great start that needs some tweaking, but you definitely captured a game graphics type feel with it.

[the_podman]

Hey, man. Thanks for the crits! A lot of what you said is very true. It's funny how after you work on something for a really long time, it gets harder to see the mistakes cause you get too used to looking at it. :)

The timing on the second jump IS a bit strange. I think I'm actually going to scrap that motion and try it again.

Nice call on the first lean-back! That's something that even my teacher didn't notice, but you're totally dead-on. I'm fixing it as we speak!

Also, the stars is more of a technical issue. I haven't figured out how to animate it yet. hehe

EXTREMELY helpful, I appreciate it alot!

Thanks for checking out my work and good luck with your character!

the_podman

[kvernon]

Good morning Podman!


I dled you animation when you said it was out, but I've had some trouble trying to come back to comment.

I think it's off to a good start. There are plenty of timing issues where I feel thing could be shortened. One example I can recall is where he jumps on the floating platform. He jumps, he has ballance, as it seems, then he stands there recovering. Actually now that I think about it, it's probably the pose. Yeah, just exaggerate the pose a little more. Once you exagerate the pose, the others will follow better for the timing issue I was talking about.

Try it! When you jump and your off balance, think about how you look (or stare into a mirror and see). You'll notice that if you happen to be more off your center of mass, you have a harder time trying to attain your balance. So stretch pose to make it a little extreme.

The poses just seem like they need to be stronger, so you can show him trying to ballance himself as you want.

[the_podman]

You guys are so right about it.

I'm working on the tweaks right now.

kvernon:
For some reason, I just couldn't get that jump right. I tried lots of things (including jumping myself) and was really struggling with it.
I'm still very much struggling within Maya's software for animation. I get a lot of unpredictable results while keyframing. I've become quite proficient in the graph editor, but am looking for a more intuitive workflow. I dunno, like I told you before, animating in Maya is not comfortable for me yet(did lots of FLASH animation before going 3d).


I appreciate all the feedback, and hopefully soon, I'll be posting version 2, which I hope is worthy of putting in my demo reel. I really want to get motion right! Seeing that mostly everyone is going for modeling and texturing.

[the_podman]

Sorry. Link was broken for awhile, but now it's fixed. The file is an .exe bink file that does not install anything on your PC. It's just a stand alone executable movie.

Thanks for looking.

[agreenster]

Which doesnt work for us Mac users

Will someone host an AVI?

[the_podman]

Wow, this post has been risen from the beyond the grave.
Sorry, I thought bink was Mac compatibe. Anyhow, here's a divx .avi:
http://s40829.sites45.storefront-hosting.com/Rodney/Final_Project_Rod_Brett.avi (http://s40829.sites45.storefront-hosting.com/Rodney/Final_Project_Rod_Brett.avi)

This was my very first, well, anything. My first 3d modeling, rigging, and animation. It's pretty amateur and nothing compared to your work.(I've shown your turtle demo reel animation to many ppl)

Thanks for your interest,
-pod
:)

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.