Animation (600k): Simpsions - Ted: Crits Please!!

[Valkyrien]

yay GO MOE!!!

"hey listen ta me ya little crappa, when I find out who this is, I'm gonna....carve my name on your back with an ice pick!"

great animation!:)

[Rogue]

Dude, very nice! Very expressive. Good work. My favorite part is when he jumps at the point he says 'down your pants'. You totally nailed the timing and mood there. How long did it take you to animate this?

[Najd]

yep, I like the animation, a closer render of the character would be great.

[Tumerboy]

Hey, nice work, it's good to see him moving. . . the animation itself isn't bad, but my critique would be that none of his movements (except for the "shove em down your pants" jump thing) is very expressive about what he's saying.

For some reason, they all just seem like general movements, just to have him moving. . . I don't really know what to say about what to change, except that the "shove em down your pants" jump thing really pops out as being expressive against the rest. . .

It might be a different story if I saw it full screen and could see hand movements, but I'd rather be able to tell what's going on in the scene, even at asmall res, and without audio.

The deal is, your animation should be able to stand on it's own. i.e. don't use audio as a crutch to support your animation.

Basically, if I looked at this without the audio, I would be able to tell it's a guy on the phone, and that at some point, he either get's really upset, or really excited.

If you want to use this audio clip, I should be able to tell that this character is pissed off at someone, the whole time. . . I should be able to tell the general mood.

Anyway, I know that's not exactly helpful since I didn't say what exactly to do. . . and frankly I don't know. . . I'm a crappy assed animator, but I know what I like to see, and you're on a good start, you just need some tweeking to exagerate the movements, and give him more overall feeling.

Hope that helps a little. . .

[John Lee]

Thunder Boy I see where your coming from!!! Animate with no dialouge add then put sound to it? If you can tell the emotions without sound then you've crack it right?? Kinda like silioettes??
i will give that a try on my next animation!!!

Neo

[Tumerboy]

Ya basically. . .

You should animate it to the audio, so that you sync up right with whatever you want, and so your timing is on, but your animation should be able to stand on it's own two feet, without the audio.

Once the animation is done, the audio should simply enhance your actual animation.

Try it out next time, animate it to the audio, watch it without audio, see what needs tweaking, tweak it to the audio, watch without audio, tweak, etc. . .

[John Lee]

Hey how about doing an animation it alfa map's??? Cause all you can see is black and white??? And if that reads will it make it better. Right???

Neo

[Tumerboy]

huh? I don't get it. . . you mean that if your animation can read in sillhouette it'll be even better?

That's always the case. Every pose that you make, I should be able to recognize in sillhouette.

[MosaFacku]

you could use the alpha as a reference for you if thats what you're getting at. just make sure that you're poses are incredibly strong. then you'll have good sillhouettes.

[zen]

Much like a silent pause in the middle of a phrase can deliver alot of words, animation can also benefit from "periods" and "comma's" in their expression.

Your animation is technically good. No sliding, well timed quick organic movements.
The problem i find is that your character has the "headless chicken" syndrome. A chicken who has just lost its head will run around alot, make alot of noise and throw around alot of feathers....but their not really doin anything. And as i was comparing with the speech metaphor as above, people who talk too much are sometimes uninteresting and not listened to.

You get what im saying...?

[John Lee]

HI ZEN

Ikinda get what your saying can you give me any example's??? And Elaborate more on this????

Thanks

Neo

[Tumerboy]

Neo I think that's what I was talking about too,
The character is moving the whole time, but not really doing anything. . .

It would be better to have decisive actions (like the "down your pants jump") at key moments.
Also remember it's ok to have breaks in action. Make those key movements, and then have him just shifting weight or something during the rest of the time in between the key actions.

Hope that makes sense, and Zen, if that's not what you're saying, I'm sorry for putting words in your mouth.

[John Lee]

Here that alpha test!

http://www.lemon-tea.com/john_avi/Alpha_test.mov

Neo

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