Burger Safari - 15 Commercial Spot

[Giant]

Bah... I hate doing this...

Can anyone give me some positive and negative feedback? How have things gotten better since my last commercial? Things like that. Last time people gave me some very valuable information on how to improve. I respect everyone's input, and lose much sleep over the great comments! http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/scream.gif

much appreciated...

[eyepeefreely]

I thought it was funny. I liekd how you had the gorilla just haphazarding spraying the hamburgers and looking around so disinterested in what he was doing. I haven't seen your other animations so I can't comment on improvements or anything like that.

But for what your animation is, I think you did a great job.

eye.

[Giant]

Eyepee: Thanx for the compliments. If you are interested in comparing the two animations, the first one I did is here at this link: http://cgcraft.com/3dmotion/jobsinme.php.

However, in watching this current animation, what do you feel could have been stronger?

It does not take me long after really calling the project "done", that am I able to step back and really start seeing what could have been done better.

[eyepeefreely]

The one thing that bugged me in the animation was the cloth simulation. It looks like it needs a little work. But that isn't really an animation crit.
Now I am being really really picky because I honestly think what you have is great, given it is 15 sec to work with,right? but it looks like when the gorilla is squirting the burgers he is kind of just bobbing side to side. Maybe a little forward motion. And it seems the side to side motion is very abrupt. Like he is extremely tense. Which can work for in this particular case. You were just wanting animation crits right?
I watched your other animation and I could crit some of that :)
I just watched it again, that cloth simulation is killing me :D

Hope that helps. If you want me to be more anal I can be :), but it would prolly be more along the environment lines than animation.

eye.

[Giant]

The one thing that bugged me in the animation was the cloth simulation. It looks like it needs a little work

I agree fully. I probably should have just left it out. Basically, when I was working with the character in Max, I re-scaled him several times for a couple of reasons I won't go into. I don't know what software package you use, but I did not reset (XForm, Reset Transformation Node), before I Skinned or added the ClothFX to him. So what started to happen is that the cloth was in the same boat. So based on the settings the cloth did not know it was the size it was. I had to tweak settings, with pretty much no rhyme or reason till it calmed down a bit. Of all the people I have showed this to, some love it, and some are bothered by it. I should have made the call and just yanked it, as I think it hurts the integrity of the piece. It is not reacting properly.

but it looks like when the gorilla is squirting the burgers he is kind of just bobbing side to side. Maybe a little forward motion. And it seems the side to side motion is very abrupt. Like he is extremely tense. Which can work for in this particular case.

I see what you are saying. It could work, but I think there is a fine line there, and that line can probably be tweaked. That forward motion probably take some of the popping out of it. Looking at it again, I see what you are saying.

I just watched it again, that cloth simulation is killing me :D

Oh no! Now it hurts me too...

If you want me to be more anal I can be :), but it would prolly be more along the environment lines than animation.

Yes. Please, if you have time. Not just animation, but lighting, environment etc.

eye.

[eyepeefreely]

Ok, one thing that is kind of weird is the sign. It doesn't really look like it is on the wall. Could be the soft shadow. Now that I think of it have you looked at the image with a hard shadow? maybe that might give an even more unpleasent feeling.

The lighting is kind of weird also, you have the motivated lights and then there is illumination above those lights. Just leaves me sort of puzzled.

Now these are just suggestions, the speakers, maybe have them increase with the rate of the hamburgers coming or slightly ahead.

I am pretty sure the message you are trying to get across is that working in the burger safari is lame so I do like the color choice of the wall. I would suggest put grime on it but that might take away from your "lame job" to a "disgusting job". Which that may work also.

You could vary the lights height. Maybe even have them have different housings, i am not sure what you call them. One thing that I thought that would be neat is have the light color help your message. The best example i can think of is like where Mr. Incredible worked as a normal person in The Incredibles. That flourescent lighting was so awesome and gave off such a great atmosphere and said so much.

But yeah. Thats pretty much all that i can think of. Like I said before, I think it is great and gets the point across really well. Even your other one was really good. The only thing that really bugged me about that one was the couch launch. It was like, literally, one second there and the other not. I had to scrub to figure out where it went. And when he picked up the phone the person on the other end was yacking as soon as he picked it up.

Cool stuff though. Keep it coming http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif


eye.

P.S.: I use XSI :)

[Tom W.]

I definately agree that the cloth simulation looks off, very floaty almost like gravity from the moon, the ape is stiff more secondary and tweaking some curves may help this, other then that I really like the timing and as a whole this piece works :) gj

[Giant]

eyepeefreely: Well those are all great suggestions. I agree about the sign. When I was doing it, I was also feeling like it was just floating there. The shadows used to be much harder there, and looked even worse. Hmm..I should have gone to Wendy's and see how their signs hang on the walls. Sometimes I forget to use reference, for no apparent reason.

I think the lights were set to cast a yellowish tint. Perhaps a more green tint would have been better. I am still trying to get better at lighting, and cannot seem to nail it down. People can always tell how my scene is lit, and what is wrong with it, and I seem to confuse viewers with it.

And varying the light height...should have done it. They are a bit too symmetrical. Perhaps different lighting fixtures would have worked.

Thank you again for you comments, I will take them to heart going into the next animation. I have a list of things to watch out for...

Tom W.: Yeah, I should have just yanked it. Now it is on TV and there is nothing I can do about it...lol. Embarassing in a way. I do need to work with curves more. Currently, I use Skin Modifier and Biped Bones. I need to create my own custom rigs so that I can do 2 things. One, work with the curves (not happy with how the biped handles curves, unless I am doing it wrong), Two, get into the Squash and Stretch element of animation, which is entirely lacking.

Thanx again guys, you are right the overall message is there, but there is a lot that needs to be improved upon under the hood.

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