My VFS animation reel

[JackHsu]

YO BEN
finally see you stuff on CGtalk
it looks really awesome and great man...
I really like your character desigh and matt painting
really fun story too....
anyway... Good luck !

[M_Fonseca]

Dude man, It was awesome working next to you... you were an inspiration for me. I had to work harder because u work so damn fast!! haha. Your style, in design and humor, is what captivates me as a viewer and im sure the same goes for everyone else who will download your reel!.. You are a very talented individual, and i know u'll make it far... I hope one day we will get the opportunity to work together again..
Take care my friend, and goodluck with everything~

[Bryn]

yO Bro...,
What can I say that has'nt already been said........ This is awsome man.
every time I see it , I see new things which I did'nt see before, dude the look of this piece is totally like you man, I definitely think your 2d experience payed off.You should'nt have any probs in the industry, cos you can do it all and do it well.
yOU GOT ALL THE LAUGHS...ye baby
B

[HenningK]

I like the character design and backgrounds, but the animation is real floaty. Feels like nothing is ever planted firmly on the ground and the bodies are always in motion just for the sake of motion. Some acting points fall flat... examples:
a) he considers, then decides not to waste a tranquilizer on the marmot (this could be got across with clearer poses, though its harder to do it that way. The alternative is a few closeups... on the gun, on his face, on the marmot's face maybe)
b) the hunter is following the tracks, but he never appears to regard the tracks (and then they disappear in the next shot).
c) what the heck is bigfoot doing before they see each other? (since you're kind of re-imagining the traditional bigfoot as a buff, playful guy with morals, you have to be extra-clear)
d) the hunter's surprise at seeing bigfoot... too far away. Overall, the moment where they see each other is lacking a lot of tension. Bigfoot is just suddenly there. Its also staged really badly and you dont get a sense of the space that the encounter happens in. They are simply in the same shot together. i suggest a few close-ups, POV shots as bigfoot is revealed. I guess that's more of a cutting thing than animation, but staging is a very important part of animation.
And now to complete the complement-sandwich, I really liked the ending. Damned marmot.
love,hen

[shupersonic]

Hey jack! Thanks for the comments. I hope you get me a copy of your reel. It was hilarious man. I hope you get a chance to hang out b4 christmas.


M. Fonseca - Well Mr. Mattimus, it was awesome sitting next to you in terms 4 and 5. I think we definitely helped each other and we kept our spirits up when we had to re-rig or re-weight our characters. Hopefully we can and will work together again in the future. I think we can keep improving and get better and better.

Bryn - Thanks for the compliments man. I gotta say that watching you and the modelers put in all of those long long hours really kept me motivated. Your work is awesome and makes me want to do more modelling when i get a chance. Hopefully we will keep in touch and you can give me some good critiques fresh out of sunny san diego.


Thanks for the comments guys

[shupersonic]

Henning- Thanks for the comments. I think you nailed most of the things that make me cringe when I watch the reel. The most frustrating thing is that floaty animation . . . I still consider myself a beginner as an animator. I like to think that I have the fundamentals down, but when it comes to finessing those f-curves, I still have a long ways to go. I really struggled trying to get that floaty animation more "grounded" so to speak . . . I definitely need more practice and experience.

As for the acting points . . .

a) I actually had a close up of Jonny contemplating what to do about the little guy but I cut it because I kind of over did (over acted ?) it and it looked like he was making some HUGE epic decision.

b) Good point. I was going to comp in more tracks at the beginning of that next shot but I flat ran out of time.

c) Yeah the animation on the bigfoot is the result of my sudden awareness that when you have two characters in the same shot . . . it is twice the amount of work. If I could do it over again I would have the Bigfoot making a snowman or something. But as it is, he was spotting a target to throw the snow ball at and then getting excited about it in an ape like fashion. Very very weak . . .

d) I agree that the staging when they meet is not good. I originally storyboarded a tracking shot that starts on the hunter and there is a slow reveal of the Bigfoot. But through the animatic and then during final animation, I changed the edit to a cross dissolve. i found it really jarring to cross dissolve INTO a tracking shot, and the whole thing just kind of mutated. There was a better solution but i would have had to re-board 3 or 4 shots and figure out how to link it up with the shots B4 and after . . . at that point it was just too late.

I'm glad I ended on a high note though


Thanks again for those critiques :)

[HenningK]

Aw, geeze. Now i feel kinda harsh.
You took the crit very graciously. I know you guys are FORCED to put something out on the deadline and that compromises will be made.
I guess I just wanted to be the ol' codger with 600 posts and break up this VFS love-fest that's going on all over the forum.
love,hen

[andrebranco]

Quite Impressive! You know my feed back.

Big Ben! You´re very talented.

Keep it up, brother! Go Bears,Go! haha

Take care my friend.

[moush]

Great Work! Keep it up! :thumbsup:

[Sherif.Nagib]

good job ben..
really like the look of it and the characters, you really did a good job considering how big is your project and the time given to finish it.
as for the crits ..I have nothing to say ..I guess Henning nailed most of it .

good luck with the job hunt man and keep animating :thumbsup:

[shraga]

Hey Ben!

man I remember the first time we saw one of your scenes rendered in presentation and everyone gasped. your 3d has such an awesome cartoony style. it totaly does justice to your 2d skills. you had to deal with some very complex motion and you worked you a## off doing it - and there's a lot to show - awesome animation!

good luck with the hunt and keep in touch!


Shraga

[Aaron Peck]

Hey~~~Ben~ my friend. how are you? everything is fine? oh~~~~god~~~Finally I just saw your reel. it was awesome!!! dude! you know I love your characters and the animation. (you made the characters beside me in term 3 hahaha!) I think you've got good talent so you can find a job soon man! Did you move to the States? or stay in Vancouver? Remember this you are the funniest guy in our class. I enjoyed working with you. Take care yourself man! I wish the best luck of you!

Cheers!

-Aaron

[pearblossom]

Hi,

that looks awesome! Great char. design, great expression and timing, the story flows really nicely, and the end made me laugh. :) Also very impressive to pull that off in such a short period of time.

one crit--there were a few points where the the chars. feel really weightless. the most noticeable was when he pulls up the hunter from the edge--the hunter seems to just float up to the top. and generally i think the Sasquatch could be a little heavier when he's bounding and stuff, maybe just adding a little overlap here and there would help. I realize that when time's short it's hard to go back and do all that though . .

and a question--how did you get the rendered effect in xsi? Do they have a toonshade that does that or did you batch-process in Photoshop or s'thing?

once again good work!

[Wisky]

About a student work - good or bad.

About this work - nothing. "Temlate"-work. Idea and realisation...

[feebsicle]

Ben!

You RAWK. You are so talented, I love your work!
My only crit on your piece, which I feel is kind of pointless because it really doesnt bother me too much, is the toonshading. But it really doesn't matter! you've got skills none-the-less!
It was really Shuper working with ya! Love your stories, you're the most animated person I know :) haha

Good luck, and keep in touch!

Feebie

[Pinyin]

woo,it's really funny !
The style is great! I like it!
maybe ,if you could push your extrem poses a little much further,that will be much better:>:thumbsup:

[harmonic01]

That's a pretty cool animation. Nice entertaining story and I really like the design. :)

I do aggree with Henning's comments, though. In general there are some floatiness. And the biggest problem I think is just the lack of animation principles. Like some arc's a bit too angular. Spacing too even and a bit of weight issues here and there.

Still, it was an entertaining piece of animation to watch. :) Great job. :thumbsup:

[shupersonic]

He everybody thanks for all of the feedback:thumbsup:

Andre - Hey man it was a fun year for sure. You know that I will be cheering for portugal in the world cup. If they win it will be a testament to the heart of the country considering the fact that they produce inferior athletes. HA HA just kidding . . . just kidding. Good luck man.


moush - thank you very much

Sherif - thanks a lot. I hope to see your stuff posted up here in the near future. Hopefully by that time I'll be off of this anchient dial up connection and I'll actually be able to download it :eek:



SHRAGA - Hey man where are you at? Are you in the states or what? All I have to say is that you and all of the 53 classmates were a constant source of inspiration and motivation. I'm really really excited to see where you end up. Keep that crazy, "glass is half empty, and that's hilarious." attitude man. It really cracked me up all year.


Aaron - hey man good to hear from you again. How is the job working out for you? I am still in vancouver, kind of in a holding pattern. If I don't get a job by february then I'm going to move back to montana . . . anyways, thanks for the feedback. I'll never forget your humpty dance.

[shupersonic]

PEARLBLOSSOM - thanks for the feedback. I agree with all of your points. That shot where he pulls him up the cliff was probably something that I really wasn't sure how to accomplish. The fk/ik blending was something that I kept trying to edit around (cut from fk shot to a new angle with ik all ready to go.) In the end i decided to just go for it, cause that was the best way to tell the story. But the Ik rig was so easy to break, I had a lot of trouble really pushing the poses into extremes. Including the rigging, I spent about 10 days on that shot and I'm still not happy with it.

As for the shaders, I painted color maps for all of the characters and used a type of toonshader in XSI called Toon Paint and Host, You can adjust the opacity and softness of the highlights to take off that "chrome" finish that toon shaders always seem to default to. Plus the highlights are affected by the lights in your scene, so you can kind of light the characters (although you still lose a lot of control compaired to a phong or blinn etc.)

[blueclancy05]

Entertaining storyline and characters. Has a loony toons feel to it, like all these characters will meet again. Keep at it. You're very talented.

[MasonicInc]

Hey Ben,

Again great work and I hope the job hunt is going great...
It was fun sharing the acting class!
Lars

[AlbertArt]

Hey nice film. It looks great, and I'm sure you put loads of work into it.

Just one concern is that the animation felt slow and could have been sped up. Afterall the music convey's fast actions. The pace could have been faster to work with the music like with quicker snappier actions.

Great effort nontheless.

Albert :thumbsup:

[The Funimator]

hey.. very nice short ... in terms of animation, i do agree that there's some slight floatiness here n there. Especially the scene where the hunter being pulled up from the cliff, realised that the hunter's leg movement is kinda weird as it didn't react much with the cliff. And it's kinda too much "leg bending" movement while his legs are still in the mid air during pulling process. Just my point of view. I may be wrong. :)
Other than that, overall short is fantastic. I like the look & feel and the storyline. Facial expression n stuff are cool too. Once again, nicely done. :thumbsup: Cheers!

[rvallet]

Ben, beautiful animation short... you should be an art director :) Everything fits together so well. This is such a huge project: 3 characters and over a minute of animation. I think this is amazing work!!!

[shupersonic]

Hey Feebs - How have you been doing?? It was great to see your finished piece. Your work was very inspiring. I have been wondering how you are doing. You should fire out an email and let me know how the job hunt is going.

Pinyin - Thanks a lot I'm glad you liked it. I am still practicing and trying to work out those extreme poses.

Harmonic - I'm glad you like the short. My background is actually in traditional animation and flash . . . but 3d is . . . different . . . The computer is the worst inbetweener ever.

Blueclancy - thanks mom :rolleyes:

Lars - Hey man. Hope you are doing well and it was great to see you regulate when the vfs faculty started slacking.

Albert Art - thanks for the comments man. I am glad you liked it :)

Funimator - Thanks for the comments man. That cliff pull was the longest, hardest, and ultimately weakest shot in the short. But i learned a lot so it wasn't a total waste.

Roland - Hey man, how is the job hunt?? it is really good to see your stuff posted up here. Hope you land a great job and keep in touch!

[agasco]

yo ben whats up!

I really like your work, youve got some amazing style! its pretty amazing the way you put your 2d skills into 3d, and the matte paintings match very nicely.its been cool working with you this last year bro!

Best luck

Alvaro

[LeBryan]

Hi!

the music goes very well with the animation, did you compose the music yourself for the animation or did you animate to the music? :)

great stuff

[txl]

Nice Animation. I like the character designs. You should be going places pretty soon:)

Thuan
--

[Domo_Digital]

AWX-SOME!!!

thats amazing, its hard to beleive that you put your pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.....but once they're on, you make solid gold animations.


Top man!!

See ya

Adam

[chikos]

Well, he got what he deserved;). Nice work, although the animation in some shots seems a bit stiff, especially on that bear-sort-of-creature. BTW, the designs of the characters are quite interesting.

[eosmusashi]

very cool movie!

[to-hell-u-ride]

what's up popper? you're an amazing kid, kid. Your talent definately shines through in your work. I know you'll find a good job. Fo shu. i wish you all the luck. go get em, eh?

[Cinimod]

Hey man!

I've said it before n I'll say it again, Awesome reel!!! :thumbsup: The fact that u managed to pull off all that animation (3 characters!!) in such a short time is wow. I love the Sasquatch character the most, i thought the face shapes u did for him worked out swimmingly. Hehe again, like most people have said, the look is Wonderful!

tc for now,

Dom

Man I miss chillin with ya guys..

[shupersonic]

Agasco - Hey man good to hear from you. I hope you are doing well in europe. It was great to watch you work and your style was truly inspiring. I hope that you are still taking to the streets late at night to do some oversized artwork over there.

LeBryan - The music was composed by the our school's sound department after I finished the reel. I had a few samples of what I wanted it to sound like and then they did the rest.

txl - thanks . . . I sure hope you're right :cool:

Domo - that is the coolest avatar I have ever seen. AWESOME!

chikos - thanks for the feedback. I am still getting better as an animator but I have a lot of experience with character design. I still have to get better at both though

eosmusashi - thanks for the nice comments :wavey:

To-hell-u-ride - hey there, what is going on ?? be sure to keep me posted on what you are up to. don't get to crazy down in sunny southern cal.

Cinimod - Hey YO! Good to hear from you again. Thanks for the comments and hopefully we can chill and hang out again in the near future. :beer:


Thanks for all the comments everyone, It's really cool to have so many people see my work, and the feedback has been great.

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