Character Animation Reel - Colin Brown - GDC cut

[Booyah]

Looks like a solid game animation reel, nice loops, and good simple presentation.

[Mudokon83]

Thanks!

I just finished sending out to another 30+ game companies.

Once that is over with, I'll be dedicating my time to add to the reel, doing a performance piece, emotional change and lip sync, then a few game stuff, like death animations etc etc

[Mudokon83]

bump critique!

[noobie]

hey man nice reel u got some awesome stuff i dunno if anyone see this but.. i think some of ur settling poses seem too...fast? and the dragon flying one looks nice although something looks off it almost seems kinda weightless im not sure what but overall good job man i hope u get a call :D

[mistasam02]

Hey! Nice polished reel dude! Looks like you shaved off and smoothed out a lot since your wip! I still agree with the post above about that dragon.. the body is movin way too wierd. Your resume said you worked at Factor 5! Lair??? It would've been cool to see some of your industry work on there as well (if they would let you).. but yea man overall you have a pretty good reel. Good luck with the future job hunt! :D

[thedaemon]

You started your reel all wrong. You shouldn't start with a walkcycle, especially such a dull one. The fat guy running would have been better if you have to start with a walkcycle, or the jumping up on a chair. Not a bad reel, but lacking in the more dramatic scenes. Remember, newest stuff first, too.

[matthewsimkins]

Perhaps the dragon should start off like it is, all effortsome, then calm down a bit as it starts to cruise.

I think the animation is ace. You got skills.

I don't think the reel itself has much impact tho. It hasn't got enough in it to go for the under-stated vibe. This is obviously due to the music choice but also the last clip. The music doesn't give an obvious punchline to the reel so it should be down to the final clip.

The skinny-yellow and fat-yellow Lowmen are fantastic tho :thumbsup:

[Mudokon83]

Thanks for all the comments guys!

Yeah I know, with a reel, you gotta shift stuff around all the time to give a different feel, most of my co workers said the red cat is strong walk and the jump and land is strong, so i put those at the front and back , give a good aftertaste.

But yes, it is a bit "vanilla" overall, so I'm moving onto emotion/performance pieces, lip sync's etc etc to really give character to my reel.

Yeah unfortunately, I've got a bunch of animations sitting around that I can't use until the video game comes out, so I gotta do a bunch on my own like they don't even exist! oh well...


Thanks again guys!

[mistasam02]

Wow that blows! Cool that you got to work on Lair though.. do you know Scott Slater, by chance?

And "thedeamon" guy has a good point to put newer pieces at the beginning. The cat has become kinda like your calling card by now, so leave it first.. but directly after that I'd put your emotional/dramatic piece. Remember an animator is only as good as his/her last animation, so what he said makes sense in terms of placement of clips on your reel. Ok that is all.. peace man~

[Mudokon83]

Ha yeah, Scott and i were there at Factor 5 at the same time, we were both at GDC this year too, our friend Kevin who came in with us too, just got an internship at Rhythm and Hues!

Yeah its a very incestuious industry, friends I knew from QA testing days, now have jobs at other companies and know art leads or ARE art leads or producers....

So lesson of the day : Don't burn any bridges and keep in contact with everyone you meet

[UnlikelyCorny]

Great reel as far as I could say. Just the character with the blue trousers and top did not work for me. Not that the animation is wrong, but the character is such that the animation does not really come across too much. fat man running is my favorite.

[lemongrass]

You red character's walk cycle has IK stretching pops in the legs right before the driving foot lifts off the ground.

The walk cycle of the blue character (middle of the reel) isn't very good. The character is lifting his driving foot off the ground right as the planting foot is connecting. There should be some overlap between those events, otherwise the mechanics are not believeable.

The fat character's run is interesting, but I think I would tone down the side to side translation a bit...with that much mass shifting side to side, I would expect him to fall over and not be able to transfer the weight back to his other side.

The sword character and jumping character (back to back) demonstrate the biggest problem in your reel, which is how you settle into poses. In fact, I would say those demonstrate that you DON'T settle into your poses at all, which is very jarring and doesn't look to professional, especially when you choose to hold the pose for a good second or two of screen time.

The dragon's gotta go...too many conflicting movements in that piece...the tails wants to lead, the head is jerky, the arm overlap is jittery...clean it up or remove it.

Hope that helps, good luck on your search!

Greg
Senior Animator
Perpetual Entertainment (http://www.perpetual.com)

[Mudokon83]

Thanks a bunch for the critiques guys!

Lemon thanks for going through each one, that really helps, as most companies will only give general feedback on a reel rather than solid critique.


I'll fix these animations up, and I have a few new exercise things I'm working on next.

[Mudokon83]

updated demo reel from everyones critiques, just a few tweaks here and there on the settle and the ik popping on the red cat.

working on new exercise animation next, no call backs from companies yet, so keepin' fingers crossed

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