Student demo reel

[grantmoore3d]

General Comments : A couple things bothered me with the reel as a whole. The first is that I found the text for your name and contact information being in the corners to be very distracting and gets in the way of some of what you were showing. I think it would be fine if they weren't there, if the employer is going to contact you, he/she can easily just pause the video and write it down. The other thing that I found a little odd, was that the reel had no real target. What I mean by this, is I could figure out exactly what skills you were trying to show that you had. I understand if you don't have material to create a more focused reel (I am personally working really hard to come up with reel material so I can create one myself!)... but once you have more experience and more assets to add to a reel, be sure to keep in mind that you should try to target it to the job that you want. Eg: Animator, modeller, lighting, VFX, etc...

If you wanted a modelling job for example, a 360 of a character in wireframe, shaded and then textured or something like that would be appropriate.

One thing I did like were some of the transitions between projects. When the image was coming out of the mirror on the large machine, I thought that was kind of a creative way of implementing things.

Regarding Character Animation : I think one of the biggest mistakes you are making is forgetting to make sure the whole character is moving in response to what they are doing. If you watch closely, some of the limbs/parts of your characters are almost frozen at times. This will kill the beleivability of the motion. There are some good resources out there for teaching some basic animation principles (squash, stretch, follow through, etc...). Off the top of my head, I can't remember any resources, maybe someone else can help out with that.

Oh also, I think the camera was moving around too much. A stationary camera can be more effective than a moving camera in many ways. If you want it to move, make sure there is a reason for it to be moving. The interior shots were done well, but some of the animation camera movements, and expescially the final shot with the construction vehicle felt weird.

Well, I hope I gave you some food for thought! I know I can't wait to get my demo reel done so people can rip it apart haahha, it's all in the name of learning. Good luck!!

[Radiospank]

i also noticed the keyframed look at times.. i jsut think you need to put more care into smoothing those out.. and also every joint shold be moving.. even if its a milimeter.lol just cause on the comp any frozen limb stands oout very bad because its so static... anyway try animating more body parts and this will be pretty good

[trakartist]

Thanks for the crit's. I agree that the animation aspect is the weakest part of my reel. I'm in the process of going back and re-animating a lot of the character stuff.


Agian, thanks,
-B-

[trakartist]

Thanks for the crit's. I agree that the animation aspect is the weakest part of my reel. I'm in the process of going back and re-animating a lot of the character stuff.


Again, thanks,
-B-

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