Series of Game Animations

[ADamiani]

I hope you don't mind me commenting (on account of: I know nothing) but I figure it couldn't hurt. I also love the character, he's really cute.

Careful on the branch jump-- there are obviously some clipping issues, and his claws don't grip the second branch.

On the tail jump, his feet could bend forward a little when he's in the air?

The sideways jump is just weird. It works, but no animal jumps like it-- so it's hard to judge.

[KyleG]

Overall the timing on everything feels a little slow and floaty, I would try and make everything a little more crisp, it also feels like your leting the computer do to many of the in-betweens, which may be causing this "floatiness" Keep it up!!

[Riivan]

Thank you both for the feedback. Even if you don't "know" about animation, you can see when something isn't moving naturally. I'll have a couple attack and 2 more walking animations to show. I actually accidently saved over my original walk that I posted so I had to redo it and it turned out a lot better. Go figure, maybe I should just start doing that as well.

I will say this as well, thumbnail your animations out. A fellow student of mine reminded me of this important step that I decided to skip over and it shows.

[Riivan]

A boat load of new animations to show you, walks, attacks, etc. I am going to stagger them a bit so it isn't such sensory overload.

First, an idle where the frog creature is preening himself as many frogs do. I believe it is to spread the waxy residue over their bodies so they don't dry out. I could be mistaken, but it was an interesting process and allowed my to test some interaction between his limbs and ears. Again, no real secondary motion, just a rough block out.
http://www.matthiggins.net/DFS/creature_preen.mov

Another idle where he falls asleep, but is abruptly awakened.
http://www.matthiggins.net/DFS/creature_sleeprise.mov

A basic swim animation.
http://www.matthiggins.net/DFS/creature_swim.mov

An attack that stems from the swim animation. I liked the "death roll" of alligators or crocs, so I added that in to the attack. I thought it gave him a bit more personality.
http://www.matthiggins.net/DFS/creature_swimtack.mov

[Riivan]

See if maybe an update can't get me some critiques. I have finished the creation of animations and now I am focusing in on cleaning them up, making them pop and fluid. For you all today are 3 new and 1 clean up.

The first is a death. I wanted to have him be a little wobbly, off-balanced whenever he was in the throes of death. Mainly to try my hand at making something off-balanced.
http://www.matthiggins.net/DFS/death.mov

Next a simple little pain animation to give the creature a little character. Real quick first pass on this one.
http://www.matthiggins.net/DFS/pain.mov

Intimidation. As a creature of a dangerous forest, he will at times need to ward off potential predators. So here we have him standing tall in the face of danger.
http://www.matthiggins.net/DFS/intim.mov

The 2nd pass on my swim before I call it done. I wanted to get a little more feedback on it, see if there was anything else I needed to change before slapping my seal of complete on it.
http://www.matthiggins.net/DFS/swim_2nd.mov

Monday there will be a few more 2nd passes for you all. A couple of the attacks and the walk cycle. The secondary motion is my primary focus for the 2nd passes. Thanks in advance.

[ADamiani]

The threat animation is nice and smooth, but not very threatening. Maybe if his ears were less languid?

The pain animation doesn't communicate pain at all. He looks like he's scraping something off his toes.


I think I like the death stagger-- could you add a ground plane to that?

The swim animation is getting good, unless you can do something with his face? It's totally motionless. Maybe it should be, I don't know.

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