Character Aniamtion Reel

[automat]

I love that.. pretty cool stuff.

[polyoptix]

Thanks a lot! :)

I know there isnt a lot of big name character work projects, so I hope the original content can help make up for it.

[sushanimator]

Hey Brian,

I really like your reel. There's a lot of good animation in there.

I would, however, lose the floating Reindeer shot. Rest of the stuff looks pretty darn good!

Good luck!

- Sushant

[polyoptix]

Thanks Sushant!

I think you might have a point on the deer shots, i'm not sure about them....hmmm.. one has audio maybe that would help it a bit..

thanks :)
Brian

[polyoptix]

Hmmm, anyone else think the deer need to go?

[SheepFactory]

The deer definitely can go, it is not adding much to the reel aside from making it longer. Great reel otherwise Brian.

What is that character made out of spinning wheels anim from?

[polyoptix]

Thanks for the comments, I think I will dump those shots.


That character is a spider made of gears! hehe...

I dunno if you remeber or have heard of Hypercube? It was a movie about people trapped in a crazy math experiment, many killings.. you know the usual :rolleyes:

There was a time near the begining that gears were going to br part of the concept and so we did some R&D for gear-ish hazzards, the spider stuff was my attempt at that. In the end they went with a time distortion / rapid aging effect type thing.

Here is a higher rez still frame from the animation:
http://www.polyoptics.ca/GSstill.jpg

[jamespstevenson]

Great reel - some really nice work on there. The deer can go, I agree. Whilst it's well executed, out of context it just looks a little strange. There are so many other good examples on your reel that losing those shots just tightens the whole thing up. Great stuff!

[polyoptix]

thanks =]

Most of the pieces on my reel are my own creations built up from scratch and not very many people have ever seen them, its nice to get some feedback. :love:

Thanks all!
:beer:

[grantmoore3d]

I loved your reel! The gear spider was one of the coolest things I've seen in a while... inspired me to re-think character design a little bit :P

[polyoptix]

Thanks, yo! :buttrock:

[Spiritwave-x]

Nice reel mate. The floating deer is not that bad. I would keep it but then again, it doesn't spoil much if you took it out. Cool stuff.

[MikeYork]

Hey Brian,

Great animation work in here. I do feel that the deer animation just felt 2 floaty and out of place as well and like others have said it wont hurt your reel by taking it. The first thing that I liked about your reel "Immediately" was your style and originality with the first 2 characters.. That dog is really appealing same with his master :-)

GReat style and animation man keep up the good work !

--
Mike

[polyoptix]

I always liked those 2 guys a lot myself (my avatar hehe.. :blush: ). I've been thinking of updating the lighting and tweaking up the dog animation, they were made in 2001, I see there are a bunch of things there I can fix up (twinning legs :twisted: ear animation, some rough posing, o my!) =]

Here is the dogs original simple 'character sheet':

http://polyoptics.ca/foxypups.jpg

If I do go back to it, i'll be sure to post it

Thanks!

[DavidWeinstein]

I think you have some great stuff man - very entertaining reel. I thought on the first shot when your little dog character starts hovering off - you should add some cubes or something to the background... because when the dog starts to fly away -- it's hard to grasp what is going on because the background make it appear like the dog is hovering in place. You might want to add an anticipation to the dog to -- just before he takes off. Really sell that moment.

The mech spider thing is Awesome! I would put that as the last piece on the reel. Go out with a bang. I think what your reel is missing is that one Star Piece in the middle. Every reel should have 3 Rock Star pieces. The Start - the Middle - and the End. In between should be decent works (the stronger the better).

I noticed on your website you have these characters called "Center of Gravity". Those two guys are AWESOME looking! I would really like to see you put those two guys to use! There's also a still of one of your character squeezing a big cartoony heart. This could be an awesome animation test to - the character trying to grab the heart but it keeps slipping away - and he's fighting for it! Make a statement!

Great stuff man - keep that up. You have a great understanding of animation I think you will go very far. Keep in touch! Cheers! -D


______________________________
David Weinstein
www.digitalapprentice.net
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1313488/

[SueHouston]

You have some awesome work! Your opening sequence is particularly nice.
Great work!!!

[polyoptix]

Glad you guys like, thx! :thumbsup:

Houston: I watched your reel, its really nice, you're a great animator. Thx for the kind words!

DavidW: Thanks for the reel crit, you've given me some great advice there. I've been on your site a bunch of times, you've got some cool resources. The Ray Harryhausen interview was wicked good, he is a real hero of mine. Thanks for your contributions, it all helps! Your reel of course is amazing :buttrock:

Master/dog: I have been thinking about going back to update all my old renders (just have to find the time hehe), I know i'll end up fiddling with the animation too, good suggestions :)

I'm glad you went to my site, those Centre of gravity characters are the stars of my 3 min short film, so.. Yes! you will be seeing them, but not too soon... rendering the 3 mins has been a brand new battle, still on going :banghead:

The "heart grab" still is actually from an animation that fits almost exactly your description, but with work at the time, I never got it passed blocking, that rig is also pretty fugly to be honest heheh... it is one of my stonger stills no doubt (it did spawn my short film characters/story) so maybe its worth it.

I've been updating the animation and render for the second piece on the reel, if ya wanna check it out:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=653138

I might start in to the dog/master lighting/anim update now :)


Thanks a million for the feedback! I know its a pain to write to every post hehe
:beer:
Brian

[L33tace]

Great reel, you should try and add a few more seconds to the spider gear. |The dog is very cute. Have fun at Siggraph and good luck! :)

[kandyRabitz22]

I got a page load error.

[polyoptix]

Thanks Leetace!

rabit: I took a look and it seems fine to me, strange!

Just as a side note, i've seriously reworked things a bunch from the advice i've gotten here, and I should have the updated version posted sometime over the next week or so as the renders finish.

Many thx!

Brian

[krugar]

Hey man your reel is looking great, but i also agree with DavidWeinstein that you should leave the spider thing till the end cause seeing that made me want to see more. Anyway congrats on the reel and good luck @ Siggraph

[ashishlko11]

hey its great work....
I FRESHER and i m recently complete my first demo reel,plz check this give me some important guidences
Link-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1sC1BT7Rwc
thanks.

[Powell014]

Awesome stuff!

The only thing I could suggest is putting something else as the last shot. The shot with the explosion doesn't really show off you character animation very well since it's such a zoomed out shot. Try to put one of your other close up character pieces there so the viewer will leave feeling very satisfied.

[webhead]

There's some nice stuff on your reel. I'm surprised no one remarked how annoying the music on the reel is. I found it just noisy, and very distracting from the visuals.

[Pooyag]

wow, amazing! I'm really stunned by the gear scene... you must have spend a long time on it!
great opening as well, love the characters.

[polyoptix]

krugar: thx, yep i will be adjusting a few things before i go down, thx much glad you liked!

ashishlko: I liked our reel, you have a lot of work, if u keep on working like that you will be an expert in no time :) -- advice?..try to keep it feeling more loose and push the poses as they say. Keep going!

powell: Yeppers, this is the most popular suggestion, the spider will end up last i think. thx for the crit

webhead: haha, i was waiting for many people to say that but you are the only one so far!

pooyag: thx!! very much :) Nice work in your porfolio too.

[B-Rad85]

really cool reel you got, and great animations. I really like the robo dog, is that a personal project you did or was it for something specific? Would love to see more from it. I actually didn't find the music to distracting I was paying more attention to your work. Do agree even though that spider is cool, unless you have more of it doing something I'd put it last.

Again great stuff :)

[polyoptix]

Just to follow up :)

I made a bunch of changes, dropped some shots and reworked some too. I flipped the shot order also, as suggested. Thanks all. ;)
I've upadted the links in the first post to the reel I went down with.

Siggraph was great I had some good reel crits and responses at the job fair. Can't say much about that yet though, things were positive. :)

One thing I thought was interesting enough to mention and post again in this thread though was that some places were very specific about what was on a reel and what they need to see. That was: acting characters doing lines from movies (duh!!). If you ever had any doubt.. :)

It was a great experience, and a good lesson I learned in how specifically I have to target my reel. That is the info I pass on to future reel makers hehe...

I think overall my reel was liked more by creature animation places VS super cartoony places, and by medium size studios VS larger ones.

[polyoptix]

OK, its a go!! I've updated the first post with the final results from Siggraph.

Blue Sky here I come!! :eek:

Thanks again so much for the comments and advice!! :bowdown:
Brian

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