showreel advise

#1

Hi all : D

I’m a recent graduate and just put together my first showreel, just would like some feedback on how to improve it and your honest opinion about it.

http://vimeo.com/24321535

#2

Hi Stacy
Congrats on graduating.
On of your walks look familiar, I did comment on one of your previous work didn’t I?
Your work on the Squirrely Rig is the best of your reel.

There is quite a bit of hyper extending limbs resulting in elbow and knee poping for your granny. I got the feeling that you ran out time after blocking.

I’m afraid that I’ll have to be mean and say that only Squirrely and the playblast of the boy is salvageable. Polish Squirrely up and re-frame him properly and you have a nice piece to start with. I understand that you would be job hunting, but I seriously suggest you go back and redo some of your body mechanics exercises and post them here so you can improve.

#3

Hi Stacey,
I think you’re doing a great job, but you should improve the basics
in animation. I mean, timing, poses, appeal, etc.
Maybe you should try to do the basics test with bouncing balls,
cycles, etc, before starting with complex characters

regards!
Chris.

#4

I like it, there is good work in those shots.

The look of your animations could also benefit (in future renders) from indirect illumination techniques (final gather, global illumination).

Keep it up!

#5

Hey Guys

Cheers for the comment, and yes, I did run out of time on the granny piece of animation. Your not the only ones that suggested to go back to the basic animation principle but can anyone suggest which website will help me out on the basic principle so I can improve my animation?

but cheers for the comments, well appreciate them :slight_smile:

#6

There are two youtube channels that cover up many basics in maya, you may find something there. I’m thinking about “DeepFriedEctoplasm” and “Mayahowto” (or something like that).

#7

If you dig around, the animation forum has some sticky links to great resources. I’m sure you got the animators survival kit. Try digging around 11 second club too, you could find some good resources buried there.

For basic ball bounces:
http://www.animationphysics.com/

For Walks:
http://walk-cycle-depot.blogspot.com/

For general stuff:
http://blog.fjasmin.net/
http://splinedoctors.com/
http://www.animationtipsandtricks.com/

Links to Animators’ blogs about some intermediate stuff:
http://keithlango.blogspot.com
http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorials.htm

I suggest you get started by reworking on your past exercises with the survival kit on hand, Post your Wip here or 11sec club and you have a starting point.

#8

Yeah I do have the Animators survival kit :slight_smile: but I shall def have a look on the links you have suggested for me to look at desmondying once I settle in to my new place, so thanks again. :smiley:

#9

Never show playblasts for Showcase/demo reels. It’s frown upon.

There’s a lot of snapping/popping in Granny.

For starters - the part that Granny gets up from the ground, take a look at her left foot (:56), when she bends down, her heel pop onto the ground, and as she gets up, her feet is stuck in that position. It’s supposed to be more fluid.

Have someone film you, and you’ll see that it’s literally impossible to put heel on the ground when bending down like that - especially if you’re an old person. :slight_smile:

Other than that, polish up the fluidity of your animations.

For a Demo Reel, you want to really improve upon your name. Usually it’s your name first, and what career you want FIRST, then at the end it’s shown again with your website address and email. I’m not sure about the phone number being allowed in Demo reels…

Keep it up!

#10

ARGH!!! I knew someone would notice that lol, I tried to sort the foot out but I literally ran out of time :frowning: but yeah, everytime I watch it, I pick out more pieces to improve it and its doing my head in lol.

Yeah I did have a look on other showreels on the internet and they have put the details as just you said and I wasnt sure if needed mobile number or not, it was just to be on the safe side, but if you say no need to then I shall change the intro/ finish titles once I settled into my new place and make it more ‘appealing’

But Thanks for your comment :smiley:

#11

good working stacey :beer:
but the moving cycle is littel slow
congratulation for your graduation

#12

I notice everything! :wink: I wasn’t sure about the phone number as well - ask your professors? Sometimes people have a separate phone number specifically for work stuff, so you don’t get bombarded with prank calls or whatever, same reason for putting home addresses (I see that often!!). I wouldn’t put it in mine - only because I’m deaf, so it doesn’t make sense for someone to call me. :-Þ

Just keep working on the little tweaks and it’ll look great.
Funny enough - I don’t like doing animations (I’m Game Art and Design student), but I’m picky about how animations look and catch all the little things wrong. :slight_smile:

#13

Well thats good that you are like that with animation cyborgqueen, because at the end of the day, your watching it as a viewer and if it dont look right to you and like you say you dont do animation, then whats the employer going to think?! so I totally agree with everything you had to say :smiley:

And fingers cross, once I’ve moved all my stuff to new place and change the info on showreel, that no one prank calls me lol

#14

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.