Hello folks, I am practicing my animation techniques and would like some critiques.
Here is a character lifting a heavy ball. I feel the poses are week and the timing is not perfect, but any suggestions about how to fix that and any other ideas would be great!
Thanks
that’s pretty good :o
my suggestion would be to smooth a little when he puts the ball on his chest:
he pulls and pulls the ball from the ground… and at 0:06 he simply lift it, fast and easily.
good job 
By my side, when he is lifting the ball his shoulder go a little bit to much up. Making that move descent might add more realism to the animation.
Good start I would say… right at the first when he leans back (before he picksup the ball) there is kind of an odd stiffness as his head and back sort of reach that maximum arc all at the same time… vary the key frames for the head an back so this doesn’t happen… I would say the back hits it’s maximum arc… then a couple of frames later the head hits that maximum arc…
Hi Guys, Thanks for all the great ideas on improving my animation! I am compiling a list of edits to make, but I am just holding out for one or two more great ideas before I get into making the changes.
Thanks again!
Looks good overall. The suggestions above should help improve it a bit.
I notice when his arms straighten out to pick up the ball there is a “pop” in the elbows.
Keep at it it’s getting there.
Good start! The ending fall seems a bit off to me. The change of direction towards the camera seems counter to what his/her momentum would be - the direction change seems to quick and “clean”.
Nice effort!
If you’re serious about having your work critiqued I’d suggest presenting it using an alternative viewer; as it’s very difficult (read practically impossible) to accurately pause and rewind footage on Youtube. Animators tend to use Quicktime compatible files, as it is a readily available plugin with all the above features by default. Secondly, you should include a frame counter. That way people can reference specific frames instead of trying to describe what part of the action is off.
In terms of the animation itself, the weight doesn’t feel right. The effort in lifting the ball doesn’t match the centre of gravity you’ve chosen. For the effort in the lift I’d expect the character to be leaning a lot further back, with the ball over his feet more. The fall at the end also feels floaty.
The other major thing for me is the shoulders lifting… For a weight as heavy as the effort suggests, I’m expecting the shoulders to be pulled down during the lift, and certainly not to be in such an extreme shrug.
There are a few other minor pops and things. Overall I think you’ve got a nice rhythm to the whole sequence. It’s heading in a good direction.
@Bender007 if you use Firefox… there is always the PlugIn called ‘DownloadHelper’ and there normally is at least one file that you can Dload that is the MP4 version when dealing with YouTube… and even though I love Quicktime compatible files… I hate Quicktime it’s self… Quicktime, as a software, has been permanently ‘banned’ from all my computer devices… I currenly even have an Iphone… that will get traded in this next month for some kind of andriod OS phone … only because I hate Quicktime and its “take control of my computer and not give it back, cyclehog self” so much… rrrrr… (end of QT rant)