Critique needed + questions

Artwork Focused Critiques
1

Hello everyone, i’ve done this work for my graduation course, however I got serious questions about how it could be improved. Well I know that there are great flaws in animation and such… its my first animation. My questions really don’t have to be answered, thou with time i’ll search for them and get the answers… but if you could give me a hand on that i would appreciate.

Some technical details + questions:

  • The video is split in two blender scenes, is that right to do or should I done just one scene with everything on it?

  • I have not used path for the camera movement, at the first scene, but for the second I did. Does the path is a right thing to do or not necessary?

  • I’ve animated the models by directly posing the bones, but I know that some people create shapes around the bones that works as a “conductor”. Why is that best?

  • I’ve used Ambient Occlusion, but should I really have used it? When should I use?

  • In the first scene i’ve duplicate the models so there could be many of them. Is that a waste of memory or it’s right?

Thanks everyone

2

Questions:
-That’s fine. one scene can be a bit complicated to work with.
-Paths are really your choice. It shouldn’t matter with what you have so far, though I find animating the camera by hand gives you a bit more control
-Don’t know too much technical details regarding posing, unfourtunetly.
-Ambient Occlusion is good, use it for the darkening between to close corners.
-Duplicating the models is good if you need seperate animation data for each, however if you have background models and they don’t need to be animated use ALT+D, which link duplicates, which saves memory but links the duplicates to the original object data.

I could have got some of that wrong; hopefully someone else will correct me if that happens.

Animation does lack a bit of weight, especially on the fight scene. Looking very nice though.

Sam

3

Your use of the camera is generally good, although there’s a little bit of “the wobbling Steadi-Cam” effect in the last few seconds, which I certainly see (and object to) in a lot of production movies. There’s a lot of motion going on (heads moving, camera flying) in second-#1 of the movie, which takes a slight bit of adjusting to, but that happens well enough.

I think that you did a good job in bringing the viewer’s attention in, closer and closer, during the pivotal scene in the last few seconds. The choice of camera points-of-view is good, as is the general flow of the shots.

The “teacher’s” mannerisms, and turning more-and-more toward the camera while delivering his lines, is good. The fact that he seems to end by looking slightly over the camera, instead of directly into the lens, seems good.

The close-up animation of the fighting figures, and the cloth textures, is quite well-done. The figure appears to be throwing his weight into his punches.

The design, proportion, and general movement of the characters is good. The head-moves in the first few seconds are a little bit simplistic, but you know, you can “tweak” something for so long that you never actually get the danged thing finished. :slight_smile:

Various animations of head-movements and so on are in places a bit “stilted,” starting and stopping a bit abruptly or coming to a complete stop, which a person’s head never actually does.

In the first few, establishing shots, the camera’s a little bit close for my personal preference, because I see it “clipping” things at the edge of the room scene before I’ve really had time to get a good look at the surrounds. But I can live with that.

Lighting and exposure generally appear to me to be good throughout the clip.

I think that you’ve got good reason to be pleased with the work.

4

@Sam M

Animation does lack a bit of weight, especially on the fight scene. Looking very nice though.

Gotta agree! I had some problems editing the timeline, specially at the moment where the first jumps against the second.
Thanks by the answers and feedback, they surely will be helpfull!

@sundialsvc4

Various animations of head-movements and so on are in places a bit “stilted,” starting and stopping a bit abruptly or coming to a complete stop, which a person’s head never actually does.

It’s true! I didn’t noticed that! Thanks!

In the first few, establishing shots, the camera’s a little bit close for my personal preference, because I see it “clipping” things at the edge of the room scene before I’ve really had time to get a good look at the surrounds. But I can live with that.

Indeed. There was even a character that was sleeping, but since he got desynch with the camera, it looks like he just jumps out from nowhere! Much of these errors are beacuse I didn’t made a storyboard, so I had a lot of scenes in my mind and thought the time would be short. In the end of things i got only 2 scenes… Next time i’ll try to do things right!

Lighting and exposure generally appear to me to be good throughout the clip.

I’m just affraid that i’ve used Ambient Occlusion for all the scenes and not sure if its a nice way to lighting.

I must say thanks for your time and critique! I’m sure its very important for me.

5

I’m guessing you’re talking about using the mesh deform modifier in Blender. It’s not necessarily better, it’s just an alternative method that can help deal with certain problems. Here’s a paper discussing this sort of thing:

6

In animation, it’s subtle things that make a difference, like when the doll attacks the other one, a V.small camera shake could emphisise the power. Small things like grass showing in the corners of the field where it meets the wall, writing on the board, and maybe adding some things aroud the classroom, like a teacher’s desk, and spacing the characters out more could improve it dramatically.

AO is a good way of increasing realism and making it look nicer, but you could probably do with some direct lighting, such as a sun outside, and some real lights / windows inside. Lot’s of people dislike it because it results in ridiculous render times.

Finally, you could polish it off by dipping slightly into the compositor, this won’t need much, but it could help bring out the colours and give it a more proffesional feel.

good luck,

derek