Team Talk

Hi Steve,

Thanks again for submitting another playblast. We've reviewed and can see
the improvements you have made, but we wont be designating you shots for
the film Gnomes.

However, i feel your creating your own little character animation here,
which with continual development could be a nice animation piece for your
portfolio (so long as the model is credited). I can offer you feedback
here and there on this piece, but I do have the film keeping me very busy.

Ok a few notes on your recent piece:

- be careful trying to cheat movements. When Macho lifts the weight,
you've added the shake to the weight not his arms and it needs to be both
as thats where the strain comes from.

- use of the head control was only meant to be for precaution for when
lifting weights above his head whereas you have used it as secondary
animation. Of course this is up to you but it does look quite
flappy/wobbly so maybe just reduce how much you add of that.

- exaggerate the initial lift attempts, the pull backs don't quite reflect
the weight he's trying to lift.

-alter the pacing/speed of the big lift up as at the moment the weight
continues upwards at one speed which doesn't quite suggest its much of a
struggle for him.

- when he lifts up the weight completely he almost instantly goes into the
standing upright position which looks a little strange. It might work
better if he stands completely upright when he manages to lift the weight
as its that final push that allows him to achieve the movement.

-keep an eye on the legs movements as some of the bends don't quite match
what the body is doing in terms of lifting (11 seconds into your
playblast) The legs bend but the body continues to lift upwards.

the action has been broken up a lot more which does help the narration so
good work on that, I think your now going to be refining your keys and
exaggerating the movements more to add to the comedy of the piece you've
created.

Again thanks for submitting Steve and I wish you all the best with this
animation your embarking on. If you would like any more feedback then
please let me know and i'll try my best to help.

Thanks

Sarah


Hiya,

Sorry the logo was not up on the blog when you looked earlier, I was late getting home to load it as my phone broke and I needed to take it back to the o2 shop. I have loaded the newer animation test onto the blog. There are still a few things that I want to change. Also I did not spend too much time making sure that the hands are staying in the same position on the weight, as I prefer doing that at the end when I have finalised the character's position.
Again I would be very grateful for some feedback if you do have the time, but I understand if you are too busy.
I am really keen to get this right and I will keep working on it - I hope I am on the right lines now.
Just to let you know I have my Nan's funeral tomorrow so I wont be in at college, but will be in on Thursday.
Thanks

Steve

Sarah Verrall wrote:

Hi Steve,

Thanks for popping in today to see us. Sorry the team did not have time to go through your animation with you personally, we had a tutorial session with Dan Dalli. I've had a look at your blog, but please email me when you've uploaded the
latest test to your blog and i'll give you feedback shortly.

Sarah


Hi Sarah
Thanks for your e-mail. It was very helpful and I totally agree with your feedback. I knew things weren't right with the animation and I don't feel that it is a fair reflection of my work.
I am going to re-work a section of it over the weekend and then I will post it on my blog so that you can look at it. I hope that you will be able to see then that I do have things to offer your team.
Thanks again for taking the time to give me feedback.

Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for popping in today to see us. Sorry the team did not have time to go through your animation with you personally, we had a tutorial session
with Dan Dalli.
I've had a look at your blog, but please email me when you've uploaded the latest test to your blog and i'll give you feedback shortly.

Sarah

Hi Sarah

Thanks for your e-mail. It was very helpful and I totally agree with your feedback. I knew things weren't right with the animation and I don't feel that it is a fair reflection of my work. I am going to re-work a section of it over the weekend and then I will post it on my blog so that you can look at it. I hope that you will be able to see then that I do have things to offer your team.
Thanks again for taking the time to give me feedback.

Steve

Hi Steve,

Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to submit an animation test for the film.

I can see you have potential, and are beginning to demonstrate some character through the piece, however, I'm hesitant to give you one of our shots to animate, as I think there's an issue of timing/pace in your animation. I've made some examples of this and how you could improve on them.

Your animation would greatly benefit from more pauses to break up the sequence, as currently, one action leads into the other quite swiftly. If you had some breaks in-between the trying to lift, and the actual lift it would build up more anticipation for the audience; will he, wont he do it. Try using the stepped tool in the graph editor when blocking out the keyframes to see how the animation flows.

Again there could have been a bit more pause from the lift and the stone hitting him on the head. It seems to be instant that he lifts then throws the weight, whereas he could have held it up a couple of seconds and then got hit by the stone. A break in these actions would help us see the actions better.

Your playblast camera could have been closer, as it was quite difficult to see the facial expressions. The expressions could have been had more pause between each, as we were led from one extreme to the next in quick succession.

Be careful with the use of the head control on top of the suit, as his hat point seemed to dart around too much which was confusing.

I liked what you were trying to achieve with the legs switching over during the lift. Perhaps there could have been a little more of a jump in-between poses to demonstrate the heavy lift he was about to do?

As he gets hit by the stone, he could have held his head/rubbed his head in pain. Again I think you were trying to achieve this but because he turns round almost immediately the audience miss this reaction. A break before turning would have helped here.

The right foot of the character seems to be slipping round the scene quite a bit, I suspect you've given yourself a big amount to perfect here, and perhaps did not have so much time to sort out the leg keys.

Finally, the arms are doing some big gestures, which are quite difficult to interpret and distracted from him looking round for who threw the stone.

Overall I can see the improvements from the first playblast to the second, and I think you've given yourself a lot to take on animation wise here. I think these notes would help you finesse this animation more, but currently I dont think we can give you a specific shot to animate at present. Of course you can continue your tests and submit again, as the extra time may enable you to fine tune this piece and may convince us to reconsider.

I hope you find these comments helpful and if you have any questions then please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks

Sarah

Hi Steve,

I'm a bit busy tonight so i will check out the video tomorrow as you've
said you've made updates.
Post a playblast on the blog and i'll view it from there. I'll send you my
feedback via email.

Cheers
Sarah

Hi Sarah,

Sorry that the playblast was set as private, I wasn't keeping it back as a surprise but it's not a bad idea. I have changed the setting now so that you will be able to watch it. I have improved it since but I will save that to show you tomorrow. Are you going to be at college tomorrow or shall I put an update. playblast on the blog for you?

Steve

Sarah Verrall wrote:

Hi Steve,

thanks for the link, unfortunately i cant view any of your playblasts at the moment as they are set to private but perhaps your keeping it a surprise until tuesday?
look forward to seeing what you've done
Sarah

Hiya Sarah,

Here is a link to my blog
http://stevepender208.blogspot.com/


I'm still working on the animation to try and sharpen it up a bit.

Should still have something ready for you for Tuesday.

Steve

Hello There!

Just to inform you that I want to see your work on Wednesday.
You can either give me your files in person or put it in a folder (with
your name on it) in the ‘Pirates of The Produce Aisle’ folder on the
public drive.

I will not look at you work immediately as I want to gather it all
together to review it with my team.

Due to the nature of the marking system of the third year I might not be
able to take all of you on.

I look forward to seeing the work!

Peace,

Lewis

Hi Lewis,

I wondered if you would mind checking my animation that is on my blog and giving me some feed-back. I totally understand if you are too busy.
http://www.stevepender208.blogspot.com/
Thank you very much
Steve

Rave account:

S.Pender@Rave.ac.uk

Hi Stephen,

It's a goodstart man. My advice for a shot like this is pay close
attention to how a mouth articulates when it is speaking, if it helps,
moutht the lines out in a mirror, and copy those movementsin the
animation. Trust me man Pixar do it.

Lewis,

Sorry for the delay of my reply. Thank you very much for the feed-back I really appreciate it.

Steve