Hello and welcome to my Polybook....or maybe its an "Animbook"? Animation is what I love and enjoy. I love taking what was once a lifeless static model and breathing character and emotion into it. I want to one day do this for a living so its time to roll up the sleeves and practice practice practice. My hope is to use this to post some of my current works and stay motivated to keep moving forward. Please feel free to provide any feedback or ask questions. No feedback is bad and no question is dumb, so let me have it. :)
Alright lets do this....
Hey Phil. Glad to hear its useful to you! And don't worry, I am not expecting you to redo all the work you already put into this. That would be rather silly. :) Although, when I am honest, I do feel that the kick now kinda detracts from the awesome boxing animation that is before it. But that probably can't be solved without a whole lot of work.
I am happy to hear you are looking forward to my work although it will be a while before I can show you anything substantial. I am still just animating balls at the moment! Can't way to move up to character animation and I'll make sure to post my work here on the forum.
3dioot Don't worry about anything substantial, that will come with practice. Bouncing balls are the most important thing you'll learn cause "Everything is a bouncing ball." If you ever need feedback feel free to reach out.
Alright, I need to call this done. This is the first of much more to come. Hopefully with each one they get better and better.
Rig from iAnimate, animated in Maya (30fps), rendered in Cycles: https://vimeo.com/304827515
phoenix4690 nice animation! However, I spotted a few moments, where her boot passes through the floor.
phoenix4690 Nice work, Phil! I look forward to seeing what's next.
phoenix4690 Awesome Phil! It's a great improvement from the first version, so that's a win in my book 😊 I'm sure the next one will be even cooler and better!! 😎😄 don't forget to post the blocking & splining stage so we can help you out with feedback too 😉
nekronavt You sure know how to make a guy cry. The curse of calling something "done" i suppose.
Joking aside great eye, thanks for pointing it out. :)
Since were all being "mean" to phoenix4690 mind if I chip in? Since I believe a picture says more than a thousand words I'll just throw this in here.
Why did you render your awesome animation that you slaved over for hours upon hours on a glossy plane of all things? And that "horizon", the way it crosses her legs and the angles it forms, I can not not look at it. Its like you made a composition to make me focus on her knees/crotch. That could not have been your intention.
You spend way too much time on her animation to present her like this man. <3
I am going to be presumptuous here and assume you like what I've thrown together. If not feel free to disregard anything I say. I won't be offended (but will be curious why you like what you have better). Here is what I've done and why.
Contrast/show the pose better. When avoiding a harsh horizon line, you pretty much end with a gradient by default. Since she is so dark in the legs I chose to go from light to dark to med. This emphasizes her shoes/legs while still giving some contrast for the upper body.
I chose a complimentary color to her green army outfit. I feel this makes the green pop a little and works ok with the red lips and orange/brown utitlity belt. Its not too saturated but helps make it all look a little more fresh and exciting imo.
I added a single shadow. I think one shadow usually looks best (even with multiple light sources) and it could be a little longer and perhaps even darker. It can help sell the motion if you see it from another "angle" through the shadow. Of course this is much easier to do in 3d than it is to draw as you can see by my "attempt". ;)
To make the composition in general a bit better I did the usual stuff. A white elipse blob in the middle with blend set to screen and low opacity (on the layer just above the bg gradient). Some black in the corners, blurred to oblivion, blend mode to multiply and low opacity on the top layer.
Lastly I adjusted the levels and contrast for our heroin. She really did not use the full range you have at your disposal. No real darks, no real lights. This makes the image look flat. Lastly I increased the contrast somewhat (perhaps too much if I look at her skin now but its just a mockup). I feel this brought out the shine on her shoes and even some pant details.
So erm, yeah. I feel the end result is much more appealing. I would click on that if it was a video thumbnail. :3
Do with this what you want. :) (also its just my opinion)
PS
Why do you use Vimeo? I can't loop video's nor play it at different speeds (or step through frame by frame). Vimeo makes me sad. :|
Purple works too and has better contrast with her skin:
3dioot Appreciate the feedback man. Everything is a learning opportunity. My experience with the rendering side of the pipeline is much more limited and really just use that time to experiment and figure things out and have fun with it. The color schemes and flooring are based solely off what I've seen of other professional reels and trying to replicate those looks. My goal is really minimalism and keeping focus on the animation. So thank a lot I'll see what I can do to replicate what you've shown.
I use Vimeo because that's where the community is at. And there no ads in my way when I'm frame by framing. (Try using Shift+arrow keys next time, you might be surprised what you find. ;)) Will probably use YouTube when I have a finished reel but otherwise I'm not a big fan posting with it.
The color schemes and flooring are based solely off what I've seen of other professional reels and trying to replicate those looks.
I was wondering if that was the case! I almost wrote something like, unless its a capital sin to use color or something. Are there benefits to keep everything toned down? Does it make the animation easier to jugdge? (I still feel the cut that sharp horizon line left on my soul though) And perhaps most importantly, would it make my work look amateurish if I added a little flourish (omg I even made that rhyme)?
Interesting on Vimeo. I have some stuff on there too, very old tutorials primarily. Good to know that's where the community is at! I saw some people I admire on there as well. This explains a lot. I am also gleefully happy to know I can frame by frame on Vimeo. Thanks!
PS
If you want to replicate this kinda look I think you could do pretty much all of it in post. You'd need a render layer for the shadow perhaps in addition to the character but thats about it.
3dioot I like the purple one better, much easier on the eyes 😉
phoenix4690 didn't know that's where the community is at! Seems like I need to check out this Vimeo thing then and create an account there. Also handy to hear about going frame to frame didn't know you could do that.
It's awesome to see so many tips going around in this thread, learned some stuff 😊
3dioot haha yeah like I said I'm seeing one thing and doing another, what you got here is gold man. The sharp horizon is bad I completely agree.
Yeah the questions are spot on. What I want is an environment that showcases the animation the best and keeps the distractions to a minimum. I don't think it would make you look amateurish to add a little flourish, if you do a good job with it.
But if its not good (like the mistakes you pointed out in mine) recruiters recommend just sending opengl renders rather than fully rendering it out.
ssmurfmier1985 at least that what it seems with animation reels. I don't see many people posting on Youtube. The best guess I have is because of the ads. That bottom bar is always popping up when I review animations on YouTube, and if I was a recruiter watching 100's of these, that could get annoying fast. But its just a guess. I'm just following the herd lol :)
phoenix4690 you raise a fair point, that bottom bar is quite annoying. Guess I'll be joining the herd soon 😉
Can you also upload videos on Vimeo as 'hidden'? That's what I did for my acting videos on YouTube, don't want to show those to everyone haha
phoenix4690 Hi Phil! Just being curious, did you also do the lip sync animation course here at CG Cookie? 'Cause I didn't see any of that on your Vimeo, and if you did I would love to see them of course 😊
ssmurfmier1985 yes I did! It was such a fun course. Its actually the few that made it on to my YouTube channel when I was trying that platform out.
https://youtu.be/QK78JsubawE
phoenix4690 these are awesome! You put some great personality in both of them :)