Getting critical

Okay i think the best thing to do first so that i can start thinking about what i really need to improve on is, look at my past work and think about anything i could've done better, anything that i thought was good or bad about it and just more importantly think about what my weaknesses are in this field.

so first things first:

Okay so lets start positive on this one, i like the idea of the secondary animation at the beginning...So now down to the bad stuff in bullet point form:

• When he pushes the box the leg pops out of place 
• Theres no sense of resistance when the box is being pushed
• it seems the secondary animation is more important than the main objective of the film which is to push the box and get a sense of weight.
• the box seems to shake when being pushed at what seemse to be the same amount of force.

I think the main thing this video lacks is fluidity and the animation quality itself isn't constant, it seems that the first part was focused on the most and then when it got to the box pushing the animation got lazy.

So with this one, i don't think i finished most of this and if i did, i need my head checked, there is absolutely no secondary animation in this video apart from a few blinks here and there, the lip sync itself isn't so bad, there seems to be parts where the mouth jogs but i think if i sorted out a few keyframes it would be fine. However, there is absolutely no head movement during this dialogue either, which i have never seen in my life, not even a wiggle. i have to say i am quite embarrassed by this piece of dialogue.

Basically i think the first thing i should look at is secondary animation in the first video it seemed tolerable because its such a simple rig, the second video implies it needs work. another thing i think i should look at is making movements flow a bit better, this can be done in the graph editor (which i need to get used to) and also splines, splines are something i've only really heard of but not really had the time to experiment with, so i'd like to take a look at them. Another thing i think i should look at is Blocking, i don't do it that often and it should be done all the time i believe blocking out your shots will be a lot better for you when it comes to timing etc. another thing i should ALWAYS do but i NEVER do, is work with video references. i never look at how people act, or i never act anything out myself which is like driving blind, it doesn't make sense, so thats what i'm going to attempt to do in this unit as well!

SO I HAVE A ROUGH LIST OF THING I CAN IMPROVE ON AND WILL BE DOING SO IN THIS BLOG:


Graph Editor
Splines
Blocking
Working with video reference
Secondary Animation


All of this things are going to help with my final film which i will be doing for Mikes unit

first things first!

Okay so today i thought instead of panicking about what to do and wasting time, that i'd e-mail a few people and hopefully get some feedback on what its like to be a character animator, so far i've emailed framestore ( hoping that they might invite me down for a cheeky little chat) the e-mail is listed below.

i will post the response as soon as i recieve it (fingers crossed)

the other company's i have emailed are:

The Mill

A brief description of our technical research unit

For this terms unit with Dan we have been told to develop our technical skills within a pathway of our choice, this could mean anything from character animation, modelling, rigging, concept art and pre production etc. Having thought about what it is i wanted to do, i have chosen to work on my character animation skills, as its something i've always had a passion for and i'm really eager to bring my skills up to an industry standard! most of my character animation in the past have been mediocre at best and i found that it was lacking in anticipation and fluidity but most importantly i think it lacked the main principles of animation. Throughout this blog i am going to be doing a lot of research into looking at what it means to be a character animator and hopefully i can get some interesting feedback from leaders in the industry, i will also be looking at tips and tricks online and in books to help better my skills!

So what is the definition of character animation?

"In computer animation, character animation is the creation of an animated person or animal. The animator will make a unique character-generated individual and decide how the character will look, move, and interact with its environment."-http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/character_animation.html