David Urwin CASFX
Final Animation Critique
Final Animation can be found at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7LfZUzNHZc&feature=youtu.be
The character in this piece is very simplistic in order to minimize requirements for blend shape facial animations, the simplicity is continued through the scene with simple cloud shapes, producing quite a striking, childlike scene.
The textures used are simple Lamberts and Blinns. During experiamentation with other textures, and possibly fur, the childlike nature of the scene was lost, and so I stuck with the initial basic shading.
The animation chosen was a frustrated sky diver. The single eye of the model helped this, as a simple half closed eyelid really conveys concentration, anger and frustration, much like a frown.
A lot of the movements are sharp and jerky to accentuate that frustration.
I have also used various short cuts in the scene to increase the efficiency of my animation. The parachute is fully open throughout the animation, just out of shot. The parachute opening is sold by the camera move, and the character's eye and body following the movement. There are numerous occasions where the visibility of objects are toggled to shift between differently constrained versions of the same object.
This has, though, led to a very messy scene. There are too many objects, not grouped together well, and the rig is weak and simplistic.
Conventions were not followed properly in the modelling and rigging phase, and that had a knock on impact with the animation.
There are shots where just out of sight there is a joint breaking, or a skinning issue. These were not fixed, as these issues are not visible to the viewer. The shots shown stick very closely to the storyboard, which allowed me leeway in knowing which bugs in the rig were the priorities to fix.
The pull cord has no visible connection to the chute, and that is an issue, but I feel the animation holds up without needing it, as the events of the animation are clear without the cord.
This was largely due to the way I modelled props AFTER the animation was blocked out. This allowed me greater freedom of making sure that the form of the character looked right in each pose, but meant that I had to model props in such a way that there were many intersections between character mesh and props during different shots. I had to tackle this using the method of differently constrained objects as mentioned above and also by animating props in some shots frame by frame, which was time consuming.
I looked at using nCloth for the straps, but found that even though it worked in some shots, in others it failed to the point of distraction, and so in the end I used very simple movements, and camera tricks to pretend an action is taking place. The biggest example being that the parachute is never seen opening, but the eye is tricked into believing it does.
The biggest issues, I feel, with the animation are the lack of secondary animation in certain shots. This was, to a degree, deliberate, as I found that small secondary animations were distracting from the main animation.
The other big issue is that the arcs for the arm on screen right feel wrong, during the sigh for the animation's punchline.
There are good bits of the animation... the character's emotions are clear from the actions despite its' simplicity, and the punchline at the end works and is funny.
Final Animation Critique
Final Animation can be found at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7LfZUzNHZc&feature=youtu.be
The character in this piece is very simplistic in order to minimize requirements for blend shape facial animations, the simplicity is continued through the scene with simple cloud shapes, producing quite a striking, childlike scene.
The textures used are simple Lamberts and Blinns. During experiamentation with other textures, and possibly fur, the childlike nature of the scene was lost, and so I stuck with the initial basic shading.
The animation chosen was a frustrated sky diver. The single eye of the model helped this, as a simple half closed eyelid really conveys concentration, anger and frustration, much like a frown.
A lot of the movements are sharp and jerky to accentuate that frustration.
I have also used various short cuts in the scene to increase the efficiency of my animation. The parachute is fully open throughout the animation, just out of shot. The parachute opening is sold by the camera move, and the character's eye and body following the movement. There are numerous occasions where the visibility of objects are toggled to shift between differently constrained versions of the same object.
This has, though, led to a very messy scene. There are too many objects, not grouped together well, and the rig is weak and simplistic.
Conventions were not followed properly in the modelling and rigging phase, and that had a knock on impact with the animation.
There are shots where just out of sight there is a joint breaking, or a skinning issue. These were not fixed, as these issues are not visible to the viewer. The shots shown stick very closely to the storyboard, which allowed me leeway in knowing which bugs in the rig were the priorities to fix.
The pull cord has no visible connection to the chute, and that is an issue, but I feel the animation holds up without needing it, as the events of the animation are clear without the cord.
This was largely due to the way I modelled props AFTER the animation was blocked out. This allowed me greater freedom of making sure that the form of the character looked right in each pose, but meant that I had to model props in such a way that there were many intersections between character mesh and props during different shots. I had to tackle this using the method of differently constrained objects as mentioned above and also by animating props in some shots frame by frame, which was time consuming.
I looked at using nCloth for the straps, but found that even though it worked in some shots, in others it failed to the point of distraction, and so in the end I used very simple movements, and camera tricks to pretend an action is taking place. The biggest example being that the parachute is never seen opening, but the eye is tricked into believing it does.
The biggest issues, I feel, with the animation are the lack of secondary animation in certain shots. This was, to a degree, deliberate, as I found that small secondary animations were distracting from the main animation.
The other big issue is that the arcs for the arm on screen right feel wrong, during the sigh for the animation's punchline.
There are good bits of the animation... the character's emotions are clear from the actions despite its' simplicity, and the punchline at the end works and is funny.