Omar Elhindi - Sophistication

-Omar Elhindi
-Sophistication

Hi Omar,
is a nice test, i think you've got already a pretty good animation.

Few notes on something that you could work a little bit more :

-The lipsync, feels a little bit off sync (1 or two frames) i dont know if is because of the streaming video, or not, but its worth a try, offsetting it of 1 or 2 frames, and see if it is working better.
-After he says, "..family does", the overall mouth animation, is more rough than at the beginning, i feel that from this point on, you should focus and work a little bit more on that(mouth shapes and more inbetweens), it feels "less animated".
-After bringing the overall animation at the same level, you could go into it again ,adding another pass of polishing, starting from the head motion to the eyes and eyebrows, than the mouth, think about how the muscle of the face works, you may want to achieve an organic like, fleshy feeling to it.

I really like it, it shows potential!.
Good Luck.

-AnimDailies.

Daniel Moreno - Gaining Consciousness

- Daniel Moreno
- Gaining Consciousness


Hi Daniel

Thanks for posting this nice little idea. I think discovering that youre impaled on a metal rod might be quite disturbing and it would be nice to see this emotion in the character.
You could shoot reference for this by sitting on a high stool or even perching yourself up on a wall.

I like the movements, although i think if you shot yourself doing this and acted the emotion of decovering your limbs for the first time, you might move a little less theatrically in parts. His left hand (screen right) for example, seems a little unnatural in the way it almost brushes past the face. I think he'd maintain a distance between his face and the hand so he could focus on it.

Also starting with the feet, you might expect the character to notice immediately that hes suspended. I would imagine his sphere of awareness to begin with his hands closest to him and then extend to his legs and feet, before finally becomming aware of being impaled on a metal rod and being disturbed by it.

I like the right foot rotation, but look at the first few frames of that motion, its very fast rather than a good slow-in.

The landing is a big move and can be worked into. It lacks some weight and feels linear in its movement. This is the biggest action in the entire animation and needs careful attention. Film yourself pushing yourself off from a high wall or a stool and look at the motion and timing of your landing. Live action video reference is the key to realism in your animation, and will make this nice little idea come to life in a believable way.

-Anim Dailies

Bardoloi Vishakha - DemoReel

-Vishakha Bardoloi
-DemoReel

Hi Vishaka,

Its really encouraging to see a strong piece of acting animation based on a line from the classic: Singin' in the Rain. Its an eloquent animation that actually sums up the life of an animator quite well, specially when working late! The look in the glass at the end is a very poignant moment indeed. We feel his loneliness with the glass and its a very strong.

There are a couple of things i think would really help this animation.

-When he blinks on "lead lives" its somewhat distracting. Im looking at the eyes at this point and i feel for an instant like i lose him. Id try to avoid too many blinks in a facial animation and if you really need that one, id make it a relaxed half blink, with a slow ease out.

-I think its important to hit the pose on "glamour and romance" an instant before the words come out, it feels like hes trying to catch up with the dialogue at this point and its a little sharp. Its a very subtle thing but i think it will help a lot.

-The guy pulling the weight feels quite solid. Try to inject similar weight and a general sense of mass into all the characters, they often feel quite light in thier movements. Its really about the gradients of your curves, and making sure you have a good slow-in and slow-out, holding etc. This is where it really would help to film some live action reference of yourself doing the actions. Look at every few frames of the animation and ask yourself if something feels a little fast or slow, or too sudden in stopping.

For example, the left hand of the drunk when hes wiped his face drops down and just sticks in the air. This really needs to swing back and forth. Also his fall on the ground feels light and bouncy. Hes basically going to go down like a sack of potatoes being drunk, its going to be a hard fall, feeling his body rotate with one very low level overlaped bounce traveling down the body. Hes not going to bounce 3 or 4 times, you'll just feel the rotations as he settles at the end.

-Look at breaking up the timing of his steps, they feel a little regular.

-The character jumping back in surprise doesnt have a settle. He lands from the jump and just stops dead. Have him come out of the bounce. Also im not sure about his emotion building up to the touch. Is he angry with himself for being scared? or stretching? It seems unclear to me.

-A good excercise for defining the weight of an object is to animate three balls, all the same size. But animate one as a ping pong ball, another a beach ball and the third as a cannon ball. See how they behave differently from one another. Then you'll have a better understanding of the physics of your characters. Create the illusion of Mass and gravity.

Overall, i think its a nice reel with some strong acting. You can make it a great reel by checking the weight of your characters.

Thankyou,

-Anim Dailies

WilliamsnMichael - Spencer : Short film

-Michael Williams
-Spencer - Short film


Hi Michael,

I really like the idea of the dark basement. However there are some story elements that left me feeling quite confused, which i'll come to later.

-When the guy peers around the corner the second time i would try to make sure the pupils are visible. The eyes are the first thing you look at in any character and its important to get them right. Try to plant his fingers firmly on the corner of the wall.

-As he nervously approaches the entrance to the cellar I would look at his side to side motion. It feels sticky. I think the general weight positioning over each foot is good but there are strong glitches in the animation that really make him look light (this glitchy light movement comment applies to most of the film). I would film your self acting all of it to get something more natural. Check how many steps you take and how far apart they are. Look at how your head and arms move with your body. Great animation comes out of great reference. Think about gravity, weight and balance in your character, together with fluidity and mechanics.

-I like the camera rotating slowly back down the stairs, it feels very Alfred Hitchcock. If the guy casts a long shadow on the wall next to him the effect would be even better.

-When stepping down the stairs he seems to keep the same centre of gravity with each step. Shift his balance.

-The miss step and fall down the stairs feels quite erratic and awkward with the camera rolling, bouncing and pulling back to the other side of the room, then cutting to a close up. Animate the camera as if you were there holding it and filming the action. Your movements would be offset to follow the action rather than sync with it, and make the landing happen right in front of the camera, don't go to the other side of the room first. Concentrate on getting the fall working before worrying too much about the camera moves.

-The wrists of the character often bend unnaturally with the arm, like they're broken. Good Video reference will help with things like this.

-The eyes should lead the head rotation left and right, they generally feel quite erratic at times.

-The story gets very confusing for me toward the end. Who is the white haired guy? Is he a ghost? Why is he so small? And where's the end of story? There doesn't seem to be a conclusion. The cut and story telling here would have really benefited from good planning with a story board (thumbnail sketches, telling the story in picture form). This way you'd know if the story worked before you started animating.

-Try simply telling the story with pictures and see what you come up with. Any good story can be told this way.


-Anim Dailies

PefferLee - 1 year DemoReel

-D. Lee Peffer II
-DemoReel


Hey!

I think this is a really nice reel, it shows lots of potential, especially after only one year of animation, so congratulations!.

A few thoughts of what you could improve :

-The spiderman Jump, is a really good excercise and is also well executed.
I think lacks of a bit of weight, that is mainly because of how Snappy the timing is, in both the push and landing.
To make it feel more heavy, try and play a little bit more with the timing(slow in/out), you should imagine that the character is making a physical effort, in pushing and catching himself.
Something that you need to know, is how gravity and momentum works, study references of freerunners(for examples), they do all those kind of crazy moves!.
Also, you have to make sure that the posing shows the weight as well, for example, when he catch himself on the landing, with his hands, the more you can feel the "pressure" in the hands,arms and shoulder pose, the better!.

-The 3 guys Acting :
The acting of the blue guy has some nice bits in it, is well thought!.
-The main issue, is a general stiffness (for all of the 3 characters), expecially in the facial acting, you can push a little bit more the Eyes/Eyebrows animation.
-Sometimes is difficult to understand(blue guy), where and who is he looking at, make the eyes acting, clear first, than the rest.
-The hands, since they are really(REALLY) big, try to find a more appealing pose, and limit the gestures, (between "taxi" and "insane" for example) you already have lots going on(same applies to "everybody's", the hand quick movement), i think you could loose one or 2 of thosoe "hits".
-The last hand gesture, with both hands togheter is nice ("in a hurry").
-You might want to smooth and work a little bit more the head motion (blue guy), it is sometimes "clicking".
-The middle guy(yellow) seems instead to be "drifting " back and front without a purpouse, since he is doing something(trying to eat), you could work a little bit more on him, facial and body to make it clear on what he is doing.

- The stop motion animations are really nice excersises, is a really nice touch to put the "Trollface,and Fuuuuu", :)!
-I also think you did a good job on the 2d tests, is always good to practice 2d animations, and to show them on your reel.

-If your intend is to apply as character animator, you will not need to show your modeling skills.
You could edit your reel, by showing your 3d test at the beginning, followed by the 2d and stopmotion ones.
Try to keep it short, max 1, 2 mins, and keep only the best shots.

-Anim Dailies

Martin Haglund Eriksson - 11 Sec July

-http://youtu.be/cCHKZKglws8
-Martin Haglund Eriksson
-11 Sec July

Review:

This is great, I love that that you kept it subtle for the first part. It's even more impressive as you've only been doing his for 6 months! In general the acting choices are good, he feels believable and has quite a lot of life to him. Here are a few thoughts that I think would help make it even better.

- He feels a bit lifeless for the first two seconds. It would be nice if we saw his reaction to whatever his friend has just said to him, something that shows his utter disbelief. Maybe he could be looking at him at the start and we see a small reaction, something as small as a blink and a small grimace or frown, before he looks down to the table in dismay. He could even open his mouth as if to speak when he glances up at him, but he can't get the words out as he is so shocked at his stupidity!

Or if you intend to keep him looking at the table as he is, try and amp it up a bit with some heavier breathing in his chest and more anger in his eyes. Some tiny eye darts will help to show his inner thoughts.

- For the line "and totally redeem yourself!", I feel as though his facial acting should be excited rather than angry?! To me this line says that he thinks his friend has made up for all his past stupidity, so I think it would be cool if he has a big dumb grin on his face and excitement in his eyes! It would also be a nice contrast to the anger in the first part.

- I like that you put some eye darts in on "like this", but I think they're a bit too quick, try and hold on each extreme for at least 4 frames. And make sure you vary the timing, for example don't just hold for 6 frames each time.

- When he stands up at the end it would be nice to get a bit of overlap on his head.

- His head also stays a bit too level when he moves forward towards camera, rotate it forward a bit as he starts to come towards us for a bit of anticipation.

- Try and offset the fist slam from the head nod a bit more.

- The screen left shoulder sometimes feels a bit too disconnected from the chest.

Great work on the whole, we look forward to more!

- Anim Dailies

Barry Nardone - Beast Slayer

-http://vimeo.com/24369735
-Barry Nardone
-Beast Slayer

Review:

Barry thankyou for posting, its a great little action sequence. Nice poses. I like it. There are a few things you could do to make this work better.

-It feels a touch CG or unreal in its movement and needs more natural weight and mass. For example, the beasts swing seems a little light. If there were more cushioning, wobble, follow through and settling, it would feel like there were more of a mass and weight to the character. He looks like a big fleshy beast to me and id want to get that into the character. After all hes missed the little guy and we really want to feel the weight of his arm pull the torso around as he tries to regain balance. His arm seems to move a little fast for its size. Look at fine tuning your motion curves to achieve this.

-Film yourself going to grab something and missing it and see what happens to your body. You might even find yourself stumbling forward. I noticed a step just after that swing and i think it might work better if it came a little earlier right on the end of the swing, as a stumble.

-Just a note about camera animation: Make sure that the camera follows the action and doesnt sinc with the action or precede it. The camera can add to, or take away from any animation depending on how it moves with it. Animate a camera as if you were holding it and following the action. Theres quite a lot of space at top of frame and i think you could bring the camera closer (tilting up to follow the action). It would make it more dramatic and readable when the little guy jumps behind.

-I love the fact that the little guy jumps out of sight and leaves the beast wondering where he went. And the angle of the jump and its roll feel really good. Again there is some tweaking to be done to the weight of the character. Its ok to do big jumps if the landing is suitably heavy.

-You mentioned the little guys energy, and i think its because we dont feel him being tossed around up on the head of the beast. I want to feel him hanging on with his weight being thrown from side to side. He might even lose footing and scramble to get back up. Offset his side to side movement from that of the beast.

-The slice around the beasts neck with the landing is a little too theatrical, convienient and light for me. I'd seperate the cut and the dismount, so we can read them individually and make both of them solid actions. When the little guy lands make it heavy and the we want to feel an anticipation and push off to the start of his run.

-When the beast grabs his neck and falls it could be more dramatic in posing with him flailing bacward rather than just slumping down, side on to camera.

Its a nice action sequence with some great posing. Well done.

-Anim Dailies

SharifulIslam - Lier Acting

-http://vimeo.com/26391853
-Shariful Islam
-Lier Acting

review:

Hi Sharif, thanks for the post! Well done for participating in the 11 second club, I think it's a good way to learn as the looming deadline is a great motivator. I like the setup of your shot, it's a nice and clear idea. Here are a few pointers to help you push it further.

-Eyes - I think generally the eye directions are working well (though his eyeline feels wrong from frame 260 if he is meant to be looking at the cop, maybe make him look a bit further screen left), the main problem is that it's hard to read his emotion.

Try and get some asymmetry into the brows, at the moment they are mirror images of each other most of the time. Try and push the shapes into stronger poses. When he says "I've done a lot of lying in my time", we as the audience should be able to see him remembering those lies, and we read that in his eyes and brows. Try raising his screen right brow higher than the left at frame 66, even push the screen left one lower down a bit and see what happens. This should produce a more interesting expression - one that shows his internal thoughts more clearly. You could also rotate his head further screen right at this point.

-This is a great tutorial from Victor Navone on facial takes which will help: http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_DashTake.htm

-Lip Sync - Make sure you hit the closed mouth shapes. For example the lip sync for "I'm a pretty good liar" doesn't read. If it helps film yourself saying the line and analyse it.

-Gesturing - Be careful with your arm gestures - remember your character doesn't have to wave his hands for every line. Try removing the arms gestures for the "I'm a pretty good liar" line, instead he could maybe just gesture with the fingers of the screen right hand - I think this will make his acting more 'self assured', plus the shot will then have a nice build up to the final explosion. On a related note try not to have both hands/arms gesturing at the same time - this is known as 'twinning', adding some offset in the timing of the arms gestures creates a more visually interesting motion.

-The motion on "...belts" at frame 230 is too fast, add an extra in-between between frames 230 and 231. In the new in-between make his hand favour the pose of 230, so that the head leads and we get some overlap on the hand. Whilst a quick movement like this can be done, some overlap on the head at the end of the move will help to convey more weight, the sudden stop makes the character appear to be very light.

-Reference! If you haven't already, shoot some reference of yourself acting out your shot.

-Anim Dailies

Nathan Thomas - Reel Review

-http://vimeo.com/26709349
-Nathan Thomas
-Reel Review


Review :

It's a nice demoreel! There is some solid work on there, and you show experience of different styles of animation.
Nothing stands out as being bad and so doesn't bring down the impact of other shots.

Some thoughts:

-The first shot of the woman is looking good, some nice facial shapes and strong posing. I think there is room for the realisation to show in her face after she says "...bald gangly!", try and show her expression change before she pulls back - maybe widen the eyes, raise the brows a bit, show that she is shocked at what she has said because she thinks of herself as a "nice person".

-What did you do in the car shootout game clips? Did you animate everything by hand, including the cars and all human characters? Or is it cleaned up mocap? Did you animate the cameras? I think it's a valid choice of work and is evidence that you can work in this style, but just make it clear what part you played in it's creation.

-If you were looking to edit the reel a bit you could do without the 'running and hitting the tree' shot, and the guy being chased by the big monster. The second one especially suffers from a lack of weight in the motion.

-Anim Dailies

Ankit Gokani - Demoreel

-Ankit Gokani
-Demoreel
-http://vimeo.com/25892369

Review:

For a first showreel I think you've made a great start. Its a good choice of dialogue to engage the viewer and to create colourful contrasting characters, and I like your simple setup and staging. I also think you're hitting all the right beats, and the acting choice for the screen left guy is pretty good, he's doing all the right things.

Things you could improve are:

(1) Screen right guy's acting choices:
(A) I think you could make this scenario more entertaining and clearer by having stronger acting choices. The screen right character could start by looking really happy with himself, perhaps cocky even, and is trying to show off and even disturb the screen left guy, who is clearly minding his own business.
(B) There's a laugh in the audio at the start which is missing in his performance.
(C) There's a pause between getting his friend's attention and "great plus" which is an opportunity to both nod at the key fob to draw the viewers' eye and also show that he think's its impressive. This would make a nice contrast in the final shot where he's completely deflated.

(2) Adding polish: there's a few spots where the animation feels a little clunky and could be smoother. Check the arcs and spacing controls, particularly on the hips and hand.

(3) Sound seems offset to the visuals, might be a problem with the way its uploaded.

Bonus Review :


I know you only asked for feedback on the first shot, but its great to see your cycle work added to the reel and thought you might like some feedback there too. Cycles demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the structure, weight and balance of a character.

Things to improve on the cycles are:

1) The girls hips tilt in the opposite way to what I'd expect. As she places her weight on a foot, that foot should support the weight of the entire body, so her hips should then tilt down on the other side as the other leg is lifted. As a result of this, the spine would arc to counter this weight in the opposite direction to what you have, so she stays balanced.

The hands are a bit late. Each hand should lead the opposite foot forward (They also act as a counter balance). Try walking around and noticing whats happening as you do it. Even better, film yourself doing it, and play it back!

2) Its great to see a horse trot cycle. First of all (looking front on) i would bring all four feet in toward the center of the horse for a more natural pose. I wouldn't lift the front feet quite so high compared with the back feet. Look carefully at Muybridge examples. Muybridge is a great source of animal and human motion reference for animators

Try to make the hip and chest motion less clicky. We want to feel the natural weight and bounce. And offset the front and back by a frame or two, taking care to keep the impact on the foot fall. At some point we'll post some motion curve examples for good hip and chest weight.

The head and neck will also benefit from feeling the impact of the front feet with some follow through.

3) A good rotary gallop with weight is challenging, so congratulations on giving it a go and putting this one forward..

I would look closely at the posing here. The front and back feet feel squashed at times. The ankles going into the thighs etc. Look online for some good (slow motion) cheetah running reference.

Also the chest and hips don't feel like they are bouncing from the impacts of the feet. In fact i don't feel much weight in this cycle. Look at the timing of this, and try to achieve the kind of rolling wave motion that you get through the spine of a cheetah. You want to feel the body is springing the cheetah forward with each push off from the back feet.

Its a good starting point though, well done!

4) The man jumping up to the bar needs a fluid swinging motion. Try key posing him at the extreme of the swing, back and forth, than play with the timing of those key poses off-setting feet to get the kind of swing you want, adding a more emotive straining leg motion if you want him to struggle at the end.

The timing of his look up to the bar at the start feels quite sharp and late. Make him look up a touch earlier so he has more time to see it before jumping. Think again about his motivation. If hes feeling very sure of him self at the start, he could do something to communicate that as well as the hand rub, like nodding for example.


-Anim Dailies

Dog Leaves Shed

Josh Wedlake

Hi Josh,

We really like the style and composition of this - mixing the 2d and 3d works really well and overall there's a lot of great things happening here. You demonstrate a good understanding of the principles of animation, there's some nice subtlety, overlap and weight. Things we think you could improve are:

Man

(1) whats the man's motivation? this would determine how he lifts his head, but as a general rule I would offset the head rotation relative to the chest/body - as he looks up the head should lead the action.
(2) adding a small amount of overlap on the head as the body weight goes up and down would convey more weight.
(3) mans left arm is a little static and could swing more as he steps towards the door, having the starting position closer to the door would give the arm somewhere to swing to.
(4) the angle of each foot in the passing position is almost vertical, I would consider reducing that to a more natural position.
(5) the left foot sticks slightly in the passing position on the first step, I would smooth the rotation out to reduce the amount of time on that pose.

Dog

(6) the dog last few steps with the front legs seem slightly overstretched.
(7) the last step has a slight hesitation and the passing position is a little high. I would reduce this.
(8) the dogs head becomes quite static at the end - what's his motivation, he could be sniffing around.
(9) there is a rocking horse quality to the body which needs to be fine tuned - look at some reference of a running dog and analyze.

-AnimDailies

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