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Jazzman's 3D animation thread: UPDATE: I got a job animating games!

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Posts

  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Don't know if any of you read the rock paper shotgun PC gaming website, it's amazing,

    well to wind down a bit and I made this in-game animation I had wanted to do for a little while based off the name of that web site,

    might be something I develop into a reel piece b/c I want as much in-game footage in the reel as possible

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyZLgDab63o

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Hey guys, check it out, I'm on the front page of

    www.rockpapershotgun.com

    and

    www.halife2.net



    8-)

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Ha, congratulations!

    I would make the "protagonist"'s movement more radical when he is bested and strikes the air.. Right now it seems like he's just moving it weirdly and the followthrough makes the arm go up and in front of the face, when it seems like it would only making it go close to the left shoulder and back the same way. Maybe add in a little more head movement too.

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Yeah I'll see if I can make that air punch a little more realistic, man I'm going to have sooo many little things like that to polish up before I make final renders for portfolio

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited August 2009
    yo yo yo been on holiday for two weeks, check these out I did them today

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb8D9eDKN7k

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agVAxDfiyJM

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • pogo mudderpogo mudder Registered User regular
    edited August 2009
    great stuff, i love the last one, its so ...meaty

    pogo mudder on
    what a work of art is man, and the most boring choice you can make
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited August 2009
    New 1st person animation, got a lot of things fixed about old animations but I doubt you guys would care to see them again with minor adjustments like a different throw, anywho

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEC8eAPMhEo

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • MustangMustang Arbiter of Unpopular Opinions Registered User regular
    edited August 2009
    The arm appears to bend at an odd angle when holding it straight.

    Mustang on
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited August 2009
    You think the arm should be positioned int he very centre of the screen? or that it should go up towards the middle so much?

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • bombardierbombardier Moderator mod
    edited August 2009
    Being in the middle implies that he'd be standing perpendicular to what he's shooting and looking down his shoulder. Looks even more weird once the other hand comes in with the horns and it's coming from the side.

    bombardier on
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited August 2009
    Ok, so I should put the arm in a more normal fps position , where it coming in diagonally from the bottom right? I was going for iron sights kind of look, maybe I should load up a game with iron sights like COD4 and take a look, or maybe I should just get rid of the arm completely and just have iron sights of the hand+gun barrel

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    Ok, haven't posted for like two months, here's my current animation reel!

    Take a look and crit me on the stuff I should leave out/things I'm missing that are important for a game animation reel.

    It would be best if you followed the link at the top of the embed to the page and watched it in HD, but obviously that's up to you really!


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmctMUs6TRc

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ZaengoZaengo Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    are you a god or just a deity?

    Zaengo on
  • valerycevaleryce Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    How did I not see this thread before? Your animation is pretty good- there are some bits in each piece that could use some work though. Especially your second animation with the two characters fighting; it's a little weak. The punches don't feel to snappy, and the throw needs more weight, the body feels to light. I'd either rework it or leave it out.

    Alright, a couple of things:
    -Your cameras move a helluvalot. Your animation is good but you are not cinematographer. Go watch the 'met the' videos by valve, go and watch pixar movies; if the camera moves there's a darn fine reason for it. Moving cameras all over the place isn't something you see in a lot of professional reels. Keep your camera static unless you absolutely have to. You can really showcase your animation better if your camera isn't moving around so much. A lot of animators will whip their cameras around to hide poor animation.
    -Also on cameras: Are you familiar with the 180 degree rule? Your third animation, where the character throws down the spear prop violates it. Don't flip your camera around like that. If you're not familiar with the 180 degree rule try googling it or I can give you a more detailed explanation here.
    -Your motion blur is a little intense. Any chance you could tone it down, say, %5?
    -I'd reformat how you present your opening text. I don't like the 3D effect. Just plain text will do. Go watch some professional reels and see how they present themselves. Also your reel breakdown at the beginning moves a little fast, I had to pause to read what each thing said.

    I think your animation is pretty good overall but it's hard to tell with what you're doing with your cameras. I think your walks, runs and animations with static cameras look great. Read up on cinematography and rework your cameras. Loose the animations that are weak, especially that body throw, or rework them.

    Love your stuff <3

    valeryce on
    Art Blog!
    I like drawing, cartoons, cookies, and shiny pointy objects.
  • RubberACRubberAC Sidney BC!Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    This shit is goddamn incredible
    ESPECIALLY compared to that first stuff
    you've done an awesome job making it look lifelike

    RubberAC on
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    valeryce wrote: »
    How did I not see this thread before? Your animation is pretty good- there are some bits in each piece that could use some work though. Especially your second animation with the two characters fighting; it's a little weak. The punches don't feel to snappy, and the throw needs more weight, the body feels to light. I'd either rework it or leave it out.

    Alright, a couple of things:
    -Your cameras move a helluvalot. Your animation is good but you are not cinematographer. Go watch the 'met the' videos by valve, go and watch pixar movies; if the camera moves there's a darn fine reason for it. Moving cameras all over the place isn't something you see in a lot of professional reels. Keep your camera static unless you absolutely have to. You can really showcase your animation better if your camera isn't moving around so much. A lot of animators will whip their cameras around to hide poor animation.
    -Also on cameras: Are you familiar with the 180 degree rule? Your third animation, where the character throws down the spear prop violates it. Don't flip your camera around like that. If you're not familiar with the 180 degree rule try googling it or I can give you a more detailed explanation here.
    -Your motion blur is a little intense. Any chance you could tone it down, say, %5?
    -I'd reformat how you present your opening text. I don't like the 3D effect. Just plain text will do. Go watch some professional reels and see how they present themselves. Also your reel breakdown at the beginning moves a little fast, I had to pause to read what each thing said.

    I think your animation is pretty good overall but it's hard to tell with what you're doing with your cameras. I think your walks, runs and animations with static cameras look great. Read up on cinematography and rework your cameras. Loose the animations that are weak, especially that body throw, or rework them.

    Love your stuff <3




    Ok this was a really interesting crit. I hadn't thought about camera stuff in the slightest and I think you're right. I no nothing about 180 degree rule etc, and I'm very much not a cinematographer.

    What I'm currently doing, is putting all the animation I rendered in 3d max into a game engine, this will give me a good oppertunity to redo the camera work and have it 90% static, it will also pretty much obliterate the motion blur, which is a good thing if it's distracting.

    I agree about the text at the beginning. I got a bit obsessed with cutting things down (the original reel was about 3:40) and I tried to cram the disclaimer stuff in a bit too tightly.

    Doe anybody else have some thoughts? I'm really glad the camera things have been brought to my attention so the more the better. I'm glad people generally think the quality is good, because I've never had any contact with animators, and I'm self taught, and I only started animating because of a suggestion in this thread, so like, it's hard to guage how I'm doing, you know?


    Anyway thanks for the comments, keep them coming and I'll update when I have a significant new build.

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • r-jasperr-jasper Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    i'd rework the format. -> show walks before runs. stuff like that. some of your stuff still feels a bit floaty. the animation needs a little more weight. it's not the job of an animatior to replicate life, it's merely to imitate it.

    i know you're aming to be a games animator but i stongly suggest you chance those dialog scenes from a close up shot more of a mediaum shot (show the body and arms) use the arms to help act out the scene. (psycological gestures etc.) anyone can lipsync.

    for a reel, yours is pretty long. maybe cut it done a little. choose the best dialog scene, the best fight scene and so on.

    seen some definate improvement but i still think you need some help with the spacing in the majority of your anims. even a very brief course (just to cover the basics) could help you out drastically.

    good luck, keep working on it!

    r-jasper on
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    Could you be a bit more specific? I get what you're saying about the walks going first for example, and in my original draft they were, not 100% sure why I switched it. However, could you give some more precision examples of things that need more weight?

    Which animations need more spacing, and what exactly do you mean by that, all the animations need to make the movements quicker and the anticipations longer? Bare in mind that I'm not looking for general crits to improve me in the long term, I'm working on this for many hours every single day and will do until I'm employed.

    The problem with the facial ones is that there are actually some very difficult technical hurdles to having those characters animate while talking, and I would have to be certain it was worth spending days on end simply working out the technical side before even starting to animate.

    I agree it should be shorter, I actually cut down my original draft of 3 minutes 40 seconds to this current one. What would you suggest I could cut out?

    As for taking a course, I actually started a game art night course 3 weeks ago (2 nights a week for about 3 hours), however we're only doing modelling at the moment and my teacher has made it pretty clear I'm a much more accomplished animator than him, so I don't know if I'm going to get much animation wise out of the course.

    If there was a local school I could attend that had a proper focused animation course I would definately have done that, but the only options were 3 year degree programs, and I'm certain that I will not need another 3 years to get a job.

    Keep posting stuff guys I'm getting feedback from about 6 different forums and I'm not done wanting crits yet.

    (P.S. looking at an animation that is relatively recent like the lich king killing the dwarf, what 'basics' do you feel I'm missing)

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • Guy BellGuy Bell Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    Great work. I thought the movements were fluid and made sense.

    Guy Bell on
  • valerycevaleryce Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    Glad you have a chance to rework the cameras :D Cameras aren't always static but they don't move around a bunch either. The camera is placed in the best possible way to showcase the animation.

    In this reel the camera is pretty much totally static:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNUxldjSXWw

    In this one the camera moves when necessary, but it isn't to distracting and still showcases the animation well:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br1iMINxyRA&feature=related

    Good luck on recutting your reel to a polished level. I like your animation a lot!

    Edit:

    I forgot about the 180 degree rule. There's some pretty good explanation here complete with diagrams:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_degree_rule
    http://everything2.com/title/180+degree+rule

    Basically you don't want to flip your camera around the invisible 'line of action' since it confuses the viewer. If you have two characters on the screen, one on the right and one on the left, and then suddenly the camera goes to the other side of the action and the characters places are now reversed (i.e. the one on the left is now on the right) it doesn't make much sense visually and can confuse the viewer.

    valeryce on
    Art Blog!
    I like drawing, cartoons, cookies, and shiny pointy objects.
  • thejazzmanthejazzman Registered User regular
    edited December 2009
    Hey guys, just a quick one to say that while I ended up posting my animations WIP's on a more specific game animation forum, this is where it all started for me, and looking at the start date of the thread I can pinpoint when I began animating to within a few days which is really cool :)

    I just confirmed that I got the job I was going for with a major game company (bit paranoid about being fired for being a blabber mouth so I'll leave it at that) but suffice to say I'm really happy that I'll be working on a game I would have bought anyway.

    So yeah, just want to say thank you to all the people who gave me useful crits, you really helped me get a start on this journey, and 9 months later here I am. So thank you!

    Oh and if anyone is interested, here's the reel that got me the interview:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilbqGNeUgkY

    thejazzman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • LittleBootsLittleBoots Registered User regular
    edited December 2009
    Congrats!

    If your job is at valve please finish the reloading animation on the ambassador, thanks!

    LittleBoots on

    Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
  • Guy BellGuy Bell Registered User regular
    edited December 2009
    Nice work! Good luck with everything!

    Guy Bell on
  • edited December 2009
    I particularly like the disarm/moonwalk combination.

    Richard M. Nixon on
    chevy.jpgsteve.jpgmartin.jpg
  • KochikensKochikens Registered User regular
    edited December 2009
    Congrats on the job!! Your progress from page one to now is amazing!

    Kochikens on
  • LittleBootsLittleBoots Registered User regular
    edited December 2009
    :whistle: I know where you're working, I know where you're working! :whistle:

    LittleBoots on

    Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
  • valerycevaleryce Registered User regular
    edited December 2009
    Your new reel looks 999999999999% better with your camera reworks. I can really, really see the animation. And it looks good!!

    Congrats on getting the job.

    valeryce on
    Art Blog!
    I like drawing, cartoons, cookies, and shiny pointy objects.
  • LaCabraLaCabra MelbourneRegistered User regular
    edited December 2009
    I would just like to say Benson is a marvellous animator. I can only hope he still has time for Impromptu Games when he's over at Big Unspecified Studio.

    LaCabra on
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