everybody,
this is healthy amazon that the blender institute and we want to do the series
that are essentially animation feedback and in
order to demonstrate what that looks like,
We wanna
make
a demo version of it that is essentially us or
me reviewing something older than that I already did.
So right now, just imagine that you guys submitted this in or a version of me from
three years ago submitted this and I'm just going to go over it and review it.
So let's first take a look.
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah.
All right,
these are
about 11 seconds
and
and this is from grand a llama. So the idea is that he's chewing something that he
seemingly enjoys
but he notices something more
beautiful that he would rather have
those are kind of the acting beads,
spits it out.
Yeah.
And the electric fence stops him from being able to jump over it.
So
I think my first big note, like a broader note, acting note
is that he feels extremely stationary
in the beginning
meaning that you have these
like this pose is fine
and
this is okay, but it's kind of
you see the
whoops, there we go.
Getting used to this thing here,
you see where the body is
and then
if you go back a bit,
it's very similar
just just if you think about the silhouette.
So I think the first thing that I noticed was definitely that
this could have been taken to other extremes the the post of the character.
So from here in the beginning from all the chewing from realizing
and then here is a pretty decent post.
There we go.
We're kind of allowing him to stretch in this direction
and
kind of break up the silhouette a little bit with the feet.
So it feels a bit different than before.
But this could be taken away further.
So when he does this realization, you could have it um
way broader.
I mean to the degree that if you guys remember from
tangled the horse that kind of behaves like a dog,
you could have these really broad, like where he's uh,
he's so excited about what he just saw that he like runs into a circle
and then comes back roughly in the same
location or anything where really doesn't feel this
grounded,
especially if if you look at the feet,
so they kind of don't move.
So these three ft over here, keep, keep hitting the same button. Sorry,
these here
are exactly the same throughout the shot
could be pushed further.
So I'm gonna go over my notes.
So I,
I went over this and I did it as if I was critiquing another animator essentially.
Um, and this is something you would see in dailies or weeklies depending on,
depending on the studio
and you can see here that
um,
that's a lot of notes.
So all of these notes
Have to do with only these 11 seconds.
Some of them are broader than others, some of them have to do with acting choices.
Some of them have to do with
particular poses. Some of them are about
maybe some knee popping that's going on.
So let's just go over them.
Um
So first up you got
got the acting notes
that he could get excited, he could get way more excited.
So like taking dance steps or walking on a quick circle like an excited
dog just before realizing that what he's eating right now isn't that great?
So he kind of spits it out,
that's
could make it way stronger.
The
the front legs and hind legs are bending a lot.
You're getting this kind of bent going on here
and
if you do that too much, I mean for the hind legs it's not that bad,
but for the front legs in particular, it just feels like they're not,
they're not really taking on the weight of the character.
And if it's always kind of bendy then
kind of loses a bit of the realism.
Not that not that having it be kind of Bendy is making it more cartoon.
Your fun is just uh
it's kind of a
lost opportunity to take it up a notch into the realism.
Ah
for example, if you, if you were to like we are by pads.
So this is quite a bad, but if we are standing,
we won't necessarily be standing in such a way that both our needs are kind of bending
because it just gets kind of exhausting.
It's, it's not as efficient as having standing on one leg,
like making roughly most of the weight go over
one leg and then that leg is completely straight,
meaning that it doesn't have, it doesn't require that much muscle,
it's just kind of balancing on it or if you have both of them kind of straight,
uh if you have both of them kind of bendy then
just needlessly wasting a lot of energy and it and it looks kind of weird
during this entire shot.
The first shot here,
that is kind of kind of a problem.
The hind legs are a little bit different in that they have like the
they already have this kind of inherent abandon them.
So
you don't mind as much, but it's definitely in the front legs that you notice more.
Okay, next note. Um
so in
in some of these instances we're missing a lot of the screen, right eye.
And this is this is a little bit inherent in the character him or herself
gets himself. It is a good guy
meaning that right here,
yeah.
Where is the eye?
And this is this is something where
if you have a character where the eyes are kind of, you know, if I'm,
if I'm drawing the front view of him,
then he might actually have kind of kind of like fishes or whatever.
He might, he end up might,
he might have,
wow,
it's hard to draw with this thing.
Getting used to a tablet here.
He might have eyes that are totally on opposite ends.
Um
which
it becomes kind of a problem. You have to cheat it.
And you see this in a lot of um a lot of three dimensional uh animation
movies where you have a character that might
look really good when you're just drawing him.
But then when when they put him in three D.
His eyes are kind of wonky.
So you just need to be aware of that every single time you put him in front of a camera,
you need to fake it towards the camera.
And in this case definitely coral.
Uh the llama is definitely that kind of a character.
You need to be constantly aware of that
in some instances it's uh
it's fine. You just cut out, pick your battles. But in other instances
this nose
go so far that you have this awkward moment when it's
not enough. I
but it's there's a little bit of the I still there
but you might as well just choose to make it totally disappear
or try to cheat a little bit further towards the camera.
So you can get that. I again,
a little bit of a side note
and this is this really is a little bit of a side note.
But I thought you might guys, you guys might find it a bit interesting.
The this the third
the third coming on this it featured a lot a
lot of highlights and in that in that particular rig,
the, it was more or less up to the animator to make sure where the highlights were
and then um sometimes you have to talk to whoever's
lighting the scene and then you have to kind of
pick your ground like what what would make the best sense for the scene overall.
But
here
this definitely would
could use some highlighting.
So if you were to bring out that I a little bit
right away, it pops out way better.
It's not in particular like an animation animation note.
But if you have a rig that has that
has that option
or just making it by yourself, then you,
this is definitely something to think about.
Um a lot in a lot of cases you do cheat it by the way,
the the light doesn't have to come exactly from that angle.
You want to have it. So it's um
at least plausible.
But it brings out so much character. Just from looking at the eyes,
mouth shape
could be clearer definitely.
And all of these cases here,
so he's got a bulge. Let me change the color,
it's kind of bulge going on here
because he's eating.
And then that bulge,
it's not really clear like the
the mouth shape was like this is kind of jagged
and then it kind of goes down here and then you have a
little bit of bulge here and it's not really clear what's going on.
Um
Or it could be clear, I should say.
Let me just take that away.
So what you could do
is just try to emphasize the bulge here.
You can take it, take it maybe even further
ah
by placing it all the way over here
and then have the
the kind of that part of the mouth have it just be a little bit clearer what's going on.
Think that would work way better.
The there's this forward drift in the torso
and
it's kind of weird. Kind of looks weird.
Let me kill that.
So let me see if you guys can see it if you notice it.
So I'm playing it now
and again
and again.
So what is happening is from frame one to frame
10. No, it's probably more than that.
It's like from frame one
Maybe 23, something like that. So it's roughly in the 1st 2nd
there's this drift going on in the torso where he's kind of going forward
and
it's not that that in and of itself is bad. It's just that it's so isolated.
It's so totally, it feels like there's this just this one bone and there's one axis.
It's moving and that's it. There's no other connection with the rest of the body.
It doesn't connect with like a breath or anything like that.
Um
So that's definitely something to take a look at.
Yeah,
Overall in the 1st 2nd,
definitely adding some breath into him
would help just bring out a little bit like for
like one little breath as even if he's doing like
Mhm.
Yeah,
it could be kind of excited or relaxed,
but just one simple breath
that kind of bulges there, there's a little bit and tucks it back in,
it would just blend a little bit more with
that motion that's going on in the beginning.
Um
As much before, definitely between frame one and 81,
we have all the way over here,
the feet are way to plant it.
The only time that anything with the feet changes is disposed.
This process actually quite nice. I
I think that
the mouth is insanely creepy here, but you know,
I'm just talking about the silhouette, I think even with the silhouette,
even though the joy is coming down,
which visually means to us that the
it's coming down and taking away some of the silhouette from the neck,
that maybe it could have been cheated the other way a little bit more.
So just drag and stretch that had a little bit further out,
so we don't lose too much of that neck.
Next up
around frame 12,
there's a weird crease
in the full cheek.
I think that's
I think that's 10 gentle with what I was saying earlier.
Okay,
yeah, so there's this really weird crease going on here,
you know,
perhaps it's more of a rigging thing, but
when you're doing these critiques
with his feet back.
It's important not to
be thinking in those terms because this is
it's about the end result.
It's not necessarily about like uh over thinking why or
how or who is to blame or anything like that.
That's uh
doesn't really matter.
It's uh looking at it and figuring out what's going on. What's
what's the issue of the end result?
And right now
I keep hitting the wrong button. I'm sorry.
There's this weird, let me take down the thickness of it
getting kind of thick.
There's this weird
thing going on with the
with the mouth where it kind of goes here and you were expected to end maybe here.
And you know,
it could be taken down taken further to the front
just to get the cheek a little bit bigger.
But there's definitely this weird
increase that's happening right here.
And
yeah, that I mean if it if it were just up to the rape not being capable of doing this,
then that would just mean that the animator needs to
go frame by frame and sculpt that stuff away.
Yeah, look at that cheek.
Really weird how it increases.
And it really it feels like the cheek itself is being influenced by a top and a bottom.
But then those things don't kind of blend that well,
overall they kind of have this one place where you have a boundary going on
and that makes it
I feel really separated.
So okay, next note
At around 25-29
25-29
we have
screen. Right. Lower eyelid is moving way more than the top eyelet
which feels very unnatural. All right let's take a look at that.
25 - 29.
Yeah definitely.
Whoa Yeah going into that expression it's just
it could have taken
could have used more love
screen. Right. Lower eyelid is moving more than the top eyelet.
I'm pretty sure that's a typo
I think I think I meant the screen left not screen right.
In any case I can just
you could just directly point to the issue.
So here are the eyelids and you have the top
and the bottom and here the because of the nose
you kind of can't see the bottom I live here and this is where it gets a bit tricky.
Do you try to cheat the nose away just so you get a little bit more expression going on?
Um
highlights are definitely needed here.
Kind of kind of miss them here.
Um
But look at look at this
eyelet top eyelet here
and look how it kind of disappears
only like really disappears
on the screen right?
But it's not really doing the same on the screen left even though it
feels like it's part of the same move it's part of the same expression.
The expression change
so that kind of doesn't sync up
also.
Um You might notice it from your own eyeballs and from your own eyelids is that
the top pilot is doing majority of the moving.
So from all the way up to all the way down.
And if you even if you try to just look in the mirror and you try to um
close to the, just think about the upper eyelid, go all the way down, all the way up,
all the way down, all the way up.
Now. Try to do the same thing with the lower eyelid.
You can't, there is no muscle that can take that lower eyelid up and down as you want.
So
if you
if you do it
in the within the animation and it's too prominent and it feels really weird
uh in this case it's supposed to be a part of
a move where he kind of realizes something and like the whole
whole face relaxes.
Ah
but because there's this really big move here only within
the lower eyelids and there's even a really bad intersection here
and then then there's a couple of frames until
everything else starts sinking up.
There's a weird lag going on between between those two things,
you know that
really needs to be fixed.
There's nothing wrong with the first things happening at the
I and there's kind of a rule of thumb,
like somebody realizes something, the reaction happens first in the eye
like eyelids essentially
and then uh so the eyeballs eyelids and then you work your way from there.
So there's the eyebrows and then it goes down to like the cheek and the mouth.
Um
So like when you're doing a reaction, you don't go.
So it's not first in the uh the door.
Yeah or whatever, it's it's 1st,
1st you open up here and everything starts peeling peeling back.
Um
But depending on the situation,
you need to really think about
what is the delay between?
Are we talking one frame to frame three frame and it's different for each one.
Uh If you take it too far in either direction, it looks kind of fake or it looks
weird.
Okay,
here is definitely one issue that I see.
So this is
it's a little bit of a shame, but
definitely for this kind of a surprised look,
you would want to cheat the entire head.
So we would get a little bit more of the screen, right?
I we are essentially only seeing a bit of the iris and we should see the pupil.
This is definitely that kind of a moment.
And yet again, this would make it
more pretty.
Who?
And then if you actually saw this thing then yeah, that would be nice,
but more
um 25 to 20 to 32
yep, I just covered that. So that's fine. Next up
35-42,
Get into this beat faster. Okay,
so 35
two.
So yeah, so this entire reaction.
Um
First of all it could be broader meaning that he only
has it within the kind of head area and the neck area
and you know,
it could just be taking
taken further, definitely. It feels too isolated to stationary the entire body.
It's like a full shot. So we we want to get these broad actions going on.
So you should definitely get um not just it would be like, whoa,
but if you want to want to have it that localized,
it's still going to slow. So shave off one or two frames, definitely.
So 37 - 59 front legs, like a knee pops.
That's a common thing. Me pops
every animal's brain.
37-50
2 59.
Okay, let's take a look at those knee pops.
Yeah,
yep. So
for those of you that are not
perhaps noticing it.
So we got the
first of all, they're kind of bent. But besides that,
oh,
there's a lot of these,
it's kind of, it's not that big
and it's not that they should be totally stationary, but
it gives,
it gives away the illusion that they are holding up
the body by having these tiny little weird pops.
And
it just, it's kind of the inherent problem with having I case iK constraints,
they are great to use, but they're not a perfect solution.
So you have to sometimes go frame by frame and fix these little things that vibrate or
do whatever.
Yeah, it doesn't look that great.
Um I don't think that that's the kind of stuff I
noticed definitely and the more you can shave away that stuff
share away the more you can fix that kind of stuff better overall.
I mean this is uh this is an accumulative process so there is
there is no one thing that is the most important thing that
you need to fix and then everything will work out fine.
It's like no you got a lot of different things and
a lot of their levels and the more you try to fix
um
to make everything complement each other and
smooth like go together kind of smoothly
than the more appealing. It's going to be
44-50 44 - 56 Post should be way more exaggerated
both to make it not feel so stationary compared to the earlier one.
But also to strengthen the next one
44 - 60 c. So
that's definitely the
kind of realization post.
Alright. And on 64-73 that it's just a bit of a side note
uh
64 - 73.
So that is between here
and the side note is breathing in sound effect would strengthen this moment.
And uh yeah that's true.
That is definitely. So what we have here is
he's
breathing in and then spitting out and we can hear the spitting out
so it makes it feel a little bit weird that we're not hearing the
at least on some level doesn't mean it has to be
overly exaggerated but it would definitely help out a bit,
you can even see there there is some breathing going on where the,
the upper torso is kind of taking in the oxygen.
Oh man,
this,
this face looks horrible, right?
It's definitely something that could have needed a little bit more time to work on
62 screen right leg twists weirdly,
that's here,
let's take a look at that.
Yeah, you see that.
So here, I'm looking at the screen, right front leg.
So from this moment
there's this twist that happens
and it doesn't even, it doesn't look like it has any reason and it's just,
it's just a thing with the IK that happened
um you got to take a look at that stuff and and make sure
that if a twist happens for no reason and it's kind of Israel visible,
then you just go into those five frames or whatever
it is and just frame by frame them back.
That's usually the pole target of the Ik constraint.
So 71 push the post, more silhouette can be taken to more extremes
use the feet,
these are my notes but written
a few days ago, so I'm kind of reminiscing
what I meant by that
but yeah, definitely, I, I totally agree. So
that this is the post, this is the post,
so push the post more silhouette can be taken to more extreme shoes to feed.
Yeah, because what is happening right now is you, I could have
totally made the hind legs could go a bit
different and go into a totally different pose.
Even that one front leg that didn't move that totally.
He could have, he could have like uh
taking like a couple of mini steps really quickly to kind of get into a broader post.
Um
again, I would totally try to accelerate
the kind of length of him,
definitely take the head and just
pull it a little bit more, a little bit further
because this is kind of the anticipation before the big spits
All right.
And in that, same
within that same note,
there is also the note that
that mouth shape and this is kind of where I was getting at,
it looks so bad, it looks horrible.
Um
it's definitely could have, could have, it just would have been too much time.
But look at that stuff, look at how this weird mouth ship.
I mean this is just ridiculous.
It's like something from a horror movie.
So this could have been just
cleaned up
nicely
in an you in any case, but there's also the fact that it's, it's kind of in shadow
and uh
we see a little bit of the grass, but we don't really see the tongue for example,
so maybe the tongue could have could have come out just a little bit to try to
just enough,
so we see a little bit of it and it could have
been grabbing the grass just before spinning it or something like that,
I don't know,
that could have been interesting.
Um
and when,
when he does that post perhaps uh like flare the nostrils a little bit more
because then he's really taking in all
the oxygen before he's using anticipated out,
so
really
kind of lends itself to opening up everything here.
Um
Yeah, the,
the ears
don't seem to be
well incorporated
into this whole thing,
which is a little bit of a shame
um
because if you look at the ears from here
from this kind of reaction,
you have the ears changing their really dynamic with is lama
or they should be really part of, part of the way he gets his expressions,
so that's great. But then
what happens is
it looks like they're not even animated, they kinda
looks like somebody forgot that and made them.
So this is definitely a total shame. Um
it's a
missed opportunity, I should say,
where they could be totally incorporated into this anticipation.
One of them just disappears and the other one is just left totally um
totally rigid and kind of just goes with the
post instead of making something new out of it.
And there is also something that has always bugged me when I look back at this,
that's definitely the fact that
it's too angry
right now. You look at his face,
look at his eyes and he just feels a bit
angry and there's no reason for him to feel angry.
It's just
that when you have bulging eyes
and they need to have these kind of to hemisphere ask things
that are kind of closing them and opening with the eyelids.
Uh you have this tendency when they are trying to open up
but they're only going halfway or own quarter or something like that
to have this
appearance
of him going like this
a little bit angry
and uh
there are usually some controllers or there should
be some controllers there where you can tweak it
and in this case there are desperately needed totally.
So
just trying to take this shape and just try to
sculpted a little bit differently.
So you don't get that
that evilness.
So that that might mean that you are totally just pushing everything into this
into this area here.
But it's going to be worth it.
Just show there
even if it's for a frame
um if he's
if he's going through some emotion and he's blinking and
within the blink there's one frame where he's kind of evil
and just take you need to take that away,
there's no reason for him to be perceived as angry or whatever when he's not.
If that makes sense.
Uh also um Yeah, this is kind of the case where I guess
I guess it's OK that here, the decision was made to just
uh make us lose the screen left eye,
but you know, when you, when you have the chance to incorporate both eyes,
it's it can only strengthen the
the emotion, but it might not spring to strengthen the
the scene or the staging or the silhouette or whatever.
So you gotta you gotta pick your battles
motion blur
At frame 75
of
Yeah, that's true. That's a good note.
So
sometimes motion blur is great. Sometimes it's uh
horrible. It just kind of ruins what you have there and it doesn't help you in any way.
So here, for example,
You have 71, 72 73
like you asked before everything starting, but it hasn't started yet, but yet,
but the motion blower is kicking up
so the motion blur knows what's about to happen,
but we don't know and uh it's giving us
a sensation of something that we're
that's not supposed to be there yet. So it's
so it's basically giving away
What's about to happen one friend too early.
And then in some cases like here,
the difference between here here and then here,
it's not that great. It's not that big.
Not not enough to excuse this amount of blurring.
This is just,
you know, when you when you give
when you give your software your computer or
whatever free rein on just doing it automatically.
This is what happens.
It kind of
takes away information that should be their kind of
destroys a little bit what you want to have their
and then this is horrific. This is just
uh
I mean,
it would serve more purpose to just uh take the frame totally
rendered without motion blur and then going and smearing it yourself.
Or at least you you have the amount and you have the direction correct and all that
look
pretty weird.
Another note
and this is something that I never noticed before.
Uh he spits out the grass so he spits on the ground.
Uh something happened at some point apparently. So when he's spitting out, uh
the grass isn't even coming from his mouth,
it looks like it got shifted upwards. Or
I don't know
in some
well, from our point of view, it's upwards,
which is wrong. So, I mean, it definitely should be coming from here.
Okay, let me get some color into that
definitely from here and what we have is from here, which makes no sense.
Um
Yeah, so that's something that
is a complete failure.
This is this is also why it's it's
good to go frame by frame.
Oh,
because if you play it
and you don't notice it right away because I mean you were thinking about a
lot of variables and you get kind of numb to it then at some point,
if your frame by frame it and you realize it, you can't unsee it
and
it will haunt you forever,
77 mouth and the grass spinning don't match
from the camera's perspective I just did that
83-85 feels like the screen right knee is leading the action,
83-80 Yeah, so it's when he goes into the jump.
Yeah, that's totally true.
So,
what we have right now, is
this this in the front leg by the way? So this uh screen right knee.
It's as if the decision is being made
in this knee
and the body is like, all right, let's go.
Let's follow that knee.
Um
So that should definitely be
taking care of meaning that just allow it to be
a bit straighter and rotated more towards the camera.
So you don't have this really broad motion going on there.
And I would say definitely allow the head
area to be the lead into that jump.
Yeah, definitely.
Okay.
Now, regarding Hind legs and nine,
frame 90 Hind legs should be straightened more to give the jump more power.
Yeah. This uh this is something regarding body mechanics that I'm
always so fascinated with and it has to do with our perception of something.
So, if we, for example, were to
at the
there's a moment when
they are coiled up like springs as much as they can
say that there's something weird going on here.
They actually shit.
Keep coiling
All the way to frame 88
all the way here.
So if I go back a bit.
So here they are.
And then as we go forward they actually they should be coiling more down,
capturing more power
and then when we release that power
it doesn't
it would feel more powerful if we
lengthened and strengthened
um
this leg. So if we allowed it to go even further
closer to where it was, well that's and that's too far.
There you go.
Somewhere around here,
even if it's only for a frame
and we just get a little bit more
power into it.
I'm learning how to do these reviews. So
definitely
bear with me,
let's say this word
coiled up a little bit more,
you just give way more
power to it
and then even then you could just allow it to linger a little bit more.
So it doesn't
doesn't go right away into into its kind of tucked mode
and then you allow it to go
over there
and if I can
destroy this
Mhm.
It's hard to see, but I think it definitely gives more power to the jump.
It's a small subtle thing,
but you know that and you can do exactly the same thing with the other leg.
So just delay it a little bit more and allowed to go a little bit straighter,
just so we feel that there's the entire force of that kind of coil
was released all the way,
okay,
90 straighten the screen, right front leg a bit to minimize the knee pop.
That's the same frame 90.
Oh yeah, there's this
horrific knee pop going on,
so screen, right
knee, there's definitely something weird going on there.
That's that's where there's kind of,
that's where it starts feeling like it's leading the jump
because it's getting really bent to the side of here
and it's still kind of bent to the side
and then you have this kind of pop going on
and then right away from from within one frame,
you go straight away into the kind of more natural tucked in thing
tucked in well within a jump.
So like if you're mid air when your feet aren't straight, they're not totally in,
but they're kinda half tucked in.
It doesn't,
so it feels like a knee pop essentially. So there's a lot going on.
It's just not good.
Uh sometimes you can use that for your benefit,
but in this case it's uh doesn't really do anything for us.
So
number 91.
Number anyone
frame anyone
for momentum needs to seems to be lost right after the jump,
you should go further
and even a bit higher.
Let's just take a look at
the jump itself.
I think the grease pencil is actually slowing everything down.
I can't take a look at it because there's a delay
every time I play,
wow. Okay, let me try taking this away,
interesting.
Weird, some weird artifacts.
So every time I try to play this little clip,
it always hiccups at exactly the same point,
which is at the jumping point. But okay in any case I can frame by frame it it's fine.
Yeah,
it definitely seems to lose.
So there's a lot of momentum being built there,
but that momentum right away doesn't go anywhere.
It kind of
jumping you kind of slows down and
and starts skipping
and they just kind of doesn't sync up.
And I think
honestly this kind of this skipping, it's not
bad in and of itself,
but it's just
um
it's too weak. He should do less skips less hops
but have them be higher and a little bit more powerful.
So it's a matter of choosing that over these tiny little ones.
I think that definitely applies to the next shot where he's kind of skipping,
skipping, skipping
and then he tries to go for a big jump,
but it doesn't
from from just looking at these skips,
it doesn't even feel like he could jump over the fence.
Um
So you should definitely
take all this energy and to like bigger, bigger jumps,
um
92 top eyelid gives him an angry look that is
really similar notes earlier.
That was kind of re occurring thing. So here his his eye was closed and it opened up
but as it opened up,
it has this weird anger to it that I even though
in the next frame it kind of goes into innocence.
And even though it's only one frame um this is definitely some of the
stuff you could improve on because it just leaves you with this quick impression of
anger for no reason
and it's better to make everything sync up,
remember? This is just um
a lot of still images being played together so the more of them that
sink together and feel like they flow together and make sense in that way,
the better you are,
The 93 miles shape could be clearer. This is
similar to the note before
93. Yeah.
Yeah. A lot of rigid stuff going on here.
This definitely could be clearer and happier.
Doesn't really feel like a happy
mouth shape.
So it needs to fit a little bit more with the emotion that's going on.
There's some exaggeration from 93 to 95.
So from here. So when he does this jump
there seems to be some exaggeration going on
with neck bone that's really
at the base of the neck where the neck gets extended a little bit
and then it kind of goes back into its original form,
which I mean there's nothing wrong with doing
a little squash and stretch and and cheating stuff
but the problem is
in these frames here. Don't don't
don't don't don't don't
it, it's obvious like you can see the thing happening.
It's beyond just
looking like it shrinks down
from like really seeing that to do.
It shrinks down.
Um
So maybe
not have it go that far, Maybe play around with
not just having it be this one bone, but maybe blend a lot of those bones together.
So they kind of
I'll try to go for what you're, what you're achieving,
but you can also just
not make it go that fast back and just allow it to go back the next time.
He needs to go into a compression,
which is just a few frames later when he goes
into his next jump and it compresses for that,
then you can kind of slip it down
93-95, exaggerated length of the neck is too obvious. Okay, just said that 99,
legs could be straightened more for a more exaggerated jump.
That is a really similar note to earlier and this
I guess applies to just about all his skipping,
definitely the front legs, I would say, because the front legs
constantly have this kind of bent to them
and it just looks like the elbows or the clavicles,
this is the clavicle,
the
I'm forgetting them.
The kind of floating shoulder that that these kind of animals have.
Um
If you just don't animate it,
then it feels like you just have these tiny little things
that are taking all these
all the weight and all the responsibility of that area.
But in reality they are using their shoulders a lot and that
that's what gives it that extra oomph of of realism because the,
the leg itself.
I mean, if you look at the leg here,
it's not, I mean,
this is not the leg from here or whatever here and here, and this is
the leg keeps going. It actually keeps going all the way here.
And if you just, if you keep ignoring this area,
then you're left with something that feels really unnatural and unrealistic.
Um and I can see that that's kind of missing
A bit, not 100%, but it's missing a bit in these little skips
and in some cases the in those skips,
they don't use their shoulders that much.
Uh
but you may need to exaggerate it just so you
can kind of feel like the whole body is involved.
Yeah, let's just take that away.
117 2 - 67
staging could be stronger by cheating.
Yeah, So this has to do with just the overall staging of
of this little scene here.
Um so it says stating could be stronger by cheating. The angle a bit,
the llama is going,
so the lama is going a bit more towards the camera right now,
we we really lose the face and this is this is true.
Um
because I think if you think about it right now in three dimensions,
it makes perfect sense.
If you look at it from the top view,
it really is a
let's see,
let's say it's a top view and this is the fence,
The llama really is here
going in this direction,
perpendicular.
Uh My vocabulary is non existent right now. Uh But it's like
he's t boning it, he's heading straight for it.
But if you think about it, there's no real reason why that would be needed right now.
I mean, unless the story really needed it, but it doesn't seem like it does,
it needs it anyway.
So what you what you could do is just uh
cheated really. So let's say you have this going on here
and he's going more like maybe like this.
You know, maybe it's it's a matter of just cheating 15° or whatever.
Um
It would just give allow the camera a little bit to see more of him.
And then even then you could cheat the camera a little bit more towards him.
So yeah,
something to think about.
So 133,. 133.
Here we go.
Um
So the happy, happy, excited mouth ship isn't really clear.
So he should be super happy here and excited. And this has to do with the kind of
little skip cycle that's going on from here.
It doesn't seem like he's really that happy.
And I mean the kind of lighting doesn't necessarily facilitate that
because you see a lot of black stuff going on here,
but that's fine.
But definitely the mouth shape is not helping.
So that could be worked on.
I think also the eyelid here is a little bit wonky
but that could be worked on.
Um
I'll say one thing about the this little skip cycle, there is some variety in it.
It's not it's not a copy paste, like every time it doesn't skip,
the height varies and the skips like the speed and intensity and all that,
it varies a little bit.
Like we're talking
5% to 10% maybe max
and it could be more like 25% of a difference.
Which which would help it a lot.
I was definitely
fewer steps
but higher.
And
because we we need to feel like he could jump over that fence.
So at one point he needs to come so high that at least half his body
is that that fence line at the top fence line.
That would really sell the idea that he can just
jump it.
Um
His forward momentum is also insanely slow and it slows
down way too much here when he's going for the
the final push
before he gets over it.
But that's coming up I think. Yeah,
just
talked about that
and yeah, if you want to
not have fewer skips necessarily.
But you you wanna you should at least
have the forward momentum be faster and stronger
and have the skips b a bit higher
and that might mean you need to restate the camera.
Um If you want to have a still then you might need to bring
it back just a little bit or vice versa or even like a mixture.
So you might need to have a camera move or whatever,
but that's like a whole another thing.
277,.
Uh spacing out of the final jump feels
wrong and the electric hit isn't exaggerated enough.
one solution for that might be to cut away from
Cut away frame 1 80.
Okay, so for looking, let's just clean up this little mess or go.
So he's he's going for this final jump and he goes down
and it comes up.
Yeah, I,
yep, that is not good spacing that could have been worked on a bit.
So how do I explain that?
An easy and an easy way when we're talking about this quadra pad,
um
Let's just talk about the what we could talk about the hip
area or we could just go for the center of mass.
Let's just go for center mass. I mean, I guess that's
you see enough.
So we're gonna do a little drawing of center of mass and we are gonna lock
the which here we go.
We're going to like the frame
and
guess green would make more sense.
Mhm,
vibrant green, dark green, vibrant.
Okay, I'm gonna eyeball where the center of mass is here.
So, I'm gonna say it's like here
sometimes
and we're going to increase the thickness of it. Okay,
Next train.
All right. We went a bit down, let's say it's
it's roughly here.
Next
Okay. It's like here,
mm hmm. It's here
and now we're going to hear
and we're going way up here.
Now we're there
and now we're here,
this is center of mass of let me draw the area
center of mass
of
this
area
roughly.
So what is happening now?
We are going up there and, you know, center of mass of this is maybe here
and we're talking here.
So,
do you guys see the problem?
So this is the spacing.
So the spacing is
Kind of Wonky.
So let's make another one
that's maybe
hot pink Pablo style.
And we cannot just
draw over what's what's happening. So
it looks kind of weird. It looks like it's going here. It's going up.
But then it's going here there
and then there's a huge gap and then it's close to each other.
This is definitely
bad spacing.
So,
you know, as it's going down,
it's okay. But it doesn't move forward enough. So it's kind of losing momentum
as you're going down.
And then when it goes up,
kind of goes straight up,
but it should like
do a jump. But it doesn't So it kind of goes slowly up,
but it doesn't go forward
and then it goes forward.
The kind of It kind of does it? The jump after he pushed himself up.
And then there's this insane jump that happens
this is really where the spacing is in trouble.
And then after that he goes a little bit further
and then for some reason
his momentum slows down a bit and this is before the
electric fence has actually done anything.
What I suspect might have happened is also that
the electric fence was supposed to start on this frame
but it starts to frame too late. So
yeah.
Yeah, I think that's
probably part of it
in any case the spacing is not good enough
and then
when the electricity pushes him back,
I would definitely, so first of all, I would just take this frame
and throw it away.
So just go from frame. So it's 178 on 79
And then 181
Just skip that one frame
and then
from here
all the way to the landing.
It's definitely one at least one frame too much.
So there needs to also be trimmed their, it's just it's just a little bit too slow.
Okay, and I just did that note,
187-1 90 Okay. From here
to hear. So him kind of landing and resting
the notice not
not fast enough and overall the silhouette feels very stationary.
Yeah.
Mhm.
Mhm,
yep. So
I would say
he needs to come up quicker
and then just kind of assume that post, if we're going for that,
I would say also that the
it would have been fine to kind of maybe smash the spine a bit down.
So the spine also gets,
gets a play in this whole resting thing.
The resting thing right now is kind of just rocking back and forth.
Um
Which the coach
instead of thinking of it more like silly putty.
Which could have been kind of more interesting,
more cartoony I guess where like the spine is also
squished so he kind of rest as he's resting.
It's also a little bit of like an up and down motion.
Mhm.
But it definitely is at least the frame to
to do
Hong kong Hong kong should be like a general
great explanation.
1 89 to 1 95 offset behind legs overlap more 1 89.
Let's see. Yeah.
So as the hind legs have kind of like the body, the bottom body,
bottom part of the body has hit the floor ground
and the hind legs kind of go down with it.
They are doing it roughly at the same time and they
tom
home.
So they're kind of they're what we would call twinning, their twinning. So they are
do you
doing it at exactly the same time? So they're going up and down and up and up. So the
the cattle settle that's going on definitely
offset that by one frame or two frames. So it would go drunk
or you know there's there's different ways of doing
it but just make sure that it's not,
it's not exactly the same, especially from the viewpoint of the camera.
So 192-207 pushed the upper eyelid corners
inwards to exaggerate the set last pathetic expression
for one.
Yeah
I guess that is the pathetic expression.
1 92. Yeah.
Yes
totally.
Yeah that would help out a lot I think
let's just just for fun, let's see what it looks like.
Uh
a little bit more thickness
and full opacity.
So if we okay first of all let's give him a little bit of a shiner
and even
a double thing going on
and let's say he
you got something like that, maybe that's too thick
girl.
Oh yeah I keep I keep thinking I have felt alone
film,
nope, I don't want Phil
let's just do it the old fashioned way,
definitely insane. You thick, let's see, let's just go down.
Yeah, also on the other side
the issue is also
yeah,
it's kind of inherent on both sides of it.
So we're looking at it from a distance now,
it definitely makes him a little bit more,
more pathetic,
more
sad I guess.
Um
1 95 try to cheat the head so we get a little bit more off the screen,
right eye which is essentially that post.
And yeah,
it's true could there is no reason for him to be a he's already in three quarters,
he could have been just a little bit more
towards the camera
One night if I have highlights in the eyes would help. I just did that two or 72 16.
The look needs to happen faster.
Cut one or 2 frames at least
two or seven.
Let's just get rid of that
to a seven is here
And then it goes to 2 16.
So it's
that expression change of being like
shocked after having been
not electrocuted because that would mean death but shocked
and then going into that next thing of like what was that?
That might have. Yeah definitely. It's too slow.
It's definitely too slow how he cannot
blinks into it. It's
it's okay the way he blinks or whatnot is just
and it's okay that it's a bit subtle.
I mean it doesn't that that moment doesn't have to be insanely broad where it's like
you know like what was that?
And then he kind of
goes towards the fence
but it's happening too slow.
Um
One okay 2 to 33 to 67.
2:33 2
to 67.
So it's essentially
him
um kind of standing up.
So I like that.
There is some I mean there's some good body mechanics going
on where he's uh he needs to shift this weight.
So it's not just a matter of him going from that
to totally being on four legs.
It's a little bit more like he needs to
first
uh kind of shift his weight over there,
get a front leg there then there he can use his way to just push it
on there and then now he needs to reposition his hind legs and push it forward.
It doesn't happen too slow. So I like the speed of it,
but there is um
there's the arc of the head and it may need to be a
little bit simplified because right now what's happening is you have the,
shall I reuse this pink pink thing, you're sure why not?
And let's just make it lock the frame
so
the head is coming from
here,
Okay, imagining the base of the head
and it goes kind of up. Okay, I did that completely wrong, let me
fix that.
So let's say here's the base of the head
and then
it goes kind of up
and then
I keep hitting this weird shortcut
goes down
down. Okay, let me just fill it in a little bit better
what's going down
and then kind of straight ish,
goes up
and then
yeah, it's a little bit jagged and weird.
Yeah,
then he goes down
and then he's kind of coming up
at the end of the shot
and it kind of slowing down. So
what we have happening here is that we have him
kind of
going
up
down,
up,
down, down, up
and that might need to be simplified
because this is the head is leading the action
and that's kind of the thing that's making this rhythm
and it's just a bit, it's both,
the spacing is a little bit jagged but there's also just the fact that he's kind of
wearing when we're coming up and down and up and down when he feels like he just uh
um you got interested in something and he's really focusing
on it and we just wanted to get there.
But by getting there just
um
that might mean it goes up down and up again, not up down, up down and down and up again.
It clarifies a little bit more his intention and how
How focused he is on that one thing.
So maybe
this whole section here where you're kind of going up here,
Maybe there's a way that that could be cut or simplified.
I'm not 100% sure how to do it.
This would need some experimentation.
So 2 35.
Here we go.
2 35.
There is a
yeah
there's intersection going on.
So the the
so the front leg here is just intersecting with the hind leg basically.
That's not good.
Um
2:37.2
2 56.
Which 37
56?
It's a screen, right front leg, weird knee twisting and popping.
So if we just look at the screen right front leg
which is this little buddy here.
So it goes,
yeah, okay,
so he's kind of putting his front leg there
to take on all this pressure,
but then at some point
it just twists
and it twists back,
wow all the way back
so it's actually facing the wrong way
and then bam it's the right way now.
Yeah, that's a huge,
that is a huge oversight,
wow,
If you look at it now, it's really just
pops, it's like breaking the leg
um
to 42 to 6 to 52. Head shake
is very subtle, almost missed, it could be pushed further with
which would help with the ears changing their posts.
Yes, I totally agree on that one
too.
So it's 2 42.
Yeah, so there's a head shake going on here
but
it's really subtle. So as he's kinda
going into standing up, he kind of brutal shakes his head a bit
and that um
that kind of takes away the crazy electric post for the
ears kind of shakes that away but it's too subtle.
It could definitely be exaggerated
and maybe that means
maybe
that means that this it needs its own beat.
Maybe it shouldn't be just exactly as he's kind of walking,
as he's kind of standing half standing up and kind of walking.
Maybe it would need its own beat.
So he like, I not stands up, doesn't shake and then continues
uh not sure. Or maybe you can just take it away completely. I kind of like it though
or maybe it's you can just have it be
insanely short but really broad so it really like,
like
it is right now it's coming
but it could be really
bigger and then maybe that it kind of bleeds into
uh the torso itself.
So the sheikh would start with the head but then it kind of roof goes down
the well know that I think about it, That would be really fun to see.
I feel kind of like a dog kind of dog that
gets a little bit wet and he's trying to shake it off
2 43, push the post further to 43. Where are you? I'm at it,
push the pose further, bringing the neck and head down.
Yeah,
yeah, the
the neck and head.
Yeah, because if they go down here
and if you're trying to simplify the
the kind of overall head arc,
that might actually make sense.
So to not make it go so much up here and rather just make it go way down further,
start shaking and then he can kind of come
up here from the sheikh
somewhere around there
and then from there it can go a little bit down and up for the end
perhaps.
Yeah.
Screen left front foot doesn't
peel off the ground nicely and doesn't give a strong enough push
Use the straight leg and exaggerated so it's 147
so it's as he is um
standing up so it says, screen left front leg.
Yeah, so it's this like here
and as it's kind of
going going yeah,
it definitely should peel off better.
So it is um it's planted now like planted and
now it's starting to take on some of this weight
and it needs to push this weight
back up so it's kind of like a
spring that's been coiled a bit
and now it needs to
press and push that body up
but you would expect then the next frame or even
this frame for it to be kind of straighter.
So it really is pushing it
so here it could be
really straight
but what happens is it's kind of still
a bit coiled
and then then the next frame it has almost the same kind of curvature to it,
but it's been moved
so it doesn't, it doesn't really feel like it's kind of pushing away and and then
um
yeah, it just feels like it's been kind of
moved for no reason
and this could be the matter of just two tiny little tweaks to to oppose
uh like one tweet to oppose on maybe two frames and it
could be definitely the matter of of looking at that thing happened and
believing that that foot
pushed the entire weight
and made the entire body mechanics work or not.
So
you should totally not underestimate how important that is.
Okay, 2 50-2-67 shoulders need to be incorporated into the walk right now.
The front legs don't seem to support the weight of the body very well.
Um
two bent, okay, so this is
this is a re occurring Note
2 52.
So this is essentially when he starts now walking towards the fence,
2 52. There we are.
Yeah. So as he takes this weight
the way it should transfer all the way up into his shoulder. So this leg at this point
should be straight
essentially should kind of just
take on the weight.
Who definitely they're like, look at that,
that leg,
it makes no sense.
And then
this leg now
kind of has planted planted his uh
well it's his front left leg.
And here it should definitely be carrying him. It shouldn't be
uh huh.
It's like if you're trying to walk but you're always trying to walk with bendy legs,
it's uh
feels weird.
I mean there is there is something to be said that he is um
he's trying to go down low,
but
so so he his uh front legs need to go down a bit just so he's
able to kind of go down into the fence and sniff it or whatever he's doing.
But this is too much spending.
I would
at very least I would go half and half with this
and right now that I mean this is this is actually pretty bad. I can demonstrate this
um
So the leg, the front leg that is in front of us right now.
So you have this going on.
But it looks like
Because this isn't this is kind of this is like 2/3 of the leg,
the rest of the leg is here
and it doesn't seem to be involved at all with
this
with this post.
So it just looks like this,
this entire bone area
has been just neglected for this particular moment,
Yep, Yep, Yep. And last note 52-67, which is the same,
yeah,
same time frame would be great to see the neck
and torso follow the line of action of the head.
So it feels more like a cartoony, curious creature led by the head or nose.
Okay,
yeah, totally agree with that.
So that just means that uh
from here from him,
kind of being curious about what's going on over there and he has a very clear
goal which is
to get all the way over here
with his head
and we know that the head and roughly the notes that's
going to be kind of the leading factor of that movement.
It would be great if
however you were to simplify that arc of movement
to try to make sure that the neck and then the
torso tries to kind of follow that a little bit.
Um
right now they're kind of disconnected,
Well
not disconnected, but they're kind of just doing their own thing
and especially if if you tighten it up and made it a little bit faster and broader,
that would,
that would definitely feel nice.
Okay,
so those were all the notes I had
um
that is a lot of different notes
and I could have probably spent more time on it, But you know we have to
um
we have to give some limit to the feedback.
I mean you know it can be important, it depends on how how thorough you want,
you want the feedback.
Uh but these are the kind of notes I would if somebody
were to ask me for feedback,
somebody that really like was in a project that I was working on,
a needed really good feedback.
This is the kind of level of feedback I would give them
and yeah, so I hope at least this was helpful on some level.
See you next time. Bye.