retro looking character and background

[ThatsNotAllFolks]

this is my attempt at a retro looking character in 1940s-50s style in this micro-short. Let me know what you think about the look of the scene and character, and of course the animation. Thanks.

[funksmaname]

Nice style and character - I think it's too smooth though - try animating on twos. Especially, the tie you used dynamics on seems to be flailing about uncontrollably and is really difficult to read. Due to the really fast movement you could also add some quite extreme stretching on some frames to help follow the action, when he jumps in and when he runs out.

As an aside, you might also consider renaming your character - there's a computer game/character called 'Joe Danger', probably not an issue either way...

[ThatsNotAllFolks]

Nice style and character - I think it's too smooth though - try animating on twos. Especially, the tie you used dynamics on seems to be flailing about uncontrollably and is really difficult to read. Due to the really fast movement you could also add some quite extreme stretching on some frames to help follow the action, when he jumps in and when he runs out.

As an aside, you might also consider renaming your character - there's a computer game/character called 'Joe Danger', probably not an issue either way...

Thankyou for taking the time to watch and critique. That is what I am looking for here. I would now love to see how it looks animated in twos. Whats the quickest way to change it to twos? Can I just go to frame zero and then select "2" from the pull down menu and then click play to tell the difference? Also, how would you fix the out of control tie? Should I just turn off dynamics and animate it myself?

Thanks again.

[ThatsNotAllFolks]

I have made some changes to the animation. I believe I correctly changed the animation to "Twos", I also applied a bit more stretch on the fall, and lastly I animated the tie movement myself instead of bone dynamics. Please let me know what you think.

[funksmaname]

i think it looks way way better! well done.
You probably know by now, but to change to twos, you select all the keys, right click them and change the interval there. The drop down above is the default setting for new keys, not existing ones.

[slowtiger]

It's not as simple as "just set everything on two's". First, you didn't use "real" two's, since the physic (hat, tie) is still on one's. Second, the animation lacks that certain snappiness which in the 50's was achieved by a dynamic mix of holds and very fast movements.

I tried and tweaked your animation by erasing lots of frames and re-timed the rest. See if you like that:
http://slowtiger.de/examples/ToughGuyJoe2.mov

I did this in TVPaint, here's how the timeline looks:

As you see, it's not a simple "on two's" but a mix of short holds, twos and ones.

I like your style!

[ThatsNotAllFolks]

It's not as simple as "just set everything on two's". First, you didn't use "real" two's, since the physic (hat, tie) is still on one's. Second, the animation lacks that certain snappiness which in the 50's was achieved by a dynamic mix of holds and very fast movements.

I tried and tweaked your animation by erasing lots of frames and re-timed the rest. See if you like that:
http://slowtiger.de/examples/ToughGuyJoe2.mov

I did this in TVPaint, here's how the timeline looks:

As you see, it's not a simple "on two's" but a mix of short holds, twos and ones.

I like your style!

Thankyou for taking the time to further break this down for me. I like the snappiness of those holds contrasting the quick movements. I don't think I put it on twos correctly because I didn't high light the keyframes to make the change. I will try the twos ones and holds recipe. thank you Slowtiger!