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Home Caregiving Course Character Animation

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 7:18 pm
by Makaramoto
First off, I want to thank all of the people of this forum who, without their knowing, have helped me tremendously at my job. I was tasked at the beginning of summer to figure out anime studio and bring it into our workflow. I've been watching this forum ever since, but just recently joined.I work for a media production team at a university and we wanted to introduce character animation. This project we were working with a home caregiving client to put together 15 course modules. We just recently finished all the courses after 8 months of work. At the end is a small bit I built for a business course. Now, that it is finished I wanted to show you guys some of my better animations I did for the course. If anyone is curious about my process, I'd be happy to share!

Keep in mind this is my first attempt at animation at all. So i know there are things wrong with it, however, I still would love feedback!

Hopefully, in the future, I'll be able to share some of my personal work and rigs, such as my ghost character which is my icon. But take a look! I couldn't have done it without the awesome resources of this forum. I'd like to see what you guys think!

One other thing, this is only a scratch reel, not one I would use for jobs, but if you guys have any suggestions as to how to put my reel together that would be great! (I.E. Do i put it with all my after effects? Should it have music? Should it be really short?)


Re: Home Caregiving Course Character Animation

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:50 pm
by 3deeguy
Welcome to the forum. If this is your first attempt you are talented. Your development will be rapid.

Re: Home Caregiving Course Character Animation

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:13 am
by Little Yamori
You're off to a great start. You have a good execution of your concept. From the reel it looks like a few transitions need to be a little tighter, and some of the "float" in the movements of some characters removed. But otherwise, congratulations on finishing your project, and keep at it. By the way, did you use Anime Studio for your voice actor's recording? It was crystal clear, really stood out nicely.

LY

Re: Home Caregiving Course Character Animation

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:42 pm
by willf
This is well done. About the only animation note I have is that the female character in the beginning needs a little up and down motion (and squash&stretch) added to her run cycle. Otherwise it looks nice.

Re: Home Caregiving Course Character Animation

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2015 4:13 pm
by Makaramoto
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I know the run cycle was a little rough. Hopefully this holiday season I can produce some sort of animated short on my own, where I'm not limited by the instructional designers concepts.

The voice acting was recorded in a professional studio. We've got film makers and cinematographers on our team that do the audio. So unfortunately no. I did import it to time it, but everything was composited into After Effects.

I think in my personal projects the movements would be much more motivated, so that the floating shouldn't happen. A lot of this was kinda weird to try and fit with the course script.

I am having a bit of trouble figuring out stories to make into shorts. Or even little segments to make. I have a few ideas I want to try, but they may be too complicated to start out. How do you guys usually get ideas for animations? The best way for me to learn is by solving problems while following a preconceived idea. I also really want to put out more animations than tests if that makes sense.

Re: Home Caregiving Course Character Animation

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2015 11:58 pm
by Little Yamori
Makaramoto wrote:I am having a bit of trouble figuring out stories to make into shorts. Or even little segments to make. I have a few ideas I want to try, but they may be too complicated to start out. How do you guys usually get ideas for animations? The best way for me to learn is by solving problems while following a preconceived idea. I also really want to put out more animations than tests if that makes sense.
Well, the best advice I can think of for making story animations ( take it for what it's worth since it's free advice :wink: ) is tell a complete story to yourself that entertains you, cut out unnecessary tangents, (easier said than done as I'm guilty of falling down here) then story board it out. When you can see the whole story in your head (and on paper), beginning , middle, and end, then start building your backgrounds, rigging characters, and get started. You can edit along the way. If you love the way something looks that you've animated, but just can't really fit it into the story, then don't hesitate to cut it out, even if it hurts. Quick pacing is key. The animation I just finished was way longer than I had originally intended because I didn't follow the above advice on storyboarding first (that has been advice shared on this forum by many others too) but at least I feel that the redeeming feature for the length was a fairly quick pace, so there are exceptions, but generally keep it reasonable in length, interesting, and quickly paced.

Good Luck,

LY

Re: Home Caregiving Course Character Animation

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2015 4:08 pm
by 3deeguy
Little Yamori wrote:
Makaramoto wrote:I am having a bit of trouble figuring out stories to make into shorts. Or even little segments to make. I have a few ideas I want to try, but they may be too complicated to start out. How do you guys usually get ideas for animations? The best way for me to learn is by solving problems while following a preconceived idea. I also really want to put out more animations than tests if that makes sense.
Well, the best advice I can think of for making story animations ( take it for what it's worth since it's free advice :wink: ) is tell a complete story to yourself that entertains you, cut out unnecessary tangents, (easier said than done as I'm guilty of falling down here) then story board it out. When you can see the whole story in your head (and on paper), beginning , middle, and end, then start building your backgrounds, rigging characters, and get started. You can edit along the way. If you love the way something looks that you've animated, but just can't really fit it into the story, then don't hesitate to cut it out, even if it hurts. Quick pacing is key. The animation I just finished was way longer than I had originally intended because I didn't follow the above advice on storyboarding first (that has been advice shared on this forum by many others too) but at least I feel that the redeeming feature for the length was a fairly quick pace, so there are exceptions, but generally keep it reasonable in length, interesting, and quickly paced.

Good Luck,

LY
This is great advice. Greenlaw posted a tutorial on storyboarding. I learned from studying his work. I think creating a blueprint is critical. I work alone so a 'verbal' script is all I need but I do need a script.
I have several unfinished projects because I didn't storyboard them first.

Re: Home Caregiving Course Character Animation

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2015 5:40 pm
by Makaramoto
That's great advice! I have this idea floating around in my head, I just need to get around to fleshing it out.