Review requested: Character animation

Project Charcoal is a community short movie project being run by the Melbourne Blender Society. The goal is to put together a short film with volunteers so everyone learns along the way!!!

This is our first serious animation test with the main character rig so we can see where we are going to have problems… comments on the animation welcome!

*NOTE: the facial rigging has not been done yet, that is why he doesn’t blink or close his eyes when jumping… also this is a GL render with the set, car and character being lo-res versions of the final assets.

Its good to see blender people living near by doing great stuff!!

The model has personality I like him. As for a rig test there is not much here to look at.

Hi,

I was looking for more comments on the animation rather than the rig, apologies if I wasn’t clear… I have found plenty of things that need fixing in the rig as we have been animating :wink:

 - andrew

I think you’ve done great. The “look at”, the squat and the tail swishing give suspense and anticipation.

I think the character animated well. Perhaps add another car or something that can bounce up a bit, to help convey how heavy the dragon is.

It’s trying to crush the car? Or jumping over it?

Either way, you could do with better anticipation:
Maybe curving it’s back a bit and lowering the head more?
The arms are moving too suddenly.
In general, he should “coil” before jumping to give that anticipation.
Remember, a dinosaur is pretty heavy. He’s gonna have to prepare his legs go get there.
Another thing you could do is move one foot back when he anticipates.

Just act it out yourself. Imagine you’re this huge dinosaur ready to jump on top of something and do the movements (we were all dinosaurs at one point in our childhoods!)

The tail could do with better follow-through, too.

I think you should try blocking the movement before heading for the splining part.
I have the exact same problem, usually. I just want to skip all the preps and go straight to seeing it “finished”. It takes a lot of discipline. But hey, that’s animation!

Good job and keep posting the updates. I’d love to see this finished to give the real impression of where you’re headed!