Hi all, :)
I'd like your opinion on an Eagle animation I've done for 720-studios.com
I've been refferenceing Eagle and different kinds of birds for the piece but am a little frusterated. The other partners say it's fine but they are busy with modeling and other things.
The model and accompanying animation is meant for animators to buy and use to cut time and cost off their production cycle so it's not supposed to be perfect but good enough for proffesionals to work from as a base. And in enough cases to use full on without augmentation neccessary.
This particular Eagle and animation was recently used for a television spot for Slazengers new golf equipement.
Hey Ryan,
Great Eagle animation. The only down side to the animation is that i dont feel it. I dont feel his body lift up as the wings flap down and vise versa. In animation its one thing to animate it, but its another to make the audience feel it. just exagerate the up and downs a little more and when the wings flap it needs some follow through/secondary motion.(ex. put your arms out to the side and move them up and down as a bird. It feels stiff... but if you gracefully do it you feel your elbows lead on the way down and the hands lag behind and vise versa on the rise.) This example is still true with birds or any animal, we need to exagerate the movements so people can see it, otherwise it feels a bit stiff. Look at the eagle without the fancy camera work... you'll see the up and downs are to subtle to feel the weight. Keep up the good work though.
Anthony
www.WhenTheWorldGoesDark.com
I think that looks fantastic, good stuff!
Don't Read This Sentence.
http://chillidog.newgrounds.com/
Danimation Creations (Under Construction)
I don’t know an awful lot about birds, but I always thought that if they were in the air after the downbeat they might glide for half a second or more. Eagles do use updraughts as well. Otherwise great.:)
Thanks so much DChilla,
I was nervous on a site of this quality with pros all about i was gunna be pulverized. Thank you so much. :)
I'm chomping at the bit to rework some little bits but i'm going to restrain myself as i know "nothing" is ever perfect.
Thanks apscalmato,
Ya know i was pretty sure i posted a reply a little earlier but ...hmm! And it was so colorfull and i was in a great mood too. :rolleyes:
Well ...i guess i'll just try to repost. :confused: So basically what i'd said was that the animation was just a copy frame by frame of a side view vid clip of an eagle flying we had on file. Eagles have a few differing kinds of flight types so we wanted the most common ..or as common as we had on ref file anyway. :o
Takes a bit of the fun out of freestyle animation with my personal interpretation and all but it's "safe" by bla-bla standards.
You are actually "spot on" as per the arms and elbows and such that's why we actually built into the sequence due to the vid clips demands.
I guess the fancy cam stuff buggers that up from view. Maybe i'll post a clip just in frozen position so we can crit the file better.
The fancy cam work actually was wicked easy and took less than 5 mins 2 set up with a circle path constraint. :D
Very perceptive of you and thanks for the input though.
Ya dude, that is exquisitely perceptive of you ..especially since you "don’t know an awful lot about birds", as you put it!
Yup they very much do that and like us landlocked types they also vary the movement depending on what they 'r trying to accomplish.
Birds of Prey like the Eagle do generally glide/soar alot and i've had converstions relating to how we should just have it do "that" and no flapping as it makes it look like a little bird! It's a good debate.
In this case we compressed the motion a bit so people would have more to play with timing wise, so yeah it's a littl more flappity! :D