Thursday, March 15, 2012
Lukas Niklaus - Bottles - Critique
Very nice, getting to the end stages!
- x39 to 52, watch both of his elbows, they both go down at the same time and give that section a bit of an IK arm feel to it, plus that arm movement does not affect his shoulders; if you scrub quickly back and forth you'll notice even more
- around x111, during his reaction, you could push his mouth shapes a bit more, maybe showing an exhale or even a mouthed word, in order to give face a bit more contrast during that emotional change
- the tip toe part works better, but I would reduce the root up/down a lot, so it's almost horizontal, for a more smooth and stealthy look
Those are the big moments to me that stood out the most that I would address first, especially the tip toe section. But that's about it for major changes.
Now you can get to the nitty gritty and polish, as you mentioned, arcs, spacing, etc. For instance, watch his right knee how it moves back quickly to x504, then kinda stays locked there for a frame and then moves forward again.
Arc wise it's moments like his left foot going screen left to x512 and then suddenly only down to x513, without finishing the SL arc it started.
Be aware of offscreen spacing too, like his right leg on x515 to 516, where it seems to move away from the root and extending the leg, yet on x517 it pops forward into frame, looking like a linear key.
The foot steps around that area also have a lot of flat foot plants and it would be cool to get more tilted foot poses in there, like you have on x48 for the SR foot.
Watch out for finger pose changes. Let's take his right hand holding the bottle, it never changes until after x315.
Lastly, I would do another pass on the arms, to really eliminate IK moments like the SR arm/hand after x78, especially after x81. The big sign is when the elbow is moving a lot yet the hand is almost unaffected by it translation wise, but especially rotation wise.