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animation mistakes and no nos......


BrianKitts
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There was a comment in a thread today that grabbed my attention and raised my curiosity...... I'm starting this thread about animation as to not throw the original thread off topic.

 

regarding an animation crit...

Great work, all the usual errors avoided.

 

 

 

So my question is this, what do you think are the biggest errors made in architectural animations???? Path flow and speed and are something I'm always trying to be conscious of....but any opinions on what other big mistakes are?

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I am guilty of all the usual errors, because ive never studied how to make movies. A friend of mine (who has never seen my work) is a movie director. I went to see a movie with him and whilst having a couple of beers after, I asked him what where the 'schoolboy errors' of directing. His answer (although very long and loud) was essentially that the director has to clearly tell a story to the viewer. The biggest mistake was chopping cameara tracks together that go 'person runs from left of screen to right of screen' then 'person runs from right of screen to left of screen', without describing to the viewer what is the new perspective (you get disorientated). With cameras, its all orientation. If you end up looking at something, you can start your next track either from where you ARE or where your LOOKING.

 

For me though:

1) I think the renderer can end up emphasizing parts of the scene that have rendered well, instead of the design: no average joe is going to say "Ooooh, look at the glossy reflection on that!"

 

2) Long slow camera movements!

 

3) Over use of depth of field.

 

4) Over-wide camera angles in interior animations.

 

5) Under-populated rooms to save poly-count

 

6) Animated opening Doors, eeergh.

 

7) RPCs

 

8) Blown-out omnis next to walls/ceilings

 

9) Over use of a new 'concept' youve just discovered. If you have a special effect you want to use in a movie, use it ONCE.

 

10) Poor compression out of post software.

 

etc

etc

etc

 

I do all of the above, I never, never learn. To make this list, I just thought about my last movie.

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You definitely shouldn't be afraid to abandon GI if it's gonna help you get the project out faster. We've done projects where it's been absolutely necessary and hasn't really made the difference in the finished product, but there are plenty of folks with the mindset of "I don't need to learn conventional lighting techniques now that I have GI."

 

For interiors, you're pretty much locked into GI if you're going to make a production deadline, but it's totally optional for exteriors.

 

Shaun

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What about use of GI?

 

Is it an absolute necessity for arch pieces or should it be considered on a case-by-case basis?

 

I dont think ive ever seen a finished animation and thought "what an amateur, they really used GI in the wrong place there" but I have seen animations where I thought "that could use some GI"

 

I think GI can be a BIG mistake if its not nessecary and it is used, but its more of a workflow issue than a "oh, what a plonker, thats going in the how not to do it book."

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Flashing!

 

enough about your private life he he.

here's a couple:

 

-cars moving at the speed of F1 racing cars.

-using those crappy 3d moving RPC's close to camera

-one single long camera path that bores the socks off.

-moving door handles and doors (oooh look i can animate)

-floating objects

-lens flares on every light.

-jerky robotic camera movement with violent swings left and right causing motion sickness.

to mention but a few.

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Some perspective from the pros. I just read a CNN.com article about actress and author Carrie Fisher doing film commentary for a cable network showing classic films. Of her own time in film she says:

 

"I've made films that are so bad there are cutaways to ashtrays to no reason, and you think there's going to be a meaning to the ashtray later on and there isn't".

 

"I've made some unbelievably bad films. But you know, that's what we do. That's a career."

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looking at a wall for the 10 seconds it takes to turn a corner.

 

walking through trees/ cutting off your ears by brushing too close to objects.

 

Making a long drawn out walkthrough where a bunch of quick pans would tell the story much better.

 

Spining around a massive site at the speed of light.

 

JHV

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Second the comment about long animation sequences. I can't stand them. Besides them being a visual turn off, they're more difficult to work with, take longer to render and consume more system resources. I never let them get above 20 sec unless the client insists on it.

 

But, the biggest and most distracting thing i see all the time is when some objects are animated and others aren't when they should be. Like half the people animated and the other half frozen stiff. Ceiling fans turning and shower water frozen solid in place (or maybe it's just that cold).

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I don't know if someone already said this:

 

A no-no (that I've done despite knowing better) is having a moving shot that starts from a standstill only to quickly ramp up to speed. This can be made worse by having the opposite happen on the other end of the camera move.

 

When you are queuing up a record doing DJ-type stuff you find the beginning and pull the turn-table back 1/3 turn so its already spinning at the right speed when the song starts. Often you have to do the same thing with camera moves. Start them a little early and cut out the first bit. But no0one wants to render frames they're going to throw away, so we end up with this awful looking artifact.

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....But, the biggest and most distracting thing i see all the time is when some objects are animated and others aren't when they should be. Like half the people animated and the other half frozen stiff. Ceiling fans turning and shower water frozen solid in place (or maybe it's just that cold).

 

ahhh forgot about that.... I'll add that the same has bothered me with background noise and sound effects. I've seen a couple where there's a crowd of people that you are walking through and they add the background noise of people talking.... then later you are near a road and the cars zooming by are dead silent...

 

as for sound effects.... we already covered the don't animate the doors, and along with that..... don't make them creak it's not a horror flick.... or making your elevator doors "ding" when they open....

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A friend of mine (who has never seen my work) is a movie director. I went to see a movie with him and whilst having a couple of beers after, I asked him what where the 'schoolboy errors' of directing. His answer (although very long and loud) was essentially that the director has to clearly tell a story to the viewer.

 

I think this is key. Studying film and story telling is very important. I think these mistakes can easily be broken into two categories 1) Technical and 2) Artistic. I think we all to often focus on the technical and know very little about the artistic.

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ive been looking at file trailes and deconstructing them, and its quite interesting to see how in that 1 minute the whole storyline and concepts are outlined.

also the artistic input in the trailers is massive. just check out casino royal trailer, good effects used well.

 

And that may be most applicable to Arch Viz animation. However, I actually prefer trailers that DON'T give away the plot of the movie but rather give a taste of the features flavor.

 

My favorite trailer of all time: Kill Bill

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  • 3 months later...

making animations is a proccess..... you will always make mistakes and you must be your own critic.

Everytime I finish an animation, I am always writing what I did wrong and how to make it better.

watch them once and again and again....:rolleyes:

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