First time animation

[CookiE]

This is the first time I have tried to do something more than a basic house so any comments would be great on how I can improve

Its low quality to save render time and downloading time, will do a high detail one when I get some feed back

 

http://www.statesmanhairstudio.co.nz/Planb.wmv

[Peter M. Gruhn]

The last little bit where the hard lines vanish is abrupt and makes me wonder "erp, what changed". Consider a fade or maybe a wipe.

 

I wonder if you want to remove the larger building so the model becomes the real world at that last stage.

 

A number of the corner passings leave the scene lopsided. Empty on one side and building on the other.

 

Consider having the plants come up from the ground at 20% then scale to full size. Even over the same time frame, but so rather than elevating to place/size, they partly "grow." This is counter to the rest of the movement in the film, but might add a spot of whimsy, and imo cut some of the abruptness out of their arrival.

 

Another aspect of that abruptness is the lines disappearing right on cue with the finish of the plant arrival. It's a common newbie thing to do (I know, because I do it all the time) to choreograph things One After The Other. I think overlap helps. You generally handle it nicely with things coming in. I particularly like the three boxes near the beginning that are staggered a hair.

 

There's a wierd white cloud that looks like a premonition of the building or reflections of clouds in the windows. It might just be high video compression so I should ignore it for now.

 

On the choreography thing - it seems you've broken it in to stages. The end wall finishes, there's a pause and then the back wall starts. Then there's another pause and the back wall phase two starts. The pauses between phases tend to come at the same time as half the screen is empty. Gives me a bad feeling "what am I looking at? why is nothing happening?"

 

As the wireframe rises, I'd like to see the second floor deck lag a little. Consider even having it overshoot then settle. This is clearly a departure from your vision and may not work 1) at all; 2) for you.

 

In the final money shot, the lighting across the second floor deck wall is a little flat. Even the underside. I wonder if this is true or just how I'm seeing it. The whites show contrast.

 

I see four little pine trees all with the same heavy branch pointing low and left. Can some be rotated or flipped to break the regularity?

 

I don't like a 45 degree on to the corner for a static shot. Yes, you want to show off each facade to its best, but I think doing so doesn't show off the whole to its best. Also the perfect vertical line splitting the view in half and the even V of perspective moving back sets up graphic elements which... "don't exist" "overshadow the scene". In this particular building, around the front (first) side there is a recess in the middle by the three boxes which gets lost. It is almost invisible. Maximizing articulation is what I'm all about. If you swing around to the front, oh I don't know... twenty degrees, you'll break up that front facade from what is reading now as a continuous wall (which also makes it look as long as the end wall the building looks near square, which it isn't) into three separate forms (or two forms and a void). This is good, "honey, let's buy a shoe box!" "no, dear, I'd rather buy this pleasantly articulated aggregation of masses in space".

 

I don't like the timing on the initial swoop. It slows down too much at the paper.

 

There are diagonals on the roof. I think the roof is flat. The diagonals don't belong. Probably an artifact of the modelling. See if you can make them go away.

 

There's a pine tree right in front of a view through the whole building. Especially since it's such a bright/dark mini composition it draws attention to itself and the symmetry says it's more important than it is. "You must look at this, something is happening here." "Enh, it's just a tree." If you stop a few more degrees around the building per earlier suggestion, this manifestation of the problem will go away. It's the same as or related to the old telephone pole growing out of Aunt Mabel's head snapshop syndrome. It can happen anywhere. See the three boxes? See the tree in front of them? Move ten feet to the right and it will line up right on the edge of the boxes and obscure that edge and make the boxes unreadable. "Why is there grey there and white over there?"

 

I'm curious about the two tone shadow. Looks funny. Guessing it's a low cost soft edged shadow?

 

The building is competing with the building it is in. Having a similar feel lends a nice uniformity to the scene. Having big floating white planes lends confusion. I speak in particular of the edge of the roof getting lost in the edge of the window beyond. Possible solutions - materials, lighting, rotation. This might be helped by moving the twenty degrees. It will pull the roof in front of a larger piece of blank wall. Watch out for the column in the windows as it comes around past the garage, could leave us wondering where the model stops and the column begins.

 

It wasn't until the nth viewing that I noticed that as pieces came in they changed material. Nice effect, but why didn't I get it first time around? Maybe it isn't important, but it's nice, can we think of a way to make it more visible without being garish?

 

You cheat on the excellent piece of wood on the second floor balcony. That could come in "panel" at a time, it could unroll... Heck, we could even see its mass fly in from over our heads WHOOOSH but rather it kinda sneaks in at the last minute when nobody is looking. I feel ripped off.

 

The balusters on the back stairs get lost which is a darned shame. Bring them in a hair earlier, they're so small they'd benefit from being in front of blankness. Bring them in closer together so they form more of a mass. Bring them in with either increasing or decreasing frequency so they flow, so you can have some mass to call attention to the movement yet some spread to keep it open and individual at a nother place. |||| | | | | | | |

 

If I could think of that much to say about my own work, I'd be the king.

[Tommy Burns]

Well done I thought it was a great idea what you did with this loved it!!

But what about the last reply attention to detail or what? Fair play to you Peter for taking all that time although I would hate to work for ya:)

I think Caleb your work just started on this one if your to live up to Peters standards:) but they are top recommendations though good to see.

[CookiE]

Thats alot of information lol

But all good and exactly what i need, well I got some more work to do now

 

Thanks ya heaps