feedback for a beginner

[Steve Roberts]

This is the red walking bird, yes?

Looks fine and fun to me. It’s not realistic or polished, and shouldn’t be. It looks rough, but it’s a rough style. And that’s cool.

What did you attempt and not achieve?

[Kurt Murphy]

Nate,

For your first AE animation I was pretty impressed… It looked good to me. I couldn’t tell if you blended layers with Transfer Modes (it didn’t look like it); but i would experiment with those a bit…

Keep playin,’

kurt murphy

[Mike Procunier]

It looks amazing for your first animation. My first was a bunch of stupid picture-in-pictures.

[Steve Roberts]

Yep, you have a lot of heart, style and energy. Can’t train that into somebody … 😉

[N8wn8w]

thanks ..

somethings I don’t like about it right now .. is the bird seems to float and is not really synced with the background … when working in ae I am still trying to figure out timing … I don’t know if this is just experience knowing how long 2 seconds is .. or if there is a tool that gives you a better idea of how animation will play at full speed (ie motion sketch) .. I have tried munipulating the curves of the time graph .. but it still seems pretty abstract to me

the music seems a bit off as well .. I wanted something fast … no eletronic .. but metal might not work either

the legs also seem off .. is there any type of animation rule where something needs a certain amount of frames to look real?

thanks

[Steve Roberts]

You want it to look real? Why?
The bird doesn’t have to sync with the background. Loosen up! It’s an abstract weirdy thing! Terrific!

Okay, sure you need to be able to make things look real when you have to, but not for this one — it looks great!

But if you want it to look convincing, there’s no rule, except maybe:
-the feet shouldn’t slide on the ground unless you want them to, as with ice
-the character should look as if he’s putting weight on the ground at the right time
-make sure the viewer can tell left leg from right

If you want to learn how to do walk cycles, as animators call them, look for Richard Williams’ book, “The Animator’s Survival Kit”. It’s not CG-based, and has nothing to do with AE, but it’s good.

Regarding the other stuff, all CG animation tools use graphs — get used to them. They take practice. Getting the feel of timing takes practice, too. “There can be no refinement without repetition”, a wise man told me.

No, there’s no rule. There are guidelines, but not in this case. If you want to make something that looks real, shoot someone walking with a video camera then analyze the footage, frame-by-frame.
This is animation. If it looks right, you can tell. Use your gut and build experience. You have a good start – don’t let computers and rules and plugins kill your gut instincts.

Go forth, screw up, and learn. Then do it again. It’s the only way to be great. 🙂

Just my opinion …