So, thats why I've decided to make a thread like this.
This is mini tutorial how to comment an animation, how to support the animator and how to actually comment things.I will also try and explain a few other things.Let's go:
First of all, dont judge the people according to their language skills.
Dont be rude if its not necessary.
Dont be "funny" if its not necessary.
Try to think about what you're talking about.
How to compose the message:
- tell the author if you liked it or if you didnt like it and why.
- tell the author what he should work on
- tell the author what would you change and what parts you liked/disliked
- dont forget to point out how was the bg, sounds, music, easing, anticipation, spacing, timing, fluidness, resizing, if it was stiff or wobbly.(You dont have to mention all of these, just take your time and think of the animation.)
Example:
**** you asshole, people dont walk like that, + there was massive amount of resizing.
and here's the better/helpful version
Well to be honest I dont think anybody walks like this, you should take your time and go outside, watch people walking.Aand your stickman was resizing, try to draw to lines, one's for the floor (where the legs stand) and the second is for the head (its the highest point of your stickman) *picture with two lines and a stickman*
See ? Thats much more helpful.
And now I will try to explain that expressions above.
Easing,
This picture explains pretty much what easing is, its like a car thats starting to ride away, at the very beginning its stopped, it doesnt move, then you gear up and you can go faster and faster, then, when you want to stop, you have to gear down and go slower and slower, then stop.
Anticipation, preparing for the action, Mesmay told me once "It's like energy !" and hell he was right.More energy you have > More powerful punch.More anticipation you do > more powerful looking punch.
How to do the anticipation http://www.truploader.com/view/618149
Basically its some kind of a wave that goes through your body when you want to do some action.For example the punch, the first part thats moving (as you can see on the anim above) is the head, then body, elbow, and finally the wrist.You can also see the easing
Fluidness also connected with pose to pose animation.If I am correct its just about how much inbetweens you leave between two "key" positions, example coming over here:
So we have two key positions
The first one is on frame 1 and the second is on the frame 10.
There are a lot of ways how to "inbetween" these two keys, for example like this or more fluid and more likeable version (Im sorry, I was just not thinking when I made it only 10 frame animation, thats why the FPS is now at 10, ups :D)
Now I could just play with the easing and make this short animation even more good.Just keep things simple, you dont have to add any special drawings, use double framing ! But dont over use it, I hate to watch "laggy" animations =)
Moving on to Spacing Basically its just the way you put the body parts, for example when someones jumping his spacing should be like this (I will keep things simple and I will draw just a bouncing ball)
(green curve connects all the passing through positions of the ball)
Timing is HOW much TIME does the ball need to do some action (OH MY GOD I FEEL LIKE HAVING DE JAVU =D) Timing is how much time you need to punch someone, how much time you need to prepare for the punch, how much time you need to hit the face, etc etc.
Resizing I think you're smart enough to point it out yourself =)
Stiff animation is when the stickman stays in the same position (mostly straight back position) for too long.
Smooth animation is animation where you can see every action of the stickman and you dont think he's teleporting =) I dont have any better definition of smooth animations, uups, I do, SSJBryando :)
Wobbly/shaky stickmen, again, you're clever enough to know what Im talking about, not a big deal.
And, the biggest problem of almost all animators is what I call "ANIMATION FLOW" Well, mostly its just spacing and timing, but time to time I use that as separate expression because I just feel like it.Its how all the body parts of the stickman move, how are they, or how are they not fluid/smooth.Animations with bad animation flow are jerky/wobbly/shaky, the best way how to fix it is to keep your eye on the movement of the head, if its pretty nice, smooth curvature you're okay and you dont really have to care about it, but if it looks like this, for a running
instead of getting this
I made this in like 30 minutes, I hope you agree with me and you like this mini tutorial =)
If you have any question, feel free to ask me here, dont be afraid to post links with your animations.If I have time, I will try to help you.
Arch-angel did this for you !!
Edit,
http://forums.stickpage.com/showthread.php?31780-What-about-this