I havent seen anyone else bring this up so far, so as an animator myself I thought I'd rudely assume it was ok for me to give the anim team some feedback with my fresh eyes. Again my sincere apologies if all this is already on the to do list!
For the pilot anim..
1) Thanks to DK2's positional tracking, I can now look around the pilots arms to see what they are doing, the near equivalent of having the scene file to check out
The pilot's left hand is not gripping the thrust handle asset properly. It looks like the thrust handle the animator used to pose the hand onto was a bigger scale than the asset in game. You can see the hand and fingers are floating and are not sitting on the handle snugly.
2) Anatomically, I dont see any connection between the wrist and the left hand. The wrist joint is stiff and makes the lower arm look like its made of wood with fingers pivoting from the end. The hand's rotation comes from the wrist, unless you are wearing an arm cast or something. *had another look,there is some movement in this way,but it needs to be pushed much more.
3) Understandably, again for the left hand (I dont remember what the right hand is like now), the animator has chosen to go for broad poses, hand flexing and squeezing, to sell the idea that the pilot is alive. This comes from nearly every anim college/online course teaching students that broad/strong poses are best to sell an idea, the pixar/disney school of animation. This is usually correct in most cases, and I can see why the animator went for these poses in this case. What's happening in my mind though is because of the broadness of these poses that are quite often repeated randomly throughout the flight with no real connection to whats going on with the ship, the impact of the action is lessened every time it happens and after a short while it loses believability and weakens the idea. After a while it looks like the pilot is suffering from Arthritis as opposed to naturalistic and alive movement.
There is strength in subtlety, and ideas can also be communicated well in honest posing/movement. Get a flipcam, shoot some reference of yourself playing with the thrust, observe how your hand and wrist are connected, how our hand really grips the handle and how the fingers and hand move in real lifee. Dont be afraid to use reference. Download youtube videos and get them on an image plane on your camera,and observe!
Only uber geniuses like Milt Kahl had the ability to animate without shooting and studying reference first. Even Glen Keane puts tons of effort into studying reference before animating. Sometimes the smallest but well observed movements can be much more powerful as an idea seller than broad posing, trust me. Knowing when and where to use one or the other is key.
3) Legs or more specifically toes could to with ever so subtle movement. The pilot still looks paralysed from the waist down. Again nothing broad,and not too often, find the sweet spot between twitchy and paralysed.
4) If you are going to stick with the broad left hand flex and squeeze, be more honest with the anatomy. I dont see the metacarpus bones spreading wide when flexing or scrunching up when squeezing together, just the fingers rotating off the pivots, so that the hand looks like its made of styrofoam with no structure.The lack of wrist movement emphasises this feeling.
5) More for the programming side of it, overall there is a complete disconnect between the pilots movements and whats happening with the ship, with the anim kicking in randomly no matter whats happening. Personally for me that kills the effectiveness of the anim every time. Save the broader movements to when the ship is docked for example, and employ the tighter, tenser movements for inflight or hyperspace. You want to sell the idea the pilot is alive, not an automated dummy in a shop store front.
Right, that'll do! Probably most people reading this will think ' Bloody 'ell thats a bit strong mate, looks alright to me' and maybe I should keep this to myself. You'ld be right too, but the animators in Frontier will already have grown a thick skin if they've worked as an animator for longer than a few years (mines hippo thick after many years in the anim and vfx industry, figuratively and sadly literally these days it seems) and will listen to feedback as long as its constructive and fair. Might not take it up of course but its all par the course of an animators life. That's partly why most of us are raging alcos
For the pilot anim..
1) Thanks to DK2's positional tracking, I can now look around the pilots arms to see what they are doing, the near equivalent of having the scene file to check out
The pilot's left hand is not gripping the thrust handle asset properly. It looks like the thrust handle the animator used to pose the hand onto was a bigger scale than the asset in game. You can see the hand and fingers are floating and are not sitting on the handle snugly.
2) Anatomically, I dont see any connection between the wrist and the left hand. The wrist joint is stiff and makes the lower arm look like its made of wood with fingers pivoting from the end. The hand's rotation comes from the wrist, unless you are wearing an arm cast or something. *had another look,there is some movement in this way,but it needs to be pushed much more.
3) Understandably, again for the left hand (I dont remember what the right hand is like now), the animator has chosen to go for broad poses, hand flexing and squeezing, to sell the idea that the pilot is alive. This comes from nearly every anim college/online course teaching students that broad/strong poses are best to sell an idea, the pixar/disney school of animation. This is usually correct in most cases, and I can see why the animator went for these poses in this case. What's happening in my mind though is because of the broadness of these poses that are quite often repeated randomly throughout the flight with no real connection to whats going on with the ship, the impact of the action is lessened every time it happens and after a short while it loses believability and weakens the idea. After a while it looks like the pilot is suffering from Arthritis as opposed to naturalistic and alive movement.
There is strength in subtlety, and ideas can also be communicated well in honest posing/movement. Get a flipcam, shoot some reference of yourself playing with the thrust, observe how your hand and wrist are connected, how our hand really grips the handle and how the fingers and hand move in real lifee. Dont be afraid to use reference. Download youtube videos and get them on an image plane on your camera,and observe!
Only uber geniuses like Milt Kahl had the ability to animate without shooting and studying reference first. Even Glen Keane puts tons of effort into studying reference before animating. Sometimes the smallest but well observed movements can be much more powerful as an idea seller than broad posing, trust me. Knowing when and where to use one or the other is key.
3) Legs or more specifically toes could to with ever so subtle movement. The pilot still looks paralysed from the waist down. Again nothing broad,and not too often, find the sweet spot between twitchy and paralysed.
4) If you are going to stick with the broad left hand flex and squeeze, be more honest with the anatomy. I dont see the metacarpus bones spreading wide when flexing or scrunching up when squeezing together, just the fingers rotating off the pivots, so that the hand looks like its made of styrofoam with no structure.The lack of wrist movement emphasises this feeling.
5) More for the programming side of it, overall there is a complete disconnect between the pilots movements and whats happening with the ship, with the anim kicking in randomly no matter whats happening. Personally for me that kills the effectiveness of the anim every time. Save the broader movements to when the ship is docked for example, and employ the tighter, tenser movements for inflight or hyperspace. You want to sell the idea the pilot is alive, not an automated dummy in a shop store front.
Right, that'll do! Probably most people reading this will think ' Bloody 'ell thats a bit strong mate, looks alright to me' and maybe I should keep this to myself. You'ld be right too, but the animators in Frontier will already have grown a thick skin if they've worked as an animator for longer than a few years (mines hippo thick after many years in the anim and vfx industry, figuratively and sadly literally these days it seems) and will listen to feedback as long as its constructive and fair. Might not take it up of course but its all par the course of an animators life. That's partly why most of us are raging alcos
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