Box Lift Feedback

I have been getting some great feedback on my last box lift animation from a really good animation forum I found a while ago. I figured it would be a good idea to post some of the comments here.

tallsmartman
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Hey, that looks awesome. A very fluid motion, you should be proud. The last few frames made it look like he was about to "sneak around" after he picked up the box. OR... Either the box is entirely too heavy for the guy and he's trying to grasp it with his head so he wouldn't drop it.

Either way, your animation has a lot of character, the only thing I see that looks a bit odd, is the weight of the box. The posture of his body makes me think it's very heavy for him, but the box doesn't "sink" as if it were very heavy. Then again, if he is about to sneak around, I think you could probably leave it how it is.

1uc
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I agree with tallsmartman. Is it supposed to be a heavy box?

But there's one more thing I also noticed though... the size of the box...on the ground it's "very" big, but when the character starts to lift it up becomes smaller and smaller. May be that's causing such strange feeling of a box weight, bcos you see on the ground looks bigger - heavier then when it's in his hands - smaller - lighter. Just a thought...

great job on the movement and anticipation though.

noble
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You are well on your way, congrats on your progress!

The implied mass of the box is light because the accelerations are too high. Volume control is a drawing thing, but implying weight in the motion could be done even with a "point mass" really. I don't think a small change in the box volume is where the issue of weight really rests in this case.

Some key poses (like a spine reversal from hunched over to arched as he strains to pull it up) can add a heavy feeling, but it has to be matched with the appropriate accelerations given how much force he can exert. It's a rigid body dynamics problem with a very qualitative solution in "drawings". Imagine the animation with only the box shown, it would need some very high forces to accelerate like that if it were really heavy, higher forces than that little guy could impart.

Try and keep in mind the c/g of each mass so the positioning of each keeps the tipping torques to a minimum when the forces are large.

I just figured you wanted a snappy toony kind of thing, but if you want him to lift something really heavy, he needs to work harder and slow down the motion. Act it out yourself with an imaginary box to get some ideas for poses, the variations are endless of course, try and keep it simple initially.

I have done a little more of the animation, but now that the mistakes in it have been pointed out to me, I'm thinking about either starting over or trying something different. I'd like to try doing someone pushing a heavy block along the ground next.