Great start Mike,

I like the idea behind this mechanics piece. It's great that you can revisit some of the things you liked when you were at school.
About the shot:

Overall I think what you are trying to communicate works well. My eye followed what the character was doing with no distractions. The main thing that stood out for me and it may be because everything is still very rough was the first couple of poses when he falls down, slides, then steps further down before he jumps. It felt like you need to add a little bit more impact and weight there, the character is falling after all.

I hope it make some sense, anyway, just my two cents.
I think you are going to have loads of fun working on this one. Can't wait to see the next pass.

Cheers,
Av

Hey Mike,

I love this workflow approach, awesome !  This looks like a lot of fun!  Some comments, when he first slides down the building on the left side, I'd ease into contact with the building.  It seems like he's coming into it fast enough that he'll just bounce off... maybe drag his right arm behind some more to show drag/friction.  When the guy jumps and begins to spin on the bar, I'd push the arch reversal on his spine to get more "ummph" as well as drag his feet behind for more overlap. You could probably start doing this in 3D .

Looks great, can't wait to see more
-Eric

The biggest thing I see which strikes me as odd is that sometimes I expect him to scale up or down more than he does, such as when he slides into the foreground and when he jumps on those pyrimid things. Seems like he should scale a big more drastically.

Looking very nice, I love the 2D/ 3D hybrid!

Certainly interestingly expose further the progress, very much it would be desirable to see further; I wait for progress!

Very nice. Seems like a lot of fun to do too!

There's only two things that struck me as a bit odd.
The last fall, after the sommersault, seems like he's floating.
And the jump while he's sliding down the first building. I think there's not enough anticipaton for the speed he attains going to the next building. Though that might be more visible when the legs appear.

Very nice stuff. Very motiviating to see such WIPs. Thanks!

Great work man!!!!!
I realy like the begin amazing!!!
But at me only one note. It seems to me strange when it skips on roofs, it looks a little strange, but only my opinion. I look forward continuation
Keep going!!!!

Thanks guys. I've actually been having trouble with how fast the slope run is, it's resulted in 4 frame cycles in places! It may look better when the legs and ankles are posed properly. I'm going to use Flipbook to mess around with the timing in a moment, I'll see what comes out of it.

Still lots of refinement to do but feedback is welcomed (don’t worry too much about wobbly limbs, torsos, deforming body shapes or broken elbows… that will all be fixed as I go along).

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I've been looking at this for too long! I've just had some observations from a few non-animators that are ringing true. He's not really running on the slope, he's fast walking. He should be able to do the run inside the building in one bound, which will fix the fast arms and the jump anticipation. I've slowed down the slope run and the skylight jump in Premiere and it looks a little better. I should really have looked at some reference footage of someone coming off a somersault, it looks wrong as he straightens up.

So lots to do!

Very nice
But in previous video a hand move all too quickly, i think

Very very nice beginning keep going

I've put the arms back in crudely. You can't see it yet but they'll get a lot better now that they are FK where they need to be, rather than IK all the way through. Still lots to do and I'll probably be changing the dismount from the bar at the end completely. I've been looking up reference footage on YouTube... trouble is they usually do two or more spins which is a bit more flamboyant than I wanted.

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Thanks Dan... always a pleasure. I shall inevitably change much of the enviroment. I just wanted certain actions to occur and I wanted to stay focused on the animation, letting it lead the scene. I may change the two sky lights for pipes or something later and add other apparent obstructions to make the journey more interesting, but not before I've nailed the main goals. I may also rework the camera too.

Anyway, I had a chance to do some work on this on the weekend, I just didn't have time to upload so here's the latest version. Still need to work on the dismount but the rest has been reworked. I'll also have to spend some time making the deformations look natural on the high resolution model.

Critiques are welcomed...