i think that these are all good and true comments that are well observed.
firstly, i certainly agree with the walk. lets say you are this big fat green thing and you weigh close to a metric ton. When one leg sloshes forward in a powerful, broad range of motion, the planting of the foot (heel first) would precede a frame that illustrates all the weight being shifted to the newly, flat, planted foot, and then for effect, an additional frame showing the leg and body slightly buckling under the weight of his own body would really complete that 'damn im a metric ton'
. this piece was meant to be a test for functional art assets, of which the platform strictly demands "as little as possible", heheh.. so i had originally put the feet planting down at the end (though with no reverberation of weight), but being that i have to use the same previous frame to pull the leg back (no room for add'l frames), it looked awkward having him angle his ankle, then plant his foot down level with the ground, then pick his ankle back up in an angled position to bring it back under his body, so it sort of pushed me to use the 'im gliding' FFT ish solution for animation. (not that any of this excuses anything, i certainly would like to have been able to take it that far, just explaining the circumstances so it doesnt appear that i was just being lazy).
big bro: for the strike anim... id like to try that out, to take out the last blurred frame befoe the club sinks into the ground perhaps, and just make the swing 'woosh' broader perhaps.
turbo: the animation was blocked out frame by frame and then used pro motion for detail transition and motion, so there certainly wasnt any cut n pasting that i can recall to any excess that would affect, in my opinion, the motion or quality/fluidity of that motion. However, i can certainly see that deceleration that you mention at the end of the motion, which i think is caused by the mid-arc not travelling far enough in that particular frame perhaps and the extra frame inserted to compensate before the club rests? to describe the motion i would expect, i would think that there is 1 frame for the 'cocked' position to swing, 1 'initial' movement of the arms to get the accelleration of the weapon going (this might look pretty close in position to the 'cocked' frame. perhaps there should be a more exaggerated body lead that indicates all his might is going into this
... then the blurred frame which travells most of the distance, then finally the rest frame. given this observation id be interested to see what it looks like without that frame before the 'thud' frame.
oh just to clarify, that is in fact a shield strapped to his waist that dangles between his legs, not a loin cloth
thanks for the comments so far