How Important Are Storytelling and Acting Skills for an Animator?

Storytelling and acting skills are very important to an animator. I'm still amazed that after drawing all my life, I don't draw at all at work. Instead, I'm given a puppet in the computer and my job is to pull the strings and make it come to life.

After years of animating, doing it on a daily basis, there will come a time when you are not always thinking of the principles of animation. They will all be there in your back pocket ready to pull out at any given time. All that is left is 'what kind of actor are you?'

Guest blogger Aaron Hartline

By: Unknown On 13.12

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How Do You Go About Planning an Action that Already Has a Camera Moving?

Ah, the camera. Sometimes it's your best friend, and other times it's your worst enemy.

The camera is a very interesting part of what we do because it's one of the things that changes the workflow between different mediums. In hand-drawn animation, you're actually drawing the camera move and having to consider that move along with your character movements. In stop-mo, you're moving that camera one frame at a time. And then in CG animation, you have in-game videogame animation, live-action feature animation (such as Transformers) and all-CG work (cinematics, feature animation, etc.).

With in-game videogame work, you often have to animate as though the player can place the camera anywhere they want! Obviously, this is very tricky for the animator, and means that you really have to work hard to make sure that your animation works as well as possible from all angles.

With live-action feature work, the camera is usually locked, for the most part. If you're putting a giant robot into a scene that has already been filmed in the real world, with a real environment and real actors, then the camera is generally impossible to change or edit. If it's important to the scene and the studio has enough of a budget to allow for an altered camera (which would mean painting in a new background frame-by-frame), then every once in a while you can add a camera move or something, but this is pretty rare.

Because of that, part of your job as a live-action animator is to carefully create your character's performance in a way that makes it feel as though he was in the scene when it was filmed. If the camera moves, then you need to have your character move a little bit ahead of time, so it feels like the camera-man is following your action with his camera, etc. This is an art, in and of itself, and can often be an extremely challenging aspect of a scene, particularly an action-heavy scene with an active dynamic camera. It's fun, though! It's a big puzzle to put together.

For all-CG work (feature animation, cinematics, etc.), the camera is usually created by a layout department or camera department, but can also often be edited (or created) by the animator. In these cases, it is always best to try to determine your complete camera move ahead of time, and if at all possible, try to have that camera move approved and locked down.

You'll want to approach any scene with an eye towards staging and composition, silhouette and clarity. This is largely impossible to do without knowing exactly where your camera is, and how it will be moving.

If it is up to you to create the camera, then, my advice is to figure out your camera moves ahead of time (using just pawn animation, or the simplest of rough blocking), and to avoid starting any "real" animation until that camera is at least tentatively approved.

Hope that helps!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 13.36

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Do All Animation Principles Apply to All Types of Animation?

Yes!

That's the short answer, but if there's one thing we've learned over the years here, it's that I can't just give short answers, so here's some rambling for ya...

Animation is an art, and what you're talking about (the principles of animation, such as arcs, overlap, path of action, etc) are the foundation of the ART behind bringing a character to life.

When you say "types" of animation, I assume you are referring to the different mediums of animation, such as CG, hand-drawn, or stop-motion. I'd even argue that performance-capture is evolving into its own medium, with its own set of challenges, nuances, and workflow necessary to turn performance capture into something that feels alive and entertaining.

All of these mediums are simply different tools that animators use to create their art. That's all they are - TOOLS. They are the means to an end for the artists, and the storyteller chooses whichever medium will best serve the story (or the producers choose whichever medium will best serve their pocketbooks, in many cases).

Do the principles of art employed by a good photographer (including lighting, shadow, angles, composition, exposure, focus, etc) change depending on their camera? Do they use their same knowledge of exposure and focus on a digital SLR vs. a traditional 35mm camera? Of course they do. They're an artist simply using different tools to tell the same story through their art, using the same exact artistic skills they've honed throughout their career.

Are there different technical details they need to learn, though? Sure there are! Each camera will work a little bit differently, the glass in the lenses will react differently to light, the functions, dials, and buttons will be placed differently, etc. However, learning the location these buttons and controls is easy compared to the years of dedicated practice and learning required to truly master photography.

Animation is exactly the same. Each medium has its own technical challenges and unique workflow, but the art - and more importantly, the principles behind that art - remain exactly the same.

Even if you only look at CG animation as an example, you could still compare it to the challenges our photographer faces when picking up a new camera. If you're newer to animation, you have maybe only learned one 3D animation program so far, and the idea of being thrown into an unfamiliar software package probably scares the pants off of you. But guess what? It's just like the cameras we discussed, and learning a new program will be nothing more than relearning the location of all the same buttons and functionality, which will essentially remain the same.

You'll need to relearn how to move your character, how to save keys, and how to edit those keys. These are software-specific methods you could learn in a matter of hours, or at worst, a few days. A trifle compared to the years necessary to master the fundamentals of animation.

Comparing mediums is very similar to comparing software packages. Each medium requires some serious dedication to learn the intricacies of that specific medium (you won't be able to do strong 2D animation until you master drawing, perspective, form, etc), but the fundamentals of the art remain exactly the same. The principles that take so much study and practice do not change between mediums.

Animation is animation, regardless of the medium or the tool. If you're new to this stuff, my advice is to choose your favorite medium, choose your favorite program/tool, and then just dive in and ignore everything else until you've mastered the ART. Then you can start fiddling around with different tools and mediums again.

The important thing as a student is that you learn the fundamentals of body mechanics and performance and storytelling. Once you have armed yourself with these skills, you can learn any medium or software package in relatively short order.

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.10

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What Does It Mean to Animate on 3s and 4s?

Sometimes we only need broad control, think 8s or 12s...but other times we require much more control for intricate actions.

Generally when animating on 3s and 4s you are dealing with more complex motion that needs to be broken down and controlled to a fairly tight degree.

Imagine animating a character dancing like Gene Kelly. The footwork involved can be highly complex as well as moving very fast. In order for us to block out that movement and include the proper key poses, you have to control it to a fine degree by setting keys 3-4 frames apart.

You are trying to keep the computer from splining too much so when keying fine actions like this you are only giving the computer the freedom to create 1-2 frames that are not specifically set by you. In traditional animation animating on 3s and 4s would take on a different meaning, though generally it would only be used in very limited animation, such as the Flintstones. Traditional limited animation would try to reuse a frame or parts of a frame of animation to reduce the amount of work necessary usually for budgetary or stylistic reasons. In CG it refers more to how often we key and object to define or control its motion.

Guest blogger David Breaux

By: Unknown On 10.34

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What Is "Layered" Animation and How Does It Work? Is It Good / Better for Human Characters?

Layered animation generally refers to the idea of blocking in one part or section of the body at a time. One example would be animating the up/down of the hips in a walk first, and nailing down that timing since it's going to affect every other aspect of the walk. Once you have that, you could then do another "layer" of animation by animating the torso of the character. Maybe then you'd do the feet. Then the arms and wrists. Then the head.

All of those layers will combine to form one walk.

The trick here is to do it in such a way that the overall finished walk feels like ONE character. You want all these different "layers" of animation to come together to form one cohesive action, with the different parts of the body being driven, pushed, pulled, and rotated by the other parts of the body.

Our bodies are incredibly inter-related and connected throughout. You cannot do a big and fast arm motion without moving your shoulder, chest, head, and probably your hips and other arm.

There is nothing wrong with the layered approach, but it requires a very deep understanding of the way the body works together (something I often refer to here as "body mechanics") in order to have a finished piece of animation that feels like one cohesive body. It requires careful planning, reference, observation, and a fair amount of adjusting the different layers to work properly each other.

Personally, I use a layered approach when diving into a scene with a lot of action. If a character needs to walk a long way, climb something, and then jump down - I'll probably use the Glenn McIntosh "hide the legs" approach, which helps me not get too distracted when I'm working in a layered way. (If you haven't read my article about hiding the legs, you can read it here and then come back!)

Basically, I'll create a new layer in Maya, add the legs to it, and hide that layer. Now I've got a floating legless character. I'll grab that character by the root or whatever it is that moves the character but not the legs, and animate just that thing through the whole scene. I'll work on just that root node until the general timing is worked out as far as where that character will be, when the general up/downs will be from the footsteps, etc.

Then I'll leave the legs hidden, and pose the upper body (torso, arms, head, etc), knowing in my mind or from my thumbnails how I'll eventually want the legs to work in that pose. Remember - this is all largely planned out ahead of time, and I'll know 100%, at least in my head, what that pose is exactly going to look like when it's finished. I'm not "exploring" at this phase, I've already made most of my animation decisions and am simply inputting them into the computer.

Last, I'll turn those legs on, and the leg animation is much easier than normal now, since their movement and timing is completely dictated by the body animation whose timing I already am happy with. If the leg is about to hyperextend, then that simply means it's time to lift it up off the ground and do a step. There will obviously be a bit of back-and-forth here, touching up the timing and placement of the hips to make sure everything is just right, but overall this method has served me well for action shots.

The whole point of the method above is to block in the part of the body that will define the movements of the rest of the body (the hips and torso), as well as whatever part of the body audience will see most - you do that FIRST, in the layered approach.

For any scene where the character stays generally in one area of the frame - smaller actions, acting, etc - in those scenes I'll do a pose-to-pose approach where I'm posing out the whole body and saving a key on every possible controller on those key poses and breakdown poses.

In my opinion, the layered approach is far more difficult for newer animators, and my advice to anyone who hasn't been professionally animating for a few years already would be to stick with the pose-to-pose approach, using heavy reference, research, thumbnails, etc.

However, I will say that for more advanced students or professional animators, the layered approach is worth trying to see if it's something you connect with. Be extra vigilant, however, that the end result doesn't feel like a bunch of disconnected body parts that have been animated individually! You want one cohesive character as your end result, and don't give up until you have it!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.51

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What Are Some Tips on Creating Effective Key Poses?

A strong line of action through the character would be one of the first things to work into the pose. Avoid the dreaded straight up and down torso, you know, the torso that looks like there is a metal rod going up the spine. Work in C shapes and S shapes, to give some curve and interest to the spine. This will help you start to build weight into the character. Oppose those hips and shoulders, and get some bend in the knee(s), position one shoulder lower or higher than the other. Chances are, if the weight is not working in the pose it won't work once you start splining.

Look for contrast between your poses. Unless the acting is very subtle, the character won't be in the same shape for the shot. Use reversals in shape, as well as moments of compression (squash) and extension (stretch)to add texture.

Remember, the key poses are your main storytelling poses. Be sure that they support the key beats of the shot. They may signify a change in the character's emotional state or a change in posture or screen position. And they must be clear.

Say you wanted to find the keys poses from a scene starring Tom Hanks. You get out your scissors and slice up the film, as doing this to a blue-ray would be extremely hard. Now you search through all the frames looking for the extreme moments that tell the story of what the scene is about. These will be the frames that are the most clear and readable. And most of the time you will probably be looking for the extreme change in facial expression or body posture.

The face is super important, when we go to the movies we aren't watching Woody's left arm. But let us not forget the importance of body language. When I block a scene I key the character from top to bottom, including the facial expression and phoneme. I want the pose to be a complete picture of my intent for that character at that point and time. Often times however, before I add the face I will focus on the body alone. Is the body communicating my intent effectively? If I watch my blocking with no facial animation of any kind...is it working..is it clear? Once your character has strong, clear body language, the facial animation is the icing on the cake.

Guest Blogger Ray Chase

By: Unknown On 14.42

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How Do You Traverse the Fine Line of Always Creating New and Interesting Poses but Keeping the Actions as Simple and Readable as Possible?

How do you traverse the fine line of always creating new and interesting poses but keeping the actions as simple and readable as possible? How do you know if you have done “too much” and need to simplify?

Interesting, exciting, emotional, communicative, dynamic poses should ALWAYS be your goal in every scene. That's the absolute core of what we do, so it's great to aim high and shoot for the stars when it comes to poses that will communicate the character's emotions and actions as best as possible.

However, you bring up a good point that it's SO easy to go overboard! Creating poses is so much fun that the simplest of actions can turn into the wackiest animation in history if we aren't careful.

The trick is learning how much is too much. How far is too far?

Truthfully, your sense of what will "read" best to the audience will continue to improve as you get more and more experienced with animation. However, there is one trick that you will always continue to rely on to some degree, and is the best rock-solid way to find out if you have pushed your poses and ideas too far:

ASK SOMEONE!

Sounds simple, right? You'd be surprised how many students and newer animators avoid this absolutely essential step in their animation process. Feedback is the key to not only learning animation, but excelling in it, and there really is no other way to know if your ideas and poses are reading clearly than to ask around and see what people think!

Remember, your animation is being created to be experienced by an audience of people with vastly differing backgrounds, beliefs, senses of humor, moods, etc. The eventual audience is completely unpredictable in their makeup. Because of that, there is literally no one who doesn't have a valid opinion on whether or not your animation makes sense to them.

Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston write in the Illusion of Life that they would sometimes even show their animation to the janitor if they were working late at night to get an opinion on the work. That janitor didn't know the first thing about overlapping action, squash and stretch, force, or arcs, but he sure could tell them if he understood whether or not the character was sad, or what actions the character was meant to be doing.

Anyway, when it comes to poses, I come from the school of thought that says to exaggerate something more than you think it should be exaggerated, and then double it! This has helped me a lot to push my ideas (particularly the timing and poses), but the reality is that it usually means I need to tone things down here or there in order to make things more clear or to fit the style of a project. Luckily, poses are always much easier to tone down than to push further, so it's best to go a bit too far than to have to shove your animation further in tiny incremental steps over and over until your supervisor is pleased.

So I would certainly recommend that you aim high when searching for fun poses, but be prepared to tone them down when necessary, and actively seek feedback from your peers, your family, your supervisor, or even the janitor, because every single one of them is an invaluable resource to find out when you've gone overboard!

Hope that helps - thanks for swinging by the blog!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 11.58

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Is It Better to Animate Pose to Pose or Straight Ahead?

In my experience it has been useful to use a combination of pose to pose, layered and straight ahead. I use them all!! Shall I explain? Oh yes, I shall. So when beginning a shot I will use pose to pose to map out the performance of the shot. I will use stepped keys to do this so that when the animation plays, it's popping through the poses. This allows me to focus on the key storytelling poses, to create nice silhouettes and to work on contrast.

I think of the pose to pose pass as the comic strip of my shot, telling the story through key images. After establishing my keys I will take another pass adding in breakdowns, all while staying in stepped. I want to make as many decisions as I can in stepped mode so that when I move out of stepped and into spline there is less chaos. Chaos is a noun -- a state of utter confusion or disorder, like when animation is taken out of stepped blocking too soon resulting in mushy movement of virtually everything on the character.

With the shot blocked out and broken down, I change into spline mode (I actually use plateau in Maya) and begin to work in a layered method. I like to work from the inside out, hiding everything on the character except the hips/torso since that is from where, all the movement is driven. Once I'm happy with the hips and torso, I will switch layers perhaps moving to the head or the arms.

Straight ahead animation is usually something I will only do on things like floppy ears, tails or clothing. Here I'm starting on frame 1 and steaming ahead through the shot. Since my straight ahead animation will be driven by the body animation, its super important to get the body working first.

That's how I incorporate all three methods into my work flow. I find my approach to be very efficient, however it may not be the ideal approach for everyone. Developing your own work flow, one that works for you, is an important part of the process.


Guest Blogger Ray Chase

By: Unknown On 13.12

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Could You Please Explain the Animation Term Pendulum?

Hi Drhuv! Thanks for stopping by!

A pendulum isn't really a "term," it's an object. A pendulum is basically a weighted object hanging from some kind of base. If the base is moved, that weighted object is going to swing side to side. Many clocks are pendulum clocks (such as "grandfather clocks") which you'd recognize by the swinging pendulum beneath the clock face.

We use pendulums in our animation exercises because the idea of a pendulum clearly illustrates the concept of "successive breaking of joints" and overlapping animation.

Let's simplify the idea of a pendulum and imagine a base and a weighted object hanging from the base, with two joints connecting the weighted object to the base. Well, let's say someone kicks the base. What's the going to happen to the weighted object? Well, nothing at all, at first! First the base must move, which will move the first joint hanging down. Then the next joint will get moved. THEN the weighted object will get moved. The energy needs to travel down that chain of events to finally reach its destination at the heavy object, right?

This idea is something that we use throughout the body when animating. The spine is, in a way, in inverted pendulum rising up from a "base" (the hips). The arms can be thought of as pendulums hanging from the shoulder in certain circumstances. The tail of a critter is kind of a pendulum hanging from their backsides. The way a tree sways in the wind might be like an inverted pendulum connected to the ground.

The pendulum movement teaches us about a wave action that happens in any multi-jointed or organic object, and that's why you probably see it mentioned around animation sites.

Hope that answers your question! Thanks for writing in, Drhuv!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.53

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What Is the Most Valuable Principle of Animation in Your Opinion? How Do You Apply It on the Job?

Starting off with a tough question! I pretty much use every single one of them so choosing just one is a challenge. I think for students, it’s very important to get your arcs correct as soon as you can. Something like a bouncing ball falls apart if the path of the ball has pops in it. If you are animating a character performance, and you don’t manage the arc of that left arm for example, a pop in its arc will draw the eye and take the audience off of the true focal point of the shot. But if I based it on my most recent show, I’d probably have to go with slow ins and slow outs. Why would I pick that one? Well, we were referencing a lot of very stylized animation and if you watch any UPA shorts, you’ll see there are fast transitions and static holds all the way through. We found that long static holds that were successful in 2D animation just didn’t work as well for 3D, so we animated micro slow ins and outs of the held poses. Three or four frames of padding meant you could still feel the character was alive, but be true to the limited style we were referencing.

Guest Blogger Chris Williams

By: Unknown On 12.30

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Tips on Anticipation

Anticipation is a really helpful tool that animators can use to make their shots clear and readable. Combined with solid poses and clear silhouettes, it prepares the audience to what is about to happen in your scene. It gives them time to process your character's actions and intentions, thereby making it absolutely clear what the character is doing or thinking.

On another level, anticipation helps to emphasize the physicality of your character. Flesh and blood characters have muscles and need to overcome gravity with each move they make. If you wanted to animate a baseball pitcher throwing a fastball, for example, you would need to have a big wind up (anticipation) pose before going into his throw. If the wind-up is left out of the scene, the physicality, believability and the clarity of the animation would suffer.

As a general rule, the broader an action I'm animating, the bigger the anticipation I put in. I also try to make sure that I incorporate it into my blocking as early as I can to feel out the overall timing and the rhythm of my shot. The advantage of doing this is that it is easier to dial down, delay and adjust it accordingly down the road.

Another thing I try to pay attention to as I flesh out my animation is to delay the various parts of the anticipation so they don't all fall on the same point in time. Try to offset the brows, lids, or a head move to give your character that nice organic quality, even if you are animating something that is really pushed or cartoony. Remember to keep things clear and simple to get the most out of your poses.

The last thing to remember with anticipation is to make sure that it feels natural and not over done. A common mistake is to put in a big anticipation on EVERY action. This will end up giving your character an odd pattern of movement that will distract and unsettle the viewer. Some robotic objects, for example tends to move quite linearly and have very little (if any) anticipation. Similarly, some insects or animals will have quick staccato movements that are inherent in the way they move. Know what you are animating and use anticipation accordingly!

Guest Blogger Chris Chua

By: Unknown On 11.15

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Of the 12 Principles of Animation, Which Is the Most Valuable? How Do You Apply It on the Job?

Man, that's such a tough question.

The truth is that you can't single out any one principle as "the" most important. In the past, I've said that animation is kind of like golf. Have you ever tried to golf? Well, I'm not much of a golfer, but I've learned enough to know that there are dozens of important things to remember during a golf swing, and eventually -- after a LOT of practice -- all of these different things become second nature, and they all tie into each other to create one thing -- a good golf swing.

You have to have your toes lined up just right, you have to have your shoulders angled just right, your hips need to be in a specific spot, and you have to swing the club up to a specific height/angle during the back swing. You have to be holding the club in a specific way, and bend your knee in a specific way, and shift your weight from one foot to another mid-swing in a specific way. You have to have one elbow bent just so, and pull with one arm while letting the other drag and steer, and you can't take your eye off the ball, etc.

But at the end of the day, all of those things are really just ONE thing, right? A golf swing.

Animation is EXACTLY the same way. You have to remember anticipation and overlap. Arcs and secondary animation. Force and dynamic posing. Overshoot and line of action. You have to remember squash and stretch and weight & balance and path of action and a million other things.

In the golf swing, if you forget ONE of those things -- say you have your toe pointed in the wrong angle -- then guess what? The ball goes haywire and it's a bad shot.

Animation is the same thing. If you remember everything above, but forget anticipation, then unless the style specifically demands a lack of anticipation, the shot is just plain wrong. It's bad. Because of ONE thing, even though you might have great overlap, beautiful arcs, and the most dynamic poses ever - it's still a bad shot.

We spend a lot of time at Animation Mentor breaking down all the various principles and then showing how they all relate to each other and tie together and morph into one big thing called Body Mechanics, which is basically just the idea of what moves what in the body, and WHY. Overlap, overshoot, force, path of action, etc. -- these are all just different ways of describing tiny facets of what makes our bodies move without falling over, and just as with golf, there's no one facet that is more important than the other.

I wish there was an easier answer, but the truth is that animation requires a serious study of ALL the principles, and the only way to create strong animation is to become extremely familiar with all of them, and -- more importantly -- with how they affect each other.

Best of luck!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 13.56

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Can You Talk about Speeds in a Shot? How Many Speeds Should You Use in a Shot?

Animation mirrors life on the most basic and most elevated levels. In life, no motion, no gesture, no idea, literally no moment should repeat the timing, size, weight, and in this case, speed of another. Using different speeds in a shot is what we do to avoid the dreaded twinning in timing. What this means is that if a character raises his hand to wave out his kitchen window, you should use a different speed a moment later when he raises his arm to open the cupboard to get some delicious fudge brownies. I see lots of animation by students in which they rely too much on what they are comfortable with which can lead to a lack of variety in speeds. I don’t blame them either; if a 4 frame anticipation and a 10 frame jump worked a second ago why not repeat that success? Well, the effect of not changing up the speeds can be devastating – monotonous, mechanical, robotic.

When planning a shot, be sure to keep in mind that the speed of gestures should vary, but also don't go too far the other way. That is, don't break the performance to add superfluous variety in your speeds. Things can get out of hand fairly quickly. So as with all your work, strike a balance to get interesting variety in your shots that stays true to your performance choices.

Guest Blogger Kenny Roy

By: Unknown On 10.03

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How Do You Get a Proper Delay in Overlapping Action?

The amount of delay in an overlapping action has to directly correspond with the weight, speed, and emotion of the main move that it's working with. If the main body move is fast and snappy, then I will give other parts of the body that are overlapping less frames of delay before they execute. If the move is slow and heavy, there will be more of a delay. The amount of frames to delay is always directly relative to the size and speed of the move it is following. This definitely is a skill that comes with observation and lots of practice. You have to learn how to 'feel' the weight of the things you're animating.

Guest blogger Dana Boadway

By: Unknown On 10.52

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Important Things When Posing a Character

Hello animators!

I got a great question from Sagar Kadam, who asked what the most important things to keep in mind when posing a character might be.

The most important thing to look for in a pose would be a strong line of action, if it is an action pose. If the character is mid-action, such as pushing/pulling something, fighting, running, jumping, etc -- in any of those, there should be a really clear line of action, especially in your key poses. A single line that describes the force moving through the body and the momentum of the movement, ideally a line running through the entire body, and hopefully into an arm and/or leg. The stronger, longer, and more connected this line is, the more dynamic and strong the pose will feel.

If it isn't an action pose, then you should probably be more concerned with making sure the pose clearly describes an attitude or emotion. You should be able to tell, from one static frame, whether the character is sad, happy, angry, shy, embarrassed, nervous, excited, or afraid. In these cases, it is OK to sacrifice a strong line of action in order to strengthen the emotion, at least in my opinion, although it's often possible to craft a very communicative pose while still retaining a nice line of action. However, showing us the internal thought process should be the priority in these types of scenes...

Hope that's helpful...

Thanks for the great question, Sagar!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.32

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How Do Animators Use Contrast?

Contrast. Working as an animator you hear that word a lot. It is far-reaching umbrella term that influences every other animation mechanic, and thus to crop up in conversation frequently when animators converge to dork out on the fundamentals of making things move. Contrast is our friend. Let's get better acquainted!

So this 'ere animation thing is all about change, (how insightful, eh?), as this is essentially how hunter-gatherer humans have evolved to perceive the world around us. Animators work to use this change to better communicate to their audience. Contrast -the heightened "difference between stuff," is the amplification of this change to better sell an idea the animator wishes to get across.

Let's check out a few examples to see what all this is about:

1) Performance. Cedric realizes his underpants are tucked in to his shirt (classy) and becomes frantic as he rushes to rectify this in front of a group of ladies. Top quality comedy, right here. It's already a funny concept, but we can awesomify it by contrasting the realisation with the action. If we play the realisation as a small or slow action and the adjustment of clothing as a large, quick one, now we've added visual interest as the audience is immediately going to focus on the broad movement as it is the visual element moving about the most. Woot!

2) Poses. We can contrast shapes within poses to add a more pleasing change. For example, Cedric bends forward to make a point then straightens up to his full height. We make the forward a C-shape, then move into a -straight, or maybe even a slight reverse curve like a ). This is fun to look at, since we are helping to describe a set of arcs that Cedric's body must move through to play out his action.

Nice! Now we know that we can play with our poses, timing and ideas in order to better amplify their impact on the viewer. This will help them to understand what we are trying to communicate, and thus give them a better sense of connection with our characters, making them believable entities in their own right.

Yay contrast! BFF!

Guest blogger Kevan Shorey

By: Unknown On 09.46

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What Is Anticipation? Can You Provide Some Tips?

I know I've talked a lot about anticipation in the ebook and elsewhere, but it's worth hitting this a little here on the blog, because it's something that I still see missing on demo reel after demo reel.

As human beings, we are programmed to conserve as much energy as possible, and to find the least taxing way for any movement. If you combine that with Newton's Law of an object in motion tending to stay in motion, while an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an *UNBALANCED* force, you end up with the principle of anticipation.

The key word that Newton used is "unbalanced." If we are standing still, perfectly balanced, it's impossible to move your feet, let alone take a step. The only way that we can get moving, is to unbalance ourselves. Don't believe me? Try it! Stand up, concentrate on keeping your hips centered perfectly between your feet, and try to take a step to the side.

OK, are you back? Impossible, right? You just can't do it without shifting your hips one way or the other.

So, if you do want to take a step to the left, what are the hip movements that would allow us to do that?

Well, we'd have to get unbalanced, so that means we can either push our hips left or right. Either way will get us out of that stationary balanced pose that has us locked in place.

However, by now, we all know that you can't lift your left foot without moving your hips (or your center of gravity, which may be different if multiple characters are physically interacting, or if your character is holding something super heavy, etc) to be centered over your right foot, right?
So that pretty much rules out moving your hips left. You CAN do it - you can move your hips left and take a really quick step with your left foot. You won't fall if your footstep is fast enough.

Go ahead and try it.

C'mon - stand up. Give it a whirl. We won't laugh, we promise.

OK, did you try it? Do you see what I mean? It's totally doable, but it's awkward, and more importantly, it uses a LOT of extra energy that you didn't have to waste.

Let's try it with moving our hips to the right. If you want to try it again, go head.

See the difference? If you shift your hips to the right, it frees up your left foot to move in a very relaxed way. And then when you plant that left foot onto the ground, what happens? Your stance has widened, and now your hips will naturally overshoot your center of gravity as they fall down and to the left, moving to be closer to your left foot than your right foot.

So, why is that important? Because your hips are now using gravity to get them moving to the left. Which is much less taxing movement! Your hips now have momentum to get the body moving to the left without you having to use much muscle energy to make it happen. You've found the *easiest* way to get moving left, which is always the most natural way to move, because, as I said, humans are lazy and programmed to conserve energy!

If you extrapolate this out a little more, the hips moving left will make it very easy for you to lift up your right foot and move onto your next step. At this point, the placement of that right footstep will completely determine the rest of the movement. If the right foot just shifts 10 inches to the left and plants again, you've just done a sidestep, and the major sideways movement is pretty much over now until you get unbalanced again. However, if that foot plants further left than the left foot, you've just initiated a full walk, where the momentum of the hips will continue to free up each foot, one at a time, and keeping the balance forward a little will keep the body moving forward.

Remember, a walk is just a "controlled fall," where each step is catching the body and preventing it from falling over.

So, that's just one very simple explanation of anticipation. Another important use of anticipation is to create a build-up of force and power within the body. The spring-like wind-up of a baseball pitcher or the crouch before a jump are great examples of this type of anticipation. Again, it's still about being unbalanced, and using the weight and twist of the body in order to help put more force into an action, so we aren't talking about anything radically different from the sidestep anticipation, but these would be more advanced uses of those concepts.

Again, if you don't believe anticipation can help you put some force into your actions, stand up one more time, and see how high you can jump without crouching down first. You aren't going to get far, unless you have superhuman toe strength. :)

One last comment about anticipation -- the amount and speed of anticipation will completely determine what the audience expects to see in the following action. If you do a very small anticipation, but follow it with a HUGE jump, it's certain to stand out and be noticed as looking wrong. Likewise, a fast and extreme anticipation followed by a slow movement (a small jump or slow walk) will look very odd and jarring.

However, you can use this to your advantage in some instances, particularly for humor. Depending on the style you are working in, and the style of the scene, it may be very funny to see a big windup anticipation followed by a slow walk, or the tiniest anticipation followed by a character zipping out of frame. Loony Toons does this all the time to great effect, so there are certainly instances you'd break some of these rules...

There isn't enough room in a blog to really get too deep into anticipation, because it's such a major and deep principle, but I hope that helps someone!

Over and out,

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 12.35

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How Do You Improve the Arcs in Animation?

FIRST THINGS FIRST:
Before you go crazy improving any arcs, you must know that you need to work from the root of your character outward (pelvis » spine » neck » head). A slight change in the arc of the root may result in a big change in the arc of your wrist.

There are may ways of improving your arcs so I’ve broken it down to a few sections.

DESIGN:
The beauty of animation is you are the one in control, so why not take control over your arcs. They don’t always have to be your standard arc. Different arcs can have different feelings. So here are some things I like to think about when designing my arcs.

• Arcs should not all be the same. Think of different patterns and how they relate to each other. For instance, if you moved through a squiggly arc and then into a smooth arc, you animation may start off feeling chaotic and then end feeling calm or fluid.


• Like any design, angular shapes and patterns have a rough, rigid and maybe even a negative feeling as apposed to a smooth shapes and patterns may have more of a fluid, organic or positive feeling.


• There needs to be at least three frames (3 points) to describe any curve.


• Arcs can have a thickness to them as well. For example if you move your hand through and arc and your fingers are spread wide at the beginning and in the end, but are close together in the middle that arc will have a feeling of going from thick to thin to thick. When doing this its important to remember volume and anatomy.

DRAWING YOUR ARC:
When I think I have an idea for my arc, I plot it out on my monitor with a dry erase marker (for flat panels I may use a sheet of acetate over the monitor). I first plot out my start and end points so I know roughly how much space I’m dealing with and then I draw my arc connecting the two.

Remember, the more detailed your arc is the more frames you will need. For example, if you wish for your object to follow along an “S” curve you will need enough points to keep it from looking like a “Z” curve.

SPACING:
I think the thing most often forgotten when it comes to arcs is the spacing along the arcs. It's not good enough just to make sure that every frame follows the arc, but the spacing along that arc has just as much value. If the spacing is done incorrectly your arc may or may not read.

As a starting point, I think of my spacing along an arc like the coils in a slinky. If you were to stretch out a slinky along an arc, the coils would be closer to each other at the ends and furthest apart in the middle. When you move through the slinky from the start toward the middle, each coil (spacing) gradually gets further and further apart until it reaches its furthest spacing in the middle. From that point, the coils (spacing) get closer and closer together. Like I said, this is just a starting point, your typical arcs ease out, and moves through a breakdown to an ease in type of spacing. Quite often I will see two random coils in the middle of an arc very close together unintentionally, and even though the object is moving through an arc it still appears to pop because the frames before and after don’t lend itself to that spacing.

DRAG, SQUETCH (Squash and Stretch):
When moving through an arc it's important that any drag, or squetching we do follows that path of action as well. For example, in your standard bouncing test, as a ball stretches on its descent the line of action of that ball points back up the arc where it came from.

MOTION BLUR:
This may be a bit unnecessary to talk about and may even complicate things a bit, but when you get to that big studio it matters. Motion blur is like 5-year-old playing connect the dots. It will only draw a straight line from point to point. It doesn’t know to arc in between the dots. So this may or may not be another factor to the design and detail of your arc.

Guest Blogger Nick Bruno

By: Unknown On 16.27

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What's the Exact Difference Between Overlap and Follow-through?

This question comes from Adrien Annesley. Thanks for the great question, Adrien!

This is something that I was confused about for a long time, actually, and I used to use these terms interchangeably. However, this question really got me rethinking it, and I decided to pick the brain of some great animators at work about it to see what they thought. Kevin Martel, one of our senior animators, had some great points and set me straight on this stuff:

Follow-through is basically the "end" of the action after the main force of the action has been exerted. For example, if you slammed a sledgehammer against a wall, the rest of your body is going to continue moving for a few frames after the hammer is stopped, right? Your spine is going to go through some "successive breaking of joints" and kind of whip forward, pulling your head along with it last. The last thing that will happen in that chain of events is the head will move forward and probably rotate the chin down towards the chest. This motion would be called "follow-through."

However, if a few frames before the hammer hit, the character lifted a foot to take a step forward in order to start into a motion to reposition the body for the next hit, this movement would be called "overlapping action." It's a separate but related action that isn't necessarily being completely caused by the first action, and the timing of this action is offset, in which case it is "overlapping" the first action.

The purpose of this is to create more organic and believable actions, as well as adding entertainment to the overall complexity of the scene.

Kevin found a great quote from Walt Disney on this:
"It is not necessary for an animator to take a character to one point, complete that action completely, and then turn to the following action as if he had never given it a thought until after completing the first action. When a character knows what he is going to do he doesn't have to stop before each individual action and think to do it. He has it planned in advance in his mind."

Hope that's helpful, Adrien! Thanks for the help, Kev, and thanks also to Velislava Nikolova for the reminder! :)

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 14.07

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Reader’s Question: “Breaking the Joints” in 2D and 3D Animation?

Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit" talks a lot about the topic of "breaking the joints." I'm wondering if this is a technique that is exclusive to 2D animation or if it is used in 3D animation as well?

If so, can you elaborate on how it is used and maybe provide some specific examples?

This question comes from Jason. Great question! Thanks for coming by the blog Jason!

Breaking of joints, also often called "Sequential breaking of joints," or "successive breaking of joints," is basically a way of looking at your body mechanics as though it were a chain of events, or a series of joints where each joint affects the joint beneath it (and/or above it).

The classic example of this is in looking at a blade of grass or a cracking whip, where you could imagine the blade of grass blowing in the wind as being made up of a bunch of tiny sections which affect and move each other. Same with the whip. You could think of the tip of the whip as the very end of a series of "sections" or "joints," that snake all the way back up through the whip, into the hand, the wrist, the forearm, the upper arm, the shoulder, the chest, down the spine, and all the way to the hips. The hips are probably originating the whip action, and it propagates upward and outward from there, building in force and power until the tip of that whip actually breaks the sound barrier and makes that loud cracking sound.

The "blade of grass blowing in the wind" works the same way our spine might work as we're riding a bucking horse or doing any one of a huge list of actions that would originate in our hips (the base of the "blade of grass") and move upward with each section or "joint," having overlapped timing and creating follow-through action.

This idea is essential to creating a strong sense of internal force in your body mechanics, as well as nice follow-through, strong arcs, anticipation, weight, etc. It's one of the most fundamental concepts of animation and affects any number of other animation principles, so it's definitely something to continue investigating!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.59

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