Do You Need to Have a Drawing Background to Be a 3D Animator?

No, you do not need a drawing background to be a 3D animator. That being said, you can learn a lot from drawing that will help you in your animation. When you are doing life drawing you are taught to look for lines of action, strong silhouette, balance and weight.

These are all things that animators use daily when posing out their characters for their shots. Being a student of a different art form besides animation, such as drawing - acting - photography, will help you grow into a well rounded artist that can only help you in your animation.


Guest blogger Aaron Hartline

By: Unknown On 11.52

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Are There Any Daily Practice Techniques That You Can Recommend to an Animator to Keep Your Animation Skills Sharp?

There is not a day that goes by that I don't ask a fellow animator to look at my shot. You may have a really strong idea for a shot, but I guarantee you that someone else can bring an idea to the table that you didn't think of. This kind of collaboration only makes your animation stronger. Also when you are finishing a shot, and you've been working on it for weeks, it always helps to have a fresh pair of eyes look at it to see all those little things that need attention. Animation is a team sport - you are only as strong as the people around you.

I make it a point to go into dailies every morning, even when I'm not showing my work. You can learn a lot by watching other animators' work. Seventy animators will animate one character differently, so its important to hear what the director feels the character should be doing, so everyone can be on the same page. Also, an animator might add one gesture, one movement that ends up defining that character. This will give you ideas for your own shots.

After animating all day, I like to watch a movie or a television show that has inspiring acting. Rarely do I watch cartoons at night, but rather a great actor. Watching an actor's performance can give you ideas that may not have been added in animation yet. Rather then just watching cartoons, open up your library to movies, plays, even photos. All these can help you progress farther as an artist.

Guest blogger Aaron Hartline

By: Unknown On 09.50

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Have You Ever Tried the Layered Approach with Something Where the Foot Placement Is a Little Less Flexible?

Have you ever tried the layered approach with something where the foot placement is a little less flexible? Like walking down stairs. Maybe it doesn't make any difference?

Generally, the foot placement in any scene is pretty well thought-out and planned in advance, but you're right that some scenes are more specific and others can certainly be more flexible.

However, the "hide the legs" layered approach isn't about just animating the upper body and then letting the feet fall wherever they may. You should pretty much know exactly where those feet are going to end up and exactly what your poses are going to look like. Where the layered approach helps more is with the TIMING of the feet rather than the position or posing. If the upper body feels correct in its timing, then that can help you know when to lift and plant the feet, but the actual posing of the legs should be something you've already planned out ahead of time.

Going downstairs is particularly exact, I suppose, but I think the layered "hide the legs" approach is something I would still likely use in a scene like that. I recently did a scene of a character climbing up something somewhat steep, and the foot placement was relatively inflexible, but the process seemed to work fine. It did require a little bit more back and forth than normal, though.

For something like going down a series of stairs, I would probably still hide the legs, animate the upper body going down the stairs until the timing felt correct, and then show and animate the legs. Most likely, I would have to readjust the upper body slightly here and there to accommodate the legs, so there would definitely be some back and forth, but overall I think it could still be useful, and certainly simplifies the blocking process.

And again, the "hide the legs" approach is something I would only recommend to those of you who have been animating for at least a few years already. You need the experience to be able to visualize ahead of time how the legs are going to be working, where the footfalls will likely be, etc.

Hope that helps!


Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.47

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Do You Have Ideas to Speed Up Your Work? How Do You Decide When to Sketch Things Out?

The one thing that is always key in my work flow is preparation...thumbnails, rough sketches, video reference. Taking the extra little bit of time to think through the shot or action needed saves tons of time on the back end when you're keying.

For me it's quicker to sketch out simple shapes to test silhouettes, line of action and reversals then trying to jump right in to the software. I don't use an exposure sheet but I do time out my actions so I have that written down along with my thumbnails. I go in and make notes on how I want the arcs to move in my transitions. Once I have this basic blue print I can go in and make a straight on pass. I try not to worry about editing myself until I'm done with this first pass and can take a look at it as a whole.

Guest Blogger Matthew Russell

By: Unknown On 12.22

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What Makes a Good and Honest Animator

Critiques & Opinions

Often in animation we are subjected to critiques -- most likely daily. I try to impress on my students the importance of learning all the principals of animation, but temper it with a bit of realism. It's a simple fact that everyone has an opinion, and no matter how good you are or how long you've been working there is always something new to learn. So seek out criticism, or take any thrown your way. Take what everyone says... Weigh it against what you've learned up to that point, and if a particular problem, or complement keeps cropping up, there must be some truth too it.

I’m sure we've all met someone who isn't crazy about our work for one reason or another.... but that doesn't mean you can't get something from their opinion. It's kinda like learning to fight... The more you mess up, the more you learn what not to do.

Animation is an art form, and as artists we all have our own sense of aesthetics. Don't take criticism as a punch to the gut -- most likely it isn't personal. Strive to do your best work, and remember it isn't your show/game. You are providing a service. If a director wants something, and you think it’s a bad decision or a problem, make it known to your supervisor or animation director, but don't fight it. If they elect to follow your opinion great, you’re a hero for pointing it out. If not don't latch on like a pit bull, leave it at that and do the best you can given the constraints. I think that makes a good honest animator: you are showing that you recognize issues, care about your work, and confront them head on, but are still a team player.

Technique

As a student learning animation, which most of us are until the day we kick the big one, we meet lots of other people doing the same work...yet everyone seems to have their own flavor of "How to do it?" What I like to do personally, and also tell my students is, whomever is currently teaching you is who you listen too.

In other words, if you are in school do what any given teacher tells you at that time -- learn what they have to give. When you move on from them, do the same with the next teacher. "But everyone does it differently, won't it get confusing?" Ahhh ...no, what you are doing is focusing on what you have to learn...not looking down the road.

Before you know it, you will have picked up a ton of knowledge and techniques, the next step is deciding what works for you and what doesn't.

This is where each animator, like some home brew from Grannies barn, picks their ingredients and heads off into the world. The only difference in animation is as we work with new director, supervisors, and animators.... we are constantly show different ways of the force. Take that ever-growing list and give it a fair tryout and see if you can incorporate it into your working method. Maybe it speeds you up, maybe it slows you down, maybe your work jumps to that next plateau. It's a simple fact that you will grow, and improve as an animator always but it won't be a simple strait shot to the goal.

Guest blogger David Breaux

By: Unknown On 11.25

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How Does an Animation Supervisor of a Big Studio Like ILM, Pixar or Blue Sky Plan the Distribution of the Shots Done by the Animators?

How does an animation supervisor of a big studio like ILM, Pixar or Blue Sky plan the distribution of the shots done by the animators? By sequence, by shots, by continuity shots, by animators's abilities?

This probably depends a lot on the size of the studio, the size of the animation crew, and the diversity of experience levels on that crew. The smaller the studio, the less options available to the supervisor, and the more likely it is that the animators may be thought of as interchangeable artists.

However, you ask about the larger studios, and you're right that it's treated differently.

The larger studios have the luxury of a larger animation crew, probably with a somewhat diverse set of backgrounds and specialties. The process that you're asking about (handing out shots) is often referred to as "casting" at these types of studios, and that's exactly how many of these studios approach the process.

They often view the assignment of animation shots or characters as "casting" those animators in the role that they are most appropriate for. Someone who's shown great comedic timing in the past may be cast to work on a lot of shots that feature comedy relief, for example. Or someone who's shown that they have amazing body mechanics might get cast on a lot of fight scenes.

However, many other factors come into play with casting, and it's rarely as defined and simple as I laid out above. While the goal for any of these larger studios is to use their crew as efficiently as possible, many other factors are considered. Among these would be:

• What the animator is most passionate to work on
• What the schedule and budget allows or forces
• Scene difficulty level vs. animator skill level
• What the surrounding shots are\
• Crunch time
  

These are all important factors, and in any good studio, all would play a role to some degree in the casting of shots.

Near the end of a project, though, crunch time and deadlines increasingly become the deciding factor in crewing a shot or sequence. The project has a deadline, and when it really gets into the final weeks or months of a project, the most important deciding factor in casting becomes availability. Who is free to work on this? If the Supervisor feels that their talent level is sufficient, and they are done with their other shots, they'll probably get thrown onto whatever shot is next in line, regardless of any of the other considerations.

This is totally normal. Many projects at many studios start out by casting long strings of sequential shots to one animator, but by the end, it's natural for the schedule to force a more scatter-shot approach in order to hit the looming deadline.

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.44

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How Fast Is a New Junior Animator Expected to Work?

How fast is a new junior animator expected to work? How much would he/she be expected to produce per week?

Junior animators do need to be given time like anyone regardless of experience to get used to a studios pipeline, procedures and rigs. But from a strict animation point of view, I'd say all animators speed are a more or less controlled by the supervisor or animation director. By that I mean they will kick off a shot (describe what needs to happen in the shot) with the animator.

After that the animator blocks the shot and submits for approval in dailies, this could then be approved or sent back for changes....sometimes the animator missed something or misinterpreted what was needed, other times the animation director sees that an idea didn't work as they thought so it just needs a change no fault of the animator at all. Then there are times an animator will do something, it gets approved by the animation director but turned around by the film director....so there are lots of things that can affect how fast a shot moves through the pipes.

After getting blocking approval from the film director, the focus shifts more onto the animators speed to finish a shot. Every day you attend a dailies session where the animation director, or animation supervisor will critique the work to a finer degree, timing, breakdowns, etc., as the animation moved from blocking to temp animation and on to final polished animation. The animators job is to address the fixes pointed out in these dailies sessions, generally if they are small tweaks that can be done by the end of the day depending on what time you have dailies.

Larger fixes can take a day or two... If you have a big change which would usually only happen if there is a direction change from the client or if you are working for a (client) film director who can't judge blocked animation but instead needs to see fully splined animation to make a judgement. It happens.... I've seen it many times.

Guest blogger David Breaux

By: Unknown On 11.01

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How Do You Animate a Fight?

How do you animate a fight? Do you animate both characters at the same time, or one and then the other?

This is a great question! As with any question regarding workflow, there's no "etched-in-stone" answer, just personal preferences and opinions...

However, for me, I'll tackle a fight scene with a mix of methods. My workflow would assume that you have referenced characters you can turn on/off, but you could also do something similar by importing one character into a scene, saving it, and then deleting him and working the other character for a while, re-importing that first character, re-saving, etc.

Basically, I would first do all my reference, study, and planning. Ideally, I'll already know the timing, actions, and fight choreography before I fire up my computer at all. I highly recommend careful planning in all scenes, as you all know, but especially for multi-character scenes with complex choreography. And if those characters are going to physically be interacting with each other? Holy moly - unless you've been animating professionally for quite some time, I really recommend some serious planning before stepping into that minefield.

A fight scene is about as complicated as you can get with physical action, because not only do all of your characters need to move believably, with solid body mechanics and weight, but they will need to each be reacting to the other - both physically and emotionally in the performance.

Obviously, with the complexity here, it's natural to wonder which character you should animate first, or how to approach this scene in the first place.

For me, I start with both characters at the same time, but would use a more limited blocking method to begin with. I'll have both characters in the scene, but I wouldn't block in every key and breakdown yet. Instead, I'll first block in any key moments where the characters interact (getting hit, kicked, throwing, landing, falling, facing off, etc), and otherwise I'd keep things really rough.

Once you have both characters roughed in - with a careful eye towards composition and clear staging - now you can ditch one of those characters and get to work really fleshing out one character at a time. They should generally be in the correct position, so you're pretty safe to really block them in and work out all your keys and breakdowns.

Once your first character is looking pretty good, it's time to bring in his opponent and check your staging. Make any necessary adjustments to get your second character repositioned or retimed to match your new animation, and then go ahead and hide or remove the first character.

The goal here, of course, is to have a scene that you can interact quickly with, and the more characters you have in a scene, the slower it's going to be to work with.

Get that second character fleshed out, and then bring back in your first character.

Now it's all about getting into the nitty gritty details of how the two are interacting. You'll probably need to keep both characters open during this phase, and really work out the precise contact points, timing, reactions, etc. This is when you'd really flesh out any constraints and physical interactions between the two.

That'd be my workflow - hopefully it's helpful!


Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.30

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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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How Do You Mix Snappy Animations with Non-snappy, Realistic Actions?

I would like to know about how to mix snappy animations with non-snappy, realistic actions. How do you time out when to put snappy actions and when not to?

You should use snappy animation as a contrast to more realistic animation to keep movement and timing interesting... thus keeping your audience engaged in what you are doing.

Be careful, you can go too far..... you don't want to destroy the sense of realism say in a creature because you push the snappy aspects of its motion too far.

Make sure you maintain a sense of weight and watch your spacing so it doesn't get so your individual frames don't start strobing on you.

Try putting snappier actions where greater forces or impacts happen... Also use them to show a light fleeting character, say a squirrel or sparrow....

Remember how your character moves says a lot about there physical as well as mental states.

Guest blogger David Breaux

By: Unknown On 15.03

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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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What Are Some Extra Goodies to Add in Polish to Make the Animation Stand Out Even More?

What are some extra goodies to add in polish to make the animation stand out even more (eg. head squash and stretch…)

For me, the single biggest thing is pushing my arcs into something clear, fun, and pleasing to the eye. There's nothing like some beautiful arcs on the wrists, feet, nose, props, etc., to really bring a scene to life and take it from looking acceptable to looking great!

Other than that, especially in visual effects animation, which is the medium I've mostly worked in (animating characters who need to live in the same frame as live-action actors), the key is subtle complexity. It's finding small ways to add little secondary things that bring the character more fully to life.

Things like having a character swallow, and the intricate neck muscle movements that go into a swallow, for example. Or putting in breaths into the scene - expanding the chest a bit, etc.

As you say, you can also get some great extra mileage out of squashing and stretching the head slightly, if the style of the film is appropriate for that. In a more realistic film, you could get that feeling out of squashing/stretching the fleshier parts of the face while keeping the skull itself more rigid, but it's the same idea - giving the overall character a heightened feeling of being organic and fleshy.

All of these sorts of things - micro eye movements, muscles flexing/relaxing, ear twitches on an animal, toes squishing against the ground, etc - these all can add to the overall complexity that will help the character feel even more alive without sacrificing the subtlety of the performance!

Shawn:)

By: Unknown On 12.31

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What’s One Step That Is Often Overlooked in Student Animation?

The step I see missed time and again is that students transition out of stepped blocking and into spline too early. What was a nice blocking pass with some strong poses has now turned into a mushy pile of chaos. The poses are still there, but now the character slides and drifts from one pose to the next. Now it is possible to take the goo and mold it into something decent, however it will probably take extra time to do so with a lot of trial and error along the way.

Now, I understand the eagerness. The shot is mapped out...you have your keys....let's get it moving!!! Well slow down there skipper. Blocking IS animating. Take a look at those keys and how much room you have between them. Guess what will happen if you convert to spline now? Yes, that's right -- Maya, the goofball inbetweener, will fill in those gaps for you in the most literal and boring way possible. God bless Maya for wanting to help, but you are better off making those decisions yourself.

Once you have your key poses in blocking, take another pass adding some breakdowns. How will you transition from one pose to the next? Make decisions up front..you can tweak later if you must. The more decisions you can make while in stepped, the less mess you will have to deal with later.

Guest Blogger Ray Chase

By: Unknown On 09.24

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What’s the Importance of Clean Blocking? Can You Provide Some Tips on Clean Blocking?

The importance of clean blocking comes back to why we block in the first place. To present a clear direction or intent, to the supervisors and directors. If you have done your job in your blocking, anyone who views your shot should be able to tell exactly what is happening. Should anyone ask “yeah so...what's he doing riiiiiight...THERE!” Well, then you probably weren't clear enough, pack up your desk and get out.....

No, no it happens. You thumbnailed, you shot reference, your blocking is clear to you, but we must be sure it reads to everyone else as well. That's why its important to show your blocking to fellow animators while your working; don't work in a vacuum...not that you could fit in a vacuum, unless it was one of those giant industrial kinds.

A question I will get a lot from my students is: How far do we go with the blocking...how much is too much? Again it's important that the blocking reads clearly. Sometimes two poses can tell the whole story. Other times you may need several breakdowns to make a particular pose change clear. Basically, you want to put in as much as you need to get the idea across, while at the same time, keeping it simple.

Often times student's dirty up their blocking by including too many ideas. So a scene that may only have two ideas...two beats, will be blocked with four or five ideas. It's important to make sure that the key poses are working with the key beats or phrases of the shot. Don't get all crazy with trying to cram in too many ideas. Some questions to ask when planning your scene: what is the purpose of the shot? ...what do I need to say to the audience?

When I block out a scene I will work in stepped keys, this way when I view my animation I am flipping through the poses. I key everything on the character for each one of my key poses, which keeps everything neat in my timeline. This way, if I receive notes from the supervisor or director, I can implement the changes quickly and easily.
Keep it clear and keep it simple.

Guest blogger Ray Chase

By: Unknown On 10.57

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How Do You Find Reference for an Unusual Four-Legged Creature?

I got a great question from Sergio, who wrote in to ask: "How do you find your reference for an unusual four-legged character and how do you do your planning for the movements?"

Hi Sergio! First off, thanks for the great question!

I know that's a tough thing that a lot of newer animators struggle with. You have to animate a dragon or a dinosaur or a centaur, but for some reason, there just aren't any centaurs to be found at the zoo.

Well, this is one of those times that you're going to have to put your animation imagination into overdrive, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't study any reference!

What you want to do is look for animals that have a similar physical makeup to the creature you will be animating. Sometimes this means studying multiple creatures.

An example that comes to mind was Eragon. When we were animating Saphira the dragon, we noticed that her body was very similar in proportion and design to that of a lion, and her wings were designed very similar to eagle wings.

We got right to work amassing a lot of great footage of lions and eagles and started studying the heck out of them, looking for concepts we should be using in our work, and studying how their body mechanics worked. When Saphira was on the ground, we tried to take inspiration from the movement of the lions, and in the air we animated her wings in an eagle-like pattern and fashion.

So just take a long look at your character, and see what it reminds you of, and start investigating the animals out there that might be similar. You can find great reference on Animal Motion Show (Rhinohouse Dvds), youtube, documentaries, movies, BBC motion gallery, etc.

The important thing is to base the movement (and acting) of your creature on REAL LIFE ANIMALS so it will have believable body mechanics that an audience can relate to and accept easily.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.28

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