Breaking down movements

I came across this post talking about different breakdowns in animation, using examples from the Zootopia trailer, and another post about breakdowns in Mulan. Being aware of different ways to break down movements elevates your animation! Always try to prevent your animation from being simple pose to pose without dynamic movement.

Breakdowns in Zootopia:
http://www.timrudder.com/animationmentor/breakdowns-zootopia/
Breaking up movements in Mulan:
http://www.timrudder.com/animationmentor/breaking-up-movements/

The post shows examples of breaking up the animation like the one below, where the timing of the eyes and ears are different.
It also shows a way of not making hand animations too similar by making on of the hands lead the other.
The Mulan post is about breaking up movement using different timing for the hands and face respectively.

In short the posts has some great insights and I recommend checking it out!

Acting performance tips for animators

By Dana Boadway-Masson.

There are lots of things to consider when working on an animation. This blog posts is excellent in that it discusses some of those major things to pay attention to besides the animation principles.

Click to go to the blog post.


Sharing this too because it was shared in the blogpost and I love Spanish Buzz!

The thinking character

Animation is motion and emotion. As an animator you're constantly working on motion, so it seems very important, but motion is secondary. Motion is driven by the character.

I've done my fair share of research on the topic of body language, I recommend it to any animator, I really believe that improving your observations of others will make you a better animator. But none of that matters unless you realize that in order for your animated character to appear real, the motions need to come from a (seemingly) real place.

I used to be in a game art course in uni. There I was taught how to make a character move, but I was never satisfied with just creating movement. It wasn't until I was in my graduation phase though that I found out about "the thinking character". In order for us to believe in the characters we see, whatever they do must have motivation.

The below is what I found while researching, it doesn't only talk about the theory, but also gives examples. More than worth the read, I'd say!
Published in 1994 by Siggraph under the name "Animation tricks" by John Lasseter (executive producer and director at Pixar).


When animating characters, every movement, every action must exist for a reason. If a character were to move about in a series of unrelated actions, it would seem obvious that the animator was moving it, not the character itself. All the movements and actions of a character are the result of its thought process. In creating a "thinking character," the animator gives life to the character by connecting its actions with a thought process. Walt Disney said, "In most instances, the driving forces behind the action is the mood, the personality, the attitude of the character—or all three. Therefore, the mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them."

To convey the idea that the thoughts of a character are driving its actions, a simple trick is in the anticipation; always lead with the eyes or the head. If the character has eyes, the eyes should move first, locking the focus of its action a few frames before the head. The head should move next, followed a few frames later by his body and the main action. The eyes of a character are the windows to its thoughts; the character’s thoughts are conveyed through the actions of its eyes.

If the character has no eyes, such as an inanimate object like a Luxo lamp, it is even more important to lead with the head. The number of frames to lead the eyes and head depends on how much thought precedes the main action. The animator must first understand a character’s thought process for any given action. Consider a character wanting to snatch some cheese from a mouse trap; the eyes will lead the snatch by quite a bit because this is a big decision. The character needs time to think, "...Hmm...This looks tricky, is this cheese really worth it or is it just processed American cheese food?...Oh what the heck...," he decides, and snatches the cheese.

Conversely, if the action is a character ducking to miss a low flying sheep, the anticipation of the eyes leading the action should be just a couple of frames. "What the...," and the next thing, he is spitting wool out of his mouth.

The only time that the eyes or head would not lead the action would be when an external force is driving the character’s movements, as opposed to his thought process. For example, if that character was hit in the back by the low flying sheep, the force of the impact would cause the body to move first, snapping the head back and dragging it behind the main action of the body.

Source: http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/lasseter_s94.htm#thinking character

Acting for Animators

So here's a video by CEO of Animation Mentor and former Pixar Animator Bobby Beck where he gives a talk/short lecture on acting for animators. It's a summary of interesting points and comes with a clear message. I was already kind of aware of this, but I think it's really something to pay attention to if you want to make your animation portfolio stand out, which I'm hoping mine will.
If you want to know what I'm talking about you better watch the video, he explains it better than I would!

Two approaches to improving an animation

This is a little something that I found out as I grew more experienced with animation, though it also applies to creating other kinds of art too! I'll keep this short and sweet!

When I just started out doing animation, what I did was create an animation and start tweaking from there. I just looked for improvement in the animation that was already there, however most of the time more than that is needed to create the best animation you can create.

Before you start, you need to look for options! The first idea you have for an animation might not actually the best idea!

Once you're confident that you've found the best idea then try it out, but always look back and reflect on whether another option was better/had better aspects that could be introduced to the option you're executing.

Once you're well on your way you can go back to the other approach of asking yourself what the problem is in the current animation, and get tweaking!


The best would be to do both simultaneously throughout the process ofcourse, but don't overtweak stuff at the start just yet, make sure you make a good foundation before you start thoroughly tweaking.

Glen Keane live animating a dancer

and talking about his process and giving tips of course! It's 27 minutes that are worth your time if you want to get inspired and get some free knowledge!

The main piece of advice that I took from this is that what happens before "getting there" is what makes it all interesting. But I guess to really understand this you must watch the video yourself!

Wait till he gets to go full steam ahead.

Consistency in aid of believability

11secondclubbers, welcome!!

Sidenote: Here's a more reader friendly version.

One of the animator’s goals is to make the animation believable in the eyes of the viewer. An example of that is that the emotion portrayed needs to look sincere. Another is that the animation needs to abide the laws of physics of the world it’s in. I’ll be talking about the latter, about technically correct, consistent, animation, physics and whatnot.

This might sound a bit daunting to the beginning animator, but it’s actually just some general rules that you need to keep in mind. The rules are easy, but they are easily overlooked and sometimes harder to implement. My own goal with this piece of text is to provide you all with a teeny bit of awareness, and I hope that will make your animations that much better.

Also worth looking into: Suspension of disbelief

Intro to consistency

Maybe I'm just a geek, but I like consistency. I like the fact that if you know the weight of an object, you can calculate the time it takes for it to reach the ground from a certain height (leaving density and air friction out of the equation). I like the fact that when a ball bounces (up/down), it will leave the ground with the same speed that it approached the surface (provided that the surface is flat, inanimate and isn't sticky).

I like the consistency, the predictability, the logic. I like the fact that if you follow certain rules and logic, your animation will have a higher chance of being convincing, isn't that just great? Reading this piece is but a small price to pay for becoming aware of such logic, right?

Okay! So we've established that I'm a geek, but have I convinced you of the importance of consistency in animation? I bet not! Next up I'll cover some of the bases you need to cover when working on an animation and I'll add examples to the mix too. I'll not hand every bit of knowledge to you on a silver platter though, if you don't understand something try to research it or ask questions, try to truly understand it! Good luck! :)

(Exceptions to these pieces of logic are dealt with later on in the article.)

Gravity / Weight

I'll spare you the big scientific explanations, but here are just some basics you need to be aware of.

Gravity is a force that acts on anything that has a weight and a volume. Gravity is  "a natural phenomenon by which physical bodies attract each other with a force proportional to their masses" (according to Wikipedia).

Seeing as the mass of a planet is a constant, it depends on the mass of an object what the gravitational effect will be (the heavier the object, the bigger the force will be).

During an animation, the mass of the object and the planet won't change, they are both consistent. The force between the object and planet will be consistent! Exceptions aside, gravity and weight are predictable and consistent. They won't suddenly change unless there's a third party in play. (Like a magnet, a huge blowing fan or addition of helium).

EXAMPLE: Anatomy of a bouncing ball (part 1)

This is the exercise that every animator has to do, for a very good reason, but unfortunately not every animator is confronted with the truth behind this. Did you ever try to understand the logic behind the bounces? What makes the bounces get smaller? How fast do the bounces get smaller?

Did you ever notice that the arc of each bounce has the same width/height aspect ratio? That they get proportionally smaller?

It's all about gravity! Gravity is the steady force that attracts the ball to the ground. Gravity is steady, that means that with each bounce, the bounces get proportionally smaller, proportionally being another key word here related to consistency!

EXAMPLE: Floatiness, a problem that pretty much all of us animators have encountered at one point or another. So if you get this critique on 11secondclub or from your peers, this is what it means: the problem is that during the animation, the object seems to be able to stay in the air longer than its weight and force should allow. It's not consistent with what we expect. It's not consistent with the weight of the object or with the force (whether it be gravity or other).

This might also occur the other way around, the object seems to be in the air shorter than its weight should be able to allow.

EXAMPLE: a more problematic encounter with floatiness:

A while back I saw an animation of a balloon filled with helium. The balloon is let go, it rises until it hits a plateau, but it bounces to the side of the plateau and it starts rising again. So there are two instances where the balloon starts to rise in this one animation. The problem was that the balloon sped up faster in one occasion than the other.

The thing that the animator should have paid more attention to is that the weight of the balloon and gravity will remain the same during the whole of the animation. So this means that the balloon should gain height and gain speed at the same rate in both occasions.

Of course exceptions can be imagined, like a fan below the balloon, but there was no fan in this particular animation, so it was a mistake.

Force / Energy

Energy, another consistent attribute in animation! No scientific explanation here, just a healthy dose of logic.

If you reach out and put your fist out reaaaaally slowly, you won't give someone a black eye now would you? Basically it's a matter of keeping track of the energy that is put into an action, and comes out. Those values should be (about) equal in your animations (again, exceptions aside).

EXAMPLE: It's bouncing ball time again! (part 2)

After a nice big bounce, the ball gathers downward momentum as it speeds towards the ground. Once the ball hits the ground that downward momentum is instantly converted to upward momentum. So the speed at which the ball was approaching the ground then becomes the exact speed at which the ball moves up and away from the ground. It steadily (, proportionally, consistently!) loses energy again due to gravity until it has no upward energy anymore and starts moving down with the energy of the gravitational force.

Also notice that when your bouncing ball moves sideways, it only slightly loses sideways momentum due to air resistance. After it stops bouncing it'll lose sideways momentum faster due to friction with the ground.

If the ball hits a wall, the sideways left momentum becomes sideways right momentum without losing any energy, it just gets changed in direction.

EXAMPLE: Hitting an invisible brick wall, or the likes

Bit of a tough one to explain, but a problem I've encountered in my own animations a couple of times. Let’s just take the arms in a walkcycle as an example. The arms swing back and forth during a walkcycle. They gain and lose momentum like a bouncing ball pretty much, except that most of the force comes from the muscles instead of from gravity. Sometimes it happens that the arms seem to hit an invisible wall in your animation. It feels like they should swing trough more, instead something invisible stops it from doing so. This means that the energy is cut short, the arm loses momentum unproportionally, too suddenly. It needs more follow through!

Related to this is the changing of amounts of energy in the middle of an animation.

EXAMPLE: The character jumps and after the apex of the jump, the return journey towards the ground is much faster than expected. It's like he's sucked towards the ground suddenly instead of it happening steadily.

EXAMPLE: Expectation of the viewer

If you see a big guy, like the Hulk, pull his arm back into a nice big preparatory swing, we as viewers start anticipating a big blow, right? Well let’s say he hits ye ordinary window with that big swing of his, but he doesn't manage to break the glass, well the glass better have some really good reason not to break! Now this is an exaggerated example of course, but it illustrates that the suspension of disbelief of the viewer can be broken by bad logic, so use this power well. Ask yourself if the result of the animation is what is logically to be expected.

A simpler EXAMPLE of this would be if the spring that is pushed down to half capacity, it won't spring up with the energy of a spring pushed down to full capacity.

Exceptions (full of EXAMPLES)

There are a lot of examples of exceptions to these little pieces of logic, but these examples are the result of specific choices made for the animation. Some examples:

Sometimes it's necessary to break gravity, for instance when blowing up an aunt (Harry Potter reference) or when your character is in a spaceship made by Bulma (DBZ reference). But that doesn't mean that animations aren’t consistent! They need to be consistent within their own context (very important!).

Another popular exception is the Warner Bros logic of hanging in the air before realizing there is no ground to walk on, then wave, and only then start falling. This is obviously a stylistic choice. But after starting the fall, the speed of the falling needs to be logical and believable.

EXAMPLE: Animation style

Another example where it's important to be consistent within the context of the animation is with stylistic decisions. The snappy timing in the below example isn't realistic, but it is consistent! What this means is that they've consciously adjusted the physical rules of their world, but the rules of gravity, weight and energy do still apply.

Burning Safari:

 

Conclusion

Well, the point is that we need to do everything we can not to break the suspension of disbelief of the viewer. It needs be believable. To consciously try and make it believable we pay heed to the rules of gravity, energy, weight, etc, etc. Even if the style of animation is different, or the situation you're animating isn't consistent with real life, it still needs to make sense, be consistent within their own context.

Yep! I think that's about it. I hope I included enough examples, haha.

I know the article isn't structurally coherent, sorry!

Any questions are more than welcome! Thanks for reading! J

Think before you animate

Kung Fu Panda 2 In the studio youtube
I love watching voice actors in the recording studio, behind the scenes. Watching them looking for the right way to bring a sentence, at the right tone and pace, with the right attitude. It's excellent reference and it shows just how much work they put into portraying their character. But with voice, it's very easy to start again; if you didn't like it the first time around you'll just re-do it. Saying a sentence only takes a few seconds. When creating animations you have to put a lot of thought into it up front and be convinced of your choices, because we don't get a lot of second chances.

I've seen starting animators make the mistake of not preparing enough before starting to animate the final shot. Now I don't have an awful lot of experience with this myself, so that's why I decided to make a plan/checklist for the preparation of a shot.
Disclaimer: This is just the way I like to work, it's not the standard by any means.


Preparation for a character animation shot
Plan / Checklist

1. Write everything down from the moment you start with the preparation
From the moment you hear the audio, see the story board or imagine a new shot, you start forming ideas. Many of these ideas will be lost if you don't write (/type) them down.


2. Knowing your character
Before you start, familiarize yourself with the character you're portraying. Know their point in the story curve, their goals, their personality.
Look up reference. For example if your character is a pirate, watch Pirates of the Caribbean. Another example is if you want to base your character on a person, like an actor, look up some material of them on Youtube. It's good to do this early on so as to make sure you don't copy anything, you want this shot to be completely your own. If you see anything you like and want to use, like an eyeroll or twitching corner of the mouth, write it down, it will come in handy later.


3. If there is audio (with or without dialogue) listen and interpret
Make sure you know every little intricacy of the dialogue. Make notes!

Questions that might be worth asking at this point are:
What is the main purpose of the line of dialogue and the shot?
What is the emotion/state of mind of the character?
Is there a change of emotion?
What are important beats / accents in the audio that needs to resonate in the animation?
Who are they saying it to? (Saying it to a hated teacher or a close friend is a huge difference for the character's attitude.)

If there is no dialogue, you'll have to choreograph the rhythm yourself. I suggest reading this:
http://www.animationtipsandtricks.com/2009/04/how-do-you-approach-shot-which-has-no.html


4. Flesh out ideas (in steadily more detail as you progress)
During every second of the shot, the character will portray something, whether it's nerves, calmness, anger, sadness. Every second it needs to be readable what the character is like and what their state of mind is. This is the time to pour out more ideas than you need so that later you can make the decisions of what is best.

Imagining the character in the shot could work for you, but trying to act the shot out will give you more ideas. Try to be the character and feel the emotions.
It's very important to try to really be aware of your body as you act it out. For example, if your character is thinking of a painful memory, an exercise you could do is do the same and be aware of your body. Try it! I did and I just noticed that I turn my eyes toward the lower right corner and gently press my lips together as if wanting to avoid bad food from entering my mouth and my brows furrowed slightly because I was getting tense. I did this without a mirror by the way, but you could also try it using a mirror, whatever works for you. Animating little things like this, body language mostly, will help convey the thoughts of your character.

Questions that might be worth asking at this point are:
What is the character's reaction to their situation, to their own thoughts even?
What will a certain thought do to their posture/ body language?
What could make their intention clearer?
What should be the focal points in the shot, where should the viewer be looking? (People's eyes are drawn to movement, so if you want them to focus on a booger in the nose of your character, don't make them wave violently with their arms and hands.)


5. Decision making
Speaks for itself. This is the point where you take into account everything you thought of up to this point. By now you must have some idea of the motions and emotions you want to capture. Do this in any way you want to; you could start by acting it out in front of the camera (or without camera) or by circling ideas on your list that you think are best.


6. Create reference
Reference will help you a lot when creating an animation, so I would strongly advice capturing your own reference.
If you decide to work with someone else, make sure they read your list of observations and decisions, but don't expect them to do exactly what you want. Be prepared to make this a collaboration. Others bring different ideas to the table, so be open to this.


7. Back to the drawing board (figuratively)
Evaluate the choices made, be sensitive to what you do and don't like and why. What could you do to improve it? Be prepared to kill your darlings.

Questions that might be worth asking at this point are:
Are the acting choices true to the character?
Do the acting choices make sense with regards to the dialogue?
Is it evident what you're trying to convey? What can you do to improve clarity?
Is there too much movement?
Is the shot and are the movements appealing?
Does the energy of the movement match the energy of the dialogue?


8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you are satisfied
It's always helpful to keep your old reference on file for when your shot isn't working, then you won't have to go back to shooting reference.

9. Time to start animating!

Making great poses

What makes for a good, appealing pose? When I was giving someone feedback I found myself wondering about this, so I went and did a quick search and found this article by chad3d. It's nice and concise, just how I like my information! (I was not intentionally keeping this text short to prove a point, it just happened!)

http://animationmentor.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/what-makes-a-good-pose/

Silhouette

Just a short piece of advice from me today! I learned this from a friend who showed me the basics when I was starting out 2 years ago. I haven't seen anybody else doing it, but I bet there are others that do.
The Tip: In your animation scene, hide all the lights and environment models (except if they are important props), go into lit mode and watch your animation in silhouette! This is not a game-changer, but it might help you see some things you didn't catch right away. It's like in Photoshop, where an artist mirrors an image to see problems they hadn't seen before.
I only use this trick right before I'm ready to move into splining and when I'm polishing, so it won't lead me to make any really big changes, that's not what I use it for. What it does is it gives me the opportunity to see how readable an animation is with the bare minimum of information provided so I can find areas that need changes to improve that readability.

I hope this is clear and helps anyone!

Pandas animation trick - Cliches

Oh dear, I've been slacking off... I've been trying to focus on my graduation project so much that everything else has been catching dust for the last week or so. It's hard to balance everything sometimes... I need to make a to do list for everyday things so I don't neglect anything...

Something that you get to terms with as an animator is that you have to focus on a 100 things at the same time, have to take everything into account, and nothing can be off or the animation won't work (as well as it could do). I'm of course talking about weight, balance, timing, rhythm, line of action, posing, silhouette, storytelling, emotion, and the list goes on, and on, and on. We have to gain a feel and insight for all of these things and the moment we try to push our work we will gain that insight. Sometimes we are struck by insight, other times we just have to be made aware of it by someone straight out telling us!

The next video was posted on the 11secondclub blog and it made me aware of some things we see in beginner animation more often that we think. I immediately recognized the fingerpointing one from other animations and I'm certainly guilty of the W shape one, also the symmetrical animation part. There are many more examples than mentioned in his video, and now you will recognize them when you see 'em.

So here's another thing to add to those 100 things we need to pay attention to while animating: Watch out for animation cliches!

Character Progression

Jason Schleifer is a senior animator, currently head character animator at WETA Digital. Among many other things he worked on the animation of Gollem from Lord of the Rings. And he did a pretty interesting TED talk. I say pretty interesting as it's quite basic/superficial, but still worth the watch! He tells about the importance of creating an emotional connection between the watcher and the character. He explains that as an animator you're a technician, but you have to be constantly aware of the character's arc in relation to his present, past and future. And also whatever the character does needs to be motivated.

(Ignore the self-help-bla-bla at the end, in my opinion it makes this presentation weaker, it's not what I'm sharing it for. However if you want to kill your spider, go right ahead.)




Are you an actor, or a technician?
Something that's closely connected to this is the ability of the animator to create a moving video, not just a technically sound one is this motivational article. It tells us about what we have to do as animators to improve, that we have to make ourselves be vulnerable and critical of ourselves. Really interesting!

Are you an actor, or a technician?
http://handdrawnnomadzone.blogspot.com/2007/02/are-you-actor-or-technician.html

Getting in front of the camera

Some animators like it, and others don't. Who am I to tell you that you should get in front of the camera, right! So I'm not going to tell you. I'm not even going to try and convince you to do it. I'm just going to show you what an asset it can be, if done right!

This stuff just really inspires me, and though I've danced for reference material, I haven't acted in front of a camera for reference before. I'm planning to though!

How To Train Your Dragon
Supervising animator on Gerard Butler's performance.



11 Secondclub - Edwin Schaap
Winner of the 11Secondclub contest January 2011



Horton Hears a Who - Jeff Gabor
Over the top acting, wow!

Learning from a shot

I just have to share this link which is so full of insight on how to learn from someone else's shot, it's quite an eye-opener, at least it was for me. I never look into shots that appeal to me in the depth that he does and now I have to admit that I must've missed out on quite a few, okay... A LOT of learning experiences. He put a lot of time into it and it's definitely worth the read to get a full understanding of what and why he does it.
I hope to make a post like this too when I have the time! No promises though!

The Lozt Boyz - how I study animation


Animator Mark said this about it:
Awesome post, thank you for this. A lot of times i will frame through shots that i love, but i realize there is a lack of in depth questions i don't pose to the shot which would be more helpful. This is going to be a great exercise that i will be adapting from now on. Thanks you.

Animation Notes - John Lasseter

I know most animators probably do this: keep a few animation notes next to your computer or pinned to the drawing table. Well right here is a list from John Lasseter (though originally created by Glenn Keane when he was Ollie Johnstons assistent). I don't know what everything means, and some of it is specific to 2D animation but most of it is also relevant to 3D animation!


Source: Siggraph



1. Don’t illustrate words or mechanical movements. Illustrate ideas or thoughts, with the attitudes and actions. 

2. Squash and stretch entire body for attitudes. 

3. If possible, make definite changes from one attitude to another in timing and expression. 

4. What is the character thinking? 

5. It is the thought and circumstances behind the action that will make the action interesting. Example: A man walks up to a mailbox, drops in his letter and walks away. OR A man desperately in love with a girl far away carefully mails a letter in which he has poured his heart out. 

6. When drawing dialogue, go for phrasing. (Simplify the dialogue into pictures of the dominating vowel and consonant sounds, especially in fast dialogue. 

7. Lift the body attitude 4 frames before dialogue modulation (but use identical timing on mouth as on X sheet).  

8. Change of expression and major dialogue sounds are a point of interest. Do them, if at all possible, within a pose. If the head moves too much you won’t see the changes. 

9. Don’t move anything unless it’s for a purpose. 

10. Concentrate on drawing clear, not clean. 

11. Don’t be careless. 

12. Everything has a function. Don’t draw without knowing why. 

13. Let the body attitude echo the facial. 

14. Get the best picture in your drawing by thumbnails and exploring all avenues. 

15. Analyze a character in a specific pose for the best areas to show stretch and squash. Keep these areas simple. 

16. Picture in your head what it is you’re drawing. 

17. Think in terms of drawing the whole character, not just the head or eyes, etc. Keep a balanced relation of one part of the drawing to the other. 

18. Stage for most effective drawing. 

19. Draw a profile of the drawing you’re working on every once in a while. A profile is easier on which to show the proper proportions of the face. 

20. Usually the break in the eyebrow relates to the highpoint of the eye. 

21. The eye is pulled by the eyebrow muscles. 

22. Get a plastic quality in face — cheeks, mouth and eyes. 

23. Attain a flow thru the body rhythm in your drawing. 

24. Simple animated shapes. 

25. The audience has a difficult time reading the first 6-8 frames in a scene. 

26. Does the added action in a scene contribute to the main idea in that scene? Will it help sell it or confuse it? 

27. Don’t animate for the sake of animation but think what the character is thinking and what the scene needs to fit into the sequence. 

28. Actions can be eliminated and staging "cheated" if it simplifies the picture you are trying to show and is not disturbing to the audience. 

29. Spend half your time planning your scene and the other half animating. 

30. How to animate a scene of a four-legged character acting and walking: Work out the acting patterns first with the stretch and squash in the body, neck and head; then go back in and animate the legs. Finally, adjust the up and down motion on the body according to the legs.