I was going over the importance of weight and materials with my class this week and it reminded me of some really great notes I had read when I was in school.  Thankfully the wonderful people of SIGGRAPH still have them on their site.  These are notes from a presentation John Lasseter gave at SIGGRAPH back in 1994.  I love how these notes are 17 years old and they are as true and relevant today as they were back then.  I remembered them for the part on weight and size, but there is so much more. If you are a student learning animation, bookmark this link.  For everyone else, enjoy the read…it’s an oldie but goodie!!

http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/lasseter_s94.htm

There’s been a trend developing over the past few years of showing off a side-by-side comparison of the various stages of your animation work.  Video Reference, Blocking, Spline, Final, or any combination therein.

We’ve seen this trend among students and professionals alike, and we’d like to describe what it feels like to view them.

It’s a real drag.

For a number of reasons.  First, let’s examine the possible viewer reactions:

1) Your animation lacks (but your reference is awesome)
Seeing someone who is talented as an actor is inspiring, and their failure to communicate those ideas through animation becomes frustrating.  Of course this shows great potential, but it also means you have a lot to work on before you can get your ideas to connect.

2) Your animation lacks (because your reference lacks)
This is the most common result.  It becomes clear why we have trouble believing or connecting with your character.  If you start with poor reference it’s hard to end up with anything but poor results.  Many people are under the impression that good animation consists mainly of smooth, flourishy movement (and lots of it).  Respectfully, we’d like to disagree and state that good animation consists of a believable performance that the audience can connect with.

3) Your animation is good (but your reference is not)
This is rare, but it happens.  You wonder how the hell they got the animation to look good when their reference is not supporting it.  Don’t ever leave your audience scratching their heads.

4) Your animation is good (but you missed nuance)
The animation would have stood just fine by itself.  But place it right next to the reference and suddenly it’s clear how much nuance you failed to see in your reference.

You may have noticed there isn’t a single overall positive reaction to seeing comparisons of your reference and your animation.  This is purposeful.  If you are making a demo reel let your work speak for itself – it’s really as simple as that.

“…But it’s educational!”

Is it?

Showing the (perceived) ‘order of operations’ for creating animation provides very little educational substance.  It is tantamount to a video of someone playing a piano comped next to sheet music.  “…And that’s how you write a symphony.”

Symphony Comparison Reel

Animating a shot – similar to writing a symphony – is a constant ‘back and forth’ process full of experimentation, exploration, nixed ideas, and purposeful decisions at every moment.  Showing a start, middle, and end completely ignores the ‘WHY’ – the educational part.  Why was the decision made to put a crescendo there?  Why was that idea cut? Why was that part modified? Why were only parts of the reference utilized and not others?

What was it failing to do originally, and why is it more successful now?

Answering these questions is paramount.  The progress comparison cannot stand alone as a piece of educational material.  However, when coupled with critical thinking the viewer can actually learn something about the animation process.
example | example | example | example

So here’s a general rule.  If it’s a reel – let the finished product speak for itself.  If it’s to teach others – then break down the process and articulate what choices were made and why.  You will learn more by dissecting what you did, and so will your audience.

In future posts we’ll discuss the process of actually pinpointing usable reference, and how to utilize it effectively.

|Jacob, Ben, and Steve

When you get up in front of the camera to act out your ideas you need to remember to let it flow naturally.  The more you think about what you’re doing, the worse it gets.  Whether you are acting out an intense dramatic moment or merely walking from one side of the room to the other, you can’t over-think your actions.  Over-thinking makes it feel forced.

If you start your animation from bad reference footage, guess what you’ll end up with.  Bad animation.

Here is an awesome clip from 30 Rock of a character trying to act in front of a camera and over-thinking every move he makes.

He concentrates so hard on the physical actions he performs he forgets how to do them.  Suddenly he doesn’t remember the natural way to walk.  He doesn’t know what to do with his hands when delivering dialogue (another common problem we see in animation).  As a solution, he wants to hold a prop (something we go to as well) and then comically ends up with a prop in each hand!  HA.

If there is enough interest we can dive into this topic further, but mostly this was just an excuse to show this clip from 30-Rock.

|Jacob

Animating convincing flight is a real challenge.  Just like anything else, you need to do your research. Flight is VERY easy to get wrong, and then you risk losing your audience.  Viewers can just feel that something is… off.
The animators who worked on How to Train Your Dragon spent countless hours studying flight from real life reference of flying creatures. They also looked at both convincing and unconvincing animated flying creatures in films.
Brendon Body, animator on Legend of the Guardians, has done plenty of similar research and put it all in one place for your educational pleasure!  Take advantage of his awesome tutorial for animating flight.

I highly suggest reading this tutorial and studying all of his great examples.  He picks apart live action footage to help you understand bird mechanics, and has compiled plenty of wonderful reference materials that are now at your disposal. Don’t pass this up.

Oh I get it, It has layers!  Today I wanted to talk about a concept that really helps me when I’m animating.  I don’t know if it has a term but I like to think of it as layers of character.  I know some people like to animate in layers, but what I want to talk about is not a workflow but rather a way to understand all the things that make up your character.  The better you know your character, the better the performance you’ll be able to give.

The bottom layer is the “what” layer.  What is your characters physicality?  What your character is and how it’s built will describe how the character moves.  For example, Shrek and Donkey.  They are not built the same, they won’t move the same way either.  Some things to keep in mind are:  Age, Sex, Weight, Height, Physical ability, ect.  If you are animating an animal do your research.  The more you know about how that animal moves the better off you’ll be.  All of this may sound obvious, but I’ve seen this layer forgotten.  For example, an old man won’t move the same as a child and women don’t walk the same as men, yet I have seen these types of characters animated interchangeably many times.

The middle layer is the “who” layer.  Who is your character?  This layer is all about personality.  Just like in the “what” layer it’s important to do your research and know everything there is to know about your character before you start animating.  Your character’s personality will determine how they interact in their world.  It defines how they see themselves and how the world sees them.  Even the character’s silhouette should tell you something about their personality.  Take Eeyore and Donkey for example.  Both are donkeys (I know one is stuffed) but they both have drastically different personalities.  You can see this in the way they move and how they carry themselves.  Donkey is more like a dog, very playful and has a bounce in his step.  That doesn’t mean that they will only display one emotion, and that leads me into the last layer.

The top layer is the “How” layer.  How does your character feel.  This layer is all about emotion.  How your character is currently feeling about something is the strongest driver in the performance.  Characters are not flat, they can feel the same range of emotions as you do.  It’s their personality that will define how they show them.   Donkey isn’t happy all the time  and Eeyore can feel joy.  It’s how they show these emotions that tells you more about their character.    Your characters current emotional state is the strongest driver in how they will interact.  Emotion drives motion!

Here is one last example to help tie this all together.  Take Bagheera from The Jungle Book.  He doesn’t just move like a believable panther, he moves and performs like a stuffy panther.  When he gets angry he isn’t just an angry panther, but a stuffy, angry panther.  It all layers on top of each other.

So that’s layers of character and how I approach all of my shots.  I hope it gives you something to think about when you start your next shot and can help you keep character in mind and the multiple ways we can show it.  Just remember:  What, Who, and How!

-Stephen