Where Can I Find Some Good Rigs to Play With Online

I get this question all the time, actually, which is great, because it means that a lot of people out there are really hungry to practice their animation, which I think is terrific!

I thought I'd just do a quick post here to point you towards some rigs that my buddy Tim Oberlander has very generously put up online for anyone to play with:

http://timoberlander.blogspot.com/
(there's a "downloads" link on the right side of the page)

He's going to be putting up some updated characters soon with a GUI overhaul, some new squash/stretch stuff, and assorted other goodies, but the rigs are already really powerful and ready to be played with, so hop over there and get downloadin'! Be sure to tell Tim hello, and it'd be extra-great if you could credit him in any work you might use it for...

You know, writing that post get me thinking, and I just want to comment quickly on one more thing. Some people are apparently feeling like it's ok to steal our Animation Mentor characters and use them in their demo reels, or recreate models that look very similar to our characters.
Obviously, this is very misleading for recruiters (who, by the way, react *VERY* negatively to finding out they've been misled... Putting that stuff on a demo reel is certainly NOT the best way to get a job, I'll say that much), and it also hurts our students who have worked hard to be able to be a part of Animation Mentor in a variety of ways.

If you've recreated our characters, I'd encourage any of you change the designs and colors at least enough to not look like blatant ripoffs of our student's characters. While it's very flattering to think that you like our designs this much, it has the potential to hurt your demo reel with recruiters just as much as it may hurt our school's image, and my true dream for all of you is to get to experience a career in this art I so love.

We try very hard to put as much free animation information out there as we possibly can, and this blog is just one of the many ways we try to do that. It'd be great to not feel like people are taking advantage of us...

I know that the vast majority of you would never do something like this, but I just wanted to throw it out there because it came up again recently in a couple ways and it just bums me out.

We're legally obligated to protect our character designs (if a company doesn't make strong efforts to protect their copyrights, they can lose them), and we SO don't want to be one of those companies out there hunting down copyright infringements... ugh - it's such a waste of time, and just not what we're here to do.

So... if this isn't too naive, can I just ask nicely that you please avoid ripped of AM characters and instead use any of the gajillion free characters out there to play with (such as Tim's!), or create your own?

Creating your own is INFINITELY better anyway, as it can really make your demo reel stand out!

Thanks, everyone!

Shawn :)

Tips on Smooth Key Framing in Animation

The concept of key framing is one that has evolved with the animated medium. Historically, animation was created as frames in sequential order, (a throw back to film), but traditional animators began to explore ways in which to break down the execution of a shot into a system more agreeable to creating performance. Thus, the idea of using single frames to denote important parts of a scene quickly become the most elegant way of planning and staging.

Should a character go from happy to sad within the course of a shot, then it is possible to create just two drawings that may then describe this complex change of emotion fairly simply, absolutely spiffy for an initial stage of production. The great thing about working in modern computer animation is that this process is applicable to our digital puppets, so that we may benefit from all the the advances in animated acting and planning that have been done by our traditional peers. So for the sake of this little rambling discussion of mine, let's take key framing to be the significant poses/attitudes that define a shot, rather than the software definition of a value of a variable at at one frame in time. (It's a bit confusing, but to the computer, every knot on a curve is a key frame, but we're way more creative that that.)

Key framing has many advantages over the straight ahead, layered approach. What are they, I hear you ask? Well, I'm about to tell you!

As was mentioned above, key framing allows us to plan our work in broad strokes. We can consider the emotive or physical beats within a shot and define them, either by quickly thumbnailing/reference or at the computer/drawing table. If we can create strong, effective key poses, then they should be able to accurately communicate to an audience just what the shot will eventually feel like when it's complete.

Another advantage, and this is huge for professional animation, is that with only a couple of keys it is possible to begin a dialogue with peers or creative superiors. Working to deadlines means that it is imperative that ideas be conveyed quickly and clearly in order to get feedback, so that the shot can progress. The layered approach suffers here, as it is impossible for a director to judge the success of the animator's vision if, (for example), they've only completed some beautifully moving hips and legs, leaving the arms and face for later. Also, should we head off in the wrong direction, it is really easy to go back and rework key poses to be more in line with creative direction. Everybody wins!

The second question in the heading there is a bit of a technical consideration, I think. While it's important to the final polish of a shot, within the context of this discussion I believe the question should be more about good key framing rather than smooth.

Good keyframing comes from the ability to analyse the intent of the shot and distil it to its essence. This could be a subtle gesture or a big, broad action, the process is the same. Once we have this essence we may explore it to come up with suggestions as to how we may convey the intent of the shot in as appealing and simple a way as possible through our poses.

Getting in character, be it by acting or looking at reference or doodling on a scrap of paper is central to finding these keys. This is because empathy brings results! I find that I usually have an abundance of ideas simply by attempting to go through the same experiences to those of the character I am trying to portray.

So now we've learned a little about what key frames are, and how to find the tricksy little scamps. By empathizing with our characters and mimicking their thought process, we can stumble across cool animation choices that would otherwise be hidden to us. Questioning these choices can then help us whittle them down to the best key poses we can add into a scene to most clearly convey our intent to our audience.

It's an exciting and creative time during the creation of an animated piece of work, this 'ere keyframe selection process. Let's go and find some!


Guest blogger Kevan Shorey

Pros and Cons of Video Reference

Hi Shawn,

Great blog! My question is I’ve been listening a lot to various animation podcasts and watching animation videos, and it seems there are some great very experienced animators that don’t use video reference, some that don’t even thumbnail at all. Some indeed say you shouldn’t become too reliant on it, and warn that using it may suck the life out of a performance. Other’s stating as a reason that they don’t like to video themselves as they think the performance will end up being too much like them self and not like the character.

I was wondering about your thoughts on this?

I know myself that when I first started my career as an animator, I never used video reference, I never thumbnailed, I just went straight into the 3d program and animated and my work sucked. After I learned a bit more and started to plan more using reference my work massively improved – but do you think it has negative affects also?
-Steven Heft

Hi Steven! Thanks for the nice words and the great question!!!

I too know many animators who don't use much reference for human animation (I still don't know many who wouldn't at least study some reference for creature/animals work), but these are all either very experienced professional animators or are animators who's work never quite measures up.

Everyone has their own method of working that they are most comfortable with, and everyone is at a different level or a different place along that path to learning animation.

Truthfully, I don't use near as much reference anymore if I'm animating a biped. Depending on the action, I might, and certainly with acting shots I would generally film some reference in order to seek out some unique acting choices and emotional beats, but these days I'm finally able to see the action animation more in my head, and am finally experienced enough to be able to combine that vision with a deeper understanding of the body in order to be able to just dive into it and pretty much know how most of the physics will work. Of course, I still blow it sometimes and have to go back to the drawing board (whoops!), but for the first time, I'm finally understanding this stuff a little more.

But that's after over a decade as a professional working on films. I'm not claiming that's some big number in the length of a career, there are a whole lot of animators out there with piles more experience and talent than me, that's for sure. But I mention the number of years in order to point out that for at least the first seven or eight years as a professional, I needed to go through a very deep planning process for pretty much every shot if I wanted it to be a shot I was proud of.

If you include my years as a student and working in games, then you're talking about a 12-year stretch where any assignments or shots I got cocky with and skipped my planning phase inevitably turned out simply "adequate," at best. Certainly less special than they could have been. At worst, they were complete failures, and I can't think of a single shot frrom that 12 year stretch that didn't include planning that I would include on a demo reel today.

Conversely, the shots where I spent the most time planning, filmed reference, studied it, etc., are the shots that finished fastest and turned out the best, and which I am most proud of -- or at least can look back on with the least amount of cringing. :)

This is why I so strongly recommend a thorough planning process to animation students. If someone has been animating for a bunch of years and feels like their experience lets them skip that process, then I think that's great -- more power to them. However, the vast majority of us, myself included, would still benefit from some amount of planning for the majority of our shots, *especially* if they include dialogue and/or acting.

To me, recommending to a beginner or mid-level animator that they don't use reference would be just like tossing a first time swimmer into the deep end with no instruction, or handing some carpenters a bunch of wood and tools but no schematics or blueprints and telling them to build a house. Can that guy swim? Maybe he can figure it out, maybe not. Could the carpenters build a house? Sure, maybe, but unless they already have a lot of experience, my guess is that it isn't going to turn out very well, and certainly isn't going to win any architecture awards.

As for the fear you mention of reference affecting our work negatively, that's up to us as the artist. If I film reference of myself for Yoda, Optimus Prime, and ET, and they all move the same way, then I've pretty much failed in my job! ****REFERENCE IS NOT FOR COPYING.**** If someone is copying the reference verbatim, then yes, they run a really high risk of sucking the life out of the shot and animating everything to move the same way they move.

But that isn't how reference should be used. It should be a source you can study to see how the body mechanics work, or to discover great and unexpected acting choices. But THEN you have to apply your knowledge of the principles of animation TO that reference. Exaggerate the poses a bit, push the timing here, add some contrast there, etc.

As long as your are doing your job as the animator to apply life and interest to the reference you are studying, then you don't need to be afraid of it having any negative impact on your work whatsoever. That's my opinion, anyway...

Thanks so much for writing in!!

Shawn :)

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 :)

What Makes an Acting Shot Shine?

In many ways, this is quite a subjective question we've got here, for the success of a character is the result of a subtle relationship between the performance and its audience. What choices an animator makes helps to inform and develop that relationship, leaving the audience with a good handle on the personality we wish to portray. It's quite cool, really!

Since it is subjective, I can only talk about what works for myself, sitting in the audience, (probably eating something unhealthy), but maybe this will provide an some insight into what we can all work on to better connect with the me's out there.

For myself, the most important part of an acting shot is that the character stays true to itself. Every important acting decision made should be followed by the question, "Would the character do this?". This is a great way to self-evaluate and begin to dive deeper into the nuances of the character. Just this one simple question will allow the formulation of new ideas that would otherwise remain undiscovered, particularly if the pressure is on to jump into producing footage. When acting out a scene in character, a skilled performer is able to live inside this question and be spontaneous and it is this that makes the performance compelling to watch. Going out of character is a quick way to losing your audience, which is not what we want at all!

This brings us on to being interesting. Our ultimate goal is to engage the audience and provoke an emotional response from them. By exploring the performance we can come up with a bunch in different in-character ideas and then pick the ones that work best. Sometimes It could be a small detail such as the way a finger moves through a gesture, or maybe a broader, more goofy comic choice. Either way, we've just come up with something no one else have thought of, and which has just given depth to the character, making it seem more real! Well done, us!

Now we come to the animation stuff. The technical bits and bobs that go with making our scenes work. By this I mean the application of the principles of animation, composition, staging and so on. Watching beautiful, fluid animation can of course be spine-tingling, but see how it's lower on my list? Admittedly it's a three part list of all important stuff, but you know what I mean. You can have the most technically brilliant animation in the world, but if the performance is flat or out of character, then you have missed your chance at adding to the illusion of an independent entity. It's probably also true, to some extent, that people will forgive some minor technical imperfections if the acting is right on the money. Polish is nothing without substance, but there is no reason why we can't have both, so let's do that!

Ultimately an acting shot shines for the depth of character exemplified within it. Our goal is to provide the sense of a living, breathing universe that exists not only within the viewing frustum, but in its own little reality.

If we've got all this stuff going on in your acting shots, then we've certainly got the viewer's attention. I think our hero's going to be just fine in there. :)

Guest blogger Kevan Shorey

Quick Tips on Hand Animation

1) The hand is one cohesive unit

Think of the hand as a whole, rather than a collection of joints and fingers. The movement of each finger and joint often affects the others in some way.

2) The hand can communicate!

The hands can be your single best way of communicating emotion. Whether its a gesture, flexed fingers showing rage, or freezing a hand pose as a way to show the character getting lost in thought - hand animation can really help tell your story.

3) Hands are squishy!!

Obviously, some rigs are better than others, but as much as you can, try to recreate the "squishiness" of your hand in your animation. I'm not even really talking about all the wrinkles and fleshy folds and stuff, but more how the fingers interact with each other and shove each other around. Make a fist, and make it tight, and look at what your fingers do. They don't all just rotate in one axis independently of each other, there is some wonderful complexity going on in there for you to study and recreate in your work!

4) Default hands = bad bad bad bad bad BAD!

Even if your character is saluting or karate-chopping someone, hands are almost never in "default" pose in the real world, with the fingers all straight out. As far as scientists have been able to discover, default hand poses only seem to exist on beginner student demo reels. So if you want studios to take your work seriously, avoid this at all costs!!

5) You don't always have to move the hands

For a lot of us, one of the most difficult things when we were learning animation was trying to figure out what the heck to do with our character's hands. I used to struggle with this as well until Wayne Gilbert set me right and really explained the importance of going through a strong planning process.

The truth is that if you really plan out your work, and film yourself giving a TRUE performance, then whatever your hands do in the reference will feel REAL and NATURAL, and will, at the very least, give you some great ideas of what to have your character do.

That said, there are plenty of times where minimal hand animation *is* what feels most natural, and that's OK! Be careful, though, as your scene can easily lose some entertainment value if you keep the hands static for minutes on end, but at the same time, don't feel like you always have to have the hands moving around and constantly gesturing.

Gestures would be a completely separate post, but one thing I will quickly mention is that you should use them very carefully and, unless going for a specific "talks with his hands" effect, are usually best used in moderation.

Shawn :)

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

Could You Provide Some Tips on Creating a Walk with Personality?

This is a great question. I think my main tips would be:

1) PLANNING!!!!! Know what your walk will look like before you sit down in front of the computer. Trust me, and save yourself a major headache. Sometimes it can work to create a bland walk cycle and then play with layering things on top of it until you get what you want, but that will always take longer than doing your planning ahead of time.

2) Research! Fire up some movies, observe your family, watch people at the park - whatever it is, study a lot of people walking, and note the differences, and more importantly, how those differences seem to create personality.

3) Study what differences in a walk are caused by body type vs. emotion or personality, and/or how those may be intertwined. You might observe that heavier people have a slightly wider stance, giving their walk a bit more of a rocking motion in the upper body. Does this create personality? I don't know - depends on the character, and what else you may add to the walk, but before you do it, you should know if you're doing it because of their body type or because of their personality. In my opinion, you should get the physics right first, and then layer the personality on top of that, but again - those decisions need to be made before sitting down at the computer.

4) Exaggerate the "personality" aspects of the walk more than the "physical" aspects of it. In other words, if the body mechanics still feel correct for the style you are working in, then that will give your personality decisions a chance to really be showcased. If the body mechanics are wrong, no one will appreciate the decisions you've made about what personality or emotional traits to build into the walk.

Hope that helps!

Shawn :)