That's a good question and one I've been asking myself lately. I used to tweak most of my animation in the graph editor, which is the way I learned it at school. Keeping the curves clean and organized was the way to go, and a workflow I'm still following. All of your animation is represented through curves, and even though you have multiple options of how to edit your animation, your curve editor will give you the most detailed information about your animation.
And yes, I would keep curves clean. It makes it a lot easier to edit and reorganize sections of your animation. It's like your work area. If it's messy, you will have a hard time finding specific items. You know roughly where it is, but if the area is clean and organized, you will have a much easier time. Same goes for curves.
It will also be a lot easier for other animators to deal with your shots if you keep curves clean. There are moments when another animator has to work on your shot, either because you are too busy with other shots or because you are no longer on that show, and if you are one of those animators working on someone else's shot, you will appreciate it when the curves are clean. Part of being a professional animator is not just being able to animate well, but to be conscious of the show pipeline and company structure. You have to be aware that other people will deal with your files, so keep them organized, including your curves.
However, I've noticed recently that I rarely go into the graph editor. The only time I manipulate curves is for moving holds and technical fixes. The rest of the time I work out my animation through my viewports and set keys to edit my animation. I build overlap and other details into my poses during blocking, so I have less and less need to edit the animation in the graph editor. By keeping my curves clean and by organizing my keys, I can work out the timing by shifting around keys in the Maya timeliner, which also lets me convert my curves from linear to spline.
In a few years, I will probably have another way of animating, but this is my current approach to curves.
Guest Blogger Jean-Denis Haas
27 comments:
I would agree that clean curves are important, especially in a studio environment where work has to be shared between different departments. But I also think you shouldn't be afraid of putting in keyframes if you can't get exactly what you want in the camera frame.
Clean curves are great, but I still think they should be willingly sacrificed for good animation.
Awesome!
Thanks JD!
This is really helpful! I just started character animating, I used the graph editor rarely but it was smooth and clean thankfully.
Everyone has their own way of animating.
thanks for sharing!! ;D
i guess it would be better if you check the graph editor from time to time as sometimes the curve would overshoot the keys and would cause unpredictable movements.. just my opinion : )
Curves can overshoot the keys but after a while you get used to setting the keys correctly so it doesn't happen.
But yes, check every now and then for funky stuff. Same with checking your anim in the persp camera and not just the render cam.
So... would you delete unnecessary keys?
Great Post
Hi Jean-Denis
Yeah - clean curves are great - especially when you're at the stage where part of your animation could be changed by the director.
It's much easier swapping out a chunk of frames to change animation that isn't working when your curves are tidy.
Thanks for the post.
--Phil
Thanks for the knowledge! I always have my graph editor on my secondary monitor open so I can track my curves. I remember when I was first learning and I had lightning bolts everywhere, hehe.
Hi, what script (if any) do you use to easly manipulate the curves?
Bye
THank you very much ____that is really helpful_____I have a question that what about those animations having very fast movement, I mean sometimes I have to key on successive three or four frames, Is it necessary for such animations or else______plz answer
Thank you for the article! Can you show us an example of both a messy graph editor, and a clean, more organized graph editor?
So by keeping your keys clean and organized does this mean that your keeping everything on the same frame for each pose til the end (since your building overlap into the poses)? Do you ever offset keys? I use the same approach except I usually still need to offset things a bit towards the end just to get a little more flexibility in things. This of course messes things up a bit. :)
@Silky Smooz:
Yes, I do delete unnecessary keys so that my timeline doesn't get clogged up with keys. It's also cleaner. But there's less of it on our side in VFX animation because our curves are not very clean by nature (of course all depends on the action). Given the realistic style body parts are moving all the time (even if it is super subtle), so having "dirt" in your curves is okay.
@ Herman G:
Thanks!
@Phil Willis:
Absolutely. When you have to change the middle part of your anim I set keys on everything before and after so I can just delete the middle part. With organized keys it won't affect the curves as much. Plus use more keys instead of tangents (weighted or whatever) so that by setting a key it won't change the curve too much.
@Tommy:
You're welcome! Euler filter is my friend for spikey curves. But it's also good to check every now and then what your curves are doing in order to prevent crazy rotations and spikes.
@Hackyou:
I don't use that many scripts. There are some tools that help you select all the curves of your character, or other tools that help you set random keys, but that's pretty much it.
@Haripal Singh:
Absolutely. I have moments where I have keys on every frame. All depends on the body part and speed. If you have toes and fingers and it's a complex move, I usually end up with a lot of keys.
@Clinton:
Not offhand, and it also gets messier as you polish things for live-action (at least with me) given the amount of dirt I add to my animation. But it's a great question and I'd like to follow up on that. In the meantime, I highly recommend Victor Navone's spline tutorial:
http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_Splines1.htm
http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_Splines2.htm
But if you don't see anything from me on Spungella.com, then email me and remind me!
@Dave Vasquez:
Almost. I do key all my controllers (except fingers and detail stuff like that) on the same frame for one pose and basically go pose to pose in linear (not stepped) mode and then tweak the keys in the timeline until the timing feels right. I then continue to set more breakdowns and inbetweens. Once I go into polish mode I throw all out the window and adjust each controller individually, which does tend to mess up your cleanliness.
If you any more questions, just shoot! I'm following this post.
Cheers
JD
If you ... HAVE ... any more questions...
Thanks Jean, GREAT POST
So..Can u plz share ur work style with us from start to end?
From start to end, well, I started to write out my workflow here:
http://academyanimation.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-animation-workflow.html
but I need to finish it. There's another post about my workflow, this time regarding curves and the graph editor:
http://spungella.blogspot.com/2009/10/im-rarely-using-graph-editor.html
And here one which is more related to VFX animation. It's about adding imperfections to your animation:
http://spungella.blogspot.com/2009/08/dirt-controlled-sloppiness.html
Sorry for linking to so many posts, but I think it explains it better than if I would rewrite it here again. Hopefully that answers a few questions.
Hi Jean-Denis!
First of all thank you for the post.
I have a question: in order to have clean curves, is it better to set keys with "s" and later delete the unnecessary ones or to set them with "key selected" from the attribute editor?
Bye,
Anissa (:3)
@Anissa:
No problem! (Thanks AM!)
Good question and I do both. In my initial blocking I key all the major controllers (usually using a UI, but otherwise I hit S). Afterwards I set keys using "key selected channels" so I don't clutter everything with keys. I also use Autokey.
Thanks for sharing ur links sir
No problem.
This link elaborates a bit more on my workflow:
http://spungella.blogspot.com/2009/10/anim-clip-looks-clear.html
Thanks Jean Sir for giving your precious time to reply me___________ well friends there is a free mel scripts by Aaron Koressel (Blue sky studio animator) for removing redundant key click here http://www.aaronkoressel.com/getscript.php?file=ackDeleteRedundant.mel
Really awesome post
Thanks!
merci
merci
where can i get this kind of motion trail script, give me the info guys ...http://tinypic.com/m/awav5f/1
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