Too much reference while animating?

[Remi]

well...depends on if you're going for realism or cartoony....I tend to exaggerate the motions to make them more cartoony so I don't go directly from the ref....but I use it as a good base...I make my extremes with the timing I want and then go from there without the ref...but if I wanted a more realistic approach I may keep it up a bit longer....it depends on you.

[bawhabmw]

Well I think it depends...

A lot of this just repeats Remi...

either you are going for :
A. Realistic, and I mean real real
or
B. Believable

Reference footage is used to guide you through a movement or a pose. I use it to get my poses and also to pick up on subtleties. Copying reference frame by frame tends to not look right in the end. After all, animation is all about exaggeration.

Again it's all about what you are going for. Use the reference as a guide and rely on your animation skills to make it believable. If you forget which foot should land first.. look at your footage... then go back and make sure it's in there, but not exactly.

|Benno

[Ripley]

Yeah, what they said.

Even if it's realistic human motion, in a 3D format I believe some exaggeration is necessary for it to engage the audience. Otherwise your movements and chars personality can look a little dry/zombie/ or too subtle. I use the ref as just a start off point for timing & pose ideas.. but I exaggerate/change the poses even more depending on who my char is, and how he would do the action/acting.

First you have to decide who your char is. Then his mood, and why? I would try to get that individual personality into your soccer kick. A soccer kick is not just a soccer kick, it's how "name here" would kick. You could video ref yourself just doing the kick so you know the physics of it, or you can video ref yourself as your character doing the kick. Big difference. If you do the latter, then I would sketch more extreme ideas out while looping your video. Hash out all the ideas you can come up with and then pick one. You will find that by the time you are ready to roll, you are only using snippets of the reference for this pose here, that move there.. I've never actually been so lucky as to have my whole shot captured in 1 video ref clip. Its a mish-mash of everything IE: video yourself, other video ref (TV/film), books, sketching ideas, boards from director, ideas from other animators etc...

[Tom N.]

Hey everyone thanks for the replies.

I am exaggerating my poses a little so that it looks more lively, but I don't think I've gotten good enough yet to do the whole "who is he and why is he kicking that way".. I'm only doing these practices to get comfortable with basic animation like setting keys, overlapping them, and using the graph editor. I feel like I should be doing that before I get into any acting. I don't want to jump too far ahead yet but at the same time I was just making sure that I wasn't "cheating" or holding myself back by refering back to my video clip a lot.

-Tom N.

[bawhabmw]

If you'd like...

I'm working on a lip sync and if you'd like to see how I go through my process, not that I'm a professional, then you can visit this website I'm making to document it. It goes from reference footage to thumbnails to blocking and eventually to the final thing. I'm still in the blocking phase but maybe this might give you a new perspective on how to animate.

"Amadeus" Lip Sync (http://www.benjaminwillis.net/amedeus.html)

It might help.

|Benno

[Remi]

For the record..I do what bawhabmw does...for the most part anyways...I always thumbnail before even touching a mouse...I don't care what it's for. I always do it! I can show it my team-mates and they can give me instant feedback on what looks good and what doesn't work. It'll save you alot of work in the long run. So do some stick figure drawrings:) and post away and get some feedback before you even key something. Chow.:)

[Ulysse31]

I dont think there is anything wrong copying frame per frame at the begining. When I was little, I wanted to learn how to draw spiderman. I used to trace all the super heroes...then I moved on to just copying them...and once I got better I started to draw my own poses.

For animation, I guess you can take the same aproach. As you get better on your timing and weight, you can move away from references and ad exageration and attitude to your characters which gives them more personality. for example: does david beckham kick the ball the same way then ronaldo or zidane? what make his kick diferent than others?

goodluck, ciao!

[SheepFactory]

reference as the name implies is just reference , you are not supposed to follow it 100%.

here is my workflow ,

I go out for a walk and think about the scene for a while , i do different takes in my mind.

I come back and shoot multiple video references and try to capture different performances in each , go overboard at this stage dont hold back.

I then put those in the computer and isolate the parts I like and make a movie out of that.

After that i do thumbnails of the poses I like and try to push them on paper more.

here comes the new addition to my workflow , If you have time very highly recommended:

I animate the scene roughly in 2d (i use toonboom studio) There is nothing like doing a quick 2d animated thumbnail to see if your poses are working or not. Its way faster and better than blocking it in 3d.

- back to 3d , copy blocked poses and timing

-refine refine refine

-finish :)

[Tom N.]

Thanks for all the replies guys :) Its nice to see how other people are working through animation, not a lot of people at my school have gotten too deep into animation yet so I'm kinda on my own as far as getting a good workflow down, but I guess thats how it should be - coming up with my own way that works best for me.

Thanks a ton,

Tom N.

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