Animation: Where Should I Start?

[rickmann]

Well I am no expert seeing as how I am starting to get in the Animation realm of CG also. But here is what I would start with. (If I miss or if I am wrong on anything, someone please correct me, thanks!)


For animation, the first thing I learned in school was to pick up a pencil and paper and start drawing. Do life drawings and walkcycles and everything else! A good book I got and haven't put it down yet is The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams! Great Book!

For software, try downloading some trial versions to get comfortable with a program you like. I use Maya. Now for me, like I said I want to be a animator, but, I am also learning the techincal side of things. I started with rigging, deformers, and other things techincal. And now I am planning on moving on to animation like set driven keys, character sets, muscle deformers, timing spacing, and camera movements.

Now for tutorials, there are plenty of ones online just type maya tutorials in google. For DVD's there are great ones like Gnomon, Digital Tutors and others.

I hope this helps and I hope I got it correct!

Peace!

[xX_eXiGe_Xx]

When I got 3dsmax, then i got tutorials in the cd's too. the first tutorial was bouncing a ball, the next was playing around with a snake spline, and now i'm at character movement.
Maybe download some trial for some 3d application, you'll maybe find tutorials in it too! Good luck :bounce: .

[stewartjones]

rickmann nailed it.

Get yourself the animators survival kit, and start sketching out the bouncing ball animation. Have a play around with that, and maybe do some flip books of the ball going crazy. It helps a super amount to understand what animation is all about.

If you're desperate to use the computer, then I suggest doing the same exercise in whichever program you choose, but only after roughing it out on paper.

Oh, and it takes a LOOONNGGG time to get all of the principles into character movements etc. SO, the more time you spend at the basics (and keep going back to them) the better your animations become.

That's my 2 cents worth anyhow!

[kaveh_michael]

The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Jhonston

[rickmann]

The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Jhonston

Great book!!

[Chris_Mackin]

I definatley, definatley recomend the 3dbuzz video tutorials. They are so in depth yet easy for beginners to take in. Pretty funny too.:D

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