stuck after Blocking out the animation

[LEoNTheRock]

You should at least post the playblast of the animation...and state the problem(s) that you face...it's impossible to know what you are looking for without all those things

[ScannerD]

oh thx for the reply, I almost forgot!

Here is the blocked video:
http://www.vimeo.com/8363351

The error is, that all the timings are off after I changed from step curves into bezier ones.
And the animation is mainly just crap because I use Autokey and some important keys are always missing, when I block out.

http://www.vimeo.com/8376287


I fixed the problems yesterday, but it's a lot of work to do that manualy because I have to check every animated object. (posting the finished animation later)

I asked, because I am quite a self tought animator. Though I animate since 2001, I am not sure if everything is right, the way, I am doing it. And I'd like to know how the guys at pixar / animation mentor etc. are handling those things.



Is there a golden method to do the blocking right or do you have check every animated object? Is there a realy good book that concentrates on 3d animation and how it's handeled step by step in the industry?

[LEoNTheRock]

well...your key poses look great
what I usually do is that I'll set key on all controls for all the key poses...that should help solve your problem...with the timing issues

[paulmcg1]

It's looking good ScannerD!

I feel your pain. Animation is definetely alot of work. It's perhaps the hardest thing I've ever done in life. I know that when I started Animation Mentor 12 months ago, I wasn't sure if I was doing it "right." I had this idea that there was this perfect formula that I had to follow. I was wrong though! Every animator has a different process that they go through. At Animation Mentor, you really begin to see this since your exposed to many different workflows from animators in the industry.

On the flipside, many animators have different workflows but there still common threads that run between them. I'll give you the general process of animating a shot.

Planning - Thumbnails, video reference, closing your eyes and thinking about it, etc...Pretty much, you use whatever means to plan your shot out as best as you can.

Blocking - Main key poses and breakdowns (stepped mode). Your main key poses are your story telling poses. If you took them out of the shot, the shot would no longer make sense. The breakdowns explain how you get between each golden pose. (Main Key Poses, Story Telling Poses, Golden Poses are the same thing).

Now you can convert your stepped keys into linear, spline, clamped, or whatever you want. Basically, you convert out of stepped to get out of that stair step type look in your animation. From this point, you begin to refine your animation in ways that it needs to be refined. This is where planning becomes very important!!! You need to look at your animation and identify how it's supposed to be. If it's not clear in your mind as to how this animation is supposed to look, you won't be able to progress very far at this point. Basically, there's no right or wrong way once you come out of stepped mode. The only right thing to do at this point would be to take the animation to the next step by using whatever means ie. graph editor, setting more poses, deleting more poses (if you didn't identify what the correct main keys or breakdowns were), etc.

Then after you get the animation working, you'd go onto the polish stage. That's where you add the final polish. At this point you might step through your animation frame by frame and check the arc on the nose or the spacing on the hips and tweak it just right. I probably won't care about if I'm setting keys and so I begin to set keys on almost every frame at this point.

So! I hope that helps and maybe answers some questions you might have :)

Merry Christmas!

[paulmcg1]

well...your key poses look great
what I usually do is that I'll set key on all controls for all the key poses...that should help solve your problem...with the timing issues

Yeah and what Leon said is also important too. I tend to start out like that when I animate and then offset things as I proceed.

[ScannerD]

Thanks for the answers. I just need to fix the facial animation. I ll upload the vid later on.

Hey Paul, I am totally interested in animation mentor. Unfortunately, I just can't afford to attend to the classes. It s too expensive...I am sure there's a lot of knowledge and you learn a lot, so the costs are quite logical. Is there a schoolarship or any other kind of funding? I have to take a look later...

Ahhh...so you keyframe every animated object on every Keypose.
I did this before and it's really interesting how much character and weight you lose after switching to spline curves. I love the style of step curves. Has some kind of own fresh look. Nearly like a stopmotion movie.

I animate in 3DSM and I instantly recognized how slow the Application got after keying.
You just don t know what you are doing without rendering out some playblasts or some kind of other animation preview.

[LEoNTheRock]

I'm very interested in Animation Mentor as well but like you said the courses are too expensive for me

I did look up on their website a while back and they do have financial loans for students too...the catch is that you have to be either US or UK residence

[ScannerD]

yeah...what a bummer!

[damage inc]

Before changing your curves to spline, especially for complex animations, you have to add a lot more keys or else it will float all over the place. One way to work is to add breakdowns wherever it is needed and flesh out the animation with stepped or linear curves. Once you get your movements more fleshed out with nice arcs and everything you can start converting certain curves to spline. I usually start with the root early on, and then the torso, head/neck, legs, arms, and so on. Then flatten sections of curves where you want holds like contact on the feet and hands.

I think it's a lot easier to make sure you have enough poses before you spline. It sucks trying to fix a floaty mess made by the computer that thinks it's an inbetweener.

[paulmcg1]

Not that I know of ScannerD. I don't think they have any scholarships. I do know that they have student loans though. Compared to other schools, Animation Mentor might be the cheapest animation school to attend and quite possibly the best option too.

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