best animation tips & tricks
Whether animating in a bedroom of a major studio, you'll save hours of time and frustration by reading our top tips and tricks for animation.
As software and hardware improve, audiences demand more sophisticated performances. And as deadlines and budgets shrink, animators are racing against time more than ever.
It’s true that many concepts of character animation will never change: the 12 principles of Disney’s ‘old men’ are as etched in stone as any rule. On the other hand, animators need to grow with the industry and try to continue to deliver work on time and budget.
In putting together these tips, we’ve focused on concepts that are quick adjustments for animators to make, but that will also continue to benefit your work as you progress into your career.
The animator's bag of tricks is more important than ever...
01. Animate acting shots one phrase at a time
It's best to have clear full-body posing in your phrases at the expense of smooth transitions, especially early on. Animation follows beats and phrases, each with its own purpose. For a scene in which a store clerk is helping a customer, one phrase might be him waving as the customer enters; the next might be him putting his hands in his pockets as he listens to the customer.
Treat each phrase like its own shot. Reduce your timeline to display only the phrase you're working on, and create a beginning, middle and end to the idea being animated.
02. Loosen up when animating contact
Avoid keying the whole body at the point contact occurs. On most actions, particularly faster ones, the instant of contact won’t be captured on 24fps film. More importantly, you’ll bias the movement towards culminating at the moment of contact, flattening your arcs. If a character picks up a glass, the arm is the stronger force.
Animate the hand going through the glass, overshooting the contact point while staying on nice arcs. Now correct the glass position and constraining of the glass, to make up for the moment of contact missed between frames.
03. Playblasting is a huge waste of time
Calm down, don't freak out yet! Of course there’s no replacement for watching your animation at real-time speed, and you absolutely must watch your animation this way to be productive. However, hours are lost every week waiting for previews and playblasts to render. Reclaim your productive time by creating a layer or a button to hide everything in the scene except the character and proxy-resolution sets, so you can simply hit Play to watch the animation.
If you’re working with a rig that’s too heavy to do this, request a proxy version from your TD or supervisor. Most film-level rigs have a version created from ‘tin-can’ geometry parented to bones to make this possible. If this is impossible, at least take notes while watching your playblasts to avoid re-rendering constantly.
'Strange Magic' Meets the Press
George Lucas has been thinking about Strange Magic for sixteen years. While he was directing the Star Wars prequels, while he was getting ready to sell Lucasfilm to Disney, he was thinking about Strange Magic.
Now he’s thinking about what people will think about Strange Magic. The CGI good-vs.-evil fairy tale, the second Lucasfilm-animated movie (after Rango) opens January 23. A week prior, Emperor Palp—oops, I mean George himself enters a Manhattan hotel conference room to field questions from lowly online reporters, your humble correspondent included. (Before the games begin we’re admonished: no Star Wars questions, please.)
Did I mention Strange Magic is a musical? Not your ordinary animated feature, spiked with a handful of original songs performed by the characters along the way—it’s practically a full-blown opera.
“Originally I wanted it to be all music, but everyone beat on me real hard and said ‘you can’t do this,” George admits. (Why he didn’t employ The Force to get his way—“no, you’ll do it my way;” “yes, we’ll do it your way”—I’ll never know.), Instead, the cast performs over 30 classic rock tunes (from “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” to “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” and oh yes, “Strange Magic”), interspersed with plot-conveying dialog.
Was it tricky finding the perfect song to match a particular scene’s emotional content—was it like solving a jigsaw puzzle, I ask the man who helped changed the direction of American filmmaking in the 1970’s.
“It was awful. It was more like a Rubik’s Cube than a jigsaw puzzle. When I went through it I had a million songs and I had to narrow it down; as the years went on we kept narrowing it down. When we started doing storyboards and putting things together Steve [Gizicki, music supervisor] and [composer Marius De] Vries came in. We recorded a lot of music that didn’t end up being in the movie: when you pull one song out you have to pull out another and then another. It would not stop and it was very hard to actually make it connect.”
Later on, in a separate cast and crew session I ask De Vries “were there any parts of the movie you were dying to score, but George said “we’re putting a song in here?” The composer answers with a succinct “no,” waits a beat then adds “I wanted there to be as little score as possible. The idea was to tell the story through song and the score is just to [fill the gaps inbetween].”
Director Gary Rydstrom takes issue with De Vries’ response. “Marius is being too nice about it. The score is an important part of the movie. There’s a scene where [villain Bog King, voiced by Alan Cumming] and [warrior fairy] Marianne [Evan Rachel Wood] come together and their backstories come out. The love is starting to percolate and it’s a very emotional scene. The score Marius wrote for that is gorgeous. A few minutes into the orchestra playing that cue [at the recording session] I’m crying, because the music was so beautiful and what it was doing for the movie was so beautiful. I didn’t let anyone see me at the time but I’ll admit it now.”
Back to George: “The story is about the difference between infatuation and real love. Real love is with someone you share the things that will last you the rest of your lives. If you fall in love with a boy band or a football star, it’s not going to last. It’s a story that has been told over and over and over again. It’s like Star Wars, except instead of mythology it’s about fairy tales or the story of the Ugly Duckling. Kids need to understand that’s the way it really works: true love and happiness is not with the pretty boy or girl.
“Star Wars was a movie for 12 year old boys, so I thought I’d make a movie for 12 year old girls. The boy one worked for everyone from 8 months to 88 years—boys, girls, dogs, whatever. I thought maybe I could do one like this, but make it more female-centric.”
Paraphrasing Cyndi Lauper, George adds “I just wanted to have fun. I’d go out and shoot [the Star Wars prequels] and put this on the shelf for a bit while I had a little group of guys and girls working on it.
“It’s a project I’ve been doing for a long time. When I decided to sell the company I realized I wasn’t completely finished. But I still wanted to retire, I don’t want to wait this out, time is more important than money. I just did it in hope that everyone working on it would follow through and Disney would put up the money to finish it. It was mostly done, so it wasn’t like they had to turn up a whole bunch of money. It turned out extremely well, it’s what I envisioned.
“I know it’s been maybe two years since I sold the company but time moves very slow in animation.”
George leaves the room and it’s time for that cast and crew session. Along with the above-mentioned folks are voice performers Meredith Ann Bull (Marianne’s flighty sister Dawn), Sam Palladio (the self-infatuated “hero” Roland) and Elijah Kelley as Sunny, a diminutive elf with self-confidence issues.
Palladio compares and contrasts voicing an animated character to working in other media: “This was my first time. It was a fantastic freeing experience, compared to working on the stage or on film or TV. Gary and everybody were warm and open to our interpretations and improvisations.
“Coming from a Shakespearian background you stick to the text, you hit your beats and rhythm. It’s fun to see how a little improv of yours gets tweaked and used. When I was recording in Nashville and Gary was in San Francisco, I’d try something that might make him laugh and wonder if it’s coming across. Then you’d hear giggles, which was very reassuring.”
Evan Rachel Wood, the feisty fairy Marianne tells us “I’m huge fan of animated films—I’m a Disney fanatic. I thought Marianne was a great role model for girls. I got to sing too, which is my first love and my childhood dream was realized when I got to be a fairy,” to which Palladio interjects “mine too.”
“And I’ve always wanted to be a bog king,” Cumming chimes in. “It’s fascinating to see yourself as an animated character. I played a similar part in Spy Kids: someone you think is a baddie, then he develops and realizes who he is. Young adults who grew up withSpy Kids approach me in much more open and honest way because I’m part of their childhood. You get them young and in a few years’ time they’ll be running the studio—I’ll have work lined up for a while.”
And the downside of voicing a cartoon character? “Animators have [reference] video of us singing—I think it would be good blackmail material.”
Kelley shares his mom’s perspective on seeing her son translated into animation thanks to that reference video: “‘Oh my God he has our nose—I gave you that nose, boy!’”
The classic rock that Strange Music is built around excites everyone involved, from Lucas and De Vries to just about the entire cast, especially Palladio: “The music spans decades. It will expose kids and young adults to genres they may not be familiar with. We go back to Frankie Valli, Elvis songs—it’s a fantastic journey thru the decades. I hadn’t heard much ELO before this and now I’m ‘my God, where was I?’ We’re discovering these new genres, new bands—well, old bands really. There’s so much great stuff out there this movie really links together and will encourage people to go back to their LPs, or go to iTunes to download Elvis’ greatest hits.”
The music is important to Meredith Ann Bull too. “I just want people, whether they’re kids or adults to be taken out of their real life while they’re watching the movie. I think the music is so submersive, I hope people will be engulfed by the experience.”
And what are Wood’s hopes for the film? “If you’ve ever felt different or weird or unlovable, don’t be afraid of those things about yourself and hide them from people.
“The things that make you different and unique are the things that make you the most beautiful and special. If you let those parts of yourself be seen you will attract like people and find love in unexpected places.”
Kelley puts a slightly different spin on Wood’s hopes: “No matter how weird and strange you are, there’s someone equally weird and strange for you to go and do weird and strange things and have a weird and strange life.”
To which Palladio responds “wow, there’s a press release right there.”
First Look: ‘Thunderbirds’ CGI Remake
Fifty years after the original debuted, we’ve got our first look at the new CG reboot of the British marionette series Thunderbirds.
The Tracy brothers from behind:
…and from the front:
Produced by ITV Studios, and New Zealand-based Pukeko Pictures, in collaboration with Weta Workshop (Avatar, The Lord of the Rings),Thunderbirds are Go! [working title] mixes computer-animated characters with live-action model sets.
The new series will air on UK’s CITV Channel beginning this year, and at least two seasons, totalling 52 half-hour episodes, have already been commissioned. Other broadcasters that have picked up the show include TVNZ (New Zealand), Nine Network (Australia), Noga (Israel), and MBC (pan-Arab). No word yet on a commitment from a U.S. broadcaster.
Series director is David Scott (LEGO Star Wars), with Theo Baynton (The WotWots) as episodic director. Head writer is Rob Hoegee (Storm Hawks, Teen Titans), who also wrote the Niko and the Sword of Light pilot.
Oscar-Nominated Shorts Get Theatrical Release Date
Good news for fans of animated shorts: the Oscar-nominated shorts will be more widely available to the general public this year than ever before. Magnolia Pictures and ShortsHD will release the Oscar-nominated shorts in a record 350+ theaters across the U.S. and Canada, as well as dozens of theaters in Europe and Latin America, on Friday, January 30th. Finds dates and locations on the ShortsHD website.
The nominated short films will also be available on Vimeo OnDemand, iTunes Stores in 54 countries, Amazon Instant Video, Verizon, and will be released across the United States on VOD/pay-per-view platforms.
This year’s five nominated shorts have a total running time of just 50 minutes, so it’s likely that the theatrical program will also include some bonus shorts that weren’t nominated, which is something that ShortsHD has done with past programs.
The Oscar-nominated animation films in the program will be:
The Bigger Picture
Daisy Jacobs, director
National Film and Television School
Synopsis: Tensions arise between two brothers as their elderly mother requires more care.
The Dam Keeper
Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi, directors
Tonko House
Synopsis: A lonely little pig in charge of maintaining the town dam is cruelly bullied by his classmates.
Feast
Patrick Osborne, director
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Synopsis: The story of the relationship between a young man and the stray puppy he takes in is told through the food the dog receives.
Me and My Moulton
Torill Kove, director
Mikrofilm in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada
Synopsis: Three sisters growing up in an unconventional Norwegian family ask their parents for a bicycle.
A Single Life
Joris Oprins, director
Job, Joris & Marieke
Synopsis: A mysterious vinyl single gives a young woman the power to move back and forth through the years of her life.
DreamWorks Animation plans to cut jobs after box office disappointment
California-based
studio will layoff hundreds of animators and other staff after years of poor
box office performances and two sale attempts, reports say
Penguins of Madagascar
failed to replicate the success of previous chapters in the film franchise.
Photograph: Allstar/Dreamworks Animation
DreamWorks Animation has begun a fresh round
of staff layoffs, according to reports in Los Angeles Times, which have been confirmed by other outlets. While the final number
is not yet known, sources fear it may exceed the 350 workers laid off in 2013.
With the exception of How to Train Your Dragon 2, which grossed $618m worldwide
since release in June and was nominated for an Oscar for best animation, recent films by the
California-based studio have failed to meet expectations.
The top-performing films of the past three
years were spin-offs or sequels to previous films (Madgascar, Shrek and Kung Fu
Panda), with new works Turbo,Rise of the Guardians and Mr Peabody and Sherman underperforming
and leading to nearly $160m of writedowns (a reduction in the company’s book
value).
The company’s most recent film Penguins of Madagascar, released in November,
made $287m at the box office over the past two months – down on the previous
film in the series Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, which
posted $747m.
3D Modeling with Clay: Mudbox
Far from being muddy, Mudbox 3D organic modeling software is clear crisp, and snappy to use. Released in Dec 06, Mudbox is already experiencing enormous respect from facilities worldwide for its intuitive UI and approach to organic modeling. If you've ever used Photoshop layers, you'll love Mudbox and its natural way of building natural models.
Peter Konigs Scarface done in Mudbox
Skymatter is the maker of the 3D software Mudbox, an advanced 3D sculpting software. The company was co-founded by Tibor Madjar, Andrew Camenisch, and Dave Cardwell, are professional CG artists formerly with Weta Digital. We spoke with Andrew Camenisch who was Facial setup lead on King Kong at Weta before the
three friends broke away to finish developing Mudbox. The product actually started as a side project, towards the end of Lord of the Rings the three decided "in our spare time - almost just for fun - we tried to see what we could do," jokes Camenisch, " and it wasn't until about a year later that we formed the company".
Mudbox is a high level brush based modeling program built from the ground up by production professionals for their own day to day use. It is based on their own experience working on projects such as Lord of the Rings and King Kong. Already Mudbox is a primary tool at many film studios and production facilities, including Weta Digital, Blur Studio, Cinesite, Naughty Dog (a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment), Tippett Studio, Epic Studios, The Orphanage, Radical Entertainment, and many others. Mudbox has been adopted widely in both the effects and gaming industries. The program has full HDR - 32 bit , 16 bit and 8 bit support.
Fausto DeMartini in Mudbox
The Final Model
3D layering is much like 2D layering found in programs like Photoshop - so you can divide up the various detail layers of your sculpt into actual layers, and non-destructively edit and adjust the values and the intensity of the details, "there are many uses of it, you can use it for example facial morph targets for 3D characters" explains Camenisch. "This allows for experimentation, it is great for character design so you can explore different directions and then based on your clients or art directors direction mix or combine those into new scuplts", he adds. The layers can be re-layered, mixed and merge them, extremely quickly. It is SO useful it is a little hard to believe that someone had not developed this concept before. And easy of use is a huge aspect of MudBox.
Jason Bickerstaff works on an Ear
Programs such as this have been previously difficult to use, and Mudbox has been winning praise from artists for its ease of use. Something that is often claimed by equipment manufacturers but may very well be completely true in Mudbox's case. The program is beyond easy to use, it's fun.
"Mudbox is a brilliantly designed, brush-based modeling package," commented Sven Jensen, senior character modeler at Academy Awar -winning Tippett Studio in Berkeley, CA. "The addition of Photoshop style layering for displacements is nothing short of genius. The amazing brushes,stencils, and mirroring capabilities make for a powerhouse program."
Image scrubing via stencils
To make the program a joy to use speed was a primary issue. Without interactivity the product would not be nearly as creative, "it is one of the fastest high resolution modelers on the market" points out Camenisch proudly.
Some artists have claimed it is like modeling with Clay, and yet for some people 'clay' modeling style techniques are offputting - as making a great real sculpture with clay is actually quite difficult. "To address the user who does not to, or who doesn't feel comfortable with the straight clay style approach, what we offer in MudBox is 3D stencils, so you can import photographs or real images into the environment and sculpt
in real images," says Camenisch.
"We are about to announces a relationship with XYZRGB. They are going to provide a number of images from very high quality scans which means for example you can scrub in the texture or scales of a Lizard on to your model right in Mudbox." He goes on to add "we also put a lot of effort into our brush code, .. and certainly one problem with digital sculpting has been a sort of blobby surface, so we spent a lot of time on making fast, very sharp and precise brushes". The fast high-quality 3D brushes, includes the Mudbox Scratch brush, enable artists to sculpt sharp forms on dense models at any speed without that " blobby stamping artists hate."
Modeled by Mauro Baldissera
Another innovation is "Tangent Space" symmetry enables symmetrical sculpting on asymmetrical models. An industry first, this unique capability saves time and offers a production-tested technique for working efficiently on posed or asymmetrical models. "you can actually work on posed models and not just symmetrical models", explains Camenisch, "in fact when we show it to people they almost don't believe it".
As of Feb. the company offers a free trial of the software, with all the capabilities of the professional version and can be downloaded here. Unlike some other companies - Mudbox encourage use of the trail version in production, they feel " it needs to be production tested" ends Camenisch.
RIG REVIEW: 5 Stars - Mathilda Rig by Leon Li-Aun Sooi and Xiong Lin
I realize the animation demos on this reel are pretty awful, but the rig
itself seems promising as I tested the control in Maya. I will be
releasing it to my students at USC for more testing, but it seems pretty
sold if in the hands of a great animator.
NOTES:
- The dual controls for the shoulders are weird and you will have to spend time animating both the clavicle and the shoulder control on rot and trans to get a pleasing shape which makes this cumbersome.
- I wish someone would build a female character with her legs covered.
It would be nice if they had a visibility track on some pants you could
turn on this character. At least, you can hide the ugly puffer jacket. I
did manage to hide the costuming and assign high waisted pants to the
original topology.
- The switches on this rig are robust and impressive and there are pins (called snaps) for the elbows and knees.
- I do not understand the new aesthetic to cross eyes on rigs. This is a choice the animators should make and anims should not have to UNCROSS the eyes first to even get started on the rig. So, unless you are trying to make her look crazy, uncross the eyes and set that as your default value before you start animating