Great Tutorial List

Patrick Alessi posted a great list of tutorials over at CG-Char. Keith Lango is the main contributor and his site is a must read for every animator.

The list is a response to the question: "How do I animate pose to pose?"

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1. First you pose your character (The Major things that are going to happen)
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/popThru/popThru.html

2. Add "breakdowns" to define the arcs, eases and spacing.
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/arcs/arcs.htm
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/overlap/overlap.html
http://www.keithlango.com/wordpress/?page_id=281

3. Add secondary breakdowns where needed for more definition.

4. Cleanup. That means opening the curve editor and tweaking them to be smooth as you like it.

(You don't really have to wait til you reach that point to open the graph editor. You can start tweaking things early on.)

And... well... Keith Lango has a ton of great tutorial which you should study carefully:
http://www.keithlango.com/wordpress/?page_id=226

Other goodies:
http://www.animationpodcast.com/archives/2005/05/25/principles-planning/
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=23600
http://www.carlosbaena.com/anim_material.html
http://www.animationmeat.com/index.html

http://www.shaunfreeman.com/animating_tips/ this site has a huge list, AWESOME!

http://www.comet-cartoons.com/3ddocs/charanim/
http://www.comet-cartoons.com/3ddocs/animprocess/

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Sweet list! Grab something to drink, get yourself comfortable and go through all of them.

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Critique - Walk Cycle (Jason)

Alright, getting there.

There are some things here and there, but the biggest one is this: his body is way too low, it looks like he's sitting. Check frame 12 for instance. It looks like his sitting on a table. The pose at frame 12 would have him fall back, he's too off balance.
Also, during the passing when the body should reach its highest point, the foot that carries all the weight is going to be flat on the ground, because all the weight is on it. Right now you are starting a foot roll moments after the foot hit the ground. Keep it planted until the leg starts stretching too far, which is the reason for the foot roll. But when your feet get off the ground, your toes are not going to be bent, because the pressure is gone, the foot is off the ground. The only way your toes would point up is if the character WANTS them to be up. Which can be a character trait if you really want to, but right now it looks like a mistake. In the front view you can see that the feet are pointing straight forward, like in the characters default pose. Humans don't really walk like that, they would point mostly outward or also inward.
Your hands are dragging too much. The overall speed of your walk seems a bit too slow. With that timing, having your hands drag that far back and forth looks like it's a deliberate move. Your arms are also bent all the time, which looks a bit odd given the timing. If a walk is that slow, it would seem that your character is very relaxed or tired, which means that his arms would be hanging down a lot more.
Your fingers are also super straight.

Posing a character doesn't stop once you animated the main body parts. A hand pose says a lot about your character. Same goes for the facial expression. The whole body counts.

Think about what kind of walk you want to do. Who and what is the character? Is it a cop? An astronaut? A stressed out housewife carrying really heavy grocery bags with flowers sticking out of the bags and flapping into her face? It's not just about the mechanics.

What I need you guys to do is to look at the examples I posted. It's good reference. Same goes for the tutorials and the work of your fellow students. But most importantly, examine your animation by acting it out. Try to walk like your character, I guarantee you that it's going to be hard in your case because of the legs being constantly bent.
Do the poses that you have in your animation make sense? How does the timing feel?

You have to think outside the box, past the basic mechanics and create a character.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

Direct Link: Jason's Walk

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Critique - Walkcycle (Erik)

Hey Erik,

nice work!

I still think that his neck and head area are stiff. It's definitely better than before. I would go for final and move on to something else. You can always get back to it at the end of the semester. It's what we call a CBB. C-ould B-e B-etter. And that's not in a demeaning way, it means it's good, move on, and if there is time at the end, get back to it, but it's good enough to move on.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

Direct Link: Eriks's Walk Cycle

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Victor Navone's Tutorial on Splines

Master Animator Victor Navone just posted a tutorial on splines and how to use them (thanks Erik for the tip!).

Click here to check it out!

And this is not a suggestion, go check it out right now. I will post a collection of links from Animation Mentor, Spline Doctors, Keith Lango, Victor Navone, etc. later on this week. There is tons of information out there, use it! Until that post, read through Victor Navone's tutorial.

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Personality

Hey boys and girls,

time for the weekly update.

Speaking of which, academyanimation.blogspot.com has new posts (I hope you are checking this site). First off, the reel on Veerapatra's animation site.

The animation on the reel is great and definitely and inspiration for other animators. I posted specific clips on our site, 3 walk cycles and a weight assignment. The reason is because they have personality. It starts simple with just adding color to your model and making it different, to establishing a character for a walk, like the cop or the dog owner. Same goes for the weight assignment. It's not just an assignment, the action takes place within a set, the character has a purpose, he's not just lifting something because that's the assignment, the exercise was taken beyond the minimum requirements.

The latest clip on our site is Joey's current Character Ball assignment. I'm not singleing (is that a word?) him out because I favor him or because he's great and the rest of you suck, but because he's great and the rest of you... noo, just kidding! But the clip is great and should serve as an inspiration and motivation for the rest of the class to think outside the box.

I understand that it's difficult to master a walk, there are a lot of mechanics and problems to think about, but same goes for other assignments. If you plan to make a living doing animation, then you need to look around and study what other people are doing. The successful ones and the not so successful ones, so you learn what to do and what to avoid. Your work needs to stick out, it needs to grab people's attention (in a good way). It needs to be original and engaging. Most importantly, it needs to have personality. Character. You can't get away with "just" doing the correct movement, the correct animation. The character needs to be alive and it needs to be unique. That goes for a ball, a flower sack, a cube monster, a human, etc.

If you have an idea but then you don't use it because it means "more work", then you might as well quit now. Harsh, maybe, but still true. Animation is hard work and you need to be willing to go the extra mile.

Think about how you can add personality to your work. Your character, who is he/she? What is he/she or it? How old is the character? Where does the character come from? In what situation is the character in your clip, what happened before, what will happen next? If your character is doing something, it will change according to his situation. Let's say he's eating breakfast. Well, the way he's eating it will be different if he's sleepy, late for an appointment, distracted, super hungry, etc.

So think outside the box for your current and next assignments.

If you are unsure about something, email me, ask me in class, don't be shy.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

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Critique - Character Ball (Joey)

I fixed some small things mentioned in the class.

At the end, the box is bending and it will open it's mouth which is on the top & suck up the ball with a tongue which is very sticky like frog's. How about it?

I twisted the box when it looks up and gets angry.

Hahaha, nice!!

The ball:

- at frame 160, when he gets scared, I think you could shave off a few frames in order to make it snappier. I cut out 4 frames on the anticipation and two out of the scared-in-the-air part and it makes it a bit more frantic.



- the eyeball: it still moves a bit slow for me. With the slowing out at 156 as it looks up it takes about 7 frames for the whole move, cut that in half. An eyeball will take one or two frames, little eyedarts, most of the time. One frame movements happen in a more realistic approach for subtle detail stuff, but usually 2 frames are good, with one or two frames at the end to slow it down.
On frame 193 the eye slowly moves with the ball, I would make that move faster with two frames, make it sharper. I think the "monster" is a bit upset that the ball is on him/her, so the eye movements would be faster, more alert. At the end of 212 it looks like it takes 5 frames for the eye to move. So in general, speed things up like you have it at the very end. But the end needs some tiny spacing changes. On 227 the eye is up, then goes down on til 229. The spacing is pretty even though, I would make it snappier. So have it up on 227, the go down a tiny bit on 228 then end up where you are on 229.
I like how the head goes back on 241! I can't wait to see the ending, sounds great.

Awesome work!!

Direct Link to movies:

- Joey's Character Ball

- suggestion for "scared" part

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Veerapatra Jinanavin - Animator

Check out Veerapatra's animation site! The reels on the site are very good and I was given permission to repost some of the clips. - quicktime required - double click on movie to play







And here an excellent "weight" assignment:

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Critique - Heavy Object (Erik)

"Here comes my idea about moving heavy object. (no texture, yet.) Idea comes from some people believe aliens help human to build pyramid...what do you think about this?"

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Hey Erik,

I wouldn't worry about textures, it will be easier to judge without them. The idea is good, but just looking at that picture I would have never guessed that it was about aliens helping out with the pyramids.

That's because all you can see is the shiny tip of the pyramid. The lower part of it is hidden under the wooden planks. I would add pyramids in the background with the silver tip, that way it's a bit more obvious.
It's also not clear that the character is an alien (just coloring him green is not enough, you need to find typical characteristics of an alien).

Keep going!

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