Hands

One thing you should not forget and which doesn't get enough attention from people I think, me included (just like shoulders) are hands and fingers. Make sure to check out these drawings and what Angus McLane has to say about it.

Another source I like to check for reference and inspiration (which is more of a hit & miss than checking out animation masters and their work, but still) are statues and maquettes.

I check out bigbadtoystore, cornerstorecomics and other sites, because I can't help myself, I'm a nerd. But every now and then you find a really cool statue. In this case, it's the Premium Format Figure of Star Wars' Asajj Ventress. I actually don't like the figure that much, but the photos of her hands were really cool.

It's expressive, strong, has a nice silhoutte (in this picture only though), it just ads to the figure (although the body pose could have been stronger).




The other picture shows her holding the lightsaber and it's a good example of how you should really push the poses of your hands and fingers as they hold something. Often I see the hammer pose, or worse, the broken wrist pose.


Try to to really think about how the wrist and fingers are working together in order to wrap around and hold on to an object, like this next photo:


It's tedius work, but pays off in a big way.


- pic source of hammer and Star Wars figure (c) 2008 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM.

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Asymmetry

I'm not a big fan of posters nowadays, they seem to be more cut/paste photoshop works as opposed to creative and original ways of getting you excited about a movie. BUT. What I wanted to point out in this Hulk poster is the asymmetry in both Edward Norton's and the Hulk's body. Even though both just stand there, none of their arms have the same pose, same for the hand, fingers, shoulders and even the head favors one side.
In animation you want to avoid twinning, so says the common rule, although I think twinning can be effective if done right (with a slight offset so it's not completely mirrored). Someone had a great post about that, but I can't remember who, it was a clip with Simon Pegg in it, anybody remember?. [It can be found here, thanks Jeff!] But again, as a general rule you want to avoid it and Shawn Kelly has a great article about it @ Animation Mentor, check it out.

But let's get back to Asymmetry. Draw a line in the middle of this poster and look at how each side is slightly different. Hulk's screen left shoulder is up, which helps with the different position of his arm, the head is tilted screen right instead of just staying in the middle, etc.
It's a lot more subtle with Edward Norton, but each side is still a little bit different.

Let's look at the image if you'd mirror one side. Not that exciting to me and just like the title says, I would call it "Huuh???".

So keep that in mind when you get to a moment and pose which looks too mirrored or twinned. - poster found @ impawards

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Silhouette

Staying with Indy, I just wanted to post these as well, but it also relates to the "Silhouette" of your character. Let's say you push 7 in Maya in order to get that black/white look, are the poses of your character clear? Not that you have to have your arms out and away all the time, but still, make sure every action reads well. If you have certain story points you want to bring across, could you boil them down to individual poses? - artwork by Mathew Reynolds

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Squash and Stretch

I know that you guys are into character pieces and not bouncing balls anymore, but squash and stretch can be applied to many other situations besides cartoony balls, such as walks, faces (here and here) and in this case a jump. Plus I just wanted to post those images because they're awesome.

Another thing worth pointing out for those who will or want to do a jump. Don't forget to fully extend the legs (or whatever the character uses... arms?) during the lift off and to extend the limbs before the touchdown as well (unless there is a specific reason for NOT doing it).

Squash

Stretch and full leg extension

Another leg extension before the touchdown

And squash again

Images found via Haha.nu @ ejphoto

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Reference and video rip

I highly recommend building a reference library. Start collecting great poses from comic books, images/clips online, clips from DVDs, etc. etc. It serves as inspiration and guide and can help you figuring out complicated body mechanics.

Check out this post about reference and this critique post for a look at how quickly you can find great reference online and how it can help.

I also recommend getting Netflix, try to watch at least one movie a week. Check the link as to why.


If you find a scene that you like you might consider getting PQDVD, which rips clips into iPod format, which quicktime can read as well. The trial version lets you rip 5 to 10mins (other packages will let you rip more but you'll probably get a watermark over the clip, which is not that bad in some cases). Obviously don't rip full movies which you don't own since that's illegal. Those packages are around $30 and totally worth it, so just get on a cup-noodles diet for a while if money is tight. :)
I personally use Cucusoft's DVD to iPod + iPod Video Converter Suite. It's a very good all in one package for $40.

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Clear Silhouette - don't confuse your audience

I found this clip through this post at Cartoon Brew and if you dare to watch it, pay attention to the two characters at around the 1min mark. Yes, there are a lot of wrong things happening in this clip but I just couldn't stop laughing when I saw this:





















Make sure that if you have multiple characters or one character in front of a set that the silhouette of the character is clear and not confusing. Don't have a tail wiggling on top of another character's head. :)
Often mentioned and always good is the option of hitting "7" on your keyboard in Maya so that your cg objects turn black (due to the lack of any light sources). It's a quick way to check if the silhouette of your character reads well. If you come across a section where hands for instance have to be in front of the body and you're worried about them not reading well, then play around with color silhouette. By that I mean for instance white hands in front of a black chest. Even though the hand is in front of the body it still reads well because of the color contrast. - pic source

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Subtle acting

I can imagine that most people by now who frequent the web have seen or at least heard of this movie. What cracked me up is that Michal actually pointed this clip out for acting references and it's true. To me his whole thing feels very acted and not natural but pay attention to the fingers, the hands, the dramatic pauses (03:20) and stares. Sometimes during the stares nothing is moving except the jaw, it's like an anticipation to the next gestures and movements.
If you have a guy sitting and talking, don't forget to animate the hand and arms even when they are off screen. I know it may sound like a waste of time but it adds a nice touch when you feel that there is movement, you can barely see that he's moving his hands in a gesture, but it's there. Obviously don't do polished fingers but just arms/hands.
Just turn the sound off if it gets annoying (to me it's especially the music).



And then the caricature of it (thanks jeff!):

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Time and effort

Here's a comment I got from the "Sounds simple, doesn't it?" post and instead of adding another comment I wanted to post my thoughts here.

I think the cruxs of the problem is that most people get into animation because they think its easy. Spend a few hours hitting some buttons on the computer and you too can have Pixar [or even ILM ;)] quality animation.

But anyone who has seriously attempted to aspire to that level knows that animation is one of the most demanding art forms to learn nevermind master. Its an old joke but there is no 'Make Great Animation' button. It requires hours and hours of consistent practice and study.

Most schools won't tell you this, but in my estimation I believe 95% of people who get into animation will not make a career at feature film level. Not because they couldn't but because they are not prepared to put in the time and effort required.

I don't know about 95% but I think too that the number is more above 50% than below.

There is certainly no magic button. To me the problem is about being lazy. And not lazy in a negative way, as in "Ahhh, I don't care." but more a "Yeah, I think that looks good enough, that should work." type of thing. Good enough is not what you should strive for. You really have to push yourself and be honest to yourself when you look at your clip. Does it move the way I really want it to move. If I compare this to other work that inspires me, is it of the same quality? If not, why not? What can I do to make it better? Did I really spend hours on each body part, making sure that it is the best it can be?

Probably not. There can be many reasons for it. Time is obviously a big factor. That's why I wouldn't recommend doing Animation Mentor and the AAU at the same time for instance. It's also hard to go to either one of the schools and have a full time job, but that's just how it is, you have to pay the bills. If possible, at least plan out your schedule so that you give yourself enough time for your animation class.

But everybody that I know who has or is working at ILM, Pixar, Sony, Weta, etc. spent long hours in the school lab or at home polishing their shots. You have to be prepared to spend long nights, sleepless nights even. Sure you will have exceptions, people that are so talented that it takes them less time. But I think the majority is working really hard and investing a lot of time in their work and you have to do the same in order to stand out from the masses.

But it doesn't end once you get out of school, it's not a walk in the park either once you're hired. I can't talk for Pixar or any other studio which has in-house productions and of course they have a butt load of problems they have to fight with as well, but what I can do is give you a rundown of how live-action feature animation can work. And I'm going to use the worst case scenario because why sugarcoat the whole thing.

You get your shot and you can just animate the hell out of it until it looks awesome, right? Nope. In live-action animation - and again I'm piling on all the bad things that can happen - you're stuck with the length of the shot due to the live-action plate, so you can't add a few frames that you need, which means that your animation can end up too fast because you still have to cram everything that the client wants into that shot.
You're also stuck with the camera move. So if you have a creature that jumps and the arc needs to go a certain way in order for the timing and realism to be right, what could happen? The creature jumps out of frame. The client is paying top dollars so you can't "hide" the $$ out of frame. This means you need to adjust the arc so that the creature is always in frame. But that means the timing is off and it looks fake. So shot length and camera, coupled with the client's requests can really screw up your animation.
But you still need to work as hard as you can to make it look the best it can be. Remember, it's not your portfolio you're working on, it's the client's portfolio.
And what if there is audio in your scene? Chances are you get a client who doesn't understand or care about our process of animating. We'd like to have a final piece of audio or at least very close to final. But what can happen is that you animate to a certain sentence and when you see the movie in theaters, the dialogue is totally different and your lipsync and body gestures don't work at all anymore. Or what if you have no dialogue at all and you're being told to just animate away and that the dialogue will get added later?
So you worked your butt off to make it look halfway decent given the above mentioned restrictions. Now it has to go through the review process. Your lead might have some comments because the animation director is juggling other things. No problem. The animation director has comments and you think that's it. They know what they're doing, the client should be happy. Nope. Let's take the worst case scenario again. Your clip is now being reviewed by the CG supervisor, another set of eyes. But what if multiple shops are working on one movie? Well then you need an overall CG supervisor who looks at the work of all the companies that are involved. So another pair of eyes is looking at your shot. Now, what if you have a first time director and the studio is not really confident in him/her? Then you might have one or two producers that will look at your shot and leave comments. After that the CEO of the studio might have a request or two. Then maybe the director. Now bear in mind that a lot of those people will have very strong opinions and give you directions which contradict everything you've learned in animation school and really doesn't pay any attention to physics and real life behaviour. But you still have to make it look real because your animation is part of a live-action movie with real physics and an audience who will probably not know but feel that something looks and moves wrong.

So imagine all those notes trickling back to you (hopefully undistorted, but probably not). So you fix your shot and this process goes on and on. Once the shot is finalled, you think you're done. Oh no. What if the character needs a lot of simulation (cloth, hair, etc.) or the action of the surrounding environment is interfering with your animation (it's always an eye opener to see your animation rendered and composited)? You need to go back and adjust your animation so that everything fits. But sometimes it's more work to fix the surrounding problems than the animation, so it gets changed in order to get what is needed, which again can screw up your animation.
Now take all those problems and add the following constraint that everybody in every company has to work with. Time. There is a deadline after all. So what if you have a shot with tons of creatures and your scene is so heavy that everything crawls? You will run out of time and won't be able to put all the love in the shot that you wanted.

And this is just for one shot.

So just like "anonymous" said, there is a lot of time and effort required, because a project is probably around 6 months long, some are shorter, some are much longer. There is also a lot of wasted effort involved because clients can suddenly change their minds and a whole sequence is gone and you have to start from scratch.

And don't forget overtime. Chances are you won't have a 9 to 5 schedule, so your girlfriend, partner, wife, husband, kid(s) and/or family won't always see you as much as they (and you) would like to. That's another "time and effort" part of being in the animation/film industry.

Are you really ready to go through all that?

Is it really worth it?

...

HELL YES!!

Now even though I just described what an actual show could be for months (some people for over a year depending on their position), it's certainly not always like that. A lot of times a shot can contain so many cg elements that you could extend the shot because you can replicate the plate, the camera movement can get modified to work with the extension. Your creature is moving out of frame? Well, the digital matte painting department could extend the set and you can add a second camera which follows your creature. You're given tools that make your scene butter smooth. The client is in full control and no studio will dictate what has to be done. And sometimes you actually have enough time to really polish your shot. :)

So you're sitting in your work area, surrounded by toys, maquettes, posters, fellow animators and nerds and you laugh all day. And guess what? You're being paid to do so.

Yes, it's hard work and the hard work never ends but it's so worth it. We are very lucky to be able to do what we love all day and be able to call it a job. It's a fantastic feeling.

So if you are in an animation school right now, take the time and work hard on your portfolio. If that means not going out to parties, spending a bit less time with your friends and family, being holed up in the lab or at home in front of the monitor for 18 hours a day, then so be it. Your family and true friends will still love you and understand because they will see the passion in your eyes. And when you sit in the theater, waiting for your name to appear in the credits of the first movie you've worked on and there it comes and you hear your family and friends erupt in cheers and applause, you will know it was worth it.

JD

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Sounds simple, doesn't it?

The Spline Doctors got a good post on an animation checklist you should go through for every character and shot you animate.

They make it sound easy to get good animation as long as you follow those rules :) but they are right that it is an essential checklist you HAVE to go through for every character, every part of the body. It may sound tedious but after a while it's just routine and it really trains your eye.

What I continuously see in student work are uneven and poppy arcs, which to me is surprising. All you have to do is take out your dry erase marker, draw a little dot for each spacing of whatever body part you're working on and then look at the dotted curve you're getting. You'll see uneven spacing, you'll see pops, etc. and then you go back and fix it. When I point those pops out to the students they tell me that they see it as well. So why wasn't it fixed before presenting the shot? Probably because they didn't check their spacing with the marker (or whatever tool you want to use, even though the marker way is fast and easy) or because they were too lazy to fix it (or they ran out of time...). If there is another reason, please let me know so we can figure out a solution to it.

Speaking of presenting a shot. It's also puzzling to me when I see a character doing whatever motion and the character's arms or legs are completely overextending, the kind of when you pull up your character and the IK handles stay put so that your legs for instance are completely straight and the feet point towards the IK controller. That is obviously not good and I doubt that any aspiring animator would consider it to be ok (unless this is the very very first time you've touched a cg rig in your life). So why wasn't it fixed before presenting it? It's a major mistake that needs to get addressed. So don't continue with other animation parts, fix this first. The first thing I think when I see homework presented like that is that the student thinks it looks okay. Which is troubling. Every time I ask about it though, the students tell me they know it's wrong. So this leads me to my second thought, that the student was lazy, which is troubling as well. Animation is hard work and if you won't spend a few seconds to move the controller so that your legs and/or your arms don't overextend, then you will have a rocky road ahead.

So take that time and fix it and as you move along with that in mind you'll start to fix things automatically because it's part of your process, you'll get faster at it, etc. etc.

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My Animation Workflow

[Instead of having you guys wait until I fix my stupid computer and post the whole thing, here's what I had so far and the moment I get more I'll post it]

My workflow

First, I obviously think about what I want to do. A clip I wanted to do for grading examples was a guy crawling on the ground or climbing up a hill, so I could show details in terms of hands and fingers and physical strain reflected in his facial performance as well as how the environment gets affected by his crawling around and vice versa.
So for this demo I started with that idea and thought about adding sound so I can really nerd out and use all the sound cues to my advantage. Going through my audio library (which is getting bigger and bigger - you can find a good audio piece in most movies, start building a library yourself), I wanted an action piece with lots of sound and little bit of dialogue/monologue.
I wanted to do animate something like that for a while so I already had recordings from "Saving Private Ryan". Famous movie, so you can't pick obvious and well known parts from the movie. I just wanted firing and shooting and screaming, which "Ryan" has plenty of and I'd hope wouldn't work against me (like picking "Choose the red or blue pill" thingie from "The Matrix" - THAT will work against you because it's so well known, you will fight against people's preconceived ideas and memories of that movie and the actors in that scene). I also wanted to include that sweet spaceship model we saw in class (from your rig library). That would also help me changing the setting a bit. I don't want to make the characters and the set look like what they are in the movie, so no WWII stuff. I love sci-fi, so something futuristic look-wise will do and I can use the said space ship. Yes, I get into Starship Troopers territory, so I need to avoid that look as well.
What I also like to do is to re-edit the audio. Most of the times I cut and paste things together, to further distance myself from the original and because I also have the freedom to do so. Exploit that freedom as a student or when you do your own animation at home. Once you are in a work environment, you’re stuck with the audio, the frame range, the live-action background plate, etc. etc.
So I went through my "Ryan" clips and was looking for something short so that I can polish it and have it ready for you guys in a timely fashion. I found one with lots of shooting and screaming. I listened to it over and over and picked out a few things I could combine. There's something at the end where you can hear a faint screaming and before that, maybe a spitting? I couldn't remember what it is in the movie so I checked, which you should do anyway. If you find a piece of audio online, always check from which movie it is. If you happen to have the same ideas as the director and your shot/sequence looks like the one in the movie, people will think you just ripped it off, you're unoriginal, etc.

As you can see, it's a blow on the mirror, not a spit. Now, given the sound and words, it dictates a bit your surrounding, meaning that the clip will include shooting, screaming, probably a war type setting, etc. You could have guys playing a war type video game or something more creative and technically that’s what I should do, but I always wanted to a war scene a la Starship Troopers, so here’s my chance. 
What I had in mind is a guy crawling on his belly towards his military objective, trying not to get shot with all those bullets flying around. There’s a close-to-camera-ricochet sound and I wanted it to be a shot to the ground close to him, spilling up dirt and stones and have that hit his face (maybe he
even gets wounded a little bit). So with all that in his face he spits out the dirt/blood and continues crawling forward. Then more shot impacts close to him but this time passing by and hitting a fellow soldier in the background. In "Ryan" it's just a moan/scream off-screen, but I wanted to show the guy being hit. The main guy looks back, sees that, gets furious/panicked and starts shooting. That's it. It was about 4 seconds long, nice and short. But then again, I really liked the "Covering fire!!" part, so I edited the whole thing around and ended up with a 10sec. piece (damn it, that always happens, I never settle on something short...). So here’s the audio only:

Click here to listen to the .wave file

Now that I have the sound in place I listen to it over and over until I see the whole animation in my head. I really can't draw, so any thumbnails wouldn’t be able to reflect whatever I thought of or only in a very limited way. So I plan it out mentally until I have a clear image of what I want to do.
BUT. I would still act it out so I can get a feel of what's going on body wise and film it so I can see how I'm acting out the whole situation. So for this clip I let the sound play over the speakers and started to make a fool out of myself. I can only speak for myself but I need to do it over and over in order to forget that I am "acting". That way I get the happy accidents and the more natural spontaneous stuff.

What I imagined for the shot is still better (hopefully) than what I acted out, but there's some interesting stuff here and there that I could use.
I like the different variations of “Cover fire!”, the way I react to the bullets, cleaner silhouettes as I roll over, etc.

So to give you guys a visual idea of what I’m thinking of, here’s combination of things that I liked and elements I want to include.

Now it’s time to translate all that into Maya and a working animation environment. First a little rundown of my Maya settings and tools that I use:

- scene is set to 24fps unless told otherwise
- animation curves are defaulted to “linear”
- hotkeys are set up for nurbs curves visibility on/off & previous/next frame
- dry erase marker is ready
- autokey is on

Let’s elaborate on those:

In film you work with 24fps, so whenever I work at home, I do the same. I don’t see why I should use 30fps unless told by the client.

During my blocking phase I set all my keys to linear, no spline, no stepped, etc. because that's how I learned it at first and haven' t really liked working any other way since. That's obviously very subjective and I'm not enforcing this method in any way. I don't want the animation to be pose to pose through stepped keys, because I like to see how long it takes going from one pose to the other and what the whole thing will actually look like early on. With a character popping around I don't get that. Yes, you can just add more breakdowns in order to get rid of this but I want to keep the amount of keys to a minimum (at least at the beginning). When I'm happy with what I'm seeing I convert specific areas to spline.

Hotkeys: one great time saving hotkey is the nurbs toggle on/off move fingers around in order to access the functions, I rarely lift my hand off the keyboard. So nurbs on/off as well as stepping through frames is quick and easy. My "Undo" is also on on "u" and not "Ctrl+z". Click here for the tutorial on how to set it up and here for the previous/next frame hotkey.

Dry erase marker: super handy tool to check your spacing. Yes, there are scripts that do this as well, but not every computer is set up for it or you get plagued by technical issues. The marker is uncomplicated and works everywhere.

Autokey:

[Rest Coming Soon]

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Strong Hand Poses and Contact

Those pictures are from the new CG "Ten Commandments".

































Take a look at the hands/fingers. Please make sure that you don't have default finger/hand poses like that in your work. This is kinda a repost, but you can't research/study hand poses enough. Make sure to look at Angus' drawings, check out comic books or do a google search, you will find very strong poses (not just for hands, for instance Tennis and Football). Find inspiration where ever you can.

Also, look at the feet (in the first pic), they don't seem to be really grounded on the floor. Make sure that your contact points are solid. not just with feet, but on hands, or whatever you have that should convey contact and weight. Even if it means tedious frame by frame work. Davis' cowboy on-his-knees clip is a good example.

I know it's a cheap shot to point out stuff like that, there might have been tons of reasons why the poses look so generic, I'm just using it as an example, so no need to write me an angry email.

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Contrast

The latest Spline Doctor Roundtable ends with a great note on contrast, how you need to focus on what you want to show in your shot, what emotion has to come across, and just because a joke is really funny doesn't mean that you have to cram one in into every shot. You need room to breath and sometimes a joke is funnier because there was a more quiet moment happening before. Contrast is key.

Same goes when you choose an audio clip or you prepare your "weight" assignment, decide on your acting, etc. When I ramble about contrast in class, really try to remember it and to apply it whenever you can. Try to limit your gestures (less is more) for instance. If you point at something all the time during every beat, the audience will miss the important "pointing" because it's buried, that important moment gets lost.
Or in your audio clip you have someone shouting all the time, you don't give the audience time to relax. The classic thing to do is to have something quiet at the beginning and louder at the end, maybe with a gradual build up or surprise explosion. But sometimes a subtle change in line delivery coupled with great acting can be fantastic. And again, great acting doesn't mean throwing the characters around.

There's a funny scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", during which Indy is in this crazy action scene and that sword wielding thug shows up. With everything that happened in the movie and during the sequence, you'd expect a huge fight, basically going from loud to louder (which is your typical way of contrasting action in movies). But in this case Indy just takes out his gun and ends the fight right there and then. Going from loud to quiet gives it much more contrast and by playing against the audiences' expectations it creates a much better pay off.

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The Bouncing Ball - The key to all animation

Here's a question that I got over the week-end:

Hey JD, I had a discussion with a friend of mine yesterday about how the bouncing ball is really the key to all animation. You had mentioned that in class as well, but I must be missing the link between the two. I get that with the ball assignment we can see the relationship of timing but it seems like a big jump between the ball and animating a human. So, how do I break the human down into its bare essentials so it looks like a bouncing ball? Do I look at the arm and see how that looks like a ball, then the torso like a ball and so on?

If you master the bouncing balls, you show that you have a good understanding of timing and weight. Everything that you will animate relies on timing and weight (great poses with horrible timing are useless).

Now let's say you do a walk. Then you have your body going up and down, which could be like a bouncing ball. Or you do a jump, that's kinda like a bouncing ball. But I wouldn't oversimplify it by trying to find an actual bouncing ball in your character. It's more about the understanding of spacing and weight to me. The momentum of a ball, how it reacts when it hits a wall or the ground, etc. all that needs to look and feel right and you have to adjust your keys and curves in order to get that look and feel. It's the same with more complex characters, the same principles apply, there is just more to think about).

If it takes you 15 weeks for the balls to look correct, then you will have a hard time animating in general. That's a harsh statement, I know, but I still think that's true. Of course you'll always have exceptions, plus with hard work you can train your eyes and sense of timing, or it might just click one day in your head and you get it.

It's not just about the technical side of adjusting keys but about your eye and if you can judge the timing of your animation correctly. And the bouncing ball assignments are great for that. Sometimes I see bouncing ball assignments and the balls just move around with complete disregard of physics and timing. And the person thinks it looks correct. That to me raises a red flag. It's not like the complex nature of a human character or creature, where you have to really think about how one body part influences everything around it, it's just a ball going up and down and side to side. So if the timing is totally off and the person thinks it looks ok, then there is hard work to be done in terms of observation, studying reference and training his/her eye. A lot of it also has to do with dedication. When I suggest that the person buys a rubber ball, films it and studies the timing of the bounce and all I get back is a chuckle, then that worries me. Yes, it's a lot of work for just a ball, but if the animation looks wrong you have to do whatever you can to understand why and to figure out how to fix it. You need to be pro-active, motivated and dedicated. But that ramble is for another post.

So if you master the bouncing balls, you're off to a good start, because like you said, the bouncing ball is the key to all animation.

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Don't let the computer do the work for you!

I got an email with very interesting questions and I think the answers would be helpful to the class as well (in case you have the same questions or thoughts).

> On a somewhat different matter, I've got a question regarding animating itself. I'm still having a hard time doing the convertion from 2D to 3D. In 2D it seems to be a lot easier because I control the animation by use of drawing each frame. In 3D the user is supposed to let the application do the inbetweens for you,

Nooooooooo! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! :) You can still "draw" every frame. It just takes long because posing out a character is not as fast as drawing a character. But at the end you are in control over every frame, don't let the computer do the thinking for you.

> so the thing thats racking my brain is the placement of keys and how many is too much/too little. As you mentioned, I can place keys about every 5 frames, which makes the whole 2D to 3D a little easier to convert but seems to defeat the purpose of letting the application do the in-betweens for you,

again, don't let it do anything for you. There are moments where I have keys on every frame, sometimes every now and then, it depends on the move and the controller. Some parts of your body will move more than others, necessitating more keyframes. There is no rule as to how many you have to use, as long as it looks good. If you have 5 main poses and then you do everything in the graph editor in terms of timing, go ahead. If you want to key out all the detail stuff, that's fine too.

> plus seems like an easier way to mess up with pops and such. The other way is how I've been taught thus far; main Poses, then break downs, then polish. When doing this timing of the main poses is good but I kinda lose it as I smooth the stuff out. Although I prefer this, I haven't had a whole lot off success with the end result.

The polish stuff is the hardest thing to do and it takes practice. Also, watch other people's clips to see what type of detail they put into their work. If you think that it looks like a good polished clip, try to find out why.

> As I was looking at you animations I started looking at your soccer performance frame by frame just as he hits the pole. If I am correct it looks as if you animated every pose from the hit till the final bounce onto the ground.

Yes I did, I wanted maximum control. But I don't know if that clip is good reference. :) That was Maya 1 and me using Maya for the first time. I think the "Ze Chair" clip is better, because I was actually aware of the animation principles.

> So, is it suffice to say that on slower actions use minimal amount of keys to let Maya do the inbetweens for you and with fast motion, do it your self?

That's kinda right, depending on the style. For realistic animation you have to add a lot of dirt to your animation if he/she/it is just standing there for instance, to add more subtle complexity to it. But with fast motion I end up keying every frame because since it is so fast (whatever you're doing), it needs to be clear in terms of silhouette, staging, timing, etc. and that's something you need to be in control of, not the computer.

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Framing your shot

Observations on film art and Film Art
by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell

Very interesting shot analysis in terms of framing and composition @ www.davidbordwell.com

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Composition - Guide your audience

Love that shot, how he's bent over in a nice C curve and the rat is doing the same, the walls left and right guiding your eye towards the characters, good stuff.

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Spline Doctors Archive

I don't know if you guys went through the archives of the "Spline Doctors" blog, I hope you did. In case you haven't yet (shame on you), here's a grouped list of the posts:

Animation Tips & Tricks:
Thoughts on hand poses
Thinking about a shot
Broadcasting The Inevitable
I suck
Shot Surgery
Oh crap I posted
Shot polish
Water balloon head
Gestures part 1
Eyes have it
How to be good animator
To spline or not to spline podcast
Demo reel tips
Overlapp in style
One frame
Change
Being directed part 1
5 sets of eyes
Residual energy
Physicality in animation
Eyes in animation
Brows
Michael Caine videos
Animation "Phrasing"
Body Language
If you don't know your character, you're screwed
Pose to pose with layers
Answers aren't in animation (study real life)
Animation roundtable
The power of silhouette
Great spline tutorials
Read "The Illusion of Life"

Animation Examples:
Great cast of characters
Student film
I say good show very good show
Jay clay in da house baby
More student work
Spring 06 work- Level 1
Spring 06work - Level 2
Spring 06 work- Level 3 (creampuff)
Gear change
Mark Oftedals short films from Cal Arts
Pixar 2 student work- fall 06
Virgin voyage

Reference Material:
Reference book of day
Tigers and shapes
Milt Kahl thumbnails and more here
Watching what's around you
Scared straight off balance
Great site for reference (bbc motion gallery)

Various:
Who are your influences?
Want to really learn something about animation?
Animation Schools
Schools (follow up)
Dean Wellins Interview
Make your own flip book
Exclusive Glen Keane interview
Matt Williames' blog
Story Boredom
Andrew Stanton splinecast part 1
Andrew Stanton part 2
Andrew Stanton part 3
Top nine movies of2005
Collaborator, prima donna and fanboy (job interview)
Ralph Eggleston Interview
Ralph Eggleston Questions answered
Animation in Spain
Cal arts producers show and update
Interview with Mark Oftedal
Another Stanton Interview
Brad Bird splinecast

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Research & Reference

Before you start a shot, before you plan out your animation, you need to know everything about your character and the situation he/she/it is in.

For example, let's take the tennis shot that Marie is doing. If you are doing a serve and attack animation, then you need to know how tennis players do a serve, how they move, what the timing is, what typical poses and gestures you see with players, etc. etc. You can't start without that knowledge because you will end up doing a completely wrong move (unless you are already familiar with the tennis sport, but even then...). Do as much research as you can, study as much reference as you can. You will only profit from it.

My favorite research method besides real life observation is Google. It's not without a reason that I have Google Ads all over my web pages. Googles search engine is great and you will find so much material for your animation, it's almost endless. For this assignment I typed in "tennis serve" and found tons of great reference images and sites. And it took me only a few minutes. So type in relevant keywords for your research and go to work. I switched to image results and started to pick out the best images. Two of those led me to great sites about tennis.

For instance, check out www.revolutionarytennis.com. Step 12 on that site is all about "The Serve". It's absolutely fantastic because it includes tons of pictures of tennis pros doing a serve, step by step pictures of the different serve poses and tons of written information about it as well. Good stuff.

Then Dr. Google sent me to www.tennis4everyone.com. This site is great for those who prefer videos. They have brief clips about The Forehand, The Backhand, The Volley, etc. etc. And of course, The Serve. So check this clip out for a nice side view of the serve mechanics.

If you need more video reference, then check out www.bbcmotiongallery.com or youtube, google video, etc. etc.

And here are a few pictures of great serve poses, facial expressions, hand poses and general body poses that are so typical in the world of tennis:

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