Head over to synchrolux, specifically to the post Eye Movements 3 - Saccades and Fixations, for those interested in why and how eyes move. Don't stop there of course, make sure to check out the rest of the site (via categories)/ - pic source
Cartoon Brew had a post about "Oktapodi" a while back. It also points you to Quentin Marmier's blog, which has an awesome collection of production images.
But make sure to click on "older posts" in order to see all the other cool artwork.
According to Shawn, watch from 1:30 to 6:00, so I did. And holy moly it's AWESOME! Go to this youtube page for "Orgesticulanismus" (embedding is disabled). It's a short movie by Mathieu Labaye. Here's what the youtube movie info says:
Great tribute to his father Benoît Labaye, suffered from a multiple sclerosis at 29 years old. Benoît Labaye had been confined to a wheelchair since age 40 and died at 55 years old the 04.22.2006, as a result of a pneumonia.
In the movie, you can hear Benoît Labaye speaking:
"I think it's by the movement you appropriate your own life. By the freedom to come and go, to have gestures of love, tenderness, anger, whatever. When you are deprived of movements, as I am and as a lot of other people are, I think if you want to survive, you must reinvent the movement differently. And so what happens inside my head isn't purely brain, purely intellectual. It's a way of recreating an inner space which is also my freedom."
"When you live a severe handicap, when you live absolutely still, dependent, you live, in fact, something that can't be shared, that can't be easily expressed, which you can't easily talk about. Because when two people talk, to be able to understand each other, they need to have a minimum of common experience between them, to speak of something they both know from some form of experience."
"Sure, the stillness, the handicap, brings you to the conclusion and to the gradual acceptance that there's a certain number of things that you can't do. But conversely I think it opens a whole bunch of new possibilities, notably with inner freedom, inner space, but also with the way you can come in contact, in relation with others.
I think there is in the handicap, in the disease, a lot of potentiality. The human being is inexhaustible at the level of desire, of energy, of inner strength. Ans it's something you discover with maybe more urge, more intensity, when you're deprived of movement."
Hey guys,
I've never gotten any email or comments about how I could improve this site. Since I want this to be a good resource for my students and anybody else who reads this, please let me know what you would like to change, add, remove, etc.
Please leave a comment to this post with any suggestions. Don't be shy, it's for your own good. :)
- image source
Head over to Carlos Baena's site to check out his post on Shapes and Lines. Awesome image of Medusa he posted, look at that pose! Make sure to check out all his tips & tricks and resources while you're at it.
slashfilm via Upcoming Pixar got a new Wall-E Featurette. A few new scenes, but nothing huge in terms of spoilers.
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.
The last hero of the Nine Old Men died at 95. It's a sad day for sure.
If you're wondering who he is then please head over to Animated-News and get all the details, same with Cartoon Brew which has a ton of good material (as always).
And if you don't own "The Illusion of Life", you should get it, it's a must have.
I might be stating the obvious but make sure to check out Cartoon Brew. I'm sure you guys got sites that you visit daily, so if you haven't already, add this one.
Among this week's posts you got news about Pixar's Presto, their new short in front of Wall-E directed by Doug Sweetland.
Next up are the "Geri's Games" remakes, which are pretty cool.
Interesting as well is the "Disney's Gettin' Lazy" post.
Make sure to check out the site regularly.
- found @ Cartoon Brew
This is a question I got and I thought it was a very good question:Hey JD,
I was reading Cameron Miyasaki's interview and there was
this one thing he says "make sure you animate emotion and attitude and not
action. More important than what the character is saying is how the character is
saying it. It's a subtle difference in the way you approach a scene, but it's
the difference between just simply animating and acting."
This might be
a silly question, but I dont think I quite get what he is saying. Could you
explain it a little further?
I really want to make a longer post about it with examples, but that will take some time.
In the meantime, here the gist of it (at least how I see it):
- how you say something makes a world of difference. Take "I love you.", which I say to my wife a thousand times a day. :)
But she can exactly tell what I mean and how I mean it by the way I'm saying it. It can be a heartfelt and honest way, it can also be in a "Yeah, sure, whatever you want sweetie." way. It can be a "We're still friends, right?", or "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." way. It all depends on the tone of voice, the emotion and attitude behind it. It can vary depending on how I look at here with just my eyes, or a head tilt, or a hand gesture.
So when you have a dialogue piece, you have to think beyond the mechanics. It's more than just "Okay, he's saying "NOW!" so I have to get an "N" shape, mixed with a wide "AH" and transition that into an "OO". That's just animating. Go rent "24" and watch how Kiefer Sutherland says "Now!" (you can't miss it). In fact, every character yells "Now!" at least once. But it will be different for each character.
Or watch this funny clip of Shia saying "No" over and over:
Even though it's repetitive, there are differences. The action is the same, but once you start changing emotions and attitudes, the meaning will change.
And that goes beyond what the character is saying, it's important for all the actions of your character. That's why I ask you guys all the time why your character is lifting the box (or whatever other action your character is doing), has he done it before, who is the guy, where is he, etc.? You have to make a decision about who your character is and in what situation because that will determine his emotion and attitude. A guy lifting a box of beer can be animated differently. It could be a delivery boy and he's tired of lifting those heavy boxes all day and doesn't care about the alcohol, or it's a guy arriving at a party and he can't wait to get drunk. The way they will handle the box will be completely different and that's what your animation has to show, it has to show acting instead of just action.
Animated-News points to info and details about the production of Wall-E and Space Chimps.
If you haven't done so already, go to CG-Char and read through the "Ask the Pro" sections, there are a lot of goodies in it. What prompted this was an email from Sow Hussein Dembel, giving me a best-of from the Mike Belzer questionnaire. Thanks!
Mike process:
As far as process goes I think the number one thing to do is be clear about your actions/ideas. If you are not clear than your character and your audience will not see it either.
So take time to figure the best way to approach your shot. Understand the story of what is going on, where are you coming from and going to. Act it out, thumbnail, video reference. The point it do more than go with your first impression of what you think the character should do. Don’t cheat the audience by taking the easy way out.
After I thumbnail, act out and sometimes video record I’ll do a phrasing pass. This is where I block in the key poses to the shot to see how it is working. I’ll most likely go back in to strengthen the poses later but this will be the building blocks of the shot.
I work linear but shoot out my images with keys only. This way I see it in what looks like stepped mode but once I put breakdowns in the linear process gets me closer to the poses I’m looking for.
From here it’s adding breakdowns, refining main poses and adjusting timing.
Once I feel it’s pretty close I switch to spline mode and spend a fair amount of time cleaning up the crap that the computer gives me.
Then it’s onto the final steps of finesse and refinement of poses and checking arcs and whatnot.
That’s it in a nutshell as far as my approach. That said I don’t thing there is any one way that is right or wrong. If the results are on the screen, that’s all that matters.
As far as inspiration… it comes from so many places for me. My children are a constant library to draw from. I can’t get enough film… watch all kinds of films. Live action, animation and don’t forget CHAPLIN!!! I get inspired from his work every time.
For animation specific… I just love doing it and constantly pulling people in to help better my work. I’m also very inspired by students. I teach at Animation Mentor.com and I’m constantly blown away at both he quality of work and pure energy that comes from that school. I also love going to different festivals, schools, and studios and just geek out and talk about animation. I don’t grow tired of this art form. When I do I guess it’ll be time to go into another line of work. Till then I’m loving animating.
Q: I love to draw and it is a massive part of my process I believe in great design and character, yet I hear advice given to "CG" animators to only concentrate on animation like it is a seperate thing.
WRONG!!! It certainly is true that you need not be the strong draftsman that you need to be in 2-D but there is so much to communicate with drawing. To be able to explore your shot before staring thumbnails is so important. This is a weakness of mine and I wish someone had told me “LEARN TO DRAW!!” To be able to communicate a quick idea to a co-worker, supervisor or director is very important in this visual world we work in. Also if you =ever get in the role of supervising a character it is very important to communicate what you want the character to move like for rigging, facial shapes for modeling/rigging. Talking about them can take you so far but as they say a picture is worth a 1000 words. Right now my pictures are only worth about 89 but I’m continuing to work on it.
Q: I believe drawing and "seeing" enrich animation and should not be discarded. It seems to be a product of the CG age.
Agree with this as well. I believe through drawing you learn anatomy, composition, line quality for posing out a character and appeal. It’s such a rich tool it should not be discarded because you are in CG or even puppet animation for that matter .
Q: I know the CG process is a long one so even more reason to have a strong sense of design and character I feel. People may misread this advice "only concentrate on animation."
To be a well-rounded artist will only strengthen you. I thin those who say you don’t need to draw have issues themselves with drawing. Again I am one who struggles with drawing… but I see the great importance it has in a visual medium that we work in.
Q: You mentioned before to watch all kinds of movies, specially Chaplin, but I usually get a little lost in what to study in those films, can you give us some advice for some key elements that I should look for in movies? Again, thanks a lot.
Be open and be a sponge and soak up all that film has to offer. Look at the film as a whole. Look at it frame by frame, in slow motion, without sound… these are all ways to see things in different ways. One other trick that is interesting to try is listening to a film without looking at the picture. Plan it out in your minds eye as to how you would approach a scene and then look at how the actors chose to act it out. The results will surprise you.
Q: Do you do any 3d modeling and rigging? Do you even have time for personal projects at the moment?
I wish I did now how to do that kind of stuff. I have an understanding of it so that I can communicate my needs but not enough knowledge to actually do it.
As far as a personal project… I am in the process of creating some DVD’s that I believe will be of great interest to animators and students especially. No firm date as to when they will be done.
I’d like to do a short film one day but with work and family it’s a tough balance to find time. Perhaps more coffee and even less sleep.
Thanks for the questions.
Mike.
Q: Hi there Mike,Thanks a lot for staying with us for a bit.My questions would be:
1: Why and in which conditions animators use linear interpolation in a Final Shot?
2: Far too many times in various animated movies I have noticed that Body Language,Head Tilts,Expressions,even Poses...etc...are dramaticaly over used.....or who knows...reused....just like a stencil. If you know what I mean.
Lately,the animation didn`t evoluate for a bit.Only got polished. Is that the Students are molded in that manner and they`re just happy they can emulate X or Z animator? I know the fight with the clishee is not easy,but is not imposible either.
Hey Cristinel
Using a linear interpolation for final shots would come in two areas that I can see. One is that is that if the style of the show wanted that harder edge feel (which I don’t so much care for) or if they basically key frame just about every frame. This is where I’ve seen success. If the animator is keying every frame it does not matter if it is spline or linear because the end result from frame to frame is controlled. This is a lot of work with my workflow so I don’t work that way.
I don’t see this as an issue with the medium more than it is with the animator. The same held true back in the golden age where you had say 9 incredible animators at Disney and others who may have been good but not up to that same level. Not cheating the audience and coming up with fresh new ways to show an action or pose is key. I think many animators today go with their gut reaction and animate what first strikes them. The need to thumbnail, act out and look at reference is something that is not always done. Yet it’s through this labor intensive process to determine what the best action for the shot is what can separate some good animators from average ones. I hope that addresses your question.
Thanks for the questions,
Mike
Latinoreview has the "Ice Age 3" trailer which played in front of "Horton". Notice how the head is in front of a lighter background, giving the silhouette a contrasty push. Can't wait to see dino action courtesy of Blue Sky. HD version here. - found @ Animated-News
Alright! Much better, that's it! I think that pose works much better than the previous one.
Now what's left are just technical things:
- the paper being thrown away, right now they move all over the place, give them a nice curve and more accurate physics
- the idiot's screen left hand at x142. It goes from a fist to open and moved to the left at x143, then the wrist rotates 90 degrees within one frame and goes up, then a bit linear to the right and then up. That whole section this to get smoothed out with nicer arcs.
- his left elbow gets tucked in a bit fast after x40, plus it goes in and out, so just slow that down
- his left hand doing the twirl. I would keep it within the same rotation. Right now he's doing it counter clockwise and then clockwise, plus the arcs are a bit choppy, smooth that out as well
- his left hand thumb does a quick turn at x186, I would not stick it out that much, keep it in
- the finger poses at the end on both hands are nice, but they seemed mirrored. Change one of them a bit
The nerd still got eye problems. Check x121 for instance, you can hardly see the pupil. Same with x162 and x210.
Work on that, but you're almost done! :)
This one is almost done to me. There are only little things that I would change.
First, that little head move at x74 feels too poppy. Yes, she's surprised, but to me it feels more like how your head would react when something came towards you very quickly. I'm exaggerating, it's not that big, but the feel of that is there. Soften that part and see how it looks. My guess it will be more of a confused-to-realizing motion (if that makes sense).
Little thing, check the fingers on her right hand at x92, make sure they don't go through the table geometry.
The detail work is nice, the earring, the hair, etc. I really like how the hand goes through the hair for readjustment, that's really well done. I also love the finger pose of her right hand at the very end. :)
Now this part could purely subjective and just a matter of direction, so totally up to you.
What is a bit weird to me is her look at the very end. That wide eyed look is almost freaky. I would go for a more seductive look. But that could make her look too fake? First she's disappointed that no one is talking to her and when there is some one, instead of being genuinely happy, she puts on that game face. Right now you have her look REALLY happy, so maybe it's just a matter of lowering the upper eye lids a bit. But what about this:
instead of having her look at the person at around x137, stay with the look to the glass (like x122). Keep the eyes there and then close them around x143 instead of x154. Keep them closed and keep what you have, except at for the end where the eye lids really open up. Keep it more like x188, even lower, make it really seductive.
But again, this could be a different character that you don't want to give her, so that's up to you.
As always, love the bugs crawling out of the alien's mouth. :)
Let's look at the gun guy. He looks already really good, so let's be nit picky.
I feel like you could add a bit more weight to the gun. As the screen left hand lets go of it, I would lower the back part of the gun down. Even though the other hand is in the middle of the gun and could keep the balance even the way you have it now, I think it would be neat to see the effect of him letting go. You have it in there for a tiny moment but then the gun goes up again. It feels light because it happens so fast, first down then up, that quick jiggle makes it feel light.
Add one more pass on the screen left hand. It still feels a bit IK-ish. Look at the beginning till around x65. The hand goes up and down in a slow and even way, with the wrist keeping the same orientation, even though the body and arm is moving around. That just gives it away as being IK. Same goes for when the hand lets go off the gun. Go from x67 to 68. Gun butt moves away yet the hand keeps the rotation, I would rotate it down as it lets go.
I would make the "no" part during "I don't know." a bit faster and have it happen a frame or two earlier, it just feels a bit soft and a tiny late.
I like the last little expression change at the very end of the clip and the little eye darts. Also how he emphasizes "alien" with his body and arms. Overall there is nice detail work on him.
Now the lantern guy.
I would tone down the amount of eye darts at the beginning. To me the intensity is a bit gone and makes him unfocused. You could keep the one x10, but maybe try a version with no darts at all. I would go for an intense stare until "... it is.", so around x45 have an eye dart going from right to left (or left to right, up to you), but I would keep it to that, then have the head turn. Right now at x53 you got one to the left, then immediately down after that, little drift then up right before the blink and head turn. That's just too muddy to me. The ones after that are much clearer and focused.
Around x128, a few frames before and after, when he stops his head/body turn, it feels like there is a little hitch as he ends that turn. I can't pinpoint it, check your keys and curves (unless it's just a constant hiccup in my quicktime).
Check his left elbow around x76. As he turns around, the turn felt fast. I think it's mostly because of how the elbow gets tucked in after x72. Give that movement 3 more frames or so.
His right hand has a few IK problems towards the end. Check how the arm slows down towards x135. After that it drifts screen left to x160 in a very straight line. After that it goes back screen right, then down with an even wrist rotation, then back screen left in a straight line until x227. So that's a long section which needs more work to get rid of that IK feel.
But all in all a really cool clip!!
For those who haven't seen it yet, I really like the composition with the two guys left and right and the alien in the middle. There is also good back and forth attention grabbing between the two characters. It doesn't feel confusing, I always know where to look.
Alright, here we go:
First off, it looks really good. BUT. It feels like you stuck to the video reference a bit too much. You're getting close to mocap, rotoscope quality. If you'd have that on your reel for ILM (and I assume Sony, WETA, etc.) it would be a good fit in terms of realism. But I suspect that for feature animation shops you might want to amp up the cartoon factor. That's up to you of course.
Animation wise, the biggest fix that has to be done are his arms, they still feel very IK-ish. Let's look at his left arm. Since you got all those great details in there, I'll be nit picky. Look at x20 and his hand. His body goes forward yet the hand doesn't move till x30. That feels too locked for me. I would start having a tiny movement in the hand leading into what you have after x30. Just have his fingers stay in the same spot so that you still get the feeling that his hand is pressed against the board.
As the hand/arm moves away from the board, it follows a pretty straight line till around x37, then kinda sticks there until almost x42, after that it goes down in another straight line to x56, where the hand stays put again until x60. On top of that the wrist orientation stays the same and the timing of those movements is very even and slow. Then the arm goes straight up until x73+ to around x87, again with no wrist change. The fingers also stay in the same pose (and go through the leg geometry around x93). After x98 the wrist does rotate but very slowly and in an unnatural way. The arm again doesn't have a nice arc to it, it moves straight from after x100 or so to around x118, again with pretty even spacing.
Once he's on the wall the wrist is flat on the wall, with all that pressure on it, I can see that it wouldn't move. But the body starts to do some big moves and the arm is shaking, so it would still be neat to see a tiny bit of wrist squishing left and right following the arm movements. Now, the wrist goes up around x172. Is he just momentarily getting off the wall or are you overextending the arm? It feels a bit big and fast, that's why I see it more as a pop than something intentional. If it is intentional, I would tone it down by 50% in terms of height, that way you slow it down.
So what's killing the left arm animation are all the straight lines instead of arcs and especially the even timing and how the hand/arm sticks in one position. All this just screams IK (and even if it isn't, it makes it look that way).
Now his right arm. Same thing here. Even timing, slow moving. Let's start with x22 to x35, too slow and even. After that he takes his hand off the board which is good but the up movement suddenly goes down and then the arm stays put at x45 until around x60. It looks like it's moving straight towards the camera yet not up or down. After that we get the super slow motion move up until x99 where finally accelerates. You definitely need more rhythm during that part. The rest looks good.
The body overall is great, it would just fix the beginning around x20 as it goes down to x34, that movement suddenly starts and feels very even in terms of spacing.
I would also add more variety to his lean forward when he checks if the coast is clear. So from x39 to around 52. Body and head just rotate forward and then stops. I think you could lead more with the head and then follow with the body. Speaking of head, the head turn around x60 is a tiny bit fast, I would add one or two more frames to the turn and overshoot a tiny bit more. Right now it's fast and then from 65 to 67 it stops. It doesn't end like hitting a wall, which is good, but I think slowing down the turn will help. Same thing for the turn around x100.
Even though the complexity is nice, I feel like the body head move to the right at x153+ is a bit fast and abrupt. It goes till x158 or so. Again, I would slow it down, so just don't have him go as far. You might just have to reduce the head rotation so you can keep the body stuff. I think that could be enough to take the jerkiness out of that section.
What I really like are his feet and legs, especially when the feet are on that metal trash can. The fact that the feet don't stick on it feels nice to me. Hard shoes and slippery metal. One thing though is his right leg at x150 to x151. I think you should ease into that sudden up movement a bit more. So have the foot a bit lower at x151 and fix the spacing from there. Right now it's borderline a pop because the foot is on the can and on the next frame pretty high up already.
Finally, tilt the camera down a bit. You're still hugging the frame. Other than, looks awesome!
Nice work!
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
Of course I had to find out more about that Indy drawing. You can buy this at the Indy store of course and they have this to say:
Acme Archives has pursued some stellar talent to bring Indy fans a new series of limited edition fine art lithographs, including this fun animated take of a classic Indy scene by artist Patrick Schoenmaker. This 13"x19" fine art giclee on paper, limited to just 245 pieces, depicts the tooned-up Indy and Marion staving off the darkness in Raiders of the Lost Ark's Well of Souls. This piece makes you wish we could see a fully-animated Indy adventure! Each print is hand numbered and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. About the Artist Currently living in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Schoenmaker is studying animation and has drawn several comics appearing in such magazines as Break Out! and Stripnieuws.
