What are some good techniques/practice animations one can do to get better?
I recently joined “Animated-buzz”. It’s a website where artists can help each other by critiquing artwork, animation and answering questions. Daniel Marinca recently asked a really great question. Namely: “What are some good techniques/practice animations one can do to get better? (Besides practicing squash and stretch?”) I took some time to answer the question and thought I would post the answer on my tumblr as well. Please note that all of us, professional and student alike are always striving to improve. I am therefore by no means saying that my answer is perfect. I’m simply hoping to give back to the community. A huge credit to where I am goes to the incredible mentors I had and the amazing people I worked with, that shared their knowledge and experience with me. I would love to give back to this wonderful medium in any way I can :)
Practicing animation.
This is always a hard question to answer, because it's such an open question. Each artist/animator is in a different part in their journey. One thing I would say is; try not to take on too much at once. I know it's really tempting to want to do a 10 second dialogue scene that has both physicality and acting, lipsync, and possibly multiple characters. Don't rush, you'll definitely get to animate those kind of scenes, but when starting out it's really great to do small exercises and learn from them. This way you can focus on one little thing and learn it well, then apply what you've learned to a bigger exercise later. Also it's always great to think about what it is that you're trying to learn from each particular exercise that you're doing. I don't know if it can help, but I'll write down a bunch of different ideas for exercises you could do. See which ones you are drawn towards, but don't feel pressured to have to do any of them. I'm just trying to generate some ideas for you :). I always tend to write a lot because I love animation so much, so be prepared for a long message lol 1) I know everyone hates the bouncing ball, but it's actually a great exercise. It teaches you spacing (as well as timing). How do you slow an object down and how do you speed it up believably? Learning this can be applied to how the hips of a character move, as well as many other things. If you have done the bouncing ball already, try to make your ball feel like a rabbit jumping. Then try to make it feel like a frog. What is the difference in spacing or timing. Does one need more hangtime, or is the difference in the take off? 2) a simple character jumping. iAnimates has a really nice simple character called "tots". It's pretty much a ball attached to a spiral/slinky, with a plank of wood attached to the bottom. If you can get a hold of a simple character like this and then making them jump, teaches you things like "overlap" and how different objects that are attached still move like they act as one character. It also teaches you about weight and follow through. I don't know if similar characters can be found on other websites for free. 3) an eye blink A blink can be pretty involved when you really shape the contact between the lower and upper lid. There are some pretty cool videos online analyzing blinks. These are two that I found on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtYccevwDNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73jRo4fwU3I&t=161s You could even expand on this exercise and animate a double blink, or a sleepy blink. Always ask yourself, what's the difference between the one I just animated and this new blink. How has the spacing and timing changed. 4) A foot lifting off from the floor in a walk. Things to think about when you do this exercise - when the heel has lifted off and is about to touch the floor, how does the foot roll down? (As animators we should never generalize, but most often the outside of the foot touches the floor first) - What kind of rotation does the food have when it's lifting up. Is the big toe the last thing that touches the floor? - how do you not make the foot feel broken. What kind of angles should you avoid. 5) Make the character go from a standing position, to bending their knees, and then getting up again. (you could just animate one leg) (just focus on the character from the hip down, don't worry about the upper body for this exercise.) - What is the angle between the foot and the upper leg. For parts of this movement they're going to be parallel. (this is similar to what happens in an animal leg) - how does the knee move? Does it simply move up and down, or does it veer away from the body and then comes back in? - how does the hip move? Does it drop first, does it get pushed up by this movement? 6) Lifting an arm, possibly elbow first, then stretching out and then bring it back down. (either controlled or loosely with weight) - when does the actual shoulder kick in when you lift your arm. - how do you make it feel like the arm is not driven by the hand (which sometimes can happen when we use IK) - how do you make the arm feel like it has weight. - what kind of an arch does the hand have in this movement. - what kind of an arch does the shoulder and the elbo have. - how is the hand rotating and dragging 7) a head looking around. - how is the head movement related to what they eyes are doing. Or if you want to ignore facial animation just see how a head moves around. If it turns to the side, does it start with Rotate Y, or is there some Rotate Z and X that happens first. - how do you make it come to a stop without it feeling stiff. 8) a walk cycle - (You can do a walk cycle as a treadmill or walking forward. ) Start with a generic walk cycle that doesn't have too much personality. - Analyze how the hips move. How many frames are near the top and how many frames near the bottom. What is the spacing like when you go up or go down, is it the same? What is the spacing as it moves side to side - What is the tilt of the hips when you lift of your leg off the floor? (normally the side of the hip that has the leg lifting up will drop, but this depends how high the leg lifts). - What kind of rotation is going on in the hip? - How do you give your character weight. Is it because of the spacing in the hips? - How does the foot take off? How does it land? - How does the foot travel as it passes the standing leg? Does it come closer to the standing leg, or does it move further away? - what is the relationship in the chest rotation to the hip rotation. How do they move up and down to create a fleshy overlapping motion - How do you create overlap in the head - How do the arms move in a walk. Is the shoulder leading the action? What is the elbow doing in relationship to the wrist. 9) Make a character start to move from a still position This is such a great exercise. I know it sounds simple, but there are so many small things involved. To be able to pick up the one leg, your body needs to shift. What happens to the rotation of the hip when you do that. Your body needs to lean forward to get you moving. Does that movement start from the chest, or from the hips? To move forward, is there a tiny movement back to "anticipate" that movement? 10) Make a character come to a stop from a walk. You have similar complicated things happening when you stop moving. How do you create a fleshy overlapping feeling when a character comes to a stop. What art the hips moving. Are they going up and down, left to right. Are you leaning forward or leaning back? For both this exercise and exercise 9, it's great to film reference of yourself from the side. Then if you have the software analyze the video by drawing a single straight line from your pelvis all the way through to your chest. Treat the trunk of your body as one shape and then see how your body is leaning forward or backward to start to move or to stop moving. 11) lipsync How do you create appealing lipsync, that doesn't have too many mouth shapes but still reads as what the character is saying? What kind of archs does the corner of the mouth travel in? Where is the biggest up and down in the jaw? (one great way to test this is to put your hand under your jaw as you speak. It makes you more aware of what your jaw is actually doing as your speaking). There was also some test animation done for Paranorman, to figure out what mouth shapes various characters would have. I believe the file is downloadable. If you can, try to export the sound file separately and then import the video and audio into a program like flash, after effects or even Maya. This will allow you to scrub the animation with the audio. It's a great way of analyzing what choices the animator made to archive at the final result https://vimeo.com/48783829 Another really great video to watch is "Animation Mentors" Spacing and Timing webinar. I love watching this video at least once a year, because it has so much great information. You can find it on their website here. http://www.animationmentor.com/resources/webinars/timing-and-spacing/ Lastly, another very important thing to consider is to study “acting” or better said “life”; as animation is about conveying a true performance. (if you're interested we can go into this more in detail in another answer) I hope this was not overwhelming to read but hopefully it gave you some exercises that you might like to try, or if not that; then some insights into what questions you can ask yourself when doing exercises. If any of you have any questions about something I wrote don't hesitate to send me a message. I'd love to help in any way I can :).
