Video based Mocap

Griffin Animation Academy Webinars

 Ran across some new school? I think. 

Anyway, head of it has done a ton of interviews with people. (calling them webinars.)  Was watching this one with Andrew Tan that had some good tips. Blocked in his dynamic camera with a bouncing ball, then grease pencil on top. Thinking about spacing and texture to rhythm.

Definitely going to wander through the rest of the webinars.

3D storyboards

Ran across an article talking about using grease pencil in Blender to do storyboards in quick greyblock scenes. Combining layout and storyboarding so you don't have to reinvent things when you get out of 2D into 3D

Sony Animation Approach - Allesandro Camporota

Sticky Anime style

tutorial on stickiness that they get in anime that helps sell the punch.

Quad Tutorial by Daniel Fotheringham

Great quad tutorial by Daniel Fotheringham

Comedy For Animators

Seems like a great site   Comedy for Animators
they had a great breakdown of Jackie Chan, that the next crazy set/prop thing he's going to do is always forshadowed and then he basically gets pushed into it.

Nicolas Prothais Disney Animator Gesture Lecture CTN

Nicolas Prothais : Gesture Eloquence in Animation


animation is like driving a car, once you know the technical stuff you don't have to worry about it anymore.

Gesture Eloquence, the power to steer emotion
Since voice is provided, animator's provide the body language, which is stronger than the voice, because you can lie with the voice but not the body.
So really we only have posing and timing. And first posing, because can't time without poses. So Poses are the fundamental part of animation.
Body language driven by emotion, it can move very well but without emotion it's flat.
We cannot rely on instincts, very often we are outside of our comfort zone. (Trying to act like a little kid when you're not) And can not rely on luck. Have to plan.
So how do you start? Can try just jumping in with emotions and your first thoughts. Or try and narrow down possiblities. Approach left brain or right brain, and go back and forth carefully analytic and raw instinctual.
Big Hero 6. A character sits in a chair, no other direction. Different emotions and different personalities. A bazillion different people will come through, should come through if you're good.
He's big into Jungian Character archetypes
https://btleditorial.com/2016/12/05/common-archetypal-character/
Figure out the spcecifi emotion you're going for, excstatic vs overjoyed, nail that pose
body language speaks more about what we believe: "Do you understand?" while shaking head yes means I expect that you do, shaking head no means I don't think you get it
Animators job is to add that extra layer of knowledge to the performance. It's often not in the voice (for example indicator emotions they aren't feeling just referencing)
Took a line, and built the golden pose of that shot.
1st Who you are animating, what kind of character what kind of archetype?
2nd What you want to say as an artist, how is he feeling about what he's saying?
Sculpting isn't what takes a long time, it takes a long time to be sure the emotion is the one you want.
Films reference with actual voice then resyncs it to actual audio. (warps it in maya, (black and white runs faster also) the timing.) Then goes through and step keys it to just have key poses. So that's the blocking, just have to put it onto character. So now have poses blocked and timed. Puts vid ref away and breaksdowns and smooths with animation principles from here. (Blocking is pretty broken down, on 4's maybe, really ready for spline, but he says don't do that it becomes rotoscoped)

Disney has strong posing background.

same line, different subtext

Navone, Hartline CTN talk 4 animators approach same scene

CTN 4 anim

ators
Aaron:
3 things going into shot, Rig, Audio, & word: Villain
First rough lip sync
Allows to not overanimate, having some sync makes it easier to sit a pose longer and watch him talk.
Focus on key words where the acting will be strongest
Lipsync first moves you forwards towards deadline while still allowing you to think about things.
Next: Poses, characters zero, Big lebowski. (could take a day or 2)
Needs to let you go someplace, be able to introduce the layers and figure out who he really is
Simplify: don't put to many keys in, name that tune
what can I pull from my experience to fill in this character (Hanibal lecter (I didn't try to be evil, I just tried to not blink and blink very controlled) And Aunt Nancy (just a flash of rage occasionally)
Does it have a progression, go somewhere?
Ask around, get advice.
Rob: Job Applicant
think of the context, putting self in situation what are the pressures what are your goals.
Can I find a single pose to take me through the whole shot? How does it look with dialogue played over?
Thinking about the metaphor for entire shot of the fine line between cocky and confident, it's a question of back posture.
Lighthouse, the most important control as reference for all the rest. In this shot used the neck (like a chicken or bedroom intruder) so he uses the neck a lot for this guy doing a job interview. Animating the neck first out of the key pose. Then copy paste that around and adjust it, using forwards motions as basis for torso or head.
Then what details can be sprinkled on top. (spinning in chair, nodding yes but saying no)
Don't forget your instinct gut ideas, dont' let them get washed away in the repetition.
Victor: Polititian
likes the idea of a person with high status
First start with research of similar things (politicians speaking, what common hand gestures?) Adding paint to pallette, gathering ideas for possible gestural language.
Think about restrictions of scene, and backstory of character.
think about status in multi character shot
Goals wants to be confident and rebut attack but stay seeming nice -> which goes into subtext he in insinuating his opponents an idiot
A lot of thumbs. A lot of vid ref (10 minutes) try different versions.
wasn't feeling a throughline, so broke down the dialogue into subtext to choose poses to underline the subtext, thumbs gesture for each subtext
sketch blocking
Michael: Mentor
who is the character and what do they need to do. Never betray the character, only do what the character would do.
Get to know the char, list actors or family you know well, list adjectives that describe the char
So if need to know how your char would do something can go to how the actor has already done something (Kahn reacting to kirk being alive = Ego reacting to ratatoiulle)
Pays attention to energy of dialogue, low energy = small gestures big WHAT?! = big gesture
Focus on inward/outward talking to self or other (thinking vs delivering)
Timing and Texture
Balance the energy, an old man will move slow but he might blink fast so it's not boring.
Progression A to B to C is too straightforwards, put an A1/3 in there. (thirds are more dynamic than 1/2) breaking it up like that reduces the energy and adds texture.
relatability: how closely the audience can relate to what the character did (I would never do that, that's evil)
Characters choices are greatly based on where they came from, what their history is
Think then Act (or else it looks like a bad actor who memorized lines)
Status (control, who can most easily do or stop someone else from doing, who is doing the least and accomplishing the most)

Eye Dart = Thought

every time the eyes move, it's because a new thought has occurred. (a potential way to block out a subtle performance)

Michael Amos Action Analysis

Michael Amos has a blog that has some interesting posts.  (podcast with him here)

Such as this one about mouths.

Cameron Fielding on using Reference

Cameron Fielding did a talk at the pixel challenge conference a while back. Pretty interesting. 

  Cameron Fielding - Using reference from iAnimate on Vimeo.


what's important to look at (when looking at ref)

forget about "what pictures do I need to understand this" (don't worry about antic and follow thru poses and stuff)

walt stanchfield's books, you look at the model once and then not again and you try and draw what struck you as important from their pose

we have to apply this exact same idea to reference

go through the ref picking out still frames to describe the video (like you were going to make a photo comic book of the ref)

not looking for story poses or extremes, looking for the things that make you want to animate the shot

these are the poses you are going to milk later, you are going to try the hardest to preserve these when your polishing

drawing helps to dispel mystery:
draw your first impression poses, it reveals to yourself what it is you like about the pose, you'll find yourself drawing the same bit over and over

you're trying to find what it is that's a struggle to draw, the thing you can't quite get is what you love about it, it'll give you a solid understanding of what part to focus on and is important when you take it to 3D
 
* found on animator's resource (which I just found and is full of gold)

Posing - professional vs amateur

Great article over at Animator Island, basically looking at screen caps from dancing with the stars and pointing out how the real dancer is really pushing for a flowing line through their body while the amateur star is trying but not stretching for it.

Ken Fountain - Splat Frog

Ken Fountain's got a site where he's offering tutorial vids (which I recommend, I thought they were great). and also some free video podcasts with some tricks

Tangled Unofficial Animator Commentary

 man, HOORAY for Clay Katis!!!! I've learned so much from his animpodcast. Latest one included.

Since clearly Glen Keane is a god who helped push this movie beyond, here's the solid Glen Keane notes again (collected at Art of Glen Keane but originally from Mark Kennedy's site) (and then the old ones from animation meat )


here's the notes I took listening to the podcast:


glen was less concerned with the motion and more concerned with designing the appeal in the design of the golden poses

Glen always started with drawing the eyes, most of the time he spent on the poses, only 5% on the animation

It was frustrating to take Glen's drawings back and try and push the CG model into it, because the automatic deformations would make the model look really weird, so had to find a balance

a lot of what I learned working with Glen was appeal, and now when I work on a shot I tend to look at the facial expressions a lot, especially the eyes, and even the eyelashes. Really paying attention to the appeal of the face and how it works in the scene.

The director's called for a lot less "we don't want a gesture festival, just have him standing in this one pose" which felt like we weren't doing enough, but then watching it sequence it totally works

this is the first musical a lot of people worked on, we didn't realize how important the inhales are to animating to a song, the big gasp right before belting it out was really important

I used to think it was enough to  move the body as a whole believably, but Glen really showed us that the body the hips and torso and all could work together to express emotion and they could work together harmoniosly. Glen would always say TILT RHYTHM AND TWIST something you could apply to the face or any part of the character, or the whole character, those are the kinds of things that Glen would drill into us (what would glen do, that) general assymetry in the mouth, looking for appeal and focus in the eyes. That's one thing in Disney's DNA, the characters beyond just being well designed, they are posed within their own design that makes sense for who they are. How the characters occupy their own body. In terms of minimalism, Glen would show a drawing that looked so good just as a drawing that it didn't need to move so much

I remember Glen drawing the shoulder way up by the head and you're thinking "what the heck is he doing, he's pushing way to far" but then it all comes together and works beautifully. He's so good at zeroing in on the storytelling pose

animating songs? was it different?
the rhythm of the shot is a little easier to find because it's predfined (like the difference between a pantomime shot and a dialogue shot)

Eric Goldberg

This is an old vid, but so often things hit you in a new way after you've grown for a while.

"The approach in CG is to layer things, here's the torso, now here's the arms, now here's the expressions... Nothing has any particular force to it. If you're conceiving of one pose that's expressive it ties it all together it helps you express what your trying to express rather than try to put it all in in separate stages. That intention of what the character wants and needs to do is sometimes missing. (from reels)"

Joe Bowers

Joe Bowers What I had, took me so long to just get it blocked out, and Glen would come and say "that looks great, lets just push it" and he'd draw over the whole shot. Everything Glen puts in emphasizes how things should feel (maybe beyond anatomy in favor of the feel). Like the mouth I didn't even think to push the mouth that big, mine looked like 10% of where Glen was pushing it. You forget how far you could and should push it. If you can draw it you can try something fast and try pushing it and keep it rough, if you're posing the process is so much slower. Now I thumbnail more. If I shoot reference I'm really boring, I don't want to animate that. So I take "here's the idea of what I'm doing, here's the mechanics of it" so I take a few thumbs of key poses and push it from there. PUSH FOR FEEL don't let the rig inhibit you, you won't see the ridiculousness but you'll feel the extra emphasis.
,
When you learn to animate you learn all the parts of a walk. But it's okay to let some of that stuff go if you need to, like with all the natural torso twists that should happen, it would kill the mood.

weight in animation, think of it as a bowling ball with things attached to it. the lighter stuff is dragged behind.

ragdoll cat, into keeping the animal feeling like an animal, like when she's swinging around kept the iconc shape of the back and legs, didn't push it all the way that a noodle would do, to keep it feeling right

Jamaal Bradley Progression Shot

awesome progression reel from Jamaal Bradley
Progression of an Animated Shot: Gothel & Rapunzel Disney's Tangled from Jamaal Bradley on Vimeo.

he's blocking down to 2's or 4's at the longest, ignoring mouths til spline pass. But everything else is in the blocking. 

Storyboarding Hat Lieberman

Hat Lieberman's storyboard advice, great simple ideas for composition and staging. on the Art Center

Quad Tut

Fair article on  animating quad's.