Clean Blocking
I am always impressed with certain animator’s clean blocking. Sometimes, I end up putting in to many controls or in general too much before I show for a review. I can’t stress the importance of clean, clear blocking. In this day and age of computer animation, the best thing you can do is to simplify. Many times when I look at a past scene I did, I always like the ones that are simple in their idea and approach. I am from the old school of blocking on every 4th frame. I like to see the detail and even include my breakdowns in that first showing. I’ll also even flesh out things such as a head shake in the spline editor. The tough part is that if I get a bunch of direction, I have to tear down the wall and rebuild. Some of the things that save my butt are trying to keep as many of my controls on the same frame and not offsetting things until I have that clear path. I also believe in showing early, rather than later. The more information I have, the better. I don’t need to hide away until I feel everything is perfect. It’s good to take a swing at things. I also think that if you are in a place where you can show your work in some sort of dailies, the first blocking pass should be seen in that forum. If you are going for a laugh, or trying to get a response, that first showing is your change to sell your idea. As I work on this next production, I really do want to try new methods of blocking a shot. I have never really worked with the exposure sheet method, ie. step key blocking, but I think its time to learn. Essentially, if I want my poses to be stronger, I need to start with strong ones to begin with. With the old school method, your poses evolve and get better. The flip side is that they feel more organic. What ever your method, its always important to keep the perspective that no one way is right or wrong. Heck, I used to know a guy who blocked all his arms with IK no matter what. It looked OK to me. Another guy used only linear knots… That might be a little crazy… The spline is your friend.
-Andrew
toyBunny
Hi Andrew,
Could you please elaborate on what you mean when you say “every 4th” frame? Do you mean, whether it’s a key pose or a breakdown pose or just any pose, you keyframe every 4th frame? Or is there more to it? I always thought that with blocking you block in your keys and breakdowns, but they didn’t necessarily land on every 4th. Love this blog. I await your response. Thanks!
Mathew rees
Couldn’t agree more!! I was amazed how simple and clear the blocking pass was on some of the shots you showed in your masterclass. Although a great deal of the detail was missing, you could still read the characters attitude and physicality. And as you say, it makes it a lot easier to make changes if you’ve totally gone off on a tangent to what the director wants.
Mat.
Kevin
Hey Andrew,
I was also curious about your blocking every 4th frame? Obviously your keys and breakdowns won’t always fall on 4 frame intervals, so I was wondering why you do that work if, like you said, you might end up having to change it soon after?
One thing I can see that would benefit from these even 4 frame intervals is the sense of timing you can get by previewing your shot at a consistent frame rate. It basically comes out to 6 frames/second which is enough to allow our persistence of vision to interpret somewhat fluid motion. Thanks for the insight!
Anirudh
these are classic articles Andrew…even after 100 years they will be as much relevant as today…
blocking is without doubt your guide to a new piece of animation…whether the guide is good or bad can define your stay…clear and simple blocking can ease your workloads many folds and also saves hell lot of a time as directions are easy to gauge at the blocking stage…
good 2 hear about your blocking on 4′s. i do on 5′s and just shift the keys as per my desire of timing…i think its been working pretty ok for me…shud try on 4′s next time..
thanks for reminding the basics !
cheers!
Victor Luo
Hi, Andrew, I’m also curious that if your 4th frame means “at least” each four frames has a key, sometimes the interval is less than 4, in extreme situation, key may be frame by frame? To pick the number of 4, is it for the reason of easy in-between way? 4s inbetween once and get 2s, twice to get 1s… … Because I read the Animator’s Survival Kits and Dick Williams said that some animators is lazy and would not do inbetween for keys in each 3 frame—- it is hard to divide into “Half”. So is that the reason those old school teaching guys to key in each 4 frame? Thus, Do you think the CG animation in-betweens “free” us animators from 2,4,8 intervals and make CG animation has more variation in timing and contrast than the traditional hand-drawings? Or is the computer just do some inbetween work for us to save some hours, the old principles are still works?
Plus, the guy who likes to linear the curve, is that Bobby Beck? I used to see an interview of him, he was also have the traditional background, and he like to “confirm” every key on the frame. keep curve in stepped or linear, without convert it into spline. That’s really a liitle bit crazy, I saw his works is awesome, but maybe not very effecient I guess. Anyway, it is the way he used to and like.
Dave Vasquez
Great post Andrew. It’s inspiring to hear an experienced veteran like yourself who’s still always open to trying new approaches to animating. Keep up the great work.
Abel Salazar
Yeah, i was just having a conversation with my fellow animator ova here at work.
I’m trying to sell people on this.
BLOCK on 4′s and 5′s using STEP KEYS.
KEY EVERYTHING!!!!
Next take those keys and go to linear.
a lot of animators jump to curves or start at curves, this is a weak jumping point in my opinion and only leads to more cleanup, foggy vision or clarity (in your original intention) and more mess when some “Einstien” suggest to maybe alter his arc on his entire body…
KEEP IT SIMPLE SUPTID!!!
(my next shirt… patent pending…)
LINEAR is an easier transition and lets you really notice the timing in a clear/horrific way.
THEN you go to curves…
anyways, great post, keep em’ coming
Hannah
Thanks Andrew! The post came at a great time as I am currently in the blocking stages of my first big 3D animation for class. I am a sophomore at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design majoring in animation, so I’m soaking up every bit of info I can not only from the school but from this blog and others as well.
James
Hi, I found your blog on this new directory of WordPress Blogs at blackhatbootcamp.com/listofwordpressblogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, i duno. Anyways, I just clicked it and here I am. Your blog looks good. Have a nice day. James.
David Beer
Hi Andrew
You have mentioned the 4′s method before. Do you key all the major bodyparts on every 4 frames, or just the parts that are changing? I have moving holds that are far longer than 4 frames, and I’m just wondering if I’m not paying enough attention to detail. Also, do you find it difficult to key rotations so close together if they are blocked? I think you know what I mean, sometimes its difficult to manage the rotations in stepped heys. Thanks a mil for everything, still beaming from the masterclass!!!!!!
Rob Somers
Hey Andrew, great article. I’m hoping you could expand more upon the idea of “off-setting” keys. I come from a very traditional background, even when working in CG. I like to keep everything on the same frame, this way when I’m pushing keys around in the graph editor for timing, it’s a lot less complicated to shift a whole pose. But off-setting keys I hear gives better, more subtle and realistic overlap especially on arms and other loose elements from the main body. I’m just not quite sure how to execute this method in my own work, so any tips would be great!
Thanks for everything, this site is brilliant.
- Rob
David Beer
A note to Rob:
Dude, to be honest, offsetting helps in alot of ways, but no all ways, i just thought I’d mention that. I started animating in CG and did the opposite to you, I offset everything! Now i’m actually trying to think more traditionally. So dont feel you HAVE TO offset. It is a quick way to have something start or stop before another, and you would usually do it towards the end of your workflow, when you dont need to be so protective of your nice organised grouped keyframes. It works well in spine rotations too. But there are many times when offsetting creates this awkward ‘broken’ cg look, and this is what I have had to start paying attention to. Keith Lango explains this quite well in a free article on his site called ‘Life after pose to pose’ check it out. Usually IK arm setups and complex movements dont offset well. Its more of a quickfix. So If you can manage to show ‘lead and follow’ in your whole poses, like traditionally, then you are probably getting decent and ‘unified mass’ results. I hope I have helped somehow. I am indeed still learning myself.
Olivier L.
Hey Andrew, thanks for this post. Just like the other people above I would be interested to heard a bit more about this blocking on 4th (4s?).
For a long time I also thought that a blocking should only be the “golden keys” and breakdowns but after few terms at Animation Mentor I realised that most animators go into much more details and just like you, end up setting up a key every 4 frames.
I am guessing that you don’t block blindly every 4 frames as some Spline Doctors readers understood but only go on 4s when needed but could you confirm that?
As for arms, I have been mainly using IK arms until very recently as it gives me much more control over the poses but it is also a lot more work and making a change in the body at polish time is pretty much impossible. I am currently trying to use FK arms more often now and I find it very interesting because I get stuff for free.
Olive
Graham
Hey. I noticed a lot of you guys asking about the “4th frame” thing Andrew stated above. I’m not Andrew, but my understanding of it is this:.
Basically, you figure out your key poses and once those are looking nice you drop in your breakdowns. Then you keep getting to smaller and smaller segments until you have a key at least every fourth frame. Sometimes you even have keys every two frames or one depending on whether it’s something on the face or a fast movement.
Doing it this way leads to a lot of cleanup in the knots, but it ultimately gives you more control over the rig and the splines.
Look up the Victor Navone Splineophobia tutorials on his blog. He animates this way too.
David Beer
Thanks Graham , that makes alot of sense
armgod
Thank you
Dr. Gordon
Sorry I have not had the time to respond. I am swamped at work. I intend to do a part two post talking about all the questions.
thanks for your patience
-Andrew
Larry Phillips
Off topic reply-
This site appears to be broken in IE7 (bottom of all posts cut off). FYI in case you didn’t know.
Excellent work you guys are doing here. An information goldmine this is. Thanks a million!
Matias
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