Comments on: Clean Blocking

By: Matias

Matias — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:09:45 +0000

ACkQexCc9wUCY

By: Larry Phillips

Larry Phillips — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:58:19 +0000

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!

By: Dr. Gordon

Dr. Gordon — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:08:01 +0000

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

By: armgod

armgod — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:32:32 +0000

Thank you

By: David Beer

David Beer — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:44:10 +0000

Thanks Graham , that makes alot of sense

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:42:43 +0000

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.

By: Olivier L.

Olivier L. — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:24:54 +0000

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

By: David Beer

David Beer — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:51:25 +0000

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.

By: Rob Somers

Rob Somers — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:49:52 +0000

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

By: David Beer

David Beer — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:32:12 +0000

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!!!!!!