More on Shape Change

A long while back we did a post about shape change and how important it is in your work. I wanted to reference a couple of examples on YouTube. Hopefully we can do more of this action analysis in the future.

Watch how the force causes her body shape to change. Its amazing how her torso reverses. Also notice how everything overlaps (torso, chest, neck and head. Reversals are key to nice animation.

Yeah, I know, you have seen this. It really is amazing to see how much the body changes and how this guy can change the appearance of his body by movement. Look at the patterns on his arms. Really nice fluid stuff.

Ok, this is just crazy. Obviously this woman is beyond flexible. Its really great reference for articulating a torso. Look at how appealing the shapes are yet the rib cage always stays solid. Its really important to remember that your characters have a rib cage and to keep that part of them solid.-hope this helps a little…

Spline Doctor Q&A Answers

Sorry, about this post I was suppose to post the answers last week. I got really busy, I’m leaving for Europe and New York for a month, and haven’t had time to edit it together. I promise I’ll post it as soon as I get back. There were a bunch of great questions and I want to make this a great splinecast that will be informative as well as interesting, unfortunately that takes time. If you want you can post some more questions in the meantime if you have any. QA@splinedoctors.com

see you all in a month!
-Dr. Stephen G.

Jeff Pidgeon Interview

Hey guys I found this interview with the amazing Jeff Pidgeon on-line today. Everyone should check it out. Jeff has been at PIXAR forever and he is in my opinion one of the most influential artists of PIXAR’s earlier films, Toy Story,Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, etc. Worth a listen.

here is the link!

–Dr. Stephen G.

IK Is Not Always OK.

One thing I’ve noticed a lot of students do recently is animate with IK on for no apparent reason. For example, a character just walking forward in space and gesturing with his/her arms would be animated with the arms in IK. I’m not sure if this is a rookie mistake, laziness, or if people do it so they don’t have to deal with orientation switches but, in my opinion it is very noticeable and it almost always looks wrong. If we just look at the terminology we’re using we can get some obvious hints that will help you with your work method. “Inverse” means the reverse of something. So the opposite of FK, or forward motion, must be obstructed motion or motion impacted by an external element.

That external element makes perfect sense when it’s something like a ground plane, table top, or any surface that your character may need to interact with. However, if a character is just walking around or standing still and gesturing and the arms are free of any external element, then IK stands out like a sore thumb and your animation looks like a puppet with arm rods. Movement begins to look externally motivated. You don’t want to do anything that’s going to break your “illusion of life”. I love the Muppets as much as the next guy and those characters seem real to many people but Kermit’s arms still look like their on sticks….. which is just bad IK.

-Adam

When The Dialogue Ends, The Character Keeps Talking.

I’ve been planning a lecture recently on dialogue and I was trying to grab some images as reference. I did a Google image search for “mouth + lips” in the hope of finding some diagrams of the mouth and it’s mechanics and the image of the Mona Lisa popped up. I stopped dead in my tracks. I have a point in some of my notes addressing the importance of “inner dialogue” and keeping a character alive when they’re not talking, but this simple image search made me think of the concept on an entirely new level.

Most of us are familiar with the Mona Lisa and it’s significance in history. Having said that, anyone I’ve talked to who has actually seen this piece in person at the Musee du Louvre, the first thing they usually say is, “I never knew it was that small.” What an amazing statement that is if you analyze it. Why does that surprise people? Because of how large an impact that picture has had on people for centuries. It’s amazing to see what a sideways glance and the upturned corner of the mouth can do to inflame the imagination of an audience. I don’t mean to raise the bar too high, but that’s the exact kind of thing you should be thinking about when animating your dialogue. When the track ends, you must keep the character alive. Thoughts need to remain engaged, and it’s amazing sometimes to realize how little it takes. I find myself also being reminded of the power of a single, motionless pose.

What is truly amazing to me is that the piece transcends the artist. I’m a big fan of Leonardo, but when you think about it, this piece is far greater than the artist who created it. Why? Because after more than 500 years… it’s still alive.

-Adam