Blocking Type Results

After looking at about 50 people, it seems that stepped mode for blocking is the preferred approach. The following graphics show Industry to blocking style and years in the biz to blocking style. Take a look at the graphs. Some interesting results. It seems like I am in the minority… I have used spline transition blocking for my 14 years at pixar. It was one of the only ways to work when I started and it all changed when the incredibles go going. I do see the strength of Step mode and I do use it in Pre Production. Linear for me does not make sense and Layering is good for certain types of shots in my honest opinion (mostly action shots). All in all what counts is clarity. Everyone has a different way to work. What I have seen not work is too much complexity in the beginning. Keeping is rough and simple seems to be good. Some animators really work for strong poses in the very beginning stages and I see the benefit to this. Thanks to everyone for participating and please keep adding feedback. Next I am going to Poll animators around the office.

Andrew

What Spline Do You Use?

In the next couple of posts I am going to talk to some animators and ask them how they block a shot. One of the big questions is what kind of method is used to block in work. How do your poses transition from one to the next? Do you do a pose test where the computer does not interpolate  the in-betweens? This would be called held or step key transition splines.  I have seen every type but I thought it would be interesting to take a bit of a random survey. In the next days we shall see the result from you and then talk to animators at Pixar.. In the comments section I would love to see answers from people out there in the world. If you could answer in the following order:

Industry: (ie Games, Features, FX, TV, 2-d, Motion graphics etc… You can even mention the name of the place if you want)

Years in Biz ( Student, 0 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 plus, old timer)

Blocking Type: ( held knot, Spline, Linear, Combination, layered etc..)

The object of this survey is to see how people work and how it relates to how long you have been working as well as what you are working on. Feel free to add any thing else in the comments .

Thanks,

Andrew

New Doc!

KC Roeyer is joining the ranks of Spline Doctors. Kc was a student of mine over 5 years ago at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He was in the Pixar internship. After he headed down to Disney to work on Bolt among other projects. KC is now part of a group of former academy students that have started up the program there again. I look forward to reading some of his posts. We may have another doctor joining us as soon as he is ready…hint hint…

Animation in Brazil!

I had the great opportunity to teach a class for the first time in South America! It was a grueling trip to get down there (26 hours door to door getting there and 39 hours back (dont ever use wholesale flights.com!) I taught two days but the experience was one of the most rewarding things I have been a part of. Brazilian animators are craving knowledge. There is so much life down there!  Like much of the world, animation education is not easy to come by in South America and not many can afford to be a part of online schools. This was an opportunity that came to me 2 or 3 years ago when a small school in the middle of the amazon asked if I would skype in for a lecture. Its amazing to see what is going on. So many people are passionate about animation there. The class was held at the University of Fortaleza. A wonderful college with a great media program. I want to thank Claudio and his wife Rachel for putting this together. They run a small great school in Fortaleza called art&cia. Anyway, I had a great time and I hope the students did as well.

2011 Teaching

I wanted to give an update of where you might be able to find Pixar animators, directors and story artists teaching….

At The California College of Art in Oakland, they are lucky enough to have a director, Mark Andrews teaching the story class. Whoever is in that class should consider themselves lucky having Mark. He is one of the best teachers. I will be coming back next semester to teach performance based animation. There are many other Pixar artists at CCA such as Brett Parker (animator) Don Crum (2d animator) Doug Sheppick (stop mo animator). Josh Cooley (story) was recently teaching story.

The Academy of Art in San Francisco, where myself and many former spline doctors taught saw the return of the same type of classes we taught there for about 10 years. Some of my former students, KC Royer, Kevin Chesnos, Stephen Wong, and Mark Harris are now teaching 3 tiers of classes there. Other animators teaching in the program are Terry Song and Jamie Landes.

Animation Mentor obviously has many Pixar artists teaching with their very succesful program.

On the Masterclass front, Matt Luhn and I expect to teach a few next year. We will keep you posted. Thank you for the continued support and we look forward to some interesting events on Spline Doctors in 2011. (new doctors, podcasts, 2 new animation challenges and more posts!) Again, thank you.

Andrew