Richard Williams stopped by the studio the other day. Myself and fellow animator Holger Leihe, who worked with Richard interviewed him in the Lucky 7 Lounge. It was a pretty short interview but really turned out great. It will be available on iTunes. Richard Williams just finished the DVD version of the animators survival kit which can be found here. Enjoy the interview.

Richard Williams mp4 with chapters

please stay tuned.

-Andrew

These days with everything that is going on in the market, all I see in the news are pictures of stock brokers stressed out. People holding their head in their hands. Brokers with scared eyes looking up at a  sinking ticker. Yes, the economy is melting down a bit and people are fearful. The media wants to show clear images of people freaking out which only adds fuel to the fire. As an animator, how do we show fear or that our character is stressed out? Mostly it is by using gestures that reflect this. Self Touching is something that we humans do a lot when we are listening, under stress, or fearful to name a few things. In the book “Man Watching” Desmond Morris explains why this is and what it means. If you don’t have this book, find it. When we make our characters look fearful, we have to explore different ways of doing this. A good thing to do is to act out 10 different ways of doing the same thing. Another thing to do is to look at what other people do when they are scared or stressed. They may have a different way of expressing this emotion. What is an interesting choice? In animation or acting, it’s all about the choices that are made for the performance. Obviously, we want to avoid the cliche’ or transparent choices. We need our characters to have depth and to look interesting. The other day I was able to watch the new film “Ponyo” Some of the choices the character Ponyo makes when she finds the person she has been looking for were so sincere. I love that about Miyazaki’s films. There are moments that always seem so true. In essence we should all be searching for the truths in our characters and how they act. Whether its fear, longing, love, hate etc, etc.. we need to make it sincere. Hopefully, all these images in the news of fear will be of celebration…. In the mean time,  we Animate!

-Andrew

Sorry its been so long since a post. Its been busy at work. As you can imagine, things are in full crunch on UP and I am busy on TS3. I wanted to address some of the questions that came in.

A question came in about what I meant about blocking on 4’s. Basically, when I block something, I try not to let the computer inbetween more than 4 frames. Its not a rule, I just find that 4’s is what I lean towards. Some people block on 8’s, some on 3’s. It all depends on your work method and what the scene calls for. To be honest, I only start with 4’s. Sometimes I shift keys around as needed.

Victor Luo wrote in some interesting stuff about how the computer either helps or hinders us. How many keys should we be doing? I think this really depends. The computer obviously does not understand animation principles. Its up to us to throw in the breakdowns. Where the computer gets good, is at the minutia of detail. A head shake, and eye flutter, an ease in, etc. We have to be smart about how we use the computer. Most of the magic lies within the Spline Editor. Regarding your question about who the guy was who used linear knots… It was Steve Hunter back on the days of Toy Story 2. He switched over after much peer pressure. I cant talk for Steve, but I suppose animators use linear knots because they don’t want any surprises. Linear knots can be good for alot of things, but give an almost stop motion feel. I am not sure, but I think many scenes from Chicken Little were animated using linear and you can see it in some of the animation. Some scenes had a bit of a stocatto feel. Having seen some of Bolt, I can safely say that it seems that Disney has embraced the Spline. The animation on that film looks amazing! Not to say that Chicken Little did not have amazing animation as well. I am mostly talking about linear vs. Spline.

Abel Salazar wrote in to use step keys on 4’s and 5’s, then go linear, then go spline. I imagine that this method is used by many animators who prefer the xsheet “step key” method. I can’t speak for this because I don’t really use this style of blocking. The whole reason I have not switched over to the step key method is because I prefer to see every frame of animation I am doing. This can be tough on the front end, but better for me on the back end when I am polishing. At that point I am familiar with my curves and know what to fix.

David Beer asked if I key all the major body parts on every 4 frames. Actually, I only key the things that are changing. A Lot of this has to do with the fact that I can see the controls I am blocking very clearly. I’m not sure if I would key every body part if I were using Maya. In general, you want to block with as few controls as possible. Block the core controls on every 4th frame like the hips, torso, neck and head. Again, you can clean up your curves once you get into the spline editor.

Rob Somers wrote in about off setting keys. Hey Rob, I think the question was answered by David, but offsetting keys can work for certain things like how a limb of an arm overlaps or how a body turns. You either have to build it into the pose or let the curves do the work for you. This method works more with the layering approach.

Oliver L. wrote in about blocking arms. Use IK to solve a joint angle. Meaning, if the character is contacting something or holding an object it makes sense. FK is for acting and for general movement. I usually block the arm with some sort of world align on. This give me even more control over the acting patterns and general movement of the limb. It makes it so that I don’t have to counter animate if I am moving the body around. Ultimately, these are all tools, not rules. Whatever works for you is the best method.

Well, thanks again for all the great feedback. Keep it coming. I know the site is still broken in places and I need to know where its broke so I can fix it. I appreciate all the support.

-Andrew

-Andrew

-Andrew

If you are an animator, it should be required that you watch the 2008 Olympics. It has everything related to what we do. Weight, Physicality, Beautiful Arcs, Slow Motion footage, Inertia, etc, etc etc. I always find the most interesting parts to be the reactions from the close family in the stands. Its also amazing to watch some of the medal ceremonies.  The emotion going through the athletes is so visible. When I am watching the Olympics, I find myself rewinding certain parts to watch them again, and again. Take for instance, when an athlete falls or trips, its always interesting to see how this happens, how the body comes to rest, and so forth. The opening ceremony was amazing in so many ways. It had so many elements that are of interest to us. It was unlike anything I have ever seen in its scope and precision. My hats off to China for blowing away any other opening ceremony in history. Since the games are in High Definition in many parts of the world, it is tough to record them for reference. I have been recording them right off my TV with a camera that has the same aspect ration. You dont get the same quality, but its still very good. Its all about inspiration and reference when watching. We should look at it with our animators eye and figure out how to use it in our work.

-Andrew

Part 2 - Doug Sweetland

-Andrew

I wanted to bring up the topic of Planning and how I approach using reference to do that.

The first thing that I would like to bring up is that there are MANY ways of planning a shot, but the 3 main ones are recording reference, sketching thumbnails, and watching reference.

Watching Reference: This is less about planning, and more about getting an idea about your subject matter. Getting information about your subject, doing your research, tremendously helps the planning process. If you research what your subject matter does or doesn’t do, you won’t make those mistakes and put them in your animation, only to realize it not correct and have to take it out later. Some scenes are hard to act out this way.

If I had shot where Remy would crawl up a sewer pipe or run across a table, I wouldn’t go record reference for it. If our Rats walked on 2 legs instead of 4 legs than maybe I would. But they generally don’t.

I could thumbnail it out. But as I’ll mention later, that’s not my style. So instead I will watch LOT’s of reference. This way I can get a feel for what the Rats move like, and try to mimic that feeling in my shot.

Thumbnails: Thumbnails are a great way to explore a shot. We can use thumbnails to quickly try out poses both Body and Face. This allows us to roughly see the shot and get a sense of where it’s is going to go. You don’t want to spend a lot of time on your animation only to realize that where you were going with the shot isn’t going to work. Below are some thumbnails that Stephan Gregory had done on cars. It shows a good example of exploring the expressions for the shot.

Generally thumbnails are not something that I personally explore much. I occasionally do use thumbnails,…but my personal drafting skills are pretty horrible, and so I feel more comfortable either quickly posing in the computer, or recording reference.

Recording reference: This is something that I use quite a lot. Why? Well….the first reason is that I love acting out my shots. Not to say that I wouldn’t do that with thumbnails, but it’s really a state of mind thing.

Now I don’t want to take reference, and then Copy what I recorded exactly in the computer.  That would look too rotoscoped, and we have motion capture for that.  Reference is more for about getting my ideas down so I don’t forget about them.   I can also refer to it at anytime as I work on my shot.  I like to look at it to see my general timing and ideas.  It’s like a mirror that I can pause myself in.

Second, I like being able to play my dialogue on a loop, and record myself acting to it right then and there. I usually have a general idea of what I want to do. BUT sometimes if I’m not sure what I want to do…. I just start my dialogue on a loop and start acting to it. I just want to see what my body does on the fly; what my acting chops are on the fly. This is some of the most natural performances you will get, because it is as unplanned as it can get. It can also however be some of the worst, because it’s not planned and maybe my acting chops aren’t up for the “Make it up on the fly” routine. But as far as I see it,….it sure doesn’t hurt to try. There might be something that I do that I will keep for later.

After I try several unplanned takes, I start thinking about my planned idea. That general idea that I was talking earlier about….this is where I really start to flush it out.

Now sometimes with a planned idea you get yourself in a rut. While it’s great to have a planned structure for a shot, sometimes that structure becomes a prison. No matter how much I record myself, I keep doing the same things over and over and over again. I can’t do anything else.

So what do you do?

Well,…..take a break. Come back and try it again later. Maybe that break will be enough to get the idea juices flowing again.

Say you always start in a particular pose….try a new one. If you start with a new pose, it might force you to take your acting in a different direction.

Pull a friend in and ask them to act it out. You might be surprised how they approach it.

Now this next part is a very important part for me. I like to set up my acting room as close as I can to the room that is represented in my shot. So if there is a table in my shot, I make sure there is a table when I’m acting things out. If the character is holding something, make sure you are holding something when you are acting out your shot.

The reason I like to do this is to have more of my imagination work towards my Acting, and not trying to remember what is in my scene. I want all my brain power to focus on the acting. If I have to keep reminding myself that there is a table in the room, then I am doing something wrong. Having similar props in your reference will keep your acting true.

It’s like when actors have to act on a green screen, or on a set. Everyone is going to choose the set, because it’s there! They can use it! Work with it, or against it….whatever. It is also very important to keep your character in mind. If you are animating a Large character, and you are a small person and Acting like a small person,…your reference won’t be very useful.

Take for example the Captain in Wall-E. He’s a large guy. I’m a really small guy. I wanted to get into my character more (the Captain), so I requested a pregnancy suit. You know,…the kind that people wear so you can get an idea of what it feels like to be pregnant. If I could wear this while acting out my shots,…I could get a real sense of the weight that the character feels. All of a sudden, picking up a cup isn’t as quick. Or getting up off the chair isn’t so easy.

I remember when I was animating my Mike Wazowski test, I printed out a picture of Sulley’s face (this is who Mike was speaking to in the dialogue) and taped it way up high in the acting room. The reason I did this is to make me act UP to someone. Mike Wazowski is much shorter than Sulley, so I wanted to make sure my acting reflects that. Again,….I just focus on the acting, I don’t have to think to look up, I do it automatically.

Below are a couple of examples of me doing reference. OKAY,…this is me putting myself out there.  It’s a little embarrassing, (At least there aren’t any real emotional shots) hope it’s worth it.

The First applies to a shot I did in Wall-E where Auto is trying to grab the boot from the Captain. In order to get a better feel for the movements, I asked a fellow co-worker to help me out. I asked Tom to keep the boot away from me, while I really try to grab it.

REMEMBER you can click the “Watch in High Quality” button. I would recommend it for the Confession Scene.

WALL-E Ref:

The second is a little thing I did after Cars for the Rascal Flats. It was Mater introducing the Band when they went on tour. This shows how I still do reference, even though I am animating a Tow Truck. In my original blocking I did present the Rascal Flats to the side like I do in my reference. However, since we did not know what they would be coming out of, the decision was made to just have Mater go forward toward the crowd. This was also very difficult to animate because of the Ratio Constriction. I didn’t have much room to play with on the sides. So I tried going toward and away from the camera more often, so it didn’t seem like Mater was just standing in 1 spot.  I also don’t have reference for the beginning of the shot, because I knew what I wanted to do with that part already.

Cars Ref:

Cars Shot:

The third reference is for a Class I did for Animation Mentor. If you are a student of the school, you might have seen my lecture series where I show how I Polished the shot. Again, I recommend watching in High Quality.

Reference:

Shot:

You can see the reference I took. There wasn’t much exploring because I knew what I wanted to do. See how I use the table and even tied my hands together with string to simulate handcuffs.

The last is just a picture of my using a scarf thing, to help me with the shots of Ego and his scarf.