Animation Principal: Solid Drawing

As an animator journeys through the process of of developing their artistic skill set, we come almost immediately to the need for strong drawing skills. Animation would not be what it is today without strong Drawing, and given the chance, I could even make a case that the world as we know it would not exist today without strong drawing, as Artists are the unacknowledged architects of our reality, and all things made by man spring from the creative artistic mind. Alas, that is another matter to be discussed over scotch and cigars, so we will stick to drawing as it applies to a foundation of animation.

Drawing is where we translate the idea into something physical that we can share with others. A picture is worth a thousand words. Because drawing is so fundamental to the animation industry, any animator will strongly benefit from being able to draw well. This does not mean that all animators working out there can draw, but being able to draw will only help.

Because drawing requires problem solving, it is a good place to start building your skill set, as you will face countless problems that you must solve as an animator. Here are some videos that I have found helpful. First is some material from one of my favorite designer/ instructors Feng Zhu. This Video is full of information about design and how to work up your own ideas and stimulate your brain to produce better drawings.



Here is part two of this series. Mr. Zhu talks a lot about the fundamentals but leaves it up to you to learn the basics on your own. In my mind, the first place to start is getting loose and working on shape, next would be line weight, and then a serious study on perspective, one point, two point, and three point. A strong grasp of perspective will elevate your drawing to high levels.




So after watching Feng Zhu and listening to him it should be pretty clear as an animator how important drawing is to the production process. The rigs and props you animate start out as drawings. Being able to draw within this medium will help you to communicate with others in your department, as well as those outside of your division in other parts of the pipeline.

Next is some rendering work from industrial designer Spencer Nugent. There is some really strong information here about materials and how light works on objects.

 

Now finally we have the work of Scott Robertson who will give you a solid idea about how to render your own designs. Scott is very technical and I highly recommend going through Scott's channel on Youtube.




And Finally, here is an example of my work. As always, my hope is that those who view this post can walk away with something they can use. Thanks and best of luck, Cheers.

The use of contrast as explained by Aaron Blaise.

Animation School - Animschool: Character Eye Blink

Animated Short Development

Story is the structure that gives form to animation; then if you intend to animate a piece, the natural question would arise, an animated piece about what? What is the story and how do you arrive at it?

The purpose of this article is to build our understanding of creating an animated short. We will investigate and explore the animation process, and by throwing a serious study on the work of others, perhaps we will gain valuable insight into production workflow, helping us to form a better plan for the assembly of our own work. Hopefully, we will map a route to a smoother production process.

Animation production doesn't need to be some big mysterious thing, or to be put in terms that are overly academic. An animated story can be as simple as "Man lifts box", or an overly complicated saga of several volumes, but it is story that drives the action.

Working With References Maya 2014

This is a short tutorial on re-loading a reference file. When working with a referenced character I uncovered some problems with the rig, after fixing the rig and then re-referencing the fixed file, the changes I had made did not show up. Figuring out the fix came quickly but in order to not forget and maybe to help out some others who might have the same problem, I made a short video about it.

Hope it helps,

Cheers.

Know yourself

  Often times when my children find themselves on the other side of  a mistake and we are trying to find the root of where they went wrong, I will ask them "why did you do it?" and most often they respond "I don't know". Well that is true to a point, often times kids don't look at themselves or their motives for why they do what they do, they are still forming, and getting to know themselves.

  As an adult, in my early years, I would say before 35, I didn't spend much time thinking about why I did most of what I did, but as time passed I learned that I could find greater success by understanding the underlying motives that drive my actions in life. The root of my actions begin at the core of my being, tracing the roots to the source I find the prime ingredients of who I am. By looking at those prime ingredients, or I would say the main reasons that drive my actions, I can build a plan that is in line with my reasons. By knowing my reasons for why I do what I do, I can choose actions that fit with who I am. This means going with the flow, not fighting the flow. There is greater success in being what you are than in being what others expect you to be.

Struggle to become an animator.

Everybody that is out there animating in 3D is using a computer system to produce their work. Mac or PC you simply can not do the work without the computer. Personally I use a PC because that is what I started animating in  and that is what my friends and coworkers use, so the software and hardware components we share and trade amongst each other is all PC based.

Recently I have been struggling with projects in Maya 2013 on my home PC and that lead me to take a hard look at my system and the software that I use. First I will tell you that there has never been a lot of money available for me to purchase a high end workstation, so I have always been forced to cobble together whatever I could afford along the lines of hardware. That being said I will lay out for you the specs of the system I am currently running.

Base System: HP XW6200 Workstation.

Specifications: 

• Processor: Dual Xeon 2.8 (single core)
• DVD drive read and write
• Hard Drive: 78gig Western Digital Caviar SATA 7200 rpm
• Hard Drive 2: Seagate 120 gig 7200 rpm
• RAM: 4 Gigabytes
• Video: Nvidia Quadro FX380 LP 512 ram
• Sound: Onboard sound
• OS: Microsoft XP Pro 32 bit

Animation is Planning

Weather you are strictly an animator working only on character performance, or you are a team leader/ unit supervisor, all of your work comes down to planning.

No one would start a project without knowing what the result should be, in the industry, not having a plan would be totally disastrous and result in the loss of the contract and your job. Even the best laid plans are constantly revised along the way to project completion. The point is, You Must Always Start With the End in Mind.

As an animator, weather you are a total noob or a multi-project veteran you must always know what you are expected to produce, not necessarily what someone else is expecting, but what you yourself are expecting.

Know Your Target

When you assume responsibility for your role in the animation pipeline, then you actively participate in building the plan to hit the project targets.As a team its important to formulate a plan that works, and then to work the plan, starting with the end in mind.

When you start a project, ask yourself what you are trying to achieve, what is the target? In this case lets say that we want to launch an android platform, first person shooter, with a military sci-fi theme. This will serve as a main project target.

Our role in the pipeline will be primary character animation, so we will be bringing personality to the hero in our game. At this point we have a pretty good idea of the main objective, so now we begin to ask more detailed questions in order to get a solid picture of who this main character is.

Adding Custom Attributes

Animators sometimes need to add additional features to their rigs to make animating easier, sometimes this means editing the rig. Pose Libraries are nice to have but its also nice to have some simple things like making a fist right there on the character controlls.

Here is some information on how to add the attribute to the control curve and then drive the action with the Set Driven Key feature in Maya.

Hope it helps.

Skin Weight Painting in Maya

 skin weighting in any application is a tedious task and can sometimes be frustrating, but hang in there and keep looking for tips and tricks to improve your workflow so that you can reach that satisfying end product.
 Although this tutorial is not a complete picture of the skin weighting process, there is some information that beginner and novice animators may find useful.

Some of the topics covered include;

• Use of the rigging tool The Setup Machine for Games by Anzovin Studios.
• Selecting the mesh for skin weighting from the viewport.
• Brush selection and sizing.
• Adding versus replacing skin weights.
• Setting and removing keys from control objects.

My hope is that this material helps.