I want to be animator
Yo guys and girls, I am new here, and i really need your best and bad advice to become an animator.
Since i done to work as graphic designer, i want to change my career in animation. And i want to be become character/creatures animator. For vfx or games.
I know that these 2 are different, but both are awesome, and i want to go first on games then on features movies, or vice versa.
I have read that, i need to know 12 principles of animation, And got 2 books,
The Animator's Survival Kit ANIMATED! and Disney Animation-The Illusion of Life, started to read, and seems have lot of animation. But i want to do animation on 3D, in Maya. So how to do 3D animation, that these books are in 2d?
Other than that, what course should i get? Don't tell me AnimatorMentor, their price is sky high. I even manage to buy license for Maya, but these, are way to high.
So, what do you advice for newbie in Animation?
Since i done to work as graphic designer, i want to change my career in animation. And i want to be become character/creatures animator. For vfx or games.
I know that these 2 are different, but both are awesome, and i want to go first on games then on features movies, or vice versa.
I have read that, i need to know 12 principles of animation, And got 2 books,
The Animator's Survival Kit ANIMATED! and Disney Animation-The Illusion of Life, started to read, and seems have lot of animation. But i want to do animation on 3D, in Maya. So how to do 3D animation, that these books are in 2d?
Other than that, what course should i get? Don't tell me AnimatorMentor, their price is sky high. I even manage to buy license for Maya, but these, are way to high.
So, what do you advice for newbie in Animation?
Replies
Animation for movies or games, while different, it's still animation so all principles still apply. Movie animations are obviously more cinematic and are more acting based(aside from game cinematics) and game animations revolve more around cycles and some cinematic stuff.
Those books are golden, they'll teach you well. And don't worry about that the books are for 2d animation instead of 3d. Its all animation.
I can't help about courses really since I went to school for it. But check out Gnomon, 3D Motive, Eat 3D and any other tutorial website to get you started. And if you're a student/unemployed Autodesk has free licenses for its products.
As far as general animation advice goes I would highly recommend taking some figure drawing/gesture classes. It really helps with good posing. And study your favorite animated movies and game, see how theses characters move. With Quicktime you can go through frames one at a time and see each pose/drawing. It really helps. Learn to analyze these things. Every time I play a game or watch a cartoon I analyze them.
CG-char, which was one of the biggest animation communities out there, is now on Linkedin. I think a good idea would be to go there and show people your stuff for feedback;
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?viewMembers=&gid=1843&sik=1322158317527
Good luck!
Game industry wise as it is today, Cinematic Designer is the new Animator. Easier to get in too, comparatively speaking.
If you don't believe me...better take Animation Mentor or similar if you dont want to spend years making a reel that will get you jobs.
Just my opinion.
Good luck :thumbup:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/heavy-character-rig
Also this was made by a totally self taught artist who now works for Lionhead.
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Here is some information on the subject - http://www.kritzkast.com/jamesbenson/
And here is an interview with him - http://www.kritzkast.com/interview-with-thejazzman9475
I hope that helps, best of luck and post up your tests.
If you are still stuck come here
We got animation lecturers that go as far back as Roger Rabbit such as the one and only Kevin Molloy
http://www.11secondclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=19776
It has a bunch of beginner exercises. The original thread he talks about, and grabs most of the videos from is my thread. I came up with list of stuff to do, and Wolfor just went in and made some incredible explanations of it all.
Also, Claude, James Benson use to come around polycount. He posted a few animations here and there when he was learning. But I dont think he works at Lionhead anymore. That interview was in 2010, But im prettyy sure he was only there for 6 - 12 months on contract.
I would suggest going even smaller than a single character dancing. Start with the exercises that Slipsius linked to. You might think "ahh a ball, I'm way more awesome than that I can skip it", but don't, it will help and what it teaches you is the foundation for everything that is to come. It always shows in an Animators work when they skip those early exercises, and then it crushes their ego when someone tells them to go back and learn the basics. They start thinking animation was a gift they weren't given and get all depressed but really they just jumped the gun and tried learning algebra before they could count.
So with ball, i should learn 12 principles, just with a ball, nothing else?
it doesn't have to be a ball. A common object used for exercises in 2D animation is a pencil. But the idea is to use something really simple and a ball is pretty simple.
So how to start to learn animation. I am too confused. SO many things to learn, i don't know what to start.
It will help you to quickly sketch out some basic motions and ideas before you start committing keys, but you can do that with stick figures or bean bag characters but no great artistic talent is required to get your animations started.
Observation is king and without it no one gets very far, however you learn to observe it doesn't really matter but you have to dig into it. I have often said that 3D animators shouldn't ignore the lessons from 2D, but that doesn't mean that you have to be a kick ass artists to be an animator. By that I mean books like The Animators Survival Kit, The Illusion of Life... They have great insights into how things move and deform but that doesn't mean you have to be able to draw them to get a 3D ball to distort the same way.
This book might help you get started...
http://content.animationmentor.com/pdfs/TipsAndTricks_Volume1.pdf
On more question. How is the best way to learn those principles of animation? I want learn principle by principle, by doing that with simple objects in Maya. But all i found are too complex tutorials about this.
here's one:
http://autodesk-maya.wonderhowto.com/how-to/animate-bouncing-ball-maya-196537/
that's about as simple as it gets.
What I would say is that you've set a very high benchmark in aiming for film/vfx,and that's good, its good to have a long term goal. But also be realistic and set more shorter term goals as well for along the way.
Animation isn't easy, and to get good and I mean really good. Alot of people can animate characters, but not many are true character animators. It takes alot of work and time, so be prepared for the long haul.
There's some good advice already been mentioned, but one thing I would say is become an actor, or understand how to perform, it really does help.