Ergonomics for animators

joarwho

Hey guys!
So, I've started getting pain in my wrists and I'm sure I'm not the only one. So I thought I'd make a megathread where people can share pro tips and advice on how to improve your workplace ergonomics. 

For example: what equipment is preferable when animating? (Mouse vs. Pen tablet?)

Tips on how to improve your posture? Exercises?

Please share your knowledge, thoughts, ideas, videos, questions regarding ergonomics!

KielFiggins

I started getting pain in my hands a few years back.  Here's a couple of things that have helped greatly:
-switched from mouse to pen
-changed from hotkeys to marking menus (swiping instead of clicking)
-changed my primary hotkey from 'ctrl+t' to 'd', meaning the tendons in my hand no longer have to stretch hundreds of times a day
-sit with you back against your chair, stomach against your desk and push you monitors,keyboard, tablet as far back as possible.  The goal is to have your elbows resting on your desk, not sagging off putting strain on your wrists
-lastly, I got a pair of fingerless gloves.  They keep the cold air/drafts off the back of your hands, increase the warm of your hands while increasing blood flow, plus my hand no longer sticks to the tablet when sliding around

Hope it helps.

heboltz3

I don't do too much, and I'm not sure how ergonomic they all might be, but when going through a typical day long work session these help me to break it up and stay fresh and not ache at the end of it.

hotkeys for most functions/even basic scripts for combining multiple functions
elbows on the desk, feet on the floor 
I always try to take a little break every hour or so just to get the blood flowing the legs and stretch
Finally, I try really hard to alternate between times with and without headphones on, weird as it sounds, usually balancing that out keeps headaches down in my case.

I haven't used them but I heard standing desks, and arm/wrist rests are super helpful as well.  

Really interested to see what others have to say  

joarwho

KielFiggins said:

I started getting pain in my hands a few years back.  Here's a couple of things that have helped greatly:
-switched from mouse to pen
-changed from hotkeys to marking menus (swiping instead of clicking)
-changed my primary hotkey from 'ctrl+t' to 'd', meaning the tendons in my hand no longer have to stretch hundreds of times a day
-sit with you back against your chair, stomach against your desk and push you monitors,keyboard, tablet as far back as possible.  The goal is to have your elbows resting on your desk, not sagging off putting strain on your wrists
-lastly, I got a pair of fingerless gloves.  They keep the cold air/drafts off the back of your hands, increase the warm of your hands while increasing blood flow, plus my hand no longer sticks to the tablet when sliding around

Hope it helps.

Thank you! That is a great list! I'm definitely gonna buy a pair of gloves, my hands/wrists are always cold when I'm working. 

By the way, what size are your pen tablet? I'm thinking of buying a Intuos pro Medium but I'm a bit worried it might be too big.

Arturow

Awesome topic!
Like a couple months ago I had a pain in my wrist and I was so scared because the pain seems to came from the carpal tunnel zone. So I decided to buy a wristband and it was the cure when I animate I always wear it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JNRIDA?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

KielFiggins

I have a regular size tablet (honestly, I don't know how big).  If your wrist hurts from flicking to far, you can also adjust the tablet settings to only use a section of the surface.

Also, another trick I've found for reducing strain on your pen wrist while animating is to move your timeline/range slider to the top of the viewport ( https://www.animdesk.com/wp-content/uploads/kiel-figgins-3d-setup.jpg )  This reduces the amount of wrist curl you have while you scrub back and forth.

slipsius

Ya, using a tablet is suppose to help a lot. It has something to do with bending your wrist up and down instead of side to side. If oyu look at a lot of the old time animators at like disney and stuff, they didnt have nearly the problems you see today. At least, not as quickly, and not as often. Apparnetly moving your wrist side to side, like you do with mouse pinches the nerves in a different way. Plus there's less motion available to you when doing so. 

also, setting up one of your tablet buttons to switch screens is amazing and time effective. instead of constantly dragging your hand to the other screen, you can just hit a button and your cursor is on the other one, in the same location as before. It does take a bit of getting use to, but worth it in the end.