About Animation Workflow!!

AcTTooN

hey folk .. i want talk about animation for a bit.

what about most workflow way you use?!
- i put key poses and  go straight ahead in breakdown.
- some time i use layering when i'm working with character that have a huge character to Ctrl Weight.

what about offset keys?!
- mostly i didn't do it.

what about you you?
let's talk about animation Q/A

KielFiggins

Here's a breakdown of workflow for doing Fast Action shots:
http://www.3dfiggins.com/writeups/fastAction/



As for the existing questions:
-I use animation layers when it comes to experimental adjustments and shake/vibrations
-I'll offset keys when it's needed, but typically won't for a performance (ie, setting a body pose and offsetting the hips and chest from the body).

AcTTooN

awesome @KielFiggins
what about planning to Scene and how to chosen idea?
choosing idea!
- most of time the idea come to my head after watching short movie, or refresh my eyes with a good animation scene.

but problem with me is planning!?
- i'm not that good with drawing, also i feel nervous in front of camera.so i search to life video reference online,and that's so hard to find reference matching with your idea.i'm not start animating acting scene with video reference yet ( not at least strong one )


but what about your progress to find idea, and planning to do it.
do you have problem with drawing for planning your idea and video reference?and how to fix it?

Arturow

For an idea , its basically everything that surrounds me. Sometimes I am walking and thinking " wouldn't it bee cool if a giant monster breaks from the ground and start his mess?" ( animation wise , I'm not crazy :P). Sometimes is the acting choices from actors , animations, camera angles and sports.

Like when @KielFiggins said the new challenge topic was going to be BIG everything. I immediately knew that I wanted to use this camera angle from an anime opening called Kill la Kill. I fell in love when I first watched and I think it would be perfect to make that " wow, that thing is big " for the challenge.

I always use reference even if the character I'm animating is hard to look for haha like with this robot . I don't have 6 extremities, heavy weighted or robot parts haha but I tried to get into the character and find some poses that would wotk in it. The poses helped me maybe in just my thinking of the animation hahah the timing it was set just to think about the object itself. Like the shocks absorbers how would they react and stuff like that.

For keyframes , I always key the important beats , then I just double up the keys for the other beats in the animation and if the animation still have for example a big overlapping action, I usually key the different beats of the parts. Like in an arm I key the shoulder and then I would key the arm / elbow / hand or if is not that noticeable I would just handle it in the graph editor. I always try to maintain control over my animation instead to let the computer handle it.



 

Rottingbone

For blocking in the key poses I use a little trick. In Maya I set my Animation preferences to Settings/Animation/Tangents to Linear and Stepped. This helps with blocking in the key poses without worrying about the transitions. 

AcTTooN

cool man @Arturow  

it's always for me about character (concept/model/rig)

see it and think " what he will do "

Some time i'm animating scene i want to do,

or mix from what i wish to do and what rig capable to make

like Dex Parkour

thanks @ROTTINGBONE that's what i do when i start blocking

but i make out tangent only stepped.

do in one else have my problem with drawing?!

what about planning your scene?!

also let's talk more about pantomime in animation.

Rmunday

As a pretty much beginner in animation I used to just block in key poses , nail timings and go from there. I did this with auto tangents however after some advice I found using stepped mode in Maya as mentioned above really helps. I don't even focus on spacing of keys right at the beginning, just one frame after another hit the key poses, then space and give them basic timing. Sit and stare for 5 minutes as it plays through to ensure the timing feels right. Throw the keys into Auto and begin working the inbetweens. Sadly I am still in the habit of trying to get follow through very early on into my main poses but I personally find it just doesn't look right. When you start doing the inbetweens and seeing the animation flow it gives me a better idea of what should overlap where, instead of guessing in the first block out.

AcTTooN

good @Rmunday i think it's the most workflow are use an animation these days

slipsius

I use a similar approach to Kiel's article. Mostly because when I was having troubles with my blocking, I found his article and used it. haha. It's a small industry! But here, i`ll explain my workflow with my most recent shot I did for our pull up challenge.

But basically, for an action shot, I will take a cube and animate it's key locations throughout my shot on every 5th key. I do every 5th because when your timeline has a lot of keys on it, you can usually see every 5th number, so it's easy to click and go. Time saving, basically. So, if im running around, I`ll key it at every foot step, as well as in the air between the steps. That way, when I play the animation of the cube, it looks like it's hopping along. I`ll also add intention to my cube. For running, The cube will be leaning forward. For jumping from screen left to screen right, I`ll show it leaning to the right as it jumps, but leaning left as it lands, as if the legs are reaching for the ground. I do all this in linear mode so I can see transitions. Once I have my key "poses" in with my cube, I`ll do a timing pass. I`ll get the box looking nicely timed out, without spending too much time on it. This is a guide for timing, not a final pass. That part is important.



Once the box is timed out nicely, I then take my character and start matching poses. It's so much easier to match poses to a box when you`re not also thinking about timing. You know how many frames you have to do certain actions, so you make the most of each pose. You still think about it all, but not all at once. It saves a lot of head aches, I find. 



Once I get the basic poses down (using reference, of course), I send it out for crits from friends, then I go and do a second timing pass, giving it a bit more polish this time around. With more timing polish comes more pose polish as well. Adding in those extra break downs as need be. Fixing key poses. Adding in that extra motion I need in my shot. I`ll also fix anything major my critiques mention, assuming I agree with it on the creative side. 



From there it's basically just more polish. Adding in the extra finger stuff. Tweaking timing. Curves. It's worth noting, up to this point, I haven't touched the graph editor. Everything is built into my poses. The offsets. The overlaps. Ive been doing it all with my poses, while working in splined mode. I find it easier to see what poses I need when I see the transitions. So no, I dont work in stepped like others do. But, ya. Polish polish polish. Ask for crits from friends to see if I need to hit any notes. 



From here, I`ll do a final send out to friends, post on the forums. As for feedback. I`ll hit the notes I think are applicable, or the ones that I can fix in a decent time frame. For major crits on personal, I tend to ignore them at this stage of the animation. Well, not ignore. I just won't follow them on this particular animation. Major crits for me are the acting choice ones. "It would be cool if instead of falling, he jumped up and did a flip over the lip" or something like that. Stuff that would take far too long. Plus, when it comes to acting choices, that stuff is all subjective. It's my personal work, and when it comes down to it, I`m the animation director. I decide which notes I want to follow and which I dont. The main reason I don't follow the major crits at this stage is because I know that the time it would take to fix/change would far out weigh the increase in quality. I know that if I were to start a new shot, taking what I learned from this animation, as well as what I learned from peoples critiques, my new shot will turn out better, quicker. Is this final animation of mine perfect? Nope. Sure isn't. It can be better for sure. But my skill level will go up faster than if I sat there and polished this shot for another week. 

I think that last part is super important for new animators. We all have this vision in our head of this amazing animation. At the start, you don't have the skill to reach that quality level. You can ask for crits and get lots of feedback, but you have to know when it's best to just move on and start fresh, ESPECIALLY at the start of your career. You will learn so much from every single animation you do, and you`ll be a better animator at the end of your animation than you were at the start of it. You have to know when to stop trying to polish an animation that has a crappy base to it. If you screw up your initial pose out, or start learning new tricks along the way, your file is going to get very messy and hard to work with. It's not worth the time to try and polish a turd when you could start fresh and start with a diamond in the rough. When you start to feel like your spending lots of time with minimal improvement on your anim, start something new. 

Hopefully this helps. 

/wallOtext