ARC In Depth

The rules are the frigin rules!

2009-01-14T02:30:00.000-08:00

Teachers who work in creative fields have an interesting time working with rules. Traditionally there has been part of the artistic movement that is about challenging the statuesque, especially in the last 70 years or so it has often placed its self at odds with the establishment. People teaching (or who have taught like myself) “art” are a product of that same culture, which can put us in a tricky situation because education is to a degree about learning the rules.

So I think what happens, and what I had a tendency to do was to have a bet each way. In front of the class I would explain the rule and then go on to spend almost as long trying to justify why you should use the rule while always using language that accommodates the occasional breaking of the rule. At the very least we choose words that don't remove the possibility of breaking the rule (I am generalising here I know).

You see as teachers in creative fields tend to be creative themselves they have usually devoted some of their time to “sticking it to da man”, and now they don't want to become “da man”, and often with good cause. Your teachers were young themselves at some point and they know that when people tended to force rules upon them at a students age their natural reaction was to resist or push back ( I.e. sticking it to da man). We have special, almost cliché ways of trying to get the the rules across without seeming like “da man”, the most often used being that old chestnut that, “you have to know the rules before you break them.” Note that its not about IF you break them but WHEN.

My concern is that this leaves the door open, it creates an expectation that there will be a time when you can choose to break the rules as you wish, or that there is flexibility in how diligently you should apply the rules. Often after I had explained a new animation principle to my class they would be sent off to do an animation exercise designed to get them implementing the new information. Then when I came to look at the animation for the first time they would hit me with a, “Yeah but I wanted it to be like this so I didn't think feel like using the principle there.” Or even worse some would hit me with some kind of ultimatum, “I can't apply the rule and do this at the same time.” This is on their very first scene since being taught the rule, doing an exercise designed so that they can practice the rule, and they think they have stumbled across the exception to the rule already. I suspect that I as the teacher have unintentionally pointed them in that direction, the door has been left open. I've been working in and around animation for over a decade and I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times I have intentionally broken an animation principle for commercial work, and when it did happen I didn't plan for it, it only happened after I had explored every other avenue and possibility that involved using the rules.

Now I want to make it clear that I am not talking about experimental work, obviously that is about testing the rules and assumptions we make when thinking about animation. Even as I typed that last sentence however I realise I'm providing you with another cop out avenue. If you set out from the beginning to make an experimental piece then that's great, but be honest with yourself, did you plan to break the rules or did it just kind of happen? If you are a student, let your teacher know its experimental before you start so everyone knows where they stand. If you are going to flip flop between the two depending on weather you can be bothered applying the rules then you are not going to end up with a very good experimental piece or a very good commercial piece, what's the good in that?

I think a good animation course (like the one I was a part of) will have specific time set aside to experiment with the medium. It helps students to see beyond the mainstream commercial animation they probably spent most of their childhood immersed in. The lessons learned there may not make for great show reel content, but add to the texture and resourcefulness a student can take with them into the workforce. Believe it or not, once they are assured you have a strong understanding of the principles of animation and can apply them at will, employers are looking for staff who can bring new and different perspectives to the workplace. But you will never get past the front door and have a chance to impress with your creativity if you don't know the rules and have proof that you can apply them.

Aside from not understanding yet I can think of two motivations that might be affecting the student when they are trying to dodge the rule. One might be that they just don't feel that they could be bothered implementing the rule. If this is happening to you consistently then its a real bad sign I'm afraid. People who don't dot their I's and cross their T's don't succeed in animation, its as simple as that. Its consider a different career time.

The second and more common reason (I hope) that I suspect is more just a youthful or new perspective on the craft, a willingness to test the limits of these “so called” rules (as I have sugested, perhaps encouraged by the teacher). If this is the case then I suppose it is inevitable to a degree, but maybe I can give you some food for thought that will help you to refocus that energy.

Lets consider a parallel career, that of an Author. There are books that have literally changed the world, and yet all of these books are based on an underlying language, the language is mostly set and inflexible, and yet the writers use it to communicate every possible kind of idea and emotion, even rebellious ones.

Without the language, the whole thing falls to pieces. Imagine if this blog post had been random gibberish up until this point (hopefully it hasn't really been :), do you think you would still be patiently reading through the lines of text by this stage. What if I followed most of the rules of the language, but ignored the ones I thought were too much trouble. Lets say the sounds that made by combining two letters like “th”, “ch” and “sh”. What if I just put what ever I felt like in those spaces and left it up to you to work out how the word should be said? It might be novel for a little while, but it sure would get tired fast. Now imagine if everyone writing in the world picked and chose from the rules as they wrote for their own personal reasons, every new thing you had to read from street signs to Harry Potter would become a new riddle. A riddle that stands between you and an understanding of what meaning the artist is trying to communicate.

What I'm getting at is that the rules are your friends, they empower you to reach and connect with your audience. As a student or junior animator, your passion and obsession should be about leaning, applying and practising the rules, not looking for ways around them. The rules or principles were not made up by some oppressive dude, they are based on observations of nature, is that really where you want to focus your rebellion? I'm not asking you to become a robot, I've never met an animator who's work doesn't communicate something about their personality, it just happens that way. Have some faith in yourself, use the rules and bend them to your will, your work can still be unique.

If you are willing to sacrifice your knowledge of the rules in order to express yourself then you may just be throwing away a whole lifetime of creativity ans self expression. Think of the audience you might reach through a whole career of animating, the thousands of people you might be able to connect with, to share your message with. Consider how you might use the craft to draw the viewers in, make them feel something about your subject matter. It could be something silly or serious, the principle is the same. Now compare that to the amount of impact you might make in the world with a few years of student animation (that doesn't even successfully apply the principles of animation) followed by a lifetime of flipping burgers or stacking shelves.

No contest

So the question is simple, why are you studying? For a short term experience or a life time of creativity? Obviously the answer can not be black and white (although I know students who try to make it so), but maybe its worth a little reflective time asking yourself where you want to fit in there, and how you can amend your behaviour as a student to make it happen.

Getting your head right

2009-01-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

Here are some thoughts on getting into a good mind set for job hunting. It can be very scary, and I remember that I used to go to pieces leading up to an interview when I was starting out, even dropping off my reel somewhere would get me shaking at the knees. Hopefully these points will help.

Having Anxiety for Tomorrow" by Brymo

You are as good as you are. Stating the obvious, yeah that will help. But just think how silly it is to spend years of your life working towards something only to balk at the final hurdle because you decide you are not good enough. The bottom line is that you don't know, they do, and there is only one way to find out what they know. Apply! If you are still studying at the time of reading this then you have more control over the standard of your work when applying than any other person or thing. Work harder, be more productive and you will get better. Practice makes perfect.

There is no limit to how many times you can apply. If you don't get a job that teaches you something too and helps you prepare for the next assault. If it helps, don't think of it as a one off thing, plan for a long term assault over several reels and applications, it takes the immediate pressure off and then its a nice surprise if you get a job sooner than later.
Its not personal. I know its hard to believe, but it really doesn't reflect personally on you if you don't get the job. There are so many other reasons why they might not give you a go, especially with the economy going like it is (Jan 2009). You can have everything they need in a staff member, but so much can be going on inside and affecting a studio that you just have to time it right.
They are just nerds like you and me. The HR guy at a recent job interview I had was in his 20's, turned up to the interview in faded board shorts, unshaven and sun burnt. The studio animator who came along was in his late 20's or early 30's and wore all black and glasses. We sat at a daggy old plastic table on the deck and talked about animating and games. These are the kinds of thing we do all the time, chances are you can just be yourself and it will be exactly what they are looking for. Hooray for nerds!

Mario Kart Nerds by Adam "Slice" Kuban

You only get to go through this once, ENJOY IT! My beginnings in the industry are now a long distant memory, learning so much about animating and who the hell I was, boy it was fun. I'd jump back there to go through it all again in a heart beat.
No matter what KEEP ANIMATING! This is soooooo important, the first thing I ask when I see ex-students of mine is, "Are you still animating?" If the answer is no or not really then I know things are grim for that students future. I know its not the image schools try to sell, but the bottom line is that not many actually finish their study ready to start their first job. For most of us (including how it was for me) there are still things to learn and practicing to be done before you are ready. Animate! Animate! Animate!!!!!!

If you have spent your time in study or since finishing study working as hard as you can then you are as good as you can be right now. I believe that pretty much anyone can reach an employable standard if they are willing to work hard enough for long enough, that bit is up to you. When and how you get into the industry is where things get random, but there is nothing you can do about it so do your best and enjoy the ride. What a waist it will be if you can't even find the courage to climb on board. Good luck!

Job interview by hartboy

Animating A Walk Cycle

2008-12-06T20:53:00.001-08:00

"Why hasn't anyone made a good video tutorial about animating a walk cycle?" I asked.

Well a few minutes into recording myself animating one it became obvious to me that there is just so much to cover that it is hard to make sure you fit everything in. But that didn't stop me from trying. I may have had to move quickly through some things, but I hope I still covered most of my process. At the very least it should compliment the other information on walks available on the ARC.

Making a video tutorial is quite an exercise in self awareness. As I started to talk and was realising that this would be out there on the net for all to see I realised just how much I know of animating walks is self taught. At the time of posting this I am about to start my first job at a games studio where I imagine walks will become a big part of my work, it will be interesting to see how my perspective changes after working in this new field for a while. I'll keep you posted :)

Anyway, I hope you find this useful and interesting.

The Office Myth.

2008-12-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

So if you have half a brain you should be finding and listening to any posdacts or interviews with experienced animators on the net (you can find links to some in the Interviews section of the ARC resource page).

But there is one little piece of information that often pops up in these interviews that I think can be very misleading for young animators. It happens when the person being interviewed is asked to talk about their process and often goes something like this......

CC image -Today's topology problem by Frank Wales

Interviewer – “So could you step us through your process?”

Interviewee - “Well I get the scene, talk it through with the director, then its time to get into the character so I go into my office, close the door and....” (insert scratching record sound FX here)

WAAAAAA!

I'm sorry, but I've worked in and around animation for a long time now, across different product types, and animators DON'T get their own office. It is a privilege offered only to a select few at the very peek of the craft.

So why would I bring this up for any reason other than to depress you? Well because understanding the environment in which you will be working can help you to focus your studies. In my time as a teacher it has been interesting to observe how students cope with a communal working environment, especially those coming straight out of school where the workplace behaviour has been more regulated. I have 4 basic categories, that relate to classroom or workplace work ethic only.

CC image - Morning surprise by frostbitten*

THE DISTRACTOR – These guys are so blown away by the fact that they get to hang out with a whole room full of people with similar interests that they just can't contain there excitement. For them the class becomes like an animation appreciation society, its like a pressure valve has been released and now they can share all their thoughts without fear of social ostracism. They tend to roam the class looking for opportunities to relive a favourite animation experience (often with sound FX), discuss the latest hot on-line topics, and show others their favourite Youtube clips.

THE DISTRACTEE – These guys come in herds and seem to turn up with the best of intentions, but are too easily turned away from their work by other events around the room. A noisy group in a class is often made up of a distractor and a bunch of distractee's.

THE FRINGER – Every class I have ever taught has had a hand full of quiet guys who for whatever personal reasons refuse to engage and bond with the rest of the class, I think sometimes its a case of the damage that was done in school (lets face it, animation nerds are rarely the popular kids) having been so bad that they can't even bring themselves to mix with a class of similarly minded folk. The fringer often gets more work done because they stay quiet, but they also miss out on lots of opportunities to learn from classmates, don't develop the ability to articulate about their works, and miss opportunities to get feedback from teachers.

THE AVOIDER – These are people who want to focus through the day (or at least that's what they tell me, maybe they just want to go to the beach) but find it too distracting in class so they just don't turn up and do their work elsewhere. This is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, without regular communication as you come across problems or even pointing out problems you don't even know are there, you are not going to learn to be an animator. I suspect sometimes its not just the distracting class but also confrontation of personal artistic shortcomings (scary for anyone) that keeps the avoider away. At every end of year screening while I was a teacher, there were a few pieces that made me cringe and that I would rather not be associated with as a teacher. I think in every case it was the work of an avoider.

So where do you fit? And what should you do about it?

CC image - The Next Row by Steel Wool*

For starters come to terms with the fact..... In spite of the impression you might get from a Glen Keane or James Baxter interview you are not going to get an office where you can remove yourself from distractions. The sooner you can find a way to be creative and productive within a distracting context the sooner you can fast track your education and future development as an animator. Being a big fan of animation wont be enough on its own.

Next you need a plan of action.... I encourage students to categorise their work ethic along side their animation skills. If the person sitting next to you is doing a better and more consistent job of applying Line of Action to their poses, you would work harder at applying it yourself. The same kind of philosophy should be applied to how long you spend focused on your work, if you practice it you will get better. Its a skill, simple as that.

Understand that it is not black and white... One of the reasons this is hard for a teacher to regulate is because not all talking in the classroom or workplace is bad. Silliness, shared imaginings, humour and play are a big part of our craft, and are often the most enjoyable part. The trick is learning to manage a conversation so that it stays productive and moves things forward. This can be hard to do without killing the fun, but if you keep your eyes open you will see there are people around who can do it. Often the assumption is that its natural for that person, but further discussion or investigation will often reveal that it is very deliberately applied. Its no wonder students find this hard, we are taking something personal (nerding it up with some friend about animation) and twisting it into something that has to be managed, what a brain bender.

One example of this is getting up and acting things out, doing silly pantomime like actions in front of other people is something most people are not used to doing, our natural social instinct is to avoid it, but in this context we have to be more objective and manage it as a work skill. Gen Y's are highly socially tuned in creatures, generally its totally counter intuitive to get up and prance around like a goose in front of peers. Even when I stand up to act out an action for a student (saving them of the embarrassment) I often see a smirk in the corner of their mouth as they watch, this tells me they are making a social judgement (a distraction from the task at hand) and that they would never get up to act it out themselves while other people were around to see. But I know that the fact I can see past the social fear (I do feel it, just ignore it) gives me an edge over that other person. Would you like an edge?

CC Image - Just another day at work by Mark Allanson*

Set aside time for and monitor your non work related chat... It may come as a surprise that your supervisor or teacher wont actually want to spend time telling you to get back to work. He or she would much rather be your friend, but if you are going to spend too much of your time distracting, being distracted, hiding on the fringe, or avoiding them you will leave them with no choice but to confront you. Most employers will tolerate a certain amount of chat time and we are only human. So think about it, set yourself a certain amount of time for distractions and limit the amount of distraction you will indulge in a day. It sounds so simple, but its just a case of making it an objectively managed work skill and following through with the plan instead of winging it every day. If you are a finger or avoider and tend to under communicate, then you have the opposite problem, I think it would be healthy to make yourself have one or two short casual conversations with your co-workers or classmates every day. The benefits of this are harder to quantify, but there are many benefits to having friends in this industry, and opportunities to learn usually come form communicating.

Headphones?... When I saw Richard Williams master class he went to great pains to explain how evil it was to listen to music while you animate. His underlying philosophy is sound, but the context in which you are working has to be taken into account. If you have a friend in class or at work who just won't leave you alone and you want to avoid the social awkwardness telling someone to shut up, then maybe headphones can help. One little trick I have found works is wearing headphones without anything playing. At one job I had a big set of over the head padded headphones, I discovered that sometimes a CD would finish (this was before Ipods) and I would be too engrossed in a scene to load a new one, because I still had the headphones on people would assume I was still listening to something and leave me alone, the headphone would also numb the noise from those working around me. Nice.

CC Image - Work Station, Visto de Arriba by VicLic*

So how you apply yourself to your animation is a skill as much as animating itself, and the bottom line is that you are not going to turn up to your first animation job and get your own office. Working from within a busy and distracting environment is something you will have to come to terms with. If you can find a quiet spot to get into character that's great, but you can't count on it. You need to find that right balance, being able to engage with your co-workers when and how its required without it leading to a reduction in the quality and quantity of your work. Because it is a skill, then you can practice it and get better at it over time, so if you are a student you can give yourself an edge by tackling it sooner rather than later.

* Please note the images are not of actual animation studios, but in terms of personal space for each employee closely resemble animation studios I have seen and where I have worked.

COMMENT

Colour

2008-09-01T23:16:00.001-07:00

Posing Characters For Animation

2008-08-21T03:14:00.000-07:00

Glen Keane Animating

2008-08-03T07:38:00.001-07:00

Glen Keane Process

2008-08-03T07:23:00.001-07:00

Kung Fu Panda InDepth

2008-07-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

What made this film appeal to animators?

Here's a few knowledgeable comments: James Baxter's 2D dream sequence* (via Synchrolux) or;

Character design (via Peter Emslie: Cartoon Cave) "From an animation point of view, though, I don't think animation has ever been the best medium to show that kind of fast action, as a lot of it fails to read clearly. Which brings me to my real concern with this film, and that is action at the expense of characterization."or;

The New York Times "The screenplay by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger is ho-hum without being insulting, a grab bag of gentle jokes, sage lectures, helpful lessons and kicky fights...

It’s an animation through and through, *starting with the stunningly beautiful opening dream sequence, a graphically bold hand-drawn interlude rendered by James Baxter that looks like an animated woodblock print with slashes of black and swaths of oxblood red. This opener is so striking and so visually different from most mainstream American animations that it takes a while to settle into the more visually familiar look of the rest of the movie.", or;

Ed Hooks (Acting for Animators via Barry Purves's Forum) "The DreamWorks animators on this film should take special pride in what they have done here with the expression of emotion, especially in close-up. They also have successfully created the illusion that the characters are actually listening to one another, which is something of a hat trick. Too often in animated films, the characters seem to be waiting turns to talk."

So what did you knowledgeable animators think of Kung Fu Panda? What impressed, what grated? If you found the animation, story or design appealing, why?

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ARC?

2008-07-06T04:13:00.000-07:00

In the past few days I've been following and contributing to the comments for a post Kevin Koch made on his awesome blog, SynchroLux. During that conversation I had an idea.

Sounds great hu? Well the problem is that the idea calls into question the existence of my own Blog, the ARC, at least in its current form.

To save me from repetition myself I'll start by copying and pasting my last comment from Kevins Blog.....

I think that the explosion of information about and for animators on the net over the past 3 or 4 years has been amazing, I’m based in Australia and when I was a student over a decade ago I remember being very frustrated that I couldn’t find any information about what was going on in the big US studios I loved so much. How did they work? What was life like for them? What mattered to them in their work? Outside of what I learned in The Illusion of Life I could only guess.

Now there is so much its mind boggling and wonderful. Its reached to a point where there isn’t anything technical I can teach in class that isn’t on the net, I’m fond of telling my students and employers that educators can’t act like they have all the information locked in a cupboard any more, what we can offer is structure, feedback, guidance and encouragement.

But one issue for students is knowing where to start. Take this post for example. I think it would be healthy for a student to read this post quite early in their education, a reminder that as they move forward they always need to be keeping one eye on the big picture. Recently there have been quite a few great posts across the net about polish, but these would be more useful to a student after they have got the fundamentals down. In one 11 Second Club Ecritique you might learn about the fold of skin under an eye and in another you might learn about fundamental character posing or layouts.

I’m always preaching to my students that they should get stuck into all the amazing on line goodies and gobble them up, but surprisingly I meet a fair bit of resistance. There may be several factors, I think they can take it all for granted because they don’t remember a time when you couldn’t pop on line and see how Victor Navone uses a graph editor and so on, another thing is that many just wont read (spoiled by too much instant media junk (eek I’m sounding old)). But one thing I think that’s daunting is knowing where to jump in, imagine stumbling across this post from the great Flip Blog when you are still working on your first sack of flower or bowling ball scene. Its an interesting post, but you can imagine it scaring the pants off a beginner.

I wonder if there could be a web site of blog that divided up and linked to information across the web based on the level of animator it was targeted at? A kind of road map for on line animation resources set up so that new people entering into the whole thing can find information at a relevant level for them. It would obviously be a big job, not to be entered into lightly, there is also a level of subjectiveness that could be awkward (different opinions on when students should learn different things), but its an idea that wont stop rattling around in my head.

So there is my idea, an animators road map, or a true on line Animation Resource Centre (ARC), it could link to articles, interviews, examples and tutorials from a broad range of sources divided up into categories. Those categories could be listed in a suggested chronological order and subdivided into levels of complexity so that new and or more established students of animation (ie all of us) could find information relevant our circumstances. It could be a blog, a web site, a wiki or something else.

It would have to be a constant work in progress, always being updated, which is why I think if I was to do it, it would mean and end to the ARC in its current form. If I'm right and the massive wall of excellent animation info on the net is starting to become impenetrable to beginners, then the current ARC is just adding to the problem anyway. Especially when you take into account that my thoughts and instructions are being thrown out there in amongst the thoughts of others I consider to be in a whole other league.

This has had me musing over some big picture issues as well. The internet is a kind of collective brain, we all move around it and many of us throw in our two cents here and there (Deviant Art for example seems to have a near hypnotic power over many of my students). But who s keeping an eye on the big picture, or can anyone keep an eye on the big picture, who would you want in such a role anyway. I was given no choice but to look to The Illusion of Life and Preston Blair when I first started getting interested in animation, I found that frustrating at the time, but with hindsight it may have been a good thing. These books were written by the best, now there are opinions from every tom dick and harry, we tend to fall into a “more is better” frame of mind, but is it really?

There is also always the possibility that I'm not the first think this stuff. There could already be something out there that covers this ground. Let me know if you think there is, it could save me a lot of work :)

So for now I'm not sure what to do, I guess I'll just have to kick the idea around for a bit longer. If anyone has thoughts they would like to share then please comment.

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Endangered Species

2008-07-03T15:55:00.000-07:00

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Cool Slow Stuff

2008-07-01T04:48:00.000-07:00

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Intuitive Timing

2008-06-20T02:51:00.000-07:00

In the last week of classes before the mid year break I gave the first year animation students at Southbank Institute of Technology a spray about taking their knowledge of timing to the next level. An intuitive level.

I thought this clip of Richard Williams picking the timing of peoples walks would make for an interesting point off reference, watch how he just knows the timing of the different walks, there is no way of knowing for sure if he is getting it right (he probably is). But is that the point? The thing is that he is thinking about it, breaking it down in his mind, getting a FEEL for it.

Its not something many students manage, they do something once, it kind of works and they think they know it. But as I said in class there is a difference between knowing OF it and really knowing it. The only way to know it is to do it over and over and over in as many different situations as you can.

So I've suggested they spend their holidays doing lots of short simple exercises that require different object to move in different ways (I'm a hard task master >:). I'm borrowing a term from the Spline Doctors blog and calling them Animation Workouts. Some students have already produced quite a few, check out Brendan's Blog, he's doing great.

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Animation Ramble - The Power of Subtle Changes In Timing

2008-06-16T04:09:00.000-07:00

Today I introduced the 1st year animation students to the idea of doing animation workouts in order to heighten their feel and eye for timing. So I have a little example to consider.

I've been experimenting with live action reference lately, I was using a sword fight downloaded from Youtube. I started by trying to pick out what I thought would be the keys, but the movement was so frantic I kind of fell into a routine of doing every second frame. Then I watched it a few times and felt the timing could be pushed a bit. I had to keep the frames where the sword made contact in the same place (for now) so they would sinc up with the other character when I draw him in, but I figured that between those points I could push things around a bit. I pushed my evenly spaced keys closer together where I wanted him to move fast and that left other parts where I could slow it down by having the keys more spread out.

Here is what my timeline looked like at first.

Here is what it looked like afterwards.I still have a lot to do to the poses themselves, but I think the difference in the timing is quite powerful, especially in the last two swings where you can see a lot more weight in the sword. There is more contrast in the timing, more change. I've exaggerated reality to help convince the audience the the unreal the see is real. I hope.

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Zdenek Miler and the Mole

2008-06-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

This second player from a new video site (to me) seems to take a while to load.

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Animation Ramble - Appealing ARCs = Happy Animator

2008-06-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

I want to talk about a trend I have observed among some students in my time as a teacher. Its something that can happen when you start moving beyond basic exercises and venture into more complicated scenarios.

There is a special secret that you need to remember about the fundamental animation principles as you start animating more complex situations and it goes a little something like this. . . . The fundamentals are FUNDAMENTAL, you can't change em, amend them or ignore them because of a specific situation. They are called fundamental because they apply to 99.9% of the animation you will ever make.

Lets look at some different kinds of jumps here to explain what I mean......

Click the image to watch at Blip.tv or click HERE to download your own copy.

OK so the first clip is our base line, or standard. The little girl doesnt do much in the air, just tucks her legs up. The jumpers height eases in to the peak of the arc (decelerating) and then eases out from the peak (accelerating). With the possible exception of some further forward momentum from the man holding the jumpers hand its the standard arc we should all be familiar with from our very first bouncing ball exercise. Appealing and easy right?

So lets look at some more complicated things. Next up I want to look at some ballet. Ballet is really good for live action refference because it is all about control. The performer (a good performer) is as concerned with their form and movement as they are how high or hard they jump, if you want broad, cool, controlled, and slick looking movement then this is an excelent place to start. You may not want all of your characters to look like they are prancing around in a field of daisys, but remember we are looking at Fundamentals here, you can always tweek the poses to suit your own needs. As a refference point for the over all movement and arcs through the body you needn't go any further than a good ballet performance.I imported the clips into Flash so I could draw over the top of the video, I'll put some technical notes at the end on how to do this for anyone who wants to have a go at this sort of thing themselves. I found it quite educational myself.
You can see from this trace over of the first jump that there is quite a lot going on, especially in the legs. He dose a kind of double scissor kick and they are flinging back and forth quickly while his upper body maintains an serine flowing arc. Next I went over the same frames and drew a kind of blob over what I figured were the heavier parts of his body (from the head down to the pelvis). You can see we pretty much still have the basic bouncing ball shape in the arc. There are no suden changes in direction. There may be some slight variations in his forward movement created by the leg swinging, but they are very subtle, you definately wouldn't start by animating them in, they would be added in later. On the whole we have the same basic and appealing underlying movement.

Next lets look at something where the changes taking place in the air are even more dramatic. Someone doing a flying side kick into a punching bag.Some great action poses in this clip. Again I traced over a series of frames.The whole body is twisting sideways in the air, he flings his legs out in front of him, and then there is his impact with the punching bag. All important elemants within the scene, but the fundamental rule still wins out in the end.The blob test still reviels an appealing arc. Even his impact with the puching bag about 5 frames from the end of the section I have traced over here can't through him completly off his arc. It slows his forward momentum, but does not result in a sunden change of direction or total disruption of the arc. His leg and the object he is kicking absorb their fair share of the energy. It may have been a slightly different case if he hit a force comming back at him in the oposite direction, but I think it is still quite a striking demonstration of just how hard it is to through a large object flying through the air off its arc. I think we would all agree he kicks that bag pretty hard, but the arc continues with only a slight amendment to its path
Another great thing you can do when breaking down a live action scene this way is to track some of the more specific arc in the movement. As you can see here I found the fact that there were clear relationships between the arcs on different parts of the body, when I probably have a tendancy to think about them individually when I animate. I wonder if that relationship helps to keep the movement more appealing?

So we have broken down two situations where the character is in control, but what about when your character looses control? In this case the jumper starts with the best of intentions, but then changes his mind half way through the jump. I have to warn you that when I searched for this clip on youtube I found some truely hidious trampoline accidents, if your squeemish, be careful when searching.As I traced this one I moved each frame over a set amount to spread the action out so we can see it clearly. Things are looking OK up to about the 3rd frame, but then instead of tucking his legs up his body says no and stiffens out flat in the air. The problem with this "plan" is that while you can have quite a strong infuence on the rotation of your body in the air by flinging your arms, legs and head around, there isn't much you can do about the momentum you created as you were leaving the ground. Powerful forces are set in motion that can't be changed unless a second more powerfull force is applied, and I'm afraid flinging your limbs about is no match for the force you creat through phisical contact with a solid object like the ground. The result is that he may have slowed his rotation (probably making things worse), but he couldn't help but continue over, the weight of his head would almost definately counteracted any influence from him straightening his body. Ouch! I hope he wan't seriously hurt.

You can see in our blob breakdown that the same rules apply, and appealing sence of up and down.

Can you see what I'm getting at. What I'm trying to say is that in 99% of cases there is no excuse for disreguarding the basics. Its tricky I admit, but as you move into more complicated scenes you need to multi task, introducing the more complex elements but still stay true the the laws of physics. We talk a lot about appeal in our classes, but I think for many its just about a character design or single frame, but as an animator you are responsible for creating appealing movement .

This can be even harder in 3D animation, you character often progresses through the air as a conciquence of animation on a object outside of the body and overlaps with movement on individual elements within the rig. You have to keep your animator hat on, look at the overall poses and get them where you know they should be.

The last clip is just for further refference, watch all the different shapes he twists himselves into in the air, but always following the Fandamental rule and creating appealing arcs through the air.

Technical stuff:

To trace over these clips I fist downloaded the clips from Youtube. There are lots of free programs for doing this, I use this one.
Next I import the video into Flash - File>Import>Import Video.... You have to go through a few pages of options to import, the only one you need to change from the default is on the second page called "Deployment" and you have to choose, "Embed video in SWF and play in timeline"
So the video should open in a new layer on your timeline, now you can ad new layers and draw over the top of the video frames.
MOVING CAMERAS? - Many youtube clips are filmed with hand held video cameras that make it hard to use the video for reference, As long as the action is all in frame and there are object in the background not moving I have a work around for this. Pick a stationary element in the background that doesn't get obscured by the character too much. On a new layer (lets call it REF) put a dot on part of this object that is clearly visible. Before you move on to trace a new frame, grab the video layer and move it so that the object in the background stays in line with the mark on the REF layer. This locks the background down in the same place each time, effectively taking out the camera movement and leaving you with a pretty accurate recreation of the characters movement. In the flying side kick example I put a dot on the corners of the red mat against the back wall and used them to keep the background stationary.
Remember what Milt Karl said in the recent Youtube clip I posted about him, the point of live action reference is to use it to understand the action to a point that you don't need the live action reference any more. Just turning your brain off and tracing is not much help to you. :)

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Milt Kahl

2008-06-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

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Sita Sings The Blues

2008-06-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

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Whats It All Mean?

2008-05-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

Animation students are working our way through a critical time of the year at Southbank Institute of Technology at the moment, the second year folk are working on the very first pieces of animation for their major projects, and the first year students are about to start storyboarding for their first dialogue scene. Everyone is deeply immersed in the technical aspects of getting their animation to work, and that's fair enough really, lets face it, there isn't much point in making animation that doesn't work. But I did think it might be worth dropping a pebble in the river at this stage to prompt you to ask, “what's it all mean?”

This also gives me a chance to point out one of my favourite pieces of meaningful animation in recent times. Its a scene from Ratatouille, where Remy is hesitantly explaining that he has spent some time with humans, trying not to give away just how close and dependant he has become on one of them. He is trying to establish his credibility on the issue of how dangerous humans are, but knows that he can't revile how he knows so much about them ( i.e. he's been living and working with one).

So the line is, “I've been able to observe them at a close-ish kind of range.”

But have a look at his fingers, he curls them around each other. His gesture betrays what he is saying. His lips say he's observed a human from a close-ish range, but his fingers say we are completely intertwined.

When a character is telling untruths, either to the listener or to themselves then its fertile ground for this kind of gesture. I love watching animation of liars, its intriguing to see how the animator chooses to show the duplicity in the character.

At the Sydney Disney studio (where I worked in the 90's) we had a whole bunch of talks and demonstrations that had been given at the feature studios in LA on video tape. Watching one of these tapes was the first time I really became aware of who Brad bird was (even though I had been watching his work for years). He was giving a lecture at Disney LA just after The Little Mermaid had been released. Brad Bird was a slightly chubby young man with a mullet hair cut, but despite his youth you could see he was already frustrated with the lack of meaning that the animators had put into the animation they had done for Mermaid. I remember him impersonating King Triton and waving his arms around in mock meaningless movement, pretty ballsy as an invited guest lecturer. He went on to explain that everything in a film is an opportunity for meaning, lighting, colour, shot composition, clothing, props, sound, you have to do all these things anyway, so why not make them mean something?

When the way a character poses or uses its hands relates specifically to or means what the character is thinking (which may not be the same as what the character is saying), then that's a psychological gesture, which is straight out of Ed Hooks' book, Acting For Animators. A great book, but one that contains a fatal floor when it comes to marketing. You can't sell a book to animators if it has no pictures in it. I've seen many students pick it up and flick through it, see page after page of text and then put it back down. I'm generalising of course, but its true that most of us respond to pictures better than text, its an occupational hazard. Anyway it is a very good book, and if you can find the patience to get through all those words I highly recommend it.

So students, I pose the question. Where is the meaning in the piece of animation you are working on now?

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The Power of BLOBS!

2008-05-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

As I have been helping the second year students get under way with their major projects for the year I have noticed a few struggling with certain aspects. Things to do with mass seem to be causing some issues, I think it because we are dealing with things in a more elaborate contexts, more elaborate movements, more character interaction and layouts with a more cinematic feel (perspective).

Now this represents quite an issue, if you are going to cut the mustard out there in the industry then you will need to be able to apply the techniques and principle we have explored in the first year of the course within any context.

In all of the cases I saw it was when the student was first drawing up the animation either at the light-box or with a tablet that I think they were struggling. Basically it was the challenge of drawing the action that was making the student work too messy, too stiff, or even balk at having a go because it just looked like it was going to be too hard.

So I thought some second years, and lets face it all of us from time to time, could do with having a look at whats important in a rough animation drawing and how you can come up with the right drawing for any moment if you set your priorities straight.

Generally speaking if there is a moment with your scene that you think you will struggle to draw it is because you are still thinking like an "illustrator". An illustrator first thought might often be," if I was to draw that thing there from this angle then what would it look like?" While an animator is mainly trying to answer, "were is the best place to draw this thing on this frame if I am going to capture the action or emotion?" In other words, "where dose everything go?" instead of," What dose everything look like?”

The resulting drawing is quite different, generally an animators drawing is about planning a pose. You have to be focusing on the action and pretty much no-one can concentrate on that and creating a "nice" illustration at the same time. Not that your frames shouldn't end up well illustrated if you are making traditional animation, its just that its a separate thing to consider later, and that the planning of the pose (the animation drawing) feeds the illustrative part of the process. So if you have some faith in the system and do things in the right order the "illustrations" may not be as intimidating as you expected by the time you get around to thinking about them.

Enter the mighty BLOB to save the day. Lets have a look at an example...

Click HERE to download a Quicktime version of the animation.

So a whole action outlined without a fancy illustration anywhere to be seen. Lets have a closer look at one frame.

What are we really looking at here? You have already watched the action so you're probably thinking its a man, but try to look beyond that. Its just a bunch of wobbly shapes arranged along a line of action. Its functional and it shows where all the bits go. When I draw like this I am hardly aware of the character design at all, I'm concentrating on movement, arcs, weight, energy and emotion. It only took a few seconds to draw so I'm not attached to it, I will happily come back and amend it later, but for now I'm concentrating on where things are, where they are going and why.

There are so many advantages to breaking up the drawing process this way, too many for me to go into in great detail here. But some of my favourites are. . . .

That without all that distracting internal detail its easier to focus on what the characters entire mass is doing. When I look back at this test now, squint my eyes and focus on the overall shape I already see parts were I could add more up and down movement or sway the character more or less out to the side at different times. Students who start with an illustration in mind rarely stop to consider these big picture issues, they are simply lumped with the action the put down first time.

Because it so much easier to imagine how a simple shape will change as it gets closer to us or further away animators who consider the simple shapes first are far more likely to use depth within their animation. Often if you see animation that is flattened out, moving along a two dimensional plane, its a give away that the animator works with a lot of detail in their animation drawings (illustrating).
Foreshortening is another great way to add depth to a scene, but if the first though you have is how are you going to illustrate it then it can seem very intimidating. With simple blobs its so much easier, draw one blob, draw another blob in front of or overlapping with that blob and wala! Foreshortening.
Speed! Sometimes the period of time before you actually get started with your animation, when you're thinking about what you are going to do, can be painfully long. Not that planning isn't very important, it just that students in particular have a slight tendency to get bogged down in it, perhaps again because the thought of actually putting the plan into action can be quite intimidating. Terry (one of our other teachers) has a great description for it, he calls it the paralysis of analysis. But its amazing to see how the flood gates can open when the student finally gets some animation down. Ideas start flowing and there is a point of reference for conversations with your teachers, directors, or pears. This system, working with rough shapes (a shorthand version of the character) can have you watching your animation in next to no time so the learning about movement can get under way.

Everyone's "shorthand version" is slightly different, that you draw it like Jason Ryan's stick man, or frosty the snow Man. What matters is what you are thinking about when you draw it. If there is anything that distracts you from the actual animation then you have to make a change. Animating believable movement encompasses an understanding of physics and the human perception or expectations of it. Its a bios topic to get your head around. Don't make your life harder (and animation poorer) by trying to focus on illustration at the same time.

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Animation Ramble - Making The Most Of Your Final Year Of Study

2008-05-08T23:32:00.001-07:00

OK so I sat in on an interesting conversation between two of my favourite second year students the other day and they were talking about the way that they had many tasks to do right now and found it all a bit overwhelming.

So I wanted to talk about this, and try to make it clear how you can get the most out of your study time. This could have been something I just put in an email and sent out directly to the students, but I think it is worth a mention for a broader group because the principle I want to focus on is hopefully helpful in any context. Before we look into solutions let look at a couple of things to make sure we understand where we are.

So lets start by having a look at What an animation course run by an institution is:

You see most institutions that teach stuff want to be able to offer a qualification to their students, a qualification that will be recognised around the country and even the whole world. In order to do this they have to satisfy certain rules and regulations that are set up by the government, if they don’t meet the regulations then the government won’t let them give the qualification to the students. For animation THIS IS RIDICULOUS for two main reasons.

1. Animation is a highly specialised industry, and I don’t believe anyone can reach a level within the government where they are writing this sort of thing and be an expert on animation, so the rules for the qualifications tend to be insanely vague or even downright wrong. They often adopt a shotgun approach, covering every possible thing a bit instead of focusing on the things that count.

2. Because qualifications have been out of touch for so long they aren’t worth anything any more, for animation getting a job all comes down to your reel. You don’t have to take my word for this, the Internet is full of high end industry folk who will tell of the ultimate importance of being able to show that you are already able to produce a high standard of work. I'm sure that employers would enjoy the convenience of being able to look at a qualification and assume that the graduate can produce work to a certain standard, but I'm afraid it is proven that they just can't trust the qualifications. They can only trust the proof, your reel.

I’d love to go and see the Director of the institution where I work and tell him that we shouldn’t let the qualification rule us, we should just concentrate on letting the students focus on where they want to get to and making the best reel they can to get there. If I could choose we would focus on character animation, basically running an Animation Mentor style course. But that idea is so foreign to senior government employees, they tend to come from a different generation where qualifications were the be all and end all, they have a whole bunch of other courses were the qualification is important so can’t see why ours isn’t, they understand that the qualification is probably important to students parents so it helps with marketing, from their point of view they are in the business of delivering qualifications.

Most, if not all, institutions don’t run a course unless it offers a qualification. Its nuts! But it’s the deal and we have to make the most of it.

Next up, The context for an animation course:

In our part of the world (Queensland Australia) the market in animation education is very crowded, in the small city of Brisbane there are at least 4 large animation courses. I’ve just been watching Bobby Beck’s webinar about Animation Mentor, and I think it would be so cool to write a whole course that just focus’s on character animation, but in a situation where we are competing for students the perception is that we can’t afford to exclude potential students who are into a different aspect of animation than one specific thing we choose to teach. My understanding is that all of the institutions in Brisbane are only just attracting enough students to run their animation courses so they feel that they can’t afford to specialize ( I’ve made the case at times that specializing my be a way of distinguishing ourselves from the competition, but with little impact so far).

Games animation may be the exception here, but I'm talking about what you animate, not what you animate for, good character animation is relevant to games and other formats. If anything a games course (there are a few in town now) opens up more possibilities (modelling, level planning, prop design, rigging, skinning, programing, testing) rather than focusing in on one particular aspect of the production.

So there are too many courses in this part of the world for now, and we can’t change that in the short term either. Even if I could run an Animation Mentor style course, we probably could fill it up with students from the Brisbane area. Again its not ideal, but I want to focus on making the most of the existing situation.

The end result is a course that (on paper at least) tries to be all things to anyone interested in animation, or even popular art. As well as having to create a show reel or short film second year students are still coping with the usual barrage individual assignments covering a broad range of animation techniques and different parts of the animation process, when its clear to me that you only really have time to concentrate on one.

These may be pretty specific issues, but if we look at things from a broader context, I’m fond of saying that life isn’t going to get out of the way so that you can become an animator, you have to make it happen. That’s at the heart of what I want to communicate here.

DON’T LET THE SYSTEM MANAGE YOU, MAKE SURE YOU ARE MANAGING THE SYSTEM.

Easier said than done? Well it might not be as hard as you think, and for our current second year group I don’t think its too late to get this happening for you. So I’m going to outline some steps I think you should be taking.

1. Know what you want, what is your goal. There’s no point in you taking your education by the reigns if you don’t know where you’re going. Its not a complicated thing, you shouldn’t need more than a sentence or two to articulate it. Where do you want to be, what work do you want to be doing? Its that simple. Maybe its obvious, or maybe you need to do some serious soul searching before you can answer, either way there isn’t much point going on until you have answered this question. Be sure of your answer (true to your gut), its not going to work if you change your mind half way through.

2. Communicate your goal clearly to your teachers. This may come as a surprise to you, but in many cases we share your frustration with the system, we didn’t create it. I take no pleasure in making a student who has an obvious passion for a particular thing spend hours working on something else that could be described as a distraction from the main game. If you’re a good student (and most are) then I and pretty much any teacher will want to do what they can to help you get where you want to be.

The worst thing you can do (and I see this happen all the time) is try to avoid your teacher, not turn up to classes or be an “invisible” student in the back corner of the room avoiding eye contact at all times. In the absence of feedback I am left with no alternative as a teacher but to assume that you will be proceeding with the subject/assessment tasks as normal. But if you level with me and let me know what you want to be doing then there are two things I can potentially do, I can use my understanding of the system to twist the class content towards your goal, or if there is no way I can find to make the class relate to your goal I can tell you the bare minimum I can accept in order to free up more time for your major work. Often I make a significant emotional investment in my classes and it may hurt my feelings to hear that my class isn’t your favourite, but I’d much rather know where I stand with a student and find a way to move forward constructively.

3. Enlist some allies. Sometimes I get the feeling that students perceive teachers as just enforcers of the system. I can assure you that that isn’t the case, our main motivation is to help you, that’s why we get involved in teaching in the first place (I can assure you it isn’t for the big bucks). No-one is better placed to help you pervert the system so that it helps you achieve your animation related goals than your teachers. Seek us out as your allies, we want to help. We might have opinions about what you should be focusing on in order to achieve your goals (its almost certain that I will), but if a debate emerges out of that, how can it be anything but helpful, clarifying your goal. In the end we will do what we can to get you where you want to be, and you might be surprised how much we can do.

Its not just teachers, its your class mates. Search the class for people who want to go where you want to go. They may be outside of your current circle of friends, but you can’t let that stop you, its easier to work hard and focus on a single goal when there are others around you working hard and moving in similar directions. There is no need to be crafty, just level with the person, “Your working towards this and focusing on this process and so am I, can I sit at the PC next to you so that we can compare work and help drive each other on?” Who would say no to that? It’s a win, win situation. I’m aware of students in our second year class right now who’s direction is influence by friends in the class who are focusing on different things. I’m not saying there is anything intentional going on, or that anyone has to end friendships, its just the nature of things. If we accept that there is a level of flexibility in the course and that you can steer it towards your goals, then it follows that this will be easier if you are running with others who want to go in the same direction.

4. You’ll HAVE to be relentless if this is going to work. I’m afraid that in order to satisfy the paperwork monkeys we will have to continue introducing the subjects and assessment activities that make up our “qualification“. I see many students being thrown off course by the introduction of new content, and I suppose I can’t blame you. So you need to be chomping at your goal like a dog at a bone, it should be like a mantra in your head all year long. When new classes start next semester, you should be asking, “who can a use this to get me closer to my goal?”

Time is precious, in just a few weeks you will be half way through the year. As many of the classes as possible should be an opportunity to get closer to where you want to be. If they aren’t then talk to your teacher to see if there is some way you can make it so.

So summing up. You are paying for this course aren’t you? If you went to a restaurant you wouldn’t ask the chef to give you a bit of everything on the menu. You would make a decision about what you wanted for your money and order it, if it wasn’t what you ordered then you would ask the chef to change it.

I’m not a big fan of the commercialised education sector, I long for a time when education could happen just for its own sake, instead of only what industry wants. But as I keep saying we need to be realistic about where we are and make the most of it.

GET WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF YOUR EDUCATION!

Don’t let a system get the better of you, in the first year of the course we do cover some general art stuff just to get you learning and growing as an artist (good stuff), but in the second year (and especially from this late in the year on), every single day should bring you a bit closer to where you want to be.

BUT YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Your other teachers and I want to help, but we can’t do it for you.

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Animation Ramble - Drag

2008-05-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

Last week I tackled a job in the garden that I had been putting of for some time. Down the side of my shed is a hibiscus, I don’t use the space down there for anything in particular so I don’t pay much attention to it, and over the last couple of years the plant had gotten quite big. It was time to give it a serious hair cut. Because it was down between the shed and the fence at the side of our property where there isn’t much light the hibiscus had sent up hundreds of long straight and thin branches. I would cut a few down, grab them from the thicker end, drag them out and flip them over my head into a pile.

As is the way with these kinds of things I fell into a kind of rhythm, and as is often my way with things I started to focus on the rhythm as a way of getting through a tough job. Its went something along the lines of, saw, hack, chop, chop, draaaaaaaaag, flip, cuchunk. It was this last beat that got my attention, the flip, a slight pause and then the cuchunk as the branches crashed into the pile. I realised that because the branches were long and thin they were bending in the air as I flipped them over my head and the tip of the branch covered in leaves was crashing down on the pile of cuttings some time after I had finished flipping the branch over. DRAG!

We got some guys in to mulch the cuttings so we could use them in our garden, but I kept one branch aside so that I could use it for a little bit of live action analysis.

So I want to look at two things, what drag is and the process you might use to animate it.

The basic rule of drag is that something (anything) won’t move unless it absolutely has to. Its one of those physics things, as a general rule things are perfectly happy to stay where they are, its only when an irresistible force is applied and the object is given no choice that it will move. If stuff is moving without any motivation (internal or external) then you're dealing with unreal movement, and as a general rule you want things to seam real so that the audience will engage with the world you’re creating. Things that provide their own internal force (say from a muscle or engine) tend not to drag, but things that are dependant on an external force to move and aren't connected to the source of the movement in a rigid way tend to drag.

Lets look at an example......

and lets break it down.I intentionally picked something that was heavy on the end for this first example. You can see that the heavy plug dose not move until all the slack is taken up in the cord. I know it may seem obvious now that I've pointed it out, but its something you need to be mindful of as you work. If you were animating this scene the heavy plug could not start moving until several frames after the hand, making things move at different times is often called offsetting the timing or overlap, and drag this is one of the most common reasons for doing this.

OK so back to my hibiscus branch, I tied a rag to the end so it is easier to see.Break it down......hammer time! ooh ooooh ooooooh ooooh ohhh ohhh ohhhhh ooooh oooh :)

At the start the only force is coming from gravity, its keeping the branch in its place on the ground.So now I introduce a second force, its coming mainly from the muscles in my torso, so that's our source. But remember our rule, the tip of the dragging object will try to stay where it is for as long as it can. It waits until the very last minute when the connection between it and the source is pulled tight before moving. The heavier the tip is the more pronounced this will be, you can see there is still some bend near the base of the branch, if I tied some bricks to the end of the branch I would have to pull until the branch was much straighter before they would move. Few, finally got the tip off the ground, isn't that a great arc. My body is almost all the way forward, the tip of the dragging object points back to its original position.
At this stage my body has stopped moving forward, the tip of the branch is only half way over my head. This "S" shape is common in the second half of an action with drag, when I was an inexperienced animator I found this position easy to get to, but then hard to animate out so that the object ended up straight or flat again without looking stiff, I'll elaborate on this a bit later.
Here my body is moving up, but the dragging object is still only two thirds of the way through the original movement, the timing of the source (me) and the dragging object (the branch) are offset. Having these connected things moving in different directions at the same time can look amazing if you nail it. When done well, its the sort of thing that can send a shiver down your spine as you watch it.
I've completed the original movement forward and have had time to straighten up before the tip of the branch finally arrives on the ground.So now that we all understand what drag is, lets have a look at how I animate it. Just recently I've posted some links to blogs where animators have described their work process, while they have been interesting they have been very long (even for a seasoned ranter like myself) and there is often so much detail that you loose sight of the big picture. So I thought for this part I would take a leaf out of Jason Ryan's book and swap over to video tutorial mode.
So now for some live action examples, these clips are from Youtube, but I have put them up on my box.net account as quicktime files so you can pause the quicktime player and flick through the frames one at a time with the left and right arrow keys.. This first one I saw some time back on the Spline Doctors Blog, its amazing. Slow motion really helps with this stuff, who would have thought that there would be more bend in a baseball bat than in a golf club.
It can be parts of people that drag too.

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2008-04-25T03:45:00.000-07:00

1ST YEAR STUDENTS 2008

Kate - Red Boot Animation

Tiffany - Precious Rose

Jessica -The Jaybird's Nest

Daniel - Daniel's Blog

JD - animation
Mitch - The Rusty Spoon
Gen - Happyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Dana - Dana's blog time
Daniel - The D Word

Nathan - Nathans Corner
Ben - Animation Student
Cassandra - Casso's animation Blog
Ryan J - Bootleg Productions
AZ - Az's Corner
Michael - Mike's Animation
Lu - Lu
Raye - Raye Newman
Courtney - Animation Studies

Alex - Alex's animation
Shane - Bollocks
Ryan S - Spargos Spaghetti Page?
Kuru - Kuru's bag-of-tricks
Brendan

2ND YEAR STUDENTS 2008

Steve
Dan - Rice_Bandit
Noel - Noel Blog
Frank - Be Where An Animation Student At Work
Kai - KAI's Blog
Roman - birofunk
Angus - Cloud
David - Whitie's Uber-Blog
Cory - 7 Car Pileup Crash Zone
Rosie - The Rose Bush
Robyn - Robyn's Random Recreations
Zac - Seaton Ink
Ellie - ...
Cassie - Artistry Gone Awry

Disclaimer

2008-04-25T03:31:00.000-07:00

Content on this blog (The ARC) does not officially represent Southbank Institute of Technology or the employers of the individuals making posts or comments. They are personal opinions only and if readers require official information they should contact the relevant representatives.

We hope that the ARC will be a place where people can express opinions and thoughts freely and without fear of malicious responses. We encourage readers to comment and express themselves and engage in robust and passionate debate in the pursuit of a deeper understanding of the craft of animation. This must however be balanced with a respect for others and their own personal points of view.

Thank you for visiting, we hope you enjoy your stay and come back again soon.

Hands Part 2

2008-04-24T18:23:00.001-07:00

OK so I wanted to look at some real life examples, in fact its something I plan to do more from now on. I think in the past we have been guilty of looking at too much animation for reference here.

First up some examples of Line of Action in the hand.

This one of Danny Devito is just great. As with the way you might make the line of action clear down one side of your characters pose and have all the detail down the other side, the same can be done with the hands. Look at how flat his hand is across the top, would you have the courage to draw or pose a hand like that?
Next lets look at some silhouettes.
Isn't it amazing how something as complicated and lumpy can be pushed into such simple shapes. More detail is not necessarily making your hand better, look at the silhouette and ask yourself if its an appealing shape.
Some examples of even and uneven spacing of the fingers. They both happen, the trick is to not fall into the habit of only drawing one or the other. I suppose a particular character may have a tendency to hold its hands one particular way, but subtle variations can make a huge difference.
Robin Williams can do both at once! Show off.These two of James Stuart are interesting. Look at how he has placed the hands so that the line of action flows into the prop, looks confident doesn't he?

Ok so now for some moving pics. Here is an awesome clip of Woody Allen. Watch how frantic his hand movement become as he gets nervous about the visiting guests. Try to keep a track of his hands when he struggles to put on his jacket (1 min and 30 secs in). They are flipping around all over the place, you can hardly see them at some stages they are moving so fast. I love the bit around 4 minutes 40 seconds too just after he accidentally flips the record out of its case, the short sharp little gestures really communicate his discomfort. There's a little bit there where he straightens his tie in about 4 frames. You can't straighten your tie that fast, that's not the point, he just has to keep moving, any excuse will do. Remember to watch the hands, if you get distracted by the stories in these clips, watch them a second time and just watch one characters hands.

From one extreme to another. Here Kevin Spacey shows how you can do so much with so little. The argument becomes really frantic, but then everything stops (about 1 min in), he moves slowly over to the plate of asparagus and hold for another second or two just so everything is stopped again, then he pops his hand onto the plat to pick it up with a short sharp movement. There is so much venom in the tiny little move. Everything is relative, because everything else in the scene is stopped, that little movement rings out with meaning and power.

Next lets have a look at Peter Lorre, you may know him as the "Yessss Maaaster" character from a whole bunch of old horror movies, but its a shame he isn't remembered in a broader context because he was a brilliant and versatile actor. He was first brought to my attention as a great actor to watch for reference by Brad Bird in a video taped lecture I got to see of him while working at Disney. I can't find the exact example Brad used, I think this clip cuts off just before that section. Its all gold, one nice bit is at 1 min 13 seconds in, the little waving gesture he dose with his right hand is beautiful.

Here is another one of Peter, this is all so great to watch. In particular I love the tiny subtle little gesture at exactly 1 minute in, he gets shouted down buy the other character, but just has to get his message across (you get to see why later). He dose this little shake with his hands, its in the half a second before he brings his fingertips together, the pent up energy and frustration in this tiny movement is amazing. Hands are cool.

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Hands

2008-04-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

Ok so its time for another stab at an educational post covering something I don’t necessarily get to go into as much detail on in class. So this “ramble” is going to be about hands.

Firstly lets cover my patented “how I learned to draw hands” blurb, second year students, previous students and old friends have already herd it, but it won’t hurt to plonk it here for prosperity sake. After a few long years of intertwining at Disney I was lucky enough to weasel my way into some lunchtime animation lessons with Ian Harrowell, one of the studios top animation directors. After a few months of weekly lessons I responded to a critique Ian was giving on one of my scenes with a comment along the lines of, “Yeah, I just can’t draw hands.” Ian stopped dead in his tracks, it was like a red rag to a bull. He told me about the way he was taught to draw hands and challenged me to do the same, draw a page of about 20 hands every night for a month. When I told him I had done the drawings he wasn’t even interested in seeing them. “Are you still having trouble drawing hands?” he asked, funny thing, I wasn’t.

This was a watershed moment for me, one of the first times I remember the idea of “talent” being challenged. How good you can draw something just depends on how much you want it, its there for the taking, you have to want it enough to put in the effort. So before I get into specifics about drawing hands, remember that the most important ingredient for anything you want to get better at is hard work.

A testament to this is my good friend Mark Osberg, Its not like Mark was a bad drawer when I first met him (he was good enough for me to offer him a job), but I would say he is a heap better now. He is not only a great animator, but a truly world class illustrator too. Why? Because he draws soooo much. Every day for hours he just sits and draws and draws and draws. These days his drawing skills walk all over mine, and he was kind enough to give me some pointer for this post.

So hands.

1. Break down and know your construction. There are different ways to do this, but my first ever inbetweening teacher Di used to build the hand out of a wedge shape, put the cylinders coming out of the thick end and the thumb out the side overlapping with the palm on the front. It doesn’t really matter how you break it down, what matters is that you use simple shapes, hands are complicated tricky things, start as simple as you can and build up from there.

2. You always have a hand model with you. Its you dummy! Make the pose with your own hand and ask, dose it feel natural? See, its simple. Its just like drawing poses for people, do the pose. It makes a huge difference.

3. Hands can have a line of action of their own. And all the same rules apply. Is it dynamic? Dose it flow to show confidence, or not flow to show tension? When animating how will you change the LOA from one frame to the next.

4. Silhouette is worth considering. Can you pose the hand so that it has a clear bold silhouette? I don’t mean necessarily flattening the hand out, the last thing you want is for your character to move like a mime artist or something, just keep an eye on the silhouette. It can be a life saver.

5. Move between even and uneven spacing of the fingers. Lets do a little test, put your fingers out straight and side by side, now move your hand around like your gesturing but keep your fingers straight and together. Man that feels weird. While I was at Disney I observed that some animators countered this by splitting two or more of the fingers. This didn’t seem much better to me, give it a go, do the Valcan greeting thing with your fingers and gesture around with your hand a bit in that shape. Just as weird. Then one day at the local watering whole I observed a conversation between some animators I respected and one explained that it was the fact that the hand was changing from one to the other that made it natural. We change the way our fingers are placed all the time, and as with all things we animate, we can manipulate that change for impact. The worst thing you can do is fall into one standard way of drawing your hands and always draw them in that position or from that angle. Variety is the spice of life. This links back to point 1, if you break it down to simple shapes that you find easy to understand then you can be more adventurous when coming up with poses.

Lets finish with some pics from possibly the best hand drawer in animation history Milt Kahl

Click HERE to read part 2

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Pixar - A Human Story of Computer Animation

2008-04-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

Ians Highlights from this video:

00:44:35 where they talk about the role of the technology in the creative process.

00:47:50 Where Edd Catmull talks about the way the technology is just a way of achieving the goal (telling stories).

00:59:40 where Andrew talks about the vibe between the team working on Toy Story.

01:03:30 where Edd talks about the importance of Brads passion (I want to see more passion from my students!)

00:16:10 where Brad talks about what makes characters realistic (how real they look, or how real the movement is).

1:20:50 where Brad talks about contrast in timing in a scene from Family Dog.

01:24:28 where Andrew and Brad talk about the persistence and work ethic required to do something right, and how its important to get it wrong as quickly as you can so that you can start to improve it ("Use the time to make as many mistakes as you can.") that's gold.

01:27:45 Andrew and Brad on the importance of acting and looking at real life.

01:32:36 Perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY to us, given whats happening in the Brisbane educational environment, where they talk about the importance of students learning the basic principles, and how drawing is a key "communication" tool for animation that is important to learn (as apposed to an illustrative tool).

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WELCOME

2008-04-11T19:03:00.001-07:00

Hi My names Ian.
This blog is run by Animation Teachers from the Southbank Institute of Technology in Brisbane (Australia), their friends in the animation industry and students. Its a place where lovers of animation can learn, share opinions about, and watch cartoons.

Welcome and enjoy!

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At The Helm of The ARC

2008-04-10T02:27:00.000-07:00

I’m not a big fan of blog posts about the blog, so I’ll try to keep this short (no promises).

So I've been getting some positive feedback about the more editorial kinda posts I've been making lately, as apposed to just linking to articles and films from other sites. I think they appeal to a smaller audience (those willing to read more) but that smaller audience seem to get more out of it.

The scary thing about this kind of blogging is that I have to expose more of myself when writing, right here on the biggest stage in the history of the human race, the wibbly wabbly web. Not that there are many people reading, but its still scary, even putting my own ego aside the reputation of our course is inevitably linked to the credibility of this blog. I guess I just wanted to take a moment to say, these are just my opinions, and I'm not the kind of teacher who thinks or pretends he already knows everything, if I'm going to express more opinions, I'm bound to stick my foot in my mouth more often. At the very least it should be entertaining :P

I love that the blog is evolving, in that sense blogging is just like animation, the more you do the more you learn, the more possibilities you discover and the more you can develop and apply your understanding of the medium. If we continue with that metaphor, its also important that you are willing to fail, because its when you fail that you learn the most, just like animation, or life. So I’m going to push ahead and try to keep this new aspect of the blog rolling.

I’ve been exploring some ideas for future ramblings and one thing I have noticed straight away is that it takes longer, so there may be a slight slowdown in posts. I’ll try to keep the shorter posts linking to films and such going between the longer ones, but if I’m going to make these posts good, they will require some time and thought.

I want to thank Frank (2nd year animation student at Southbank), for the constant challenges he has been throwing my way. To a large degree he has been responsible for my need to expand on many ideas and things we have covered in class. Franks constant insistence that I articulate myself clearly and justify things that I expect of the students has forced me to take my teaching up a notch. You gota love animation (and teaching), with 15 years of experience, I can be forced to improve by someone just starting in the field. Others should be looking to replicate Franks approach to the course in this regard, I love the idea of students and readers challenging my position, it’s a win win situation. You learn more than you otherwise would from me and I learn from you. Frank said in the comments of an earlier post, “I like to agitate his (Ian’s) beaker of animation passion chemicals, because the resultant reaction often brings surprising, enlightening and educational results.” I think he is being kind there, often it just results in repetitive clichés about working hard and such, but the underlying principle is sound. Getting me fired up results in more communication, and hopefully more learning. So bring it on people!

One exciting development is that it seems I have finally sold my TV show (no cash yet so its not quite time to hit me up for a loan;). Once its out there I will be able to talk about it more and I should be able to make some posts about the process I went though. Selling it has been at least as big an ordeal as making it so there is plenty I will be able to share that I think will give students an insight into the TV animation biz and doing things independently instead of through the usual channels. Stay tuned.

There are other potential improvement on the way too, can’t say much because its all possible as apposed to definite at this stage, but keep watching because I think we an a role here.

Next I have some questions, please consider leaving a comment.

The ideas I have for posts seem to fit into two main categories, basic how to do stuff and things that are more about your philosophy and approach to animation. I don’t think I could limit myself to just one kind, but it would be interesting to know if there is a general preference. Do you prefer post that are largely my opinion about people, the work and the life of an animator (like the Do You Need A Degree post) or do you prefer practical animation tips (like the Shape Of Action post)? Or are both good with you?

Dose anyone have an idea for a name I could give these longer posts? In the past I’ve tended to call them “rants”, but if I’m going to take this seriously maybe I need something a little less negative.

While we are at it, are the any things you want to suggest for topics? things we have looked at in class or touched on here that you would like to read more about.

Industry folk, there is no reason why you can’t also help to keep me on my toes. Any suggestions about topics I’ve neglected, or things you want me to clarify?

I’m loving the blog at the moment and am especially thankful to those who drop by and contribute regularly, we get over 50 different visitors a day at the moment but only a small had full comment. Thankyou soooo much :)

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Good Show Reels Get Jobs

2008-04-09T05:07:00.000-07:00

Check out the cool example show reel from RMIT graduate Avner Engel who I met at the 11 Second Club.

There's been much discussion on this blog and amongst the 2nd years about show reels and narrative films as methods to show off a student's skills as an animator to potential employers. The creative end result was a change in the animation course where both objectives were aimed for: create an animation that contain Essential Animation Principle Scenes (EAPS). Yipes! The project has to be less than 90 seconds long.

*New* 2nd year Quiz (win yourself a Snickers for the first correct answer listing the EAPS in the show reel, in the comments); Did Avner fulfil all the EAPS that are required of us?

Avner's excellent reel reminded me of some notes I took about animation to consider for a show reel:

Remember; always put your best work at the front of your reel
Remember; keep it short and slick
Walk cycle & run cycle (2 views of each, e.g. front & side)
Dialogue; showing acting of emotion and the use of body language to convey meaning
A scene with two characters showing a physical interaction e.g. dancing
A push/pull scene where your character struggles with an inanimate object
A gymnastic action showing your character jumping, tumbling or maybe even doing gymnastics!
Character designs; show your versatility and imagination: e.g. slender, large;
show your characters' (above) basic movements in relation to their design
Idle animation; breathing, looking around, preparing for an action, subtle thinking
2D animation; Flash, stop motion, traditional (only if they are good)

What do you reckon? Maybe industry animators have a show reel tip to tell us about?

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Jason Ryan Has The Answer

2008-04-07T03:05:00.000-07:00

At the risk of sounding condescending (but what the hell I am a teacher) I really feel sorry for the students not making time to come by the ARC these days, its exciting times. So many great discussions and new things to learn, I'm loving it.

Which brings me to the next exciting development. I think many of our current first year students have been struggling to come to terms with the idea that 3D will be a significant part of their future. Mitch has even conducted a survey about it on his blog. I think I've made my thoughts clear on the matter, animation is animation, the tool is irrelevant once you get used to it. But what if there is a way we can make it so that drawing is still at the core of the 3D process we use at Southbank? Sound good?

A quick segway that explains how I ended up with this new information (new to me anyhoooo). I was planning to do a post about subscribing to Jason Ryan's news letters. So I was poking around his video tutorials and googling his name to see what I could see. On the page of a site for a 2D animation program called Flipbook I found a reference to the way some animators were working in 2D in Flipbook and then importing the animation into Maya. There was a link to a Jason Ryan video tutorial that focused on how to do this, but the link was broken!!?!?

So I went back to the free tutorials I could access via his latest news letter, I couldn't find the exact tutorial I was looking for but I found other clues. There are a series of tutorials he has made called Ramp up (when you get his newsletter there is a link to them near the top of it), they are excellent tutorials covering basic animation principles. In one of these about timing and spacing he works in 2D and then mentions that he usually works like this and then puts the images into Maya and uses it like a cleanup tool. The penny dropped.

I opened Maya and started to play with the image plane attributes, soon I had imported an image sequence onto a plain so that as you scrolled along the timeline you could see the 2D animation play. Now I would just have to position my 3d character in front of the images and pose it to match the drawings! HOW COOL IS THAT!

I won't go into the full process now, I might have to do a tutorial or something, but as I said before its pretty exciting stuff. I ended up getting the tutorial on the flipbook site to work, it wouldn't play in my browser, but I right clicked on it and selected "save target as" to download it and played it with quicktime on my computer.You might have to do that too, here it is http://www.flipbookpro.com/movies/mayabowlingdemoSTRMED.mov .

You can drop by Jason Ryan's web site and see some more of the results he gets from the technique. While your there subscribe to his newsletter which gives you access to his amazing free video tutorials. You are madder than someone who had just taken up giving nipple cripples to bears as a hobby on mad bear day if you don't.

Your A Natural Kido. . . . NOT!

2008-04-05T01:54:00.000-07:00

The image of James Baxter in the previous post got me thinking. Lets have another look at it shall we.And here is another one of him at another desk. Apart from the obvious fact that his desk is a lot bigger than those we have at Southbank what other difference can you notice?
Look at all the stuff he has stuck all over his lightbox, this guy is trying to remember a ton of stuff all at once (welcome to animation) and to help him remember he has put notes and images all around his work space. When I started to think about it I was amazed at how many students I see sit down at the lightbox and just try to pull some animation out of thin air. For a very tiny percentage this might be ok, but for us mere mortals its never going to result in work that has the extra level of polish and appeal we are all chasing. What I fear is that these students return home, watch some high quality animation on TV or DVD and think something along the lines of, "they must be so much more talented than me."

I'm not a big believer in "talent", if there is such a thing I think its just a tendency to be persistent, or to set your standards higher than the next person. What we can see in these images is that James Baxter has had to sit and think about whats lacking in his work and make a point of addressing it in the future. Even for the best, it doesn't just happen. Its the result of planning, self discipline and persistence.

In this next pic, Dave Pruiksma is animating Mrs. Potts in Beauty & The Beast. Look at all those little notes at the top of his desk. This is very common among animators, they tend to say things like, "Push for more emotion", "The eyes tell the story", "Where is the Line of Action and Why?", "Appeal, Appeal, Appeal!" and so on.

The animator has identified his or her week points and resolved to address them. What are your week points? Do you even know? If you don't know, don't you think you should? What steps have you taken to do something about it? How many times a day do you think about improving on them?

It takes more than just a note, but I think its a clue as to how a successful animator thinks about his or her self. Objective, Critical, Constructive. Not just sometimes, but every time they sit down to work, they want to be reminded of the things they should be doing better. Its not a pain, or a drag, its something they crave. Do you think that's something you can say about your behaviour? If the answer is no, do you have the commitment to do something about it?

Lets be honest here, if I thought the majority of my students were already in this frame of mind I wouldn't feel the need to make this post. If you are a Southbank student then I would say there is at least a 70% chance this is directed at you! SO PAY ATTENTION, ALL THE INFORMATION IN THE WORLD WONT MAKE YOU AN ANIMATOR IF YOU DON"T HAVE THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARDS YOUR WORK!

While researching this post I found this great site with heaps of images of animators at work. Here are some of my favourites.

Glen Keane, even he has little images up. Sometimes a little drawing is better than a note, as long as you associate it with something. It should mean something to you like, try for this kind of feeling, or draw this loose, or keep it this energetic.

Uli Meyer on Roger Rabbit, I wonder if all those drawings to his left are his? Maybe he has gathered some pictures that other people who work in the studio have drawn, reminding him of the level he must aspire to.
Lets look at some more legends of the trade. Study their workplaces. Are any of these people just relying on "talent" alone to be good?

Retta Scott

Richard Williams and Ken Harris
Tissa David
Ward Kimball
Ollie Johnston
Frank Thomas

So for starters your work place at home should be covered in this kind of stuff, reminders, tips and pointers, tailored to your specific skill set. To the point, useful advice directed at your particular weaknesses and aspirations. Myself and the other teachers are only with you when you're in class, and even then we have 10 to 20 other students to tend to, you'll have to be your own teacher some of the time, keep yourself on your toes. You can't be dependant on a particular place or having particular people around to improve, that needs to come from within you.

But what about when you come to class. We have big tables covered in desks, everyday we sit in different spots. How can you have specific pointers at your desk when you might come in tomorrow and find someone else in your spot? Well maybe we need a rethink. I haven't discussed this with the other teachers yet, but maybe we could assigned a lightbox to each student. That way you could keep notes and images at your spot to help drive you towards better work. If that doesn't happen, there are other ways, keep a notebook, even a piece of card with different bits and pieces stuck to it. You can't cop out because of the circumstances, we need to find a way. Lets take it to the next level.

"Keep moving Forward"

Walt Disney

Easy Man LOA

2008-03-30T02:01:00.000-07:00

Elbow in to avoid arm interupting flow down Easy Mans right side.
Merging limbs instead of intersections.
Head tipped so the LOA flows out through the top of the pose.

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New Improved SHAPE of Action

2008-03-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

So in this last week I delivered my patented “Never Do A Character Drawing or Pose Without A Line Of Action Again!” spiel to the first year Southbank students. There is a lot of information in that spiel, and its always a challenge to find the balance between delivering the information you all need to know and overwhelming you with too much new stuff at one time. There is always more to say, but sometimes you just have to let it go, and there is something to be said for self discovery, students who experiment with a concept and flesh it out in their minds by doing it instead of listening to me will learn so much more.
That having been said, I couldn’t resist expanding a little further on the topic of line of action. Its not hard as long as you understand the function of your line of action (LOA). I think one of the main functions of the LOA is to make sure you consider the relationship between elements in your pose, making you consider the composition of the pose before moving on to other things. If its about making things in your pose relate to each other by making them relate back to a common thing then its just as easy to imagine that thing as a shape rather than a line. I’ve been scouring the internet for some good examples of the principles I’m exploring.

In 95% of cases a simple line of action will suffice, but in some specific cases thinking about it as a shape can help you to add a little something extra to your pose. There are two main situations I would like you to consider.

Firstly there are those times when your character design isn’t easy to relate to a line, these tend to be wide characters, or character with a wide base. One of the first really constructive discussions I ever had about LOA was with an animator friend at Disney, Pieter Lomerse. At the time I was standing at the entrance to his cubical and he was working on a scene from Lady and The Tramp II as we chatted, the issue of how to give a dog a line of action, especially when drawing it in profile. He explained that since he had started drawing character that stood on four legs (lions and Dogs) he had gotten into the habit of working with a shape rather than a line. This made it easier to visualize the relationship between elements that were spread horizontally across the page.

In this next three also note the relationship between the different characters LOA. When the characters are in harmony their LOA’s are in harmony, when they are in conflict their LOA’s contradict each other. Coincidence? I think not.

Some very cleaver gear in this one, Simba’s bushy tail bit and tongue fit in and reinforce the “Shape” of Action, but his paws form a continuation of Timon’s LOA. The afore mentioned elements in Simba’s pose flow with the shape, implying he is relaxed, but Timon’s head, hand and fingers contradict his LOA, reinforcing his discomfort. Nice. The Second situation where using a Shape instead of a Line can be handy is when you want to visualise a twist through the pose. This is something that many students neglect, people twist their body all the time, so should your characters. Its hard to see a twist in a line, and as you work on a pose for minutes or hours your memory of where and how you wanted the twist is bound to variate. Drawing a shape can make it easy to see the twist you want and you can refer back to it as needed.
The awsome Glene Keane, what a legend.

The greatest figure drawer of all time Michelangelo.

An interesting comparison here with these two images from Princes Mononoke. The amount of twist in a pose can be another way to imply tension, in an extreme situation you would often push for more twist, in a subtle situation a more subtle twist may be called for.

This one is beautiful, just that super subtle twist in the sholders says so much, she is composed, but ready for action in a heart beat. The stern look on her face is just the icing on the cake, her pose speaks so much stronger. I don't feel for a second that this woman trusts me. Love it!

Some footnotes:

When looking at finished drawings and then placing the LOA on them remember that you are doing things backwards. Your poses will be stronger if LOA is among the very first things you consider, tacking it on later and tweaking the pose to suit will never work as well.

I’ve used examples here from traditional animation, but these principles apply in all forms of animation. EVERY CHARACTER POSE YOU EVER MAKE SHOULD HAVE A LINE (OR SHAPE) OF ACTION!!! :)

Southbank Courses and About Ian

2008-03-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

Ian Lacey is an animation teacher at Southbank Institute of Technology in Brisbane Australia. He teaches for the full time 2 year long Diploma of Screen in Animation and runs several Short courses throughout the year.

Of particular interest to ARC readers might be the Animation - A Beginners Guide course. Its an affordable, 100% online 10 week course you can study from anywhere. Contact Southbank or Ian Lacey for more information.

Experience :-

Ian has over 12 years of industry experience, starting his career at Walt Disney Studios in Sydney where he worked as an Inbetweener, Team leader, and Special FX animator. After 7 years of working in traditional animation Ian moved into 3D animation working for a Brisbane based software company as animation director and lead animator.

Since starting as a teacher Ian has continued to produce animation on a freelance basis, animating for clients like Cartoon Network, Disney Japan and MacDonald's.

Ian is currently negotiating the sale of his first TV series with a major Australian Broadcaster.

Philosophy :-

Ian teaches animation based on a solid foundation of "old school" fundamental animation principles and techniques in the belief that they empower any animator to move forward and produce great work for any broadcast medium or using any production technique.

Teaching :-

Ian teaches Traditional Animation, 3D General and Animation, After Effects and Flash.

Accomplishments and Awards :-

While working at Walt Disney Animation Ian was a member of the Future Leader Program, participating in additional communication and leadership training.

In 2007 Ian won the Southbank Institute of Technology Outstanding Educator Award.

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What Qualifies You To Get Into The Animation Biz?

2008-03-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

1st year student Dana has asked a great question in the comments of a previous post, I think its worth an answer in a post of its own.

She asked, “I have a question for you Ian. My Dad really wants me to have degree in animation but how much difference does it make to have a diploma instead of a degree in the animation business?”

If you’re a young animation student still living at home this might be a good one to share with your parents, friends or family, I’ll upload a word doc version you can download from HERE and print if you have people you would like to share this with who don't get to the computer much.

My personal opinion is that in the local business it makes little to no difference.

Having a Degree can make it easier to get a working Visa in the US (but its still no walk in the park), and give you an extra year to get your act together, but that’s about it.

I come across this situation of parental pressure to get a degree quite often, and I have to be careful not to take it hurtfully. I know we teach as much and probably more than they do at the Uni down the road. Not because we know more than their teachers, but because the Tafe system is better suited to teaching animation, more time for practical activities instead of theory (some theory is good, but it takes so long to make good animation that every second you can get for actual production is precious), and much more face to face time between teachers and students for starters. Last year I did some tutoring for students studying a Degree in Animation at University, when we discussed the differences in the structures they were green with envy because they only got about 12 hours a week to work with a teacher, in a class of almost 30 students, the rest if the time they were left to their own devices. This approach may work with some other vocations, but is totally mismatched with animation, there is so much to learn and it takes a lot of time to do. You need to have a go, get feed back, redo it, get feedback, tweak it, get feedback and so on, for as long as possible in order to cover as many possibilities and learn from as many mistakes as you can, every second with a teacher counts.

But I can understand a parents point of view because there has been a change in educational philosophy has been a generational thing. When people studied years ago, universities still existed for the good of society (to a degree), but over the past 15 years there has been a huge change in public thinking. Now people (in general) aren’t willing to have their “hard earned tax dollars” spent on something unless they can see a tangible result (thank you very much Today Tonight and A Current Affair). Something vague like “the good of society” that may require some money for just sitting around and thinking isn’t acceptable to voters any more. So Uni’s have been getting less and less money (or no increases in money to match inflation and changing technological demands), and it has become all about bums on seats, and satisfied customers who will tell their friends and write nice things on the customer satisfaction surveys handed out each year ($$$). Students can bludge their way through any of the Brisbane animation courses if they choose to, doing the bare minimum at every stage and still get the qualification at the end. Funding systems are based on how many students are passed, not necessarily on the quality of the graduates. Those graduates who get their degree, but shouldn’t really have it, go out and apply for jobs, if they get one and can’t do the work, then the employer thinks something along the lines of, “The teachers over there at Thingy University are useless!” I used to think that when I was involved with employing, but now that I’ve been a teacher I know its not necessarily the teachers fault. Modern educational systems are set up so that its very hard to fail a student for not caring enough, or just not having the right stuff and it is reflected in the quality of their graduates. Its quantity instead of quality, I’d be stunned if any of the local Animation Schools, Universities or Tafe’s manage to get more than 15% of their graduates into long term industry participation (some are good at getting their students in the door, but then not many last because they are poorly prepared which is probably cruller than them not getting a job in the first place). They know most of their graduates are not good enough to get a job, but are willing to pass them anyway to look after the bank balance.

So where dose this leave employers? The answer is simple. Looking at your demo reel. If the piece of paper you have can’t be trusted then employers want to see proof that you can produce animation that they can use in their product. They stopped trusting any of the Australian qualifications at face value years ago and now they won’t believe it until they see it with their own eyes. This is where I concede there can be an advantage to a degree, it gives you an extra year with access to facilities to produce and polish your reel. If I had my way, our Southbank course would be three years long, but its already twice as long as most diplomas and my understanding is that it has been stretched as far as we can get away with. If you feel you might need the extra year then I think the best way to go at the moment is to take the extra subjects in 2nd year that enable the pathway into the 3rd year of the Griffith Uni degree, then at the end of the course if you feel you need the extra time to work on your reel you can take the option, or if you feel you have it all happening you can take the plunge straight into the industry after getting the diploma. But as counter intuitive as it may be for parents, you can make no mistake, its all about the reel, not the qualification.

I can tell you from personal experience that while working at Disney we employed graduates from most of the educational institutions around Australia, some were great, others were useless, you just couldn’t trust the qualification to know. I’ll never forget the time an applicant came in from one of Brisbane’s most respected universities and during the interview asked, “what’s an inbetween?” Thats like someone who wants to be a builder asking what a brick is. We couldn’t believe someone could study for 3 years, pass the required subjects, have a degree and still have to ask a question like that. With us, the reputation of the institution or the qualification counted for nothing more than the fact that they had been around animation for 3 years and hadn’t gotten board with it yet, which is hardly justification for employment.

Some offshore quals may be different, you can do Animation Mentor online for a similar cost to uni, and it carries some serious credibility among industry folk, there are schools like Gobelins and Cal Arts too, but it’s a long way to go to study.

Another thing to consider is that I don’t break ties with students when they finish at Southbank, you can continue working on stuff and contacting me for feedback and advice. I still work with several students who have already graduated via email and some have come in and seen us at the campus. The main thing that stops this from happening more is that many student seem to loose momentum when they don’t have a structured learning environment. But, if your highly motivated then there is no reason why your journey towards employment can’t continue beyond the official 2 years of the course.

More important than any qualification is this determination to “keep moving forward” (Walt Disney), I make no secret of the fact that study is often just the first step toward a career, only a tiny percentage of students are (in my opinion) actually ready to enter industry when they finish study (at any institution). This is an important thing for students to accept and communicate to their family, loved ones and supporters. Two years ago one of my more promising graduates who wasn’t quite ready for industry at the end of the course informed me that her mother had told her she would have to get a “real job” now. Man that hurts, and what a waist! It represents a huge misunderstanding of how technical and complicated animation is. We are talking about a craft that encompasses an in depth understanding physics and complicated computer programs and joins them in an unholy alliance with creativity and performance (acting). Its complicated and takes time, no-one ever learns everything there is to learn about animation in a whole lifetime, let alone in a 2 or 3 year course. Its what makes it so intensely frustrating and rewarding at the same time. The journey is the destination, the best thing parents can do to ensure their child’s success is to encourage and nurture a continuing, constructive and hard working mind set, that is worth a hundred times more than a piece of paper with questionable credibility in the industry.

If anyone is going to make it in animation it takes hunger, and passion by the bucket load, traits that are considered most uncool by the “crazy kids” these days, especially if there is a chance of pears seeing you fail or fall. Its easily the biggest problem I face as a teacher of animation, and used to face when managing employee’s. Those who don’t make it usually have the ability, but just don’t care enough, or run out of steam part way through the journey. As a teacher I try to set the tone, I’m loud and expressive, highly animated and passionate, dedicate large amounts of my spare time (I’m writing this on a Saturday arvo), I’m trying to set the tone, I'm saying, "this is what it takes!". Its trench warfare, teeth gritting, fist pumping, get knocked down and crawl back up again, don’t take no for an answer, screaming at the top of your lungs stuff. Students need to invest deeply of themselves if they are to have any chance of making it, its high risk but potentially intensely satisfying. It’s a big ask made easier if you’re supported by family and friends. If a student has this it will be apparent in the work they produce and show potential employers in their reel, then the qualification pales in significance.

Creative Commons Flickr image by terren in Virginia

Entertainment...maybe Educational.....NOT!

2008-03-16T03:45:00.000-07:00

OK so watch this short clip of a guy drawing at his lightbox and then we will talk.

Seems like a nice friendly guy and he can draw pretty good hey? But there is an issue here that as a teacher I am constantly at war with. This clip is a piece of entertainment, its function is to promote the product. As such its a great idea, and is replicated in many of the making of "doco's" that are standard fair with any DVD releases these days. Its fun to watch and we get to see how amazing the artist is, wondering at their mind blowing "illustration" skills.

The problem is that this bears absolutely no similarity to how traditional animators actually work. An animation drawing has to fit a lot more criteria than a single illustration, there is the relationship between this and the key frames either side, an emotional journey to consider, consistency with the previous and following scenes that may be animated by a whole other person just for starters.

This is why animators tend to work with messy quick sketches to start with (often referred to as the short hand version of the character), there is no point in putting in all that effort when there is a good chance things will have to be changed. There are two main things about this process that don't fit well with and entertaining promotion. One is that there are inevitably bad drawings produced on the journey to the right drawing. The second is that its time consuming. Now when your promoting something as amazing and fun, you don't want the audience to see any bad drawings and you don't want to make them wait to see the end result.

A few posts back I featured one of my drawings in a post about Anime, what you didn't see is that I reworked the drawings 13 times on my way to working out that pose. Here are some of the that were still lying around my studio.

When I was working at Disney Lion King 2 was released, and the local media were making quite a big deal about it having been made here in Australia. Arraignments were made for an animator to appear on Good Morning Australia where they would be expected to do a drawing of one of the characters in the film. There was some reluctance among the animators (they were mostly camera shy), but eventually one of the best animators was coerced into going. This guy was an amazing animator, really one of the best I've ever worked with. BUT even he, having just finished an 12 month or so stint of drawing little other than this one character had to confess that he couldn't just whip up an illustration of the character with all its finished details that he would feel comfortable showing to everyone on national TV. In the end he did a drawing in advance, they took it in and put it under a blank page on the lightbox, twiddled the camera settings so that you couldn't see the lines through the page, and he traced off one of his own character drawing on live telly.

HE WAS NOT CHEATING! Its just that animation is not the same thing as illustration. Animators focus on very different things when creating a pose. The only reason you might expect otherwise is because you have in effect been lied to by so many "entertaining" doco's about the animation process. You can't blame the artists, their skill sets are at odds with the marketing machine.

As a teacher I spend a lot of time trying to get students to stop illustrating and start animating. Drawing with simple shaped and forms with a focus on the movement and what it means instead of starting with the details. Which brings us back to out little video. I thought I'd have a go at getting all CSI on it. Look what happens when a shadow is cast across the page by the artist and I fiddle with the contrast in photoshop. Could that be the suggestion of another drawing under this one? Maybe or maybe not, but one things for sure, what you see in this clip bears very little resemblance to the way traditional animation is actually made.

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Anime Vs Western Animation Teachers

2008-03-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

In any context where I have been around teachers and students of animation, wether it be as a student myself, working in the industry where senior staff are instructing junior or as a teacher, there has been this struggle. Over and over I’ve seen teachers roll their eyes at a students insistence at copying the Anime look and just as often I’ve seen students shoulders slump as they are discouraged from producing work in a style they dearly love. This year a large percentage of our new students at Southbank are obviously into Anime, so I thought it might be an issue worth visiting.

Before we go too far lets just take a moment to acknowledge that no one kind of animation can claim to be better than another, there are examples of great and horrible work in both Anime and Western animation and I’m not interested in opening the “this kind is better than that” can of worms. Lets try to focus on why students do what they do and why teachers do what they do so that we can perhaps better understand each other .

click to see large version

I can’t help but feel that at the heart of this conflict is a bit of a misunderstanding on both sides.

Lets start with the position from which I can speak with the greatest insight, a teachers point of view. I often get the impression that students think teachers just hate Anime on principle and are imposing their will upon them. There is no disputing that as a teacher I wear my heart on my sleave, and I will let you know how I feel about things one way or another, but I can assure you that we (teachers) don’t hate any animation just because of where it comes from.

The reason we don’t let you spend your study time sitting around continuing to draw Anime characters in every class is because we are trying to help you understand the fundamental principles that apply to all styles of animation and eventually discover a style of your own. The truth of the matter is that trying to adhere to any style in particular is a distraction when your are at a stage in your development where you are trying understand the limitless intricacies of movement and it implications. This means there is a period towards the beginning of the course where I’m not anti Anime, I’m just anti “style” in general. That’s why we start the course with activities using simple objects, I’m robbing you as best I can from any opportunity to insert a style into your work that will potentially (or probably) serve as a distraction from the main game, MOVEMENT! (that’s the actual animating part). If you're lucky and work hard you may encounter situations in your future life that enable you to work in your favourite style, but to be prepared you have to understand the basic principles that apply to all animation (or its stacking shelves at the supermarket for you).

So hopefully you can see that we don’t have anything in particular against Anime. BUT! That having been said there are one or two particular things about Anime that can be a hindrance when you’re first learning about animation. Not that they are exclusive to Anime, but they are perhaps most commonly encountered by a teacher hiding within the Anime style.

Firstly so much of the look of Anime comes from detail, the characters featured in Japanese animation are consistently far more covered in . . . . well stuff, than in animation from other parts of the world. 15 hair spikes, shoulder pads, ribbons and waist bands, sailor uniforms and plaid school girl outfits, 3 bladed magical swords, shoulder mounted 16 barrel mortar cannons, 3 highlights in the eyes and so on. At best these things slow you down compared to someone who is willing to learn how to animate using a simple design so they get to practice animating 5 times more than you. At worst they can become totally absorbing and draw your eye away from the things we teach like the Line Of Action, the movement from this pose to the next, or how the placement of the next drawing will be affected by the weight of an object.

Secondly Japanese animators are the masters at cheating in animation, and good on them for being that way. They have managed to maintain a thriving traditional feature film industry while everywhere else in the world the hand drawn stuff has faded away to near insignificance. To a large degree this is because they are very good at knowing where they can cut corners and get away with it. Using holds, shooting less important scenes on 4’s (6 frames a sec), creating character with rigid styles of movement (often wearing mechanical outfits that can stop dead without looking odd and talking from behind a mask), and using a rich illustrative style that keeps us engaged when there isn’t much actually happening. That’s amazing. I love them for that. In fact thank god they do that, or else Traditional animation might just kick the bucket all together. But, surely its not wise to start out your animation education by copying a style that cuts corners (all be it very cleverly). Once you have explored all of the subtle nuances of something it is easy to pick and choose from the tools at your disposal to save time or achieve a particular effect (looking Anime-ish), but if you only learn the quickest and cheapest way to do something you are limiting your knowledge. That’s nuts. This corner cutting is most obvious in Japanese TV animation, when my daughter is watching Yugioh in the morning I sometimes stop to count how many seconds they can pass without anything actually being animated at all as two character gaze at each other across the battlefield thinking deep thoughts. What are you going to learn about animation by copying that?

Thirdly there is the nature of your typical Anime fan. I’m venturing into dangerous territory here, there will be some generalisations, and if you don’t feel this applies to you then I’m perfectly happy to accept that. I’m just reflecting on my experiences as a teacher, and mean no offence. Young Anime fans have a tendency to be . . . well . . obsessed. I don’t know why, maybe it’s the way its marketed, maybe its because Anime connects to audiences in a way that is less commercial, maybe its because Anime is less patronising towards older viewers, or something else I haven’t considered. The fact is that Anime has the ability to penetrate the psyche of young adults and steer their thoughts towards it at all times. If you’re a big Anime fan, ask yourself when was the last time you drew something that didn’t look Anime. I’ve seen Disney fans and Comic book fans with similar levels of obsession (which is just as unhealthy), but it just seems to be more common with Anime. I guess it must be really good to connect so strongly with so many. To start with, this “obsession” heightens the likelihood of the style distracting from the issue at hand, but there is a big picture issue to consider as well. Part of becoming a well rounded individual with people skills and a broad range of abilities is drawing upon many of the rich and varied influences that life has to offer. If you are to a degree obsessed with Anime, we are not doing you any favours by letting you burrow down further into the exclusive world of Anime fan art. If you are a big Anime fan think about your life, you probably chat with other Anime fans (in person or online) about your work, when you're looking for ideas you probably look at other Anime or Manga art, if you are trying to get feedback on your work you probably seek that feedback from other Anime fans. You must know in your heart that that’s not healthy for you in the long term (I have to stress the same thing applies with any single influence, its just that with students here that influence often seems to be Anime). I found a great quote from the master of Anime, if not the best animation director of all time Hayao Miyazaki, “Don't watch animation! You're surrounded by enough virtual things already.” Why would he say something like that I wonder? Could it be that he is trying to get students to broaden their horizons? Could it be that when he reflects on his long and amazing career in animation he can see that it has been life outside of Anime that has been his greatest inspiration? Are you really going to harbor resentment against a teacher for trying to push you outside of you comfortable little shell of influences, it could be the greatest thing a teacher ever does for you.

So that’s the gist of how I feel about Anime as a teacher, but I was a student once too. When I studied for a short time at QCA our class was told point blank that there would be no animating in Anime style (that teacher has since retired), and you could feel the ripple through the class (some happy some not). For me it wasn’t the end of the earth, I liked Anime, but also other animation. If I had to pick out a major childhood influence it would be Warner Brothers shorts. I could see however one or two of my class mates were shattered, and I was disappointed, one of the first things I can ever remember animating was a flip book in high school of one of those cool transforming motorbike suits from Robotech and I would have enjoyed doing more animation like that. For those I knew who were really into Anime it was more than a shame, it nearly made the whole 3 year course seem pointless. And here is the thing I think I as a teacher need to try and bare in mind. Anime is possibly the whole reason you are interested in learning how to animate at all. If it weren’t for your love of Anime you might be studying photography, baking or carpentry. How ridiculous would it be to attack the thing that brought you to animation in the first place on principle.

So how do we make it work. Well a compromise is needed. The teacher needs to be mindful of the students inspiration and try to steer that towards positive outcomes. The students need to accept that to some degree, even a large degree, it’s a positive thing to be challenged to look at and tackle something from a different perspective. Being out of your comfort zone means you’re learning, that’s where you should aim to be most of the time while your in the low risk position of student. We are here to help if you screw something up :).

I don’t ever want to be like that QCA teacher, banning a particular kind of animation in my class, but I can imaging how he might have felt that he had been forced into that position by uncompromising students. So I need my students to meet me half way.

Embracing change is what being a student is all about, if you were completely satisfied with your life you wouldn’t end up in a class room. If you think about it, you became a student because some kind of change is necessary for you to achieve your goals. Its amazing to me how many students then arrive and resist changing because it isn’t what they thought it would be, if you already knew what you needed to change then you wouldn’t need a teacher at all.

If you can be flexible enough to ensure you are focusing on the animation principle or technique being taught then your teacher won’t have to make Anime the pariah of the class room, banishing it completely. We can live together in harmony Awwwwwwh. This is all about empowering you, the more you learn about animating, the better you become, then the better the career you can have and the more creative influence you can have in that career. Who knows, maybe you can be a part of the first Anime film ever made in Australia. It may be far fetched, but you never know, individuals have influenced massive changes in the history of animation. The point is that nothing even close to that is ever going to happen while students structure their priorities in a way that limits their learning. Have you thought about your priorities?

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FREE STUFF

2007-07-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

The Internet is an odd thing, you can head of on a journey and end up looking at a something completely different. In my case I was looking for a film when I came across a very comprehensive list of free online rigs. Of course if your after something specific then this can be a huge frustration, but in this case it lead to an afternoon of downloading and playing with new toys.

I know many students find all the character set up stuff in 3D quite daunting. If that's you then you should pay close attention to the fine print on your assessment, all you have to do is prove that you understand and can apply those earlier parts of the process (Modeling, Skinning, Rigging, etc) this can be achieved with a very simple character (say a ball with legs or something). I don't stipulate that you have to use the character you build in class in your animation. As long as you credit your source and don't under any circumstances take credit for someone else's model then its usually fine to use one of these free rigs on your reel. My understanding however is that local games companies (you most likely 3D employer) do prefer that you have your head around the whole process.

So here are some of the more interesting free rigs I found this afternoon.

The Andy rig takes the cake for versatility and stability. It can be morphed into a boy, girl, man or woman. The controls are simple to use and quite intuitive. This would be great for those of you wanting to animate for TV and Film.
Moom is so simple, download the one file, open in Maya and start animating. Its that simple. Love It! The sight where you can download him is Highend3d.com and you need to sign up before you can download from the forum, but I have been a member for a while and have received very little junk mail.Finally here are a whole bunch of game style rigs from a guy named Michael Kiessling. There is everything you could want here, soldiers, monsters, sorcerers, comic book and karate hero's. The rigs are low polly and set up for physical action, perfect for a games reel. They come with a fancy User interface script thingy, but I don't think its compatible with the new version of Maya (something to do with the internal web browser that the good people at Autodesk have seen fit to screw with). I would suggest that you don't install them because now that I have tried I get a bunch of annoying error messages every time I open the scene. Apart from that these are fine rigs for free.

All of these rigs have controls that you access through the Channel Editor. That's the thinner of the three menus that you get down the right hand side of the screen that you open by clicking this icon in the top right hand corner of the screen. What displays in the channel editor depends what you have selected in the scene, in the case of the first two rigs listed here if you select the circle around the feet of the character you will see options to hide or unhide different controllers for the character. Get used to checking the list of animatable attributes in the channel editor when you have different objects selected in the scene. You will find similar controls for fingers, and so on.

Hope you enjoy playing with the toys as I have :)

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Some thoughts on Weight/Balance

2007-06-24T16:48:00.001-07:00

A week or so ago I found this music clip for a Lilly Allen song featuring a "sexy" animated woman singing in a dingy club. I wasn't sure weather to post it or not because its not all good. After some contemplation however, I have decided to post it with some notes. Its probably better to watch it before I go on.

Not to shabby hu? Well I've seen much worse in video clips that's for sure. But can you remember many scene in there where you can see the animated character from head to toe? I count three in all, which is fine and may just have been the way the director wanted the character to be shot. But I suspect its got more to do with it being harder (more time consuming) to animated the character from head to toe because it becomes very obvious then whenever the characters weight is not properly supported. At Oska I had to animate women prancing around all the time, and because of the nature of the product you almost always got to see the entire character, I can tell you its very hard to keep a character graceful and on balance all the time. It really makes you appreciate the amazing way the human body works, everyday we float around without falling over and it takes billions of complicated calculations.

I'm not putting down this clip, it was very likely made to a tight budget and framing your character cleverly so that you can save time (and money) is one of the best ways to cut corners without the audience ever knowing. I've been there.

Now by way of comparison I offer the brilliant opening sequence of Cowboy Bebop, in particular the last scene where the main dude walks in and turns around. Watch it and then I'll point out what I mean.

Its all great, but lets have a look at this one shot.

1. The character enters and centres his weight over both feet, there is a tone of balance stuff going on in the walk, but lets focus on the turn.

2. As he starts to lift his foot to our right his weight swings across to the left so its over the other foot.

3. As his body moves over it eases in and out again, giving him time to put the first foot he lifted down and start to move the other back.

4. Now that he has a foot back on the ground over to our right (there are actually two steps in there but I'm trying to keep it short) he can shift his weight back over in that direction.

5. Finally he just tips back a little more so that his weight is further over to our right enabling him to slightly shift his foot to the left. He doesn't even lift the foot all the way off the ground but his weight still shifts. Mmmmmm subtle.

So in a simple (HA!) action shifting his weight to our left and back to our right he has accommodated a series of complex weight and balance relocation's. The more effortless it looks for the character from the hips up, the more confident and controlled it will seem. That's the trick with a hero or a sexy character.

Don't get me started on the climactic fight scene in Cowboy Bebop, two characters physically interacting (pushing each others weight around), without a single simple side on shot to be seen, but often showing the characters from head to toe. Introducing all that extra perspective makes it even harder to track your characters balance. They pull it off with class.

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New Facilities!

2007-06-18T17:15:00.000-07:00

The Animation Department at Southbank Institute of Technology has just moved into an amazing new facility at the Southbank Campus. We now have all new class rooms, light boxes (animation drawing boards), PCs, state of the art software, and great teachers of course :)

All of this is available at a price that’s a fraction of what you would pay at university or any of the private animation schools in town. You have to love it here, it’s the peoples school.

Click the images to see a larger version of the photo.

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Applying a texture in Maya

2007-06-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

Some images can be enlarged Click them to see the full size.

WISDOM ON A STICK!

2007-05-11T04:53:00.000-07:00

Its interesting at Tafe watching some of the first years squirm and wince at the thought of life drawing. Over the past few weeks I may have even seen some of you hiding in nooks and crannies around C block when I'm pretty sure you should have been in Jane's live drawing class.

I think I'm beyond getting angry about it or anything like that, mainly its just a bit sad, and speaks volumes about what you really understand about this amazing art form, and what you have gotten yourselves into. If I got to write an animation course from scratch there would be life drawing every week (maybe a couple of times) from week one to the very end. As you continue to read I want to stress that this isn't something I'm upset about (at least not right now anyway :P), it's just something I find interesting.

The thing is that THERE IS NO BETTER WAY TO MAKE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN YOUR BRAIN AND A GOOD CHARACTER POSE THAN TO DRAW IT. It doesn't matter if it’s a good “illustration*”, it’s just that when you tipped the body that way a bit more, put the arm there or head this way it looked better and now its etched into your brain because you put it there in the most immediate and direct way possible.

* by illustration I mean a clean drawing with fancy details

“But I don’t need to do life drawing for that!” I hear you cry, “I can just make things up to draw.”

WRONG! Just like every human being you have a tendency to fall into rhythms, patterns based on the things you already know from copying comic books and Manga cartoons all your childhood. When we get to make it up we automatically play to our strengths. When confronted with a model it forces us to attempt a drawing of what’s in front of us, getting us out of our comfort zone (i.e. Learning).

That’s why Life drawing is one of the real fundamentals when it comes to learning animation, its like learning the language that your going to use for the rest of your career. If you avoid it, it's like saying you want to spend the rest of your life teaching french and only bothering to learn half the words. But you don’t have to take my word on it.

Observe, Observe, Observe
Animation! This is the vehicle you have chosen to express yourself in. A whole list of "tools" are required: drawing, timing, phrasing, action, acting, pantomime, staging, imagination, observation, interpretation, logic, caricature, creativity, clarity, empathy, and so on – a mind boggling array of prerequisites.
Rest at ease. You were born with all of them. Some of them may need a little sharpening, others may need to be awakened as from a deep sleep, but they are as much a part of you as arms, legs, eyes, kidneys, hemoglobin, and speech. Reading and observing are two emancipators of the dormant areas of the mind. Read the classics, biographies, humor, mysteries and comic books.
Observe, observe, observe. Be like a sponge – suck up everything you can lay your eyes on. Look for the unusual, the common, characters, situations, compositions, attitudes. Study shapes, features, personalities, activities, details, etc. Draw ideas, not things; action, not poses; gestures, not anatomical structures.
--- Walt Stanchfield (life drawing teach at Disney) ---

Note the sense of urgency. I often feel as if there just can't ever be enough time to see, experience and learn everything I want to in order to become the best animator I can. I'm stunned at the ability of people to drift, fall asleep, or come all the way to Tafe only to avoid teachers and opportunities to grow and learn. Life drawing is one of the fundamentals that all the great animators say will help you in some way, how can anyone afford to be dismissive or Blasé. You should really want to know about this stuff, its amazing to me that you need prompting at all.

Here is a great quote

MAKE YOUR TEACHERS EARN THEIR MONEY
If I was your teacher, I wouldn't even let you design your own characters in animation class. I would make you animate characters that already work-simple, well constructed characters like Elmer Fudd, Donald Duck or Tom and Jerry. Students shouldn't even be trying to design their own characters. You need to learn to animate in 3 dimensions first. If you are struggling to animate an amateurish awkward design, your progress will be hugely handicapped. I would put your tuition to the most efficient use and give you the tools you need to be functional when you get out of school.

You should run and beg your teachers to show you fundamentals and to criticize your work if it's awkward, flat or clumsy. Otherwise you are throwing away a lot of money.

If you just want to be "creative" and an "individual", you don't need to go to school for that. Save your money and be a hippie at home! Schools should teach you decades of experience and fundamental knowledge.

--- John Kricfalusi (creator of Ren and Stimpy) ---

I should point out that John K has some strong views about.... well everything, buy in this particular case he thinks one thing often missing in education is to go on and show how life drawing relates to good cartooning, which has me thinking. But one thing at a time.....

Could it be that life drawing seems more like hard work than most of your other classes? Here is a quote about one of my hero's Jim Henson, creator of the Muppet's.

He always worked harder than anyone else in the company. But he would never complain about how tired he was or how he was shouldering too much. Never. He would always find something positive about it. He loved his work.

--- Frank Oz --

Who is your hero? Miyazaki? Walt? Chuck Jones? Brad Bird? Glen Keane? Adam Philips? Richard Williams? John K? Perhaps someone more indi or obscure?

ALL OF THEM ARE HARD WORKERS!

Do you think you will get as good with out making the effort to pay your dues in life drawing, if you think it's hard that's because your brain is working (that's a good thing).

Is it cheesy to want to be as good as your hero, or to even have a hero in animation? NO! This isn't cool school (although there are some students who act as if it is.................. you ain't fooling anyone), we are animators and this is our business. I'm not suggesting that the next time your at the pub with your mates you try to thrill them with a tale of how Adam Philips really knows how to capture the nuances of FX animation, but when your at work or Tafe then this is your business, you should be into it. Get into it!

In the article I linked to from the Splinedoctors Blog, Stephen G noted that...

It's really a shame, for one that students don't demand story, design and drawing classes and also that schools don't find them important to the curriculum of computer animation.

HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS -You are in a the course that I believe teaches the fundamentals (including life drawing) better than any other in the state!

HERE IS MY CHALLENGE TO YOU - Gobble it up and demand

MORE!

Don't just ooh and ahh at the amazing work of your hero's. Dream that you can one day achieve as much as them if you work as hard as them.

Some links to finish off:

Spline Doctors - check out the cool quote from Milt Kahl
Gesture Drawing for Animation by Walt Stanchfield - This is a whole book on gesture drawing for animation that's FREE in PDF format, written by an industry great.
John K on Students
The Art of Glen Keane - some inspirational life drawings here.

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More from Glen

2007-03-10T17:53:00.000-08:00

Here is another YouTube clip of Glen Keane drawing, ya just can't get enough of this. One thing I would point out here is how when he is roughing out the character he holds the pencil a good 3 or 4cm from the tip, also if you look at him on the right of screen you can see that he sits up quite straight as he draws (not leaning in towards the page).

Its funny how artists are sometimes reluctant to embrace these kinds of things. If an expert showed us how to hold the cutting tool when using a wood turning lathe in order to get the best results, we wouldn't think twice about following the directions.

But because we spent our childhood making up how we will draw it's easy to think that we can continue making things up as we progress into our professional career. After all this is ART and art is different isn't it? Well I don't buy it, I think animation is only art if its used creatively, usually its more about entertainment (that's probably what got you hooked in the first place). Learning the techniques used by the best in the BUSINESS doesn't limit your artistic creativity anyway, it empowers you.

Another thing worth noting is that he doesn't just draw one hard defining line, he lightly draws over where he is thinking the line should be several times looking for the best spot. After this he draws in heavier, I would bet he is using some kind of heavy lead (2, 4, 6B) too. Its just beautiful to watch him in action, and only something that you could see recently thanks to the magic of the Internet.

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Making Me Mad!

2007-02-27T02:48:00.000-08:00

Well there was already lots of talk on the net about "what is an animated film" in the lead up to the Oscars with 2 of the three nominated films being motion capture instead of key frame animation. Now that Happy feet has won, the die hard key frames have really come out punching.

Check out these articles -

I've been biting my lip, think that I'm biased because its an Australian film and I know some contributors but I'm starting to get a bit miffed at it all.

To start with its the award for best animated film, NOT best animation in a film or best kind of animation. I don't know what you think, but that implies to me that its awarded to what they think is the best film that just happens to be made using animation.

Secondly, isn't there room for everyone? 15 years ago before I was working in animation there was just Disney and that was about it, now there is more high end work for animators than I can ever remember (even just keyframe animators). Aardman, Dreamworks, Pixar, none of these guys were significant employers back then and now they are all part of the Hollywood animation juggernaut. We tried just jamming one kind of animation down the audiences throat all the time back in the early nineties and the wheels fell off. People stopped going to see Disney movies at the cinema and the money ran out.

The richer the tapestry, the more varied the technologies, the broader the influences then the longer the party will continue! Its not what I do, or even like, but if it has more eves on animation I’m OK with it.

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Getting into 3D

2007-02-24T23:47:00.000-08:00

NOT THAT 3D... The Other Kind!

Several 2nd year students have expressed concern about having enough time this year to work on 3D (for those who don't know we had a stuff up with the software this year and they won't be able to start until semester 2). Its a justified concern that I also share, there were only a few last year who managed to get far enough into 3D to have a significant show reel and they had a whole year where you will only have six months (even if 2 days a week instead of one, its still a lot squeezed into a short time).

Basically I think you will all need to make a start NOW in your own time. So I have put together a list of resources to help those of you who want to get cracking. If you work your way through all these over the next 5 Months then you will be able to hit the ground running come second semester.

1) Click HERE is a link to a PDF file that shows you an overview of the Maya interface.

2) Complete the video tutorials I have made about using Key Frames in 3D and the basics of Modeling (save the scenes when you finish each tutorial because these are the first assessment task for the subject). I have given out heaps of copies of these tutorials so the shouldn't be hard to find, but come and see me if you still need em.

3) After completing these tutorials you should know most of what you need to start modeling your first character (in the crucifix pose).

4) Next will come Blend Shapes. 15 times Maya soap box derby champion Larry Neuberger has a simple and easy to follow guide to this that you can see by clicking HERE (note that the pictures are slow to download on this site)

5) And then onto texturing, for ages I haven't been able to find a good online tutorial about UV unwrapping (thats the kind of texturing we are going to learn), UNTIL NOW! Michael McKinley has a great video tutorial that you can download from his site by clicking HERE. Its quite a large file and you need Winzip (a free pro off the net (google it)) to uncompres it, maybe some of you can bring it in on your flash drives for those who don't have broadband. There are other things on Michael's site worth checking out too, click HERE to visit.

6) 15 times Maya soap box derby champion Larry Neuberger gets us started for step six with another easy to follow tutorial on Rigging (that's setting up the bones and controls for your character), click HERE to see it (note that the pictures are slow to download on this site). Also I would recommend that you have a good rummage through the "free stuff" section on the Rigging 101 site that you can visit by clicking HERE. There is great stuff here like stretchy "cartoon style" limbs and revers foot locks (won't explain exactly what that is now), you can even download pre made bits of rigs to merge with your scene (find these at the end of the tutorials).

7) Next will come binding you mesh to the bones, and I haven't been able to find any comprehensive tutorials on this, only this one that covers the very basics. But "skinning" is a way down the track yet, and there should be plenty here to keep you busy for a while.

SOME IMPORTANT POINTERS!

Save and keep copies of your scene at every stage (and plenty in between) you will need to submit copies of your character at different stages in the process for assessment.
Saving heaps (numbering as you go so you end up with many copies) is important anyway on your first characters because you are bound to screw things up and then want to go back a version or two (I did).
Check in with me regularly, you can email me your Maya scene (.mb files sent to ian.southbank@gmail.com) or bring the scene into tafe and we can have a look at it on my laptop. You need make sure that what your working on is relevant to the assessment and I can often spot things that may seem trivial to you but that will save you heaps of work later.

Good Luck :)

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