Oh man. How long? What have I been doing? .. its a mystery.
This tip comes first hand from my mate Brandon Beckstead. This guy has an amazing ability to do the kind of `progressive blocking` that we all dribble over and wish we could do ourselves if only we were that good. I'm talking about the kind of blocking where there is usually a stepped key on every 4th or 2nd frame, and you can see very clearly how the animation will look before going into any kind of curve editing. Were talking subtle finger movements, facial animation, moving holds... all there in stepped.
I asked Brandon how he approached his blocking, and he told me a simple tip that seems so obvious and simple that I can't believe I never thought of it. Basically, when you first start to block a move, forget about timing.
Yep.
When I try and block in stepped, I tend to get confused because of this approach: I block my key poses on the timeLine where I think they should happen ( the core timing ) then I work between them with breakdowns. The problem with this method is that I have to think of two things at once! I have to think of how I get between the poses ( spacing ), and also how long it takes ( timing ).
Brandon recommended the approach where you block your poses on consecutive frames, disregarding any notion of timing at the beginning and concentrating only on your posing, and how the body needs to move to get between those poses. If you need another pose to describe the movement, you just add another breakdown and work in your shapes. I tried this approach last night and I love it!
I found it useful to block my poses every 8 frames, then I have room in between to add poses as as I need them ( note ... there is no relevance to timing here... I`m not thinking about how fast things move over 8 frames - its just an arbitrary amount of space I can fit a few keyframes into ) . At this point, you are not pressing play or scrubbing the timeLine, you're jumping back and forth between your poses using the next and previous hotkeys - only taking notice of how the poses relate.
After you have your basic movement working, you then slide the keys around in the timeLine and concentrate on your timing. Now you're gonna start playblasting and pressing play. There will be tweaks and changes of course, a body part is dragging way too much etc, but the core of your movement is already thought about. This also works very nicely if you keep a key on every body part for every pose you set.
When using this approach with dialogue, I can see that there may be an inevitable stage where you have to pose your character and think about the movement whilst not in direct timing with the audio ( if your posing on regular frames.. how could you possibly match it with the audio at this stage ?) So this will force you to be confident about your acting choices. At this point, its a process of animating a little `blind`, at least until you have the core of your movement figured out. Its then that you start placing the keys where they should be relative to the audio, in the timing stage of this approach.
I find this helps separate two complex parts of animation, timing and spacing, and allows you to tackle one at a time.. which has to be a good thing. Its still recommended to pose out your story telling keys, on their approximate frames, so you can see if your broad idea is working or not - but when you come to figure out the details, the above technique can help.
In Maya, you can step back and forth through keys on your selected object by using these hotkey commands:
Just going to post this up quick. Something I've though about before when I'm animating something is how we animators have a kind of 'wide eye' for the shot were working on... like we can see the whole frame in our vision and judge the motion within it, rather than just concentrate on whats deemed as 'important'. Its like when we watch our motion back on the playblast - we tend to watch the whole character, by looking at their `average point`, because we're trying to see how everything works together as a whole, as well as concentrating on the specific part we just changed... its as if were trying to look at every little detail all at once.
When you learn about animation you find over and over being told how important the character's eyes are to the performance, and its equally true to remember how the audience will spend all of their time almost exclusively looking at the character's eyes. For me personally, its kind of odd how much I don't think of this when im animating... I tend to concentrate so closely on the eyes that I forget to watch how they fit with the rest of the body... either that or I'm looking at the shot 'wide eyed' and not seeing the details...
I think a good approach is for an animator to look right into the characters eyes when running playblasts. In fact, I think it would work too to look into the eyes of your character while posing - even if your posing the hand or foot, you can get the overall "shape" of it by looking in the eyes, then afterwards looking at that specific part and posing the details. Same too maybe if were animating the hand of our character, look in the eyes as you watch the playblast and see how the motion reads there, rather than just staring at the hand, or staring at the shot 'wide'.
I was sitting around at home the other night and I realized something pretty cool. Something I wish I'd know before... I don't want to get melodramatic, but if anyone else can relate to this post maybe it might help out...
If you're an artist, you've probably been through the highs and lows. You have times when you really feel good about a piece of work you did, or an animation turned out really cool and everyone loved it. There's also the times that feel crappy... the ones where you just can't get something right, or you just don't know what to work on, or you feel like you're lacking the drive to be an artist, like you're losing interest in what used to be so much fun! but is now so bloody difficult....
I've come to believe, that despite the anxiousness and doubts, the truth is we are actually at our best during these down times.
I can say 100% that I recently went through a pretty heavy down time. I've worked in video games my whole career, and I've never developed a proper approach to animation other than just kind of "doing it" and "pushing and pulling stuff around until it works" and this is because video game animation often has a very loose and sometimes non-existent direction process for individual animations. My methods became very "organic" and to be honest it was almost impossible for me to get constructive feedback on my animation work as I created it, or in fact, to even really properly evaluate it until it was finished. I'm sure this is not an uncommon problem amongst animators who are self-taught.
So I started researching and investigating different ways of animating. I looked at workflows, breakdown reels, sent emails to animators, looked at demo reels, student work, AM blogs... the whole nine yards. I also started looking more and more at 2D animation and appreciating it muchmore than I had before. To tell you the truth, I quickly became near obsessed with the process of blocking animation, treating each pose like a drawing, and thinking more and more in a 2D way. I could see the benefits that people were finding in working this way.. using the 'stepped key' method, and more importantly just how easy it was for them to show their ideas and get feedback in a way that was constructive. Its this approach that lends itself to feature animation, or at least to acting animation... and I really wanted to understand it and to work that way.
Oh man... I just couldn't do it though. Honestly.. it was like learning to animate all over again.. and I just found it so difficult to think about animation in this way. I practiced it at work, and at home. I threw away acting shots that frustrated me, and I started to get annoyed with animation and feel shitty that I wasn't animating the way I wanted to. I started thinking "I don't even want to animate the acting shots.. I'm good at the physical stuff"... it got a bit crazy for a while... in fact this doubt came on and off constantly for about 2.5 years. My wife could tell you how much I used to ramble on about it.
The truth is though... now I've sweated and struggled with it over and over... I now get it! I really feel like I get what blocking is about. I get when to use it and not to use it, and I understand what's important about it and what's not. I also have the best of both worlds now, because I'm confident I can take my knowledge of straight-ahead and layering, and mix it up with blocking. I have a shot at home that I'm animating in the stepped key approach and its helping me get better results than my old method would ever have got for me. I'm new to this technique so I know I still have a bucket load more stuff to learn, but the key thing is that I have my confidence back, and I'm starting to enjoy the process rather than fight it.
So what I'm trying to say is... its during these times when we really struggle with something, and doubt our abilities or even doubt our passions, that we are actually learning the most and developing ourselves more than ever as animators.
The trouble is, its super hard to see whats happening until you come out of it the other side...
When I finish this little acting shot at home, I'm hoping to post something up about the processes, the details of blocking...the kind of post I wish I'd found when I was trying to figure this stuff out.
As artists, we are easily influenced by our environment and the people who surround us. It's a large part of what makes us expressive. On the train to work this morning I read a small article in the paper called "who's your mentor?" and this made me realize something blindingly obvious. We all need one.
When you discover how today's great animators became "great" you see them mentioning the same thing... they learned a whole bunch of what they know from someone they worked with, under, or even supervised. Glen Keane was lucky enough to work with some of Disney's old masters, so was Richard Williams, and James Baxter was lucky enough to work under him. Brad Bird was mentored by Milt Kahl ! I recently attended a fantastic two day Pixar masterclass with Andrew Gordon, and he consistently mentioned the work of Doug Sweetland.
We are all students.
Of course we are not all fortunate enough to work in amazing studios with animators like Frank and Ollie just sitting around, but we do need to ask ourselves "who is my mentor?". It is a crucial relationship that you need as an artist to help you blossom. This individual may not even be aware that you see them as a mentor, or you may have a number of people from which you learn a great deal. What is important is to identify in your own mind that these people influence you ... and try to understand why. Its also important to realize that you may be seen by someone as a mentor yourself, and to make efforts to facilitate this relationship.
Think why it is that you look to your mentor for guidance. Is it the way they animate? is it the way they plan their shots? Is it their high level of polish? is it the way they articulate their ideas? is it the approach they take to giving criticism to somebody's work? Is it they way they inspire confidence? is it they way they make the extra effort? is it the way they talk to other artists? Is it they way they take criticism? is it the way they talk about animation?
Those of you who are not working professionally, in a studio environment, don't panic. Ask yourself - where are you finding your information? Who is delivering it to you? If you visit lots of blogs or read lots of books (like the professionals do too) then ask why is the author discussing certain topics? rather than questioning the topics themselves... where are they looking for their ideas? Don't be afraid to e-mail professionals and ask for help. Ask your mum or your wife what she thinks of your shot... I guarantee their advice will be accurate and telling.
If you're a lead or a supervisor, look to the people who work under you for mentorship. energy and passion is at its freshest early on ... and this is probably the hardest thing to have to keep alive all by yourself. I remember a great quote from Ed Catmull where he mentioned something that really stuck out to me... "only hire somebody who can do something that you can't". Brilliant.
I recently made a weird little maya script ( I have a habit of doing that unfortunately ) and I'm finding it super useful so its time to share...
Like most of you out there, I like to scout around the net looking for tips tricks and general advice on animating. From time to time you find some really great stuff, and it can be very beneficial just to take your lunch break or whatever, and read these things soaking up the info.
Its got to be said however, I find it hard to remember everything!
Over the last few weeks or so at work, I've been building a little tool that will just throw me random quotes, ideas, little nuggets of info, tips tricks, checks etc right there in a little maya window. So when I'm animating, particularly on the acting shot I'm doing at home, I have this little thing open and I click it once in a while and get some pure gold advice to keep me thinking, give me new ideas, or just inspire me to think about what I'm doing in a different way.
So the stuff in there is condensed from a number of sources, from a variety of different people just to mention a few:
Frank & Ollie, Brad Bird, Ed Hooks, Carlos Baena, Bobby Beck, Glen Keane, Walt Stanchfield John Lasseter, Jason Ryan,
and a whole bunch of other people, including a few of my own. Currently there are near on 300 separate entries to keep you going!
I will be updating the entry file for this tool as often as I can, so there is a link in the GUI where you can check to see if you have all the latest entries.
Whenever I find myself on the net looking for animation "stuff"... I'm always looking for two things
Inspiration
workflow techniques
To be honest, its not hard to find inspiration on the web these days. There are so many amazing animators posting stuff up. Sometimes I see stuff that almost makes me shake in fear... how will I ever be that good?
On the other hand, its hard to find decent workflow explanations. I think this is mainly because of the following reasons
It takes time to document it well. Good animators usually don't have much of that.
Its hard to describe a workflow. much of it is almost cerebral, and difficult to fit into a structured system that can be written down. Its a very organic process that depends on a lot of varying factors.
The validity of the explanation depends on who looks at it. Everyone is looking for different answers.
Anyway... I just wanted to link up here to a great little page I found by Blue Sky animator Mike Walling. He has a nice page that describes very simply his approach to feature shots. I like his ideas. Blocking is my nemesis right now... and I'm looking for any good information on how animators who do this well... do it well!
Mike is obviously very talented, and you can tell by how he describes his technique. He doesn't sweat it or over complicate it. Its supposed to be fun after all! This is why I like his page.
If you know of any other good ones, please comment, and hopefully I can combine something together for all of us.
So as a bit of an extension to the Turok: Creature Reel post, I thought it might be helpful to some to put a bit of info on how I went about creating these animations...
I'm not sure really how to make this a short post, but I will try my best. I feel its important with workflow posts to try and be detailed and not wash over stuff.... animation is hard!
As a kind of "disclaimer"I want to make it clear at this point that I am constantly striving to improve my planning/workflow techniques and I am confident that there are more constructive, creative, and time saving processes for producing this kind of work. My own methods usually produce results I am pleased with, but I admit that I have much to learn about streamlining my approach. If you are interested in how I created these sequences, then this post will try and outline in as much detail as possible how I went about it, but please don't take my examples as a definitive way of working... what works for some may seem ludicrous to others.
Setting the Scene:
So to summarize a little about the setting/context in which these animations were to be seen, I will outline briefly a few ideas that help give an understanding of what these animations are about:
The player of the video game is stranded on an unknown planet, inhabited by ferocious creatures, deadly human opponents and a group of allies that are afraid and have little trust for each other. Creatures are deadly and bloodthirsty, and an immense threat without the proper firepower. The player is a hero character of Native Indian desent, fearful of the creatures around him, but willing to use bravery and force to dispose of them in violent ways... often at close range using only a knife.
Starting an Animation:
We are pretty lucky here at Propaganda in that we don't have rigid quota on our animations. Almost all in-game animations are scheduled 'per animation' and not based on any relevance to screen time. The Turok Creature Reel shows a few different kinds of tasks - the less intensive variety ( such as the TRex eating the small dino ) and the more involved type ( like the Lurker attacking the human player ). As a general 'window time' we based an estimate of 2 days for the simpler animations, and 5 days for the more complex ones. We were lucky in that we could usually extend the window by a few days if it needed that time to add the extra polish that we felt was important to our game... we knew that for a compelling dinosaur experience the creatures had to not only move convincingly, but appear menacing and vicious ( even if they were injured or being killed ) ... we were willing to spend the time to do this well.
As an average I would say that I probably spent the allocated 2 days on the simpler animations, but usually the reasonable maximum of 7 or 8 days on the complex sequences.
Thinking High-Level:
Before starting anything, I like to just spend a while thinking very globally about what I should be showing and what I would like to show. As an example I will discuss the animation where the Lurker is attacking and killing the human player for the most part, but I will refer to other animations to make certain points as I go along.
These are the areas and kinds of things I like to think about first ( and usually in this kind of order )
What will make this sequence entertaining ?
If I was playing this game for the first time, what would I like to see happen ?
What are the technical constraints ? ( e.g ground coverage, camera placements etc )
How can I make the Lurker move in a violent, aggressive and dominating way ?
How can I make the human seem doomed and terrified, yet still seem heroic ?
How will the two characters actually come into contact ?
How will the Lurker overpower the human ?
What will be the killing blow or move that finishes the human ?
Will the human have a fighting chance ?
What angle do I want to shoot this from ?
Will the camera be animated ?
How can I get as much movement as possible in the sequence ?
Who is the focus of the sequence ? the human or the Lurker ?
How can I work some decent contrast and shape change into the action ?
How can I get some cool poses on the Lurker and the human ?
What similar sequences have already been animated, and how will this one be different ?
What will make someone want to watch this again and again ?
What are the best things to draw out first, and what do I need to shoot for reference ?
Do I have the tools to do what I need to do ?
Am I good enough to animate this ?
And to give a little background info on the Lurker creature for context:
Its a fictional cross between a big cat and a lizard
It moves like a big cat, but can also traverse trees and surfaces like a lizard
It is vicious and aggressive, like a cornered pit bull, or threatened grizzly bear
It hates everyone!
Talking High-Level:
I have some great colleagues at work that love to talk about stabbing dinosaurs in the head and wrestling down the odd bigger one. After pondering through the list above, I would usually throw an idea or two at these guys, act them out a bit in the studio, and get some feedback from them. Often I would get new and better ideas, or at least some decent expansion on the ideas I originally had. If they thought it sounded cool, and so did I, then it couldn't be far off.
I am not a good at drawing, so I much prefer to talk early on about an initial idea than show drawings / poses or even blocked out 3D sketches that take time to make. I would also show any video reference at this point, if I had recorded any, or had any on the internet that helped illustrate my ideas.
Bringing Ideas Together
So for the Lurker kill human animation, there were a few things I knew for certain ( technical constraints )
There had to be a "struggle" at some point for gameplay reasons
The whole thing couldn't be too long
It couldn't cover too much ground, and had to take place on a flat surface
The camera needed to feel like a hand-held, and could not make big broad movements
It all had to be in one shot - no cuts
And these were the things I decided I wanted to do in the sequence, following my initial ideas and seeing what my colleagues thought would be cool
The Lurker pounces on the human slamming him to the ground with great force
There is a shape change as the Lurker adjusts himself to a good position to start tearing flesh
The human is seen to have a last heroic effort to hold off the inevitable death by trying to struggle out of the Lurker's clutches
In response to the human's effort, the Lurker decides to just shake him violently and break his back in a broad contrasting action
My inspiration for these ideas was basically from thinking how a lion or leopard would pounce on it's prey and pin it down, but then instead of the almost surgical way big cats kill their victims by biting down on the neck, I wanted the more brutal way that a grizzly bear might maul and tear at its enemy. So I mixed the two.
Staging and Broad Action
To be honest I really like this part of the process. After I've got a pretty fleshed out idea of what I think will happen in the animation, I try and figure out the very global movements or high level staging that will be seen in the sequence, imagining the characters as single shapes moving the the screen, and how the camera will move. This stage is all about very high level contrast and variety, but also thinking about what angles the characters will look good from ( e.g, you would want to see a good view of the Lurkers face as he bites in )
I didn't do this prior to animation, I drew this up for the post to explain my thinking - I mostly just figure this out in my head. The reason I like this stage so much is because it can really help you get ideas for what you want your characters to do... you can almost think of the high level staging contrasts first, and then think of suitable actions to make them happen... its fun, and helps go a long way towards a decent animation if you get this stage right. You're trying to keep the screen alive too as well as the characters within it. .
These are the main staging ideas for the sequence where human wrestles the large injured Dilophosaurus ( beginning of reel ). There is contrast in the broad action and camera movements.
Drawing
This is probably the point at which I should mention the overall way in which I work. I am very much a straight ahead and layered approach animator. I don't yet know how to properly plan and block out animations... I am working hard on this. I like to animate things by getting a strong idea in my mind of what I know will look good, then I figure out how to animate it by concentrating on what are the primary driving forces, and the most important motions or actions that I need to do first in order to make everything else fall into place. I animate these things first, then I animate everything else afterwards. I do not animate everything at once, knowing exactly where things are coming from and where they are going ( like our old pal Milt Khal ) ... I am way off being that good or that organised. I really love the progressive control and feedback that blocking offers, but I love the spontaneity and immersion that comes from working the way I do.
But I do plan. Its just my planning isn't always in the form of thumbnail drawings or 2D flipbooks. Sometimes I draw thumbnails, sometimes I act things out and record it. Sometimes I just go with the flow and start in 3D ( but not often ).
For the Lurker attack, I pretty much could see in my head what I wanted to happen. I wanted the camera nice and close to the ground to emphasise the threat from the creature, and I wanted there to be a strong sense of physical connection between the two characters by using a good overall pose that kept them feeling entangled and brawlish.. almost like the lurker was 'hugging' the human... and biting into his chest and stomach. For this section of the animation I only did one small drawing that helped me summarize the kind of thing I was going for and mostly posed the two characters together in 3D until I had something I was happy with. The main problem I wanted to solve in thumbnails was the shape change and follow-through of the two characters when the human is violently dragged at the end, so I drew some stuff for that before I went to 3D:
As far as thumbnails go, I never really try and figure out too much at this stage. To be honest, this has a lot to do with my inability to draw the real details of what I can imagine in my mind.. I can usually draw the broad shapes, but then I hit a roadblock because I cannot draw out the subtle shape changes or poses that I want. Basically what this means is that I only ever really work out the main "story poses" that describe the most basic elements of what happens.... rarely any breakdowns. At this point I'm really just thinking about the kind of shapes I want to see, and from what angle. The drawing top left ( with a zero above it ) was the entanglement feeling I wanted, and the rest are just figuring out how the drag would work.
Here are a few more thumbnail sheets I managed to find for some other animations I didn't put on the reel. I wish I had some that are more relevant, but I seem to have trouble keeping stuff like that around, but at least these give an idea of the kind of detail level I take these to. Below each one I have posted a video of how the animation finally came out so you have some context
Recording Reference
I found that for almost all the animations on the Turok reel, I needed to record reference, particularly to give a much better indication of how the human would move in a realistic way. I believe when shooting for realism this is an essential part of the process - there are too many subtle and even very broad actions that the human actor will do that you could never imagine or anticipate just through imagining or thumbnailing. I find that more than anything else it is a great generator of newideas, or it will at least prove or break an idea you already had on paper.
For the Lurker kill animation, despite what I just said, I didn't record any reference, so I can't show you anything for this. I think really I should have, particularly for the 'struggle' section, but I decided to figure this out in 3D mostly because the motion of the human would depend so much on the motion of the Lurker ( in fact, for the entire animation), but I think I could have got a better result if I had at least acted out some kind of struggle in a similar position and recorded it. Below is an animation I decided to not to render and include on the Creature Reel because I'm not that happy with it to be honest, but it does show how I used direct video reference of myself to create the motion of the human actor
and here's the reference I recorded:
As an indication, I probably spent a good 40 minutes acting this out over and over, trying different things ( some within the basis of the same idea, and some completley new ideas ) and doing a good 30 or so tries. It seems to me like you need a good 20 minutes to warm up to what you're doing and to really get into it, and usually I find the best take is always the last one, or very near to the end. I find it very weird as well that the ones you though were good when you did them often look crappy, and its the ones you don't remember so much that look great.
As far as using the reference, I pretty much used it as close as to what was recorded as possible, changing a few things ( mostly timing ) here and there to get the desired effect. If you're going to work this way its crucial that your reference is dead-on. I think part of the problem with this completed animation is that I think I made a bad decision on the reference I decided to use - I should have gone a lot more extreme with the idea of the human moving out of the way of the stumbling dinosaur and pushed it much more.
Blocking
I'm sure when some of you hear the word 'blocking' you instantly conjure up images of AM Mentor reels, Pixar bonus DVD features, and directors and supervisors all standing around a monitor looking happy. And so you should. I think blocking is great, I just personally find it very hard to work completely in this way ( because I need to practice more ). I can say pretty safely for a good 4 or so years of my career I would just animate straight ahead - not frame by frame, but I would block very loosely between two main poses at a time. I would then animate to almost final between those two poses, then move onto the next two poses until my animation was finished. To be honest I didn't even know about blocking, and seeing as I am entirely self-taught, I never really thought of doing it any other way. The problem with this method was that I never really had much control over what was happening on a high level, had a hard time making changes, and had no real indication of how my animation would look until it was finished. On the other hand, my work always felt spontaneous, organic and was a real blast to create. My current struggle is finding a balance between my methods and a more constructive blocking approach.
So coming back to what I was saying before, my approach to blocking is the same as my approach to animating...I like to animate by thinking about what is most important and doing that first. when I say most important I'm thinking in this way:
What action or pose NEEDS to happen at a certain point because it drives the story or the impact of the sequence ?
What movements are directly driving a lot of other movements ? ( like the Lurker driving the motion of the human being dragged )
what character is driving the execution of the staging and camera ? ( who is the primary focus of the sequence and where are they going in the frame ? )
With the Lurker kill animation, below is a set of images that are a rough indication of what I blocked out in 3D before going into animation. These are really just the story poses, and I didn't take the blocking to any more detail than this. I was just trying to lock down in 3D the high level staging, and thinking of the characters as broad shapes rather than complex ones.
I could not find any version history for this animation file, so the images above are simply screen grabs from the final animation. They represent more the points at which I set poses in the sequence, rather than the fidelity of the poses being set. The real ones would have been much much broader and less detailed than these. As an indication of "priority" of these poses, I felt that 1, 3, 5 and 12 were the most important for getting the staging across as needed ( i.e, these are all the poses i absolutley needed - and i spent the most time thinking about the fidelity of these poses in more detail ) all the other poses are loose indications of how I would go between these priority poses, and I would not worry too much about how these looked. I would also be setting these poses in stepped mode, and thinking about where I placed them in the timeline so they would represent a very rough indication of the timing.
I managed to find some version history of the Dilophosaurus animation, which gives a better indication of how I block things out. The scenes I recorded for the video were saved at random points throughout the time I was creating the sequence, so they don't represent exact "milestones" of the blocking I did, instead they just give an indication of the various stages.
Looking at the video above it illustrates pretty well some of the ideas behind my workflow
section 1 ) Here I'm starting to block out the motion of the human first ( I used video ref of myself for this ). The initial poses are set up to show the basic relationships of where the characters are in relation to each other at the start of the animation.
section 2) One of the main actions in the sequence is where the dino bites back at the human, who manages to dodge. At this point the the blocking I am roughing out the human up to this point, and also the biting action of the dino. By doing this I can properly verify where the characters need to be at the start of the animation so they end up in the right place at the point of the biting action, relative to how far the human moves forward and how far the dino head moves. I am also starting to think about how the dino will move his body forward in a lunging action that will add power to the bite ( but also affect where he ends up at the end of the action ) I am thinking more carefully about the human poses at this point but still not spending too much time on them. For the dino poses, I am still thinking of him mainly as just his broad shape, and where he is in relation to the human. The most important thing about the dino at this stage is what his head is doing.
section 3 ) Still working from my video reference, I am blocking the human duck and jump animation. The human is leading the staging throughout the whole animation, so I work on his actions first. I know that he needs to get back on his feet and force the dino's head down by jumping on it - so there is a key point where the dino's head needs to be in relation to how far the human jumps. This key contact point means that I need to know roughly where the dino will be when the human hits the ground, so I block out this pose too ( I also start to get a good idea of how far the dino is moving accross the floor, and the cool kinds of struggly actions I can animate to make his do this ). The white dots that floating in space are a motion trail that I always have attached to the human root bone, this is most useful in stepped mode, when you are blocking out poses, but cannot see directly the relationship between them in 3D space. Using the trail I have a direct indication if the motion of his root is doing anything weird or has odd spacing on it.
section 4 ) So this section is actually a good representation of how far I would take the blocking of this animation, before starting to work into it in detail. All the main actions are there, and technically everything works ( with regards to distances and contact poses particularly ). I also have a good indication of the staging, and can work a rough pass of the camera movement into the scene. I could also show the animation at this stage and get feedback on high level changes without too much effort.
Some things to notice that are not blocked out by section 4 - The blocking of the human is still very loose, I'm not overly concerned about exact poses, instead just the overall feel and technical aspects of the animation. The dino has very few poses that really say much at all, at this stage the blocking is just to make sure hes in the right place, and most of the attention on him is based around his head and its position to the human. The number of stabs and the timing for the stabbing sequence is very loose, but the sense of the stabbing action is there. There is also no fancy blocking of any of the erratic movements the dino makes in the final rendered shot.
I just want to point out here that I always try and animate as much as I can in full 3D. Game animators are generally used to thinking in this way because usually every animation we do can be seen from all angles by the audience who plays the game. When doing cinematic animation to a specific camera view, I always work primeraly to that shot as my "optimal viewpoint" but I try and make the animation work from all angles. This forces you to think more realistically about the space in which the action is taking place, and gives you a clearer understanding of where things are going and coming from. It also means that you have room to modify your camera angles and play around a bit with camera animation when you have the main character movement finished and polished up.
Starting to Refine
My approach to starting the real nitty gritty part of animating is to work in a straight ahead and layered way between the poses I have set in my blocking. I rarely go back and set any breakdowns to my blocking poses. Instead what I have are pretty solid "marker poses" that make sure my timing is basically on track, my characters are going where they need to go, and I can see ahead of time the overall picture of what will happen in the sequence... ultimately this means that I can work in the more spontaneous way that I am used to, but its much harder for me to go totally off track and end up making a mess or not quite hitting the mark as I imagined... because the framework is already there.
What I found interesting about these animations were the sheer amount of movement that affects other movement, which in turn affected the way I animated it. For example, when the Lurker is struggling with the human, the Lurker is the main driving force because hes so powerful, yet there is some force on the Lurker in the form of resistance to the human.
With the Dilophosaurus animation there were a number of these relationships:
The dodge and duck of the human affects where the dino needs to bite so the actions seem believable
When the human jumps and wrestles down the dino, its head is affected by when and how this jumping move takes place and how much force the human inflicts on it
Towards the end where the dino is shaking its head and reacting to the knife stabs, this affects how the human moves because he is hanging onto the dino's head
Because of these primary driving forces, I animated the Dilophosaurus animation in this structured order
I animated the human first, up until the point that he has finished his jump, and is in the pose where he has the dino head on the ground and is about to stab. I took the time to work detail into these movements, getting the human feeling good and not worrying too much about the dino's body or head. At this point when I am animating anything I am not worrying about keying all controllers on every frame, or in fact being that tidy with my key frames at all, I am working in auto-key and just posing things around and keying them wherever it feels right
I then animated just the dino's head, all the way from the beggining, through the bites, the scream, and all the way up to the point where the human is about to stab. I was concentrating on the big mass of the head because of its sheer size and importance in staging for the shot. I animated how it would react to the force of the human wrestling it down, and the initial impact with the floor. I still didnt worry too much about the animation of the dino's body, just making sure however that I didn't push the head too far beyond a pose that my rough blocking of the body could accommodate
Once the human has the dino on the ground, I started to block very roughly the timing of the stabs... so I just blocked out the extra stabbing motions from the rough blocking I did at the start, and got the timing feeling pretty good. I didn't concentrate too much even on the human animation, I just animated the arm stabbing and got the feel for it. I did this because each stab would affect the movement of the dino head in a small way, which would affect the human because he is holding on to it!
Now I had the timing of the stabs, I animated again just the dino's head struggling and roaring in reaction to the attack, all the way up to the point that the dino has died and the human starts to get back up again. I made sure I moved the head enough to get decent reaction from the human holding on, but also so I could get some driving body movement in the dino's body. For this stage I was loosley animating the human and the dino's body, but only loosely to get an idea of staging and broad movement
With the dino's head struggling animation pretty much done, I could animate the human reacting to the forces, and take the human to near completion, all the way up to where he stands back up and the animation finishes. I also made the stabs fit properly to the movement of the dino's head, but trying to keep to the same timing I blocked out for them. The human is now about 90% animated, with follow through and all the details included
Finally I did a straight ahead pass on the dino's body. I made the root move so that it kept up with the driving force of the head, and I animated the frantic motion of the legs in a way that they would also appear to push the dino to the places that it needed to be in its staging. I added reactions and squirms in the legs, root and arms to the section where the human wrestles its head down, and finally to the stabs and its eventual death. I just went with this pass by pass adding and changing as I worked through.
With the Lurker kill animation it was a similar process:
I animated the Lurker jumping all the way through the air and landing on the ground using poses 2, 3 and 4 as a rough guide ( see the poses image from before ). I took this motion pretty far getting the nice timing, arcs and overlap. I was loosley posing and adjusting the human but not thinking past the main contact poses when the the Lurker initially hits him in the air, and then when he finally hits the ground.
I then animated the Lurker jumping around and repositioning itself to get to pose 5
After I had the main attacking action of the Lurker feeling smooth and enjoyable, I animated the human reacting to the pounce, hitting the floor and struggling in reaction to the Lurker repositioning itself. I knew where I could flail the human's legs and where he could try and grab and push away because I already had the the animation of the Lurker there and working
I then animated just the Lurker's head biting into the human's stomach and moving around, up until the point that he just begins to drag him away. Again, not thinking too much about the movement of the Lurker's body or the human, but making sure that I moved the head enough to get some decent body movement in both characters
Using the head movement as the main focus of the staging, I pretty much did a straight ahead pass on the Lurker's body and the human's reactions to the bites in one go. I added the weight shifting and pulling that the Lurker does mainly as a result of the range of motion on the head animation. I animated this up until the point that the Lurker begins to drag the human away
I then animated the root and back legs of the Lurker performing the shaking and dragging. I very roughly blocked the chest and head of the Lurker, and some poses for the human just making sure that I wasn't straying too far from the main story poses, and technically that I was covering enough ground to drag the human far enough and keep the staging as planned
Once I had the main root and back leg motion for the Lurker in the dragging section, I animated the chest, front legs, and head of the Lurker reacting to this driving force
I then animated the human being dragged, using the head as the main point of force
Finally I did a straight ahead pass on the limpness of the human at the end, and the final lunge of the Lurker
During this stage of animation, I am usually trying to get visibility and feedback on what I'm doing to make sure anyone else that sees it is getting the entertainment factor I'm shooting for, and making any changes that are not too destructive or time consuming at this point.
For all elements of anything I animate I follow this same principle. So when I say "I animated the human" I am usually animating the root and foot plants together, then all the torso and arm movement that results from the main driving force of the root. I did a post that goes a bit more detailed into this idea here
Polishing and Taking It In
As a final pass on my animation I will go through and add motion trails to most objects and get the arcs feeling smooth and organic. This tends to make a huge difference, and you see improvement in areas you didn't even notice had any problems. I love motion trails.
I then spend a little while cleaning up curves. Nothing intense at all, just making sure there's no weird flat tangents or spiky sections. To be honest I only usually spend much time in the graph editor if I need to solve specific problems with acceleration or deceleration, or technical problems like locking down movement between duplicate poses by setting flat tangents etc... sometimes its impossible to get the kind of precise or complex movement you want without pulling around some curves.
I then play with the camera a little, changing the shot and framing a bit here and there to find the best way to shoot the action ( you get to do this if you work in full 3D as I mentioned before ). These are not vast changes at all, but can make dramatic improvements.
I then sit back and watch the animation over and over. I do this to look for 3 main things
Do I need to change and poses or timing in any way to make the sequence better ?
Where can I add subtle movements ( reactions in all animated objects to forces and actions smaller than the main driving forces) to make it more believable ?
Do I need to globally adjust or modify any poses or animation to get a better result ?
Does this entertain me ?
I usually use animation layers to add subtle movements and global changes. This way I can forget about trying to work within existing keyframes and just start fresh using additive keyframes over the top of underlying motion. Its best to do this at the end because our in-house animation layer tool locks off the underlying animation once you add layers over the top. You can get some great subtle movement doing this, and you can also blend in and out of broad changes over time ( for example I added a layer to the Lurker's root that bought him closer to the human during the struggle section and I blended this change from the point that he repositions himself after the pounce ). I love animation layers too! .... I could post this up along with a tutorial if I get any interest.
So... if you managed to hang in until the end, you have my congratulations, and I hope you found at least some of that interesting or useful. Please post any questions you might have or fire me an e-mail.
Its good for me to write this stuff because it helps me clarify things in my own mind too...
Above is a YouTube of some of the work I did for the 360/PS3 release of TUROK here at Propaganda. All the animations are in-game events, but I set them up in sets and rendered them out in a cinematic way to make them more presentable.
Turok was an interesting challenge because I came from working entirley in a `cartoony` style on various projects, to the much more realistic approach that this game required. I had always wanted to animate stuff like this, so I was totally up for it. I am still surprised with ultimately how similar the two approaches are, particularly with how exaggerated you can go with the movement of the creatures. The realistic human animation I found the most difficult, and used video reference frequently to solve a lot of the problems I encountered.
You`ll notice that the characters are all segmented. I wanted to show the animation on the original proxies as I feel it best represents my original vision. I kept everything grey because I simply don't have the time to get all the textures and shaders etc up and running.
I was responsible for all direction, animation, lighting and rendering. All rigging by my esteemed colleague Javier Solsona. Modeling by the Worlds team. The audio mix I did myself using sound samples from the game, and a sequence of in-game music.
I will post up a few things soon about my planning and workflow for those that are interested.
With physical animation, always remember that the body ( be it human or otherwise ) is a machine, run by a brain, that is obsessed with efficiency.
The human body likes to use the least amount of energy possible to do anything. Thats why we almost fall over every time we take a step, because evolution has enabled our brains to understand gravity, and use it to our advantage in everything we do.
A good way to show this in animation, is to try and take the least amount of steps possible if we need our character to do anything. If they need to turn around, or stand up, or walk over and pick up a bunch of flowers, or do a run up before jumping out of a window... use only as many foot plants as you absolutley need. Your poses will look better too with nice wide and clear contacts, and your actions will be stronger.
If you're having trouble technically with the footplants ( e.g, the distance is just too large, or the foot needs to reach an akward pose ) try these ideas to help:
Can you shorten the overall distances if need be ?
Try sliding the feet a little ( this can really add to the organic feel sometimes )
Try a very small hop ( just a small bit of airtime on both feet )
Change the timing on your main action to allow the foot to plant without stretching
Remember to pivot off the tips of the toes when fully extending
Twist, swivel and roll the feet. They are extremely versatile
The audience probably isnt looking directly at the feet... cheat
Just bear in mind that occasionally you may want to deliberatley animate a characters feet in an unrealistic way for certain effect ( imagine the classic fast "tiptoe" sneak from the old Tom and Jerry cartoons )... but as a general approach, you`ll find this idea can really help with physical actions, particularly in their clarity.
I'm gonna hit up a few posts I've had in my mind for a little while, and as a temporary "theme" I thought I'd concentrate a little more on physical animation ( seeing as that's actually what I do most of the time ) and some of the tips associated with that type of movement.
So... "Feet First" ... ok...
What this post is about is a quick way to ground an animation with a sense of weight and force, and then worry about all the other parts after that. I'm trying to explain the idea of "contact points"... the point(s) of the character's physical structure that are generating momentum and push. I like to concentrate on this early on in animation, and it never lets me down.
For a start its always good that when you come to "animate" your scene ( as opposed to the blocking stage ) to start with something first and get it feeling solid. Animation is just way too hard anyway, without trying to think and animate everything at once. As an example, many animators will start by working detail and smoothness into the characters main movement point ( usually the "root", e.g the hips or the waist of the character ) because it makes sense to do that as the root is often first to drive a full body movement... and the rest of the body will generally inherit movement from this. This is a pretty basic animation concept, and a good one to use.
Work "from the top down"
But where is the "top" really ?
What really leads the movement? ok.. so really its the thought, the motivation, all the cerebral stuff, and this could go pretty subjective because it can depend a lot on the scene and what the character is doing, but I find that for physical animation, a lot of the time its the points of contact that lead the action! So most of the time its the feet, or maybe the hands ( if your character was doing push ups for example ) or the elbow if your guy is leaning on a bar.
If you think about it, the root of the character cannot actually move itself. when you twist your hips, you're using mostly your legs to do this. When you shift your weight, your hips might appear to move first and drive the movement, but really that movement is being generated by the legs and feet! The root can only move itself if the legs stop pushing, there are no other points of contact ( e.g no bar to grab onto ) and gravity brings the root downwards.
If they're not leading a direct movement, they at least drive the overall weight and grounding of a character that is very important to get right in physical stuff.
As a working example, I recently animated a pretty complex action, where a guy is lunging forward a few metres and supposed to be not very firm on his feet and a little lacking in confidence. I wanted to get the feet shifting nicely and that idea of him "catching himself" almost as if he was just about to fall over. So I blocked all my main poses first ( I actually used each new foot plant as a key, then I set a breakdown between each plant ) ... then I jumped straight in and started to animate the feet and the root, and took them both pretty near final. Once I had that working, with a nice sense of timing and weight and force, I could have fun with the rest of the body. Its not just because the feet movements were important to this animation, I would also do this if there were only a few plants or a simple weight shift. For most physical stuff you will find that if you animate the feet and the root together, get the timing and weight feeling right, then its much easier to animate the rest of the character, because the main driving forces are established and already working.
So...
Working between changes in contact points sets up good "markers" that you can work around. You know that's where key forces are either constant, moving to, or moving from.. and a lot of the nice overlap and subtle stuff that you like to animate are direct results of these changes... so start there.
I am one of these lucky guys who gets to work with a really great Technical Animation Director - Javier Solsona, or "Goosh" as you may know of him. This guy has been connecting, constraining, multiply dividing and parenting for years! and can teach us all a thing or two about how to make a decent rig. In fact, he kicked off the whole "free rig" thing with the release of "PackageMan" a few years back. When Goosh pulls out his nurbs controllers, you know he's a man not to be reckoned with!
Well.. after a lot of headaches and hard work, Goosh has released an new quadruped rig that is freely available for download from Highend3D.com ... if you're going to Siggraph this year, make sure you check out his three part masterclass, that will give you a priceless insight into how it was created.
I worked closely with Goosh during the development of this rig ( despite the fact he did all the work of course ) and I can guarantee you he pushes "animator friendly" and "functionality" to the limit. He is constantly looking to give the animator all the control he needs - whilst seamlessly removing the brain ache factor for you in the background.
Go download it and have a play around. The link below gives a little more detail on what you're getting ( there are a few minor restrictions )... but check it out and be sure to post comments about what you think!
I saw a pretty unusual YouTube video today. Kind of funny, kind of cheesy, but great for that reference that is really hard to come by. There are some golden little moments that you just simply don't see that often... but may have to animate!
This guy comes onto one of these American Idol style talent shows, and does something that nobody really expects. The reactions from the judges are priceless, but also his own gestures and mannerisms are great to watch.
Watch the video, then I`ll point out a few things that really stood out to me. I suppose these things can be interpreted any way, and are pretty subjective, but its all research in the end !
Try not to be distracted by the ridiculous voices of "Ant and Dec".
( for some reason embedded YouTube puts the time scale in remaining time )
-1:42 - This is my favourite bit. The female judge ( Amanda Holden ) is genuinely shocked and amazed. The way she holds her hands together after finishing the clap, the half laugh, and the little blink of disbelief. She is truly touched, and its a nice little moment of genuine femininity ( compare to the relaxed but impressed male reaction of Simon Cowell to screen right ) . Its almost like she has to hold the moment in her hands, because she cant quite believe it! Compare this too with her contrasting attitude at -3:50 the difference is huge! at this point she is a little condescending ( the way she quickly looks him up and down, frowning, not particularly impressed by his appearance ), then a few moments later her attitude is transformed completely.
-1:24 - Another great moment. Watch Simon Cowell's eyes and mouth after he says "fantastic". He really shows a number of things here. Firstly he is clearly humbled by the performance, but wants to retain his professional image and tries not to show it - but twice he looks down briefly and coupled with the blinking he gives this away. The fact that he smiles through this "submission" and also squints very slightly, shows how much he likes this guy, and not just his performance. Its almost like hes thinking "you just did something I could never do, even though I`m supposed to be judging you on it...". The way he holds his hand under his chin is like he's trying to raise his head, to keep his humility - in a "keep your chin up" kind of way. Very subtle stuff, but incredibly powerful if we could harness it and use it in our animation.
-1:04 - This one is interesting. After she finishes saying "diamond" she does a slightly elongated blink. This is because she realises that shes actually said something a little stupid. Shes waiting for the reaction from the audience, and when it doesn't come immediately, a little tinge of embarrassment is seen, just in this single slightly lengthy blink.
-3:12 - Back to near the start again. I like this little bit because it shows uncertainty and doubt in the guys eyes. After he sings the words "nessundorma" ( or really at the start of "dorma" ) he does a very quick look down - I presume at the judges, and then quickly sets his eyes back to his little comfort zone that he clearly locks into right at the start of his performance. He is nervous here and wants a little token of reassurance. Its quick, but its there very clearly.
-1:46 - Sorry to jump around. I like the change on the guys face as he realises his fate is in the hands of the judges. At first he taking in the applause, smiling, and recovering knowing he has done all the hard work - but then quickly breathes out and straightens his face as he realises he must deal with what is said in the next few moments. He also does a little nod, a little gesture of reassurance to himself that it will be ok.
-0:36 - Look closely at the faces of the judges as they watch him walk off the stage. Once again I like the expression on the woman's face, and her body language. She has her hands flatly down on the table, which is kind of odd, but interesting. Its great too they way they all track him with their heads and not just their eyes as he walks off.
I think these subtle and hidden moments are much more powerful than any of the reactions, they edited together on the actual show. For instance the "half crying" and "face wiping" that the female judge is shown doing, says far less than a single pose that she holds around -1:42.
Anyway... I`m sure there's loads of things, of all different kinds you could pick out of any footage , I just thought that little clip had a nice set of unusual mannerisms and gestures I wanted to remember.
I wrote a tool to help me pose things around the screen a little easier, and thought I`d share it.
When using the translation manipulator, I sometimes get annoyed with how it can make you work a bit too hard to get your object where you want it. I tend to use the world space setting, because I find if I use object mode, its too restricted by the orientation of the object, eg:
If I simply want to move the character in his forward direction ( Z - blue ) Its easier to use world space setting because if I use the object mode ( that does have his "true" Z forward axis ) then I end up getting unwanted upwards translation as I move his hips forward because of the rotation of that controller.
World space is good, but it also has its problems. If I want to move the object along an axis that isn't aligned to the world, I have to do as many as three separate movements, e.g
So in this example I have a character climbing up a ramp. The ramp is at an angle, and not directly aligned to the world. I need to translate the characters hips in the direction of the arrow, so I can start posing the next key of his climbing up animation.
You can see that both world and object ( local ) settings are pretty useless because they don't represent the broad direction of movement that we want the character's hips to travel in ( i.e, they don't represent the orientation of the ramp ). In this case, using either world or object mode, I would still have to modify X Y and Z to get my hips where I wanted them for the next pose. I could use the square in the middle of the manipulator, but this does a "screen space" translation, and I find it hard to work with because I cannot drag a specific axis. The feet also are at arbitrary rotations, so they also have exactly the same problem as the hips. It seems like a lot of work translating objects around in this way.
This is where the script becomes very useful. I can set an object that I use to represent my direction of travel.. or something that describes the overall "direction of movement" that I'm animating in:
So here I've made a locator that represents the direction that I want the character to move in.
I can then use this locator as a reference to override the translation manipulator on whatever object I now select.
So now I have a manipulator that represents the direction I want to translate my objects in. Its easy for me to simply translate the Z axis and have my character travel forwards, upwards, and in the direction of the ramp all at the same time! this is now set for every object I select - so it will be the same for both feet in this example. I can even select all objects ( the hips, and both feet ) and slide the whole character up and down the ramp... If I was animating this little sequence, I could use the locator as a "translation reference" for pretty much all objects, for that patricular "climbing" section of the animation. Once the character gets to the top of the ramp, I could change the position and rotation of the locator to match the broad direction of whatever move comes next, and so on... its much easier working this way...
There is also an option to use a custom "screen" oriented manipulator, that allows you precise control over the axes. You may want to use this if you simply want to say pose the translation of the hips a little higher in a 2D way relative to the frame - without having to worry about any orientation already on the hips.
The script has a simple four button UI that lets you switch between world, reference object, and screen space translation, and also a button to tell the script which object you are using as your reference object. You can assign each mode to a hotkey if you prefer using the following commands:
moveObjectRel "UI"; - launch the script with the UI. moveObjectRel "screen" - perform a screen relative translation. moveObjectRel "object" - perform an object relative translation ( like in our example ). moveObjectRel "setRef" - tells the script the selected object is your direction reference object. moveObjectRel "world" - set the translate tool back to its default world setting.
First off, sorry its been so long since I posted anything. I don't intend on letting this blog sit and rot... I've just been super busy with work and my little boy. I have a small scale animation that I'm working on ( not the vampire thing right now ) and I want to post a detailed breakdown of the process - should be a cool post I hope, so keep watching.
The power of pyramids ? whats he talking about ?
I've been wanting to write a post about this for a while. Its something that I think about, and use, every day when animating - but to be completely honest I don't fully understand it, so this post will serve as an exploration of this idea, rather than a hard set 'technique'. Bear with me as I try and clarify this in my own mind too... ;) I will try and keep all observations at objective as possible.
Ok... so I'm sure we've all heard of "poses" and "lines of action" and their massive importance in animation, but something that I like to include in my thinking is the idea of creating solid shapes. There is a very common shape that we all use often - the curve. Its nice to contrast between backwards and forwards curves in our poses, and also straight against curve. I love these tools, but really I don't so much regard them as shapes. To me they are still lines ( but not necessarily "lines of action") .
I use a particular shape over and over, and it repeatedly helps me define strong poses and dynamic shapes.... the pyramid.
So check out this image below. I'm sure you've seen it once or twice before...
Something strikes me about the pyramids. Ignoring all the stone, and the sheer scale of these things - the shape itself says a lot about weight, stability, pressure and origin ( or direction ). the tips of the pyramids look light and are supported high by the wide bases that seem firmly planted on the ground. You can see the "direction" of the weight, i.e, it becomes heavier as it approaches the ground, and the heaviest part of the pyramid is right at the bottom. A single 2D pyramid also has two straight lines that contrast against each other in their direction of travel. They also have a built in way of naturally leading the eye to a particular point, at the tip of the pyramid.
If we look at pyramids of different proportions - it seems the same ideas still ring true, but with varying strengths (i.e the tall thin pyramid still has the same 'feeling', but the short wide pyramid feels much more weighty and planted to the ground )
If the pyramid is turned upside down... something interesting happens. It seems as if the point of contact on the ground is an area of high pressure, supporting a strong weight above it. The shape of the inverse pyramid points downwards and amplifies this pressure. There is also a strong sense of balance and equilibrium when the pyramid is seen this way around.
It also seems that the pyramid can be distorted - yet still retain the same visual ideas.
So, there seems to be a subliminal strength associated with the pyramid... and we can tap into that shape, and use it in our poses.
Application to posing characters, and its effects...
Below I have taken a number of images from around the net that I feel illustrate this idea in different ways. They all use some kind of pyramid shape, that helps to strengthen the attitude of the character ( click on the images to view them more clearly ).
The blue pyramid shows the direction of the wolfs attitude, and places his weight back behind his head, and plants his overall shape firmly on the ground. In a sense it summarises the broad pose.The red pyramid shows the pressure exerted on the small paws of the wolf, at the point at which they meet the floor - illustrating the weight of the creature, and the energy needed to counter the weight as it travels up into the chest and shoulders. The red pyramid also suggests a feeling of careful balance, inertia and poise - that lends a certain natural anticipation to this image.
I can only really see one pyramid in this image - but I think that's reflective of the power and straight forward nature of this pose. The pyramid plants the characters feet and weight firmly on the ground, and the edges lead our eye to the point of interest - the hand that is delivering the force of the blow.
The blue pyramid describes the weight of the character - and the direction of the attitude - the tip also leads our eye towards his face. The red pyramid is the interesting one in this example - the bottom tip ( at his elbow ) shows the point of pressure as the character leans his body weight to be supported by the chair. His upper arm creates one side of the pyramid - but contrasts a little oddly with the relatively straight edge that runs up his forearm.. is this why he seems a little off balance ? like hes not quite leaning on his elbow ? almost as if his pose is a little forced ? maybe I'm being too subjective now.
In this instance the red pyramid describes the broad attitude, and leads the viewer towards the left foot, which is also the point of pressure as the character bears down her weight to take the next step. On its own, the red pyramid is a little off balance, and by itself it would seem as if she might fall backwards. The blue pyramid solves this problem by grounding her weight between both legs, and providing support for the tall pose.
These images are interesting in comparison because the top red pyramid seems to describe a pose that is off balance. Despite the fact that the character's feet are firmly planted on the chair, all the pressure is concentrated in the small area of her feet, and there seems to be no blue pyramid to provide any grounded support. The red pyramid also seems to be off balance - making the overall pose seem tall, un-centered and looks almost as if she may fall at any moment. In contrast, the second set of images has a strong blue pyramid. despite the fact that we can't even see the characters feet, we have enough of a strong shape there to show that the pose is firm and stable.
As a last example - this pose is interesting because it seems to have a blue and red pyramid working directly together. The red pyramid shows the downward forces of the body, coming to a high pressure point at the feet, taking all the weight from the hips. This alone could possibly seem off balance, but the upper body pose can be summarized with a blue pyramid that works to produce a harmony. Together the two shapes seem to describe an eloquent balance of forces, that could be used to nicely describe the attitude of the female character.
So I hope its not just me, and these things really are going on in these images. I find it useful to think of these shapes when I animate, because above everything else - they seem to provide a certain approach to the aestheticstability of the character - but can also add that extra uncertainty or anticipation when the shapes are not balanced, or deliberately jarring.
Keep your eyes open and maybe you'll see some of these... Drop me a mail if you know of any more!
( oh yeah .. and I did realise after a while... they're triangles not pyramids.. but then where would the catchy title be ? ;) )
