How do professionals do the animated part
Pjotter
Posts: 274
If I watch animation movies on my TV, I see a lot of motions of characters. How do they do it? All perfect movements, no foot sliding, all very natural. I assume they do not BVH or similar. Many cannot be done with mocap (Kinect, etc), because most animal looking characters have different shapes. I know they do not use Carrara. Or is it only many animators and many hours (in India). Or is there some kind of magic trick. Some scenes have hundreds of characters is one scene.
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Their (most major studios) biggest benefit comes from having a single animation artist for each main character.
They do it the same ways as the rest of us, but the studios mostly hire (and/or intern) college graduates whom have animation as their specialty.
As for myself (non-professional), I use mocap from vendors like GoFigure, SKAmotion (Not sure if their's are mocap, though), PoserMocap, etc., as much as I can to save time. But when I'm making them by hand, I try and be quick, yet also very picky. Like I describe in my brief article, I begin with the motion of the hip. Then I go back and rotate (individually, by hand) each joint until the feet or hooves or whatever are exactly where I need them to be.
I've seen that Mike Moir even makes little visual helpers that he places on the ground to help visualize the placement of the feet.
Here's the thing - most movements will end up looking not-so-correct if there is not rotation of the hip. The rotation of the hip changes everything in our figures, being that the hip is the center of everything - so that's where I begin. If it turns out that, what I did with the hip makes foot placement impossible, then I adjust the hip again and then go back to the other joints - which is why I always sort out the joints leading to parts that have to end up at a specific location first - as to not waste time.
It's a very fluid thing, but it is also a lot of trial and error.
I'll often see that professional animation artists have mirrors and cameras on their desks, where they'll watch themselves exaggerate in the mirror and record video of their own motions - which is why it's so beneficial to have separate animators for each individual character - at least the main ones.
Watching the new Netflix series: Tarzan and Jane, I noticed a lot of ignoring the rotation of the hip, revealing that certain budget decisions can cause corners to be cut. But even in my favorite Star Wars The Clone Wars, there are certain run cycles qhic do not have much hip rotation, yet it certainly still looks fine in them telling their stories. But most of their animations just please me to no end - much of which was farmed out to another company over seas, still under the direction of the home HQ's Lead Animator or Director of Animation
That's for sure. 100%.
make art button
LOL! Agreed! 100%!!! Misty, you fricken' ROCK!!!
Probably more then you want to know, but the basics of the Pixar process is described here:
http://pixar-animation.weebly.com/pixars-animation-process.html
Here are some overviews of their character animation:
MODELS
Pixar's proprietary animation software, is used to create three-dimensional computer models of characters, props and sets. These computer models describe the shape of the object as well as the motion controls that the animators use to create movement and expressions. Using the art department's model packet - a set of informational drawings - the characters, sets and props are either sculpted by hand and then scanned in three dimensionally or modelled in three-dimensions directly in the computer. Since these are 3D objects, they're modeled on the X, Y and Z axes and can be rotated and viewed from any angle. When you first begin to model an object, it doesn't have any surface color or texture. All you see on your screen is the object's skeleton -- the lines and outlines of the individual cubes, blocks and spheres that have been used to construct it. This is called a wireframe.
The models are then give "avars", or hinges, which the animator will use to make the object or character move. For example, Woody has 100 avars in his face alone.
ANIMATION
Pixar's animators neither draw nor paint the shots, as is required in traditional animation. Because the characters, models, dialogue and sound are already set up, animators are like actors or puppeteers. Using Pixar's animation software, they choroegraph the movements and facial expressions in each scene. Pixar's animators choreograph the motion in each scene by defining key frames or poses. They do this by using computer controls and the character's avars to define key poses. The computer then creates the "in-between" frames, which the animator adjusts as necessary. It's common for an animator to re-do a single short animated sequence several times before the director or lead animator is satisfied.
Maybe I am wrong, but it is not that much different as Carrara.
Yup. And reading/watching as much of this stuff as one can find (in one's spare time, that is) helps a lot, I think.
These Avars he's mentioned are really cool in how they work. It's kind of like IK, but even more... it's like everything is stuck in place except for the area which each avar controls, so the animator pulls or pushes an avar (like a handle) to distort or move the shape.
Funny thing - the avars are all set in place by the modeler, whom is not the animator. However, if the animator wants something else, they just send it back to the modeler.
These folks have a different workflow. So many people. Even a few whom are only responsible for being in charge and keeping everyone working happily. Instead of focusing on the whole picture, each animator is given an assignment - and they work on that... only that until it's done. Then they get another assignment.
In Carrara, we can set up IK chains - something I have been ignoring. I have been using my Rotation of the Hip method, which I've just made up myself for myself. Using IK might be a more comfortable workflow for other folks, as seen in this tutorial
Oh my... I've never even seen this one yet... by my heroes of the industry!
Notice how, to bring Darth Maul to life, they've made him more like a Daz3d figure ;)
While a tear-jerker for me, this final behind-the-scenes helps to show the enormity of the project as they talk about all of the people involved, not only at Skywalker Ranch, but the two companies abroad as well.
Hi,
Dreamworks describe it in this animation quite good:
Best wishes,
Thomas
Very nice!
Yup, watching and reading stuff just like that is what got me started as well. The thing to keep in mind is that, while the above movie is quite accurate, it does leave a LOT out of each of those processes, as I'm sure you are aware.
You're not? Neither was I. Not entirely. I had no idea how much the FX department actually does - or what it was that they do to end up with the results they get. I was actually under the impression that a lot more of their work was done before it came to them. Wow, was I ever wrong!
Not understanding the VFX department was actually a huge downfall to my learning curve, but I'm really kinda grateful that it turned out that way, because it got me to learn (self-taught here) how to become really efficient in my scenes. Lowering texture resolutions if I have to, figuring out how to smooth out shadows and other artifacts while still using really fast-to-render, simple lighting, how to use camera moves and recycles animation data to turn partial scene into complete clips, and a lot more experimenting I've been doing since I started upon this adventure.
Turns out that I can save myself a lot of time by, as they say in the Biz: do it in Post!
Since I've went through all of the trouble to try and eliminate such woes, my VFX studies are coinciding well with the rest of everything. But now, instead of trying to get all of my effects to turn out really nicely directly in the raw render, I can instead include simple elements that I can easily track and replace in post with cool effects that can be difficult to get right in an animation. This helps me focus on the actual animation, not the effects - since they'll be added later. Nice.
Another thing I've noticed in regards to the initial question, many shots are actually performed from the thighs up, never actually showing the feet. I'm lucky that, so far, the walks MoCaps that I enjoy using track the ground really nicely. It's good to make sure our animations do work at the ground level or it may even look unconvincing even if we don't actually see the feet,
It's a shame to work so hard to eliminate all of those foot slides and then not show them on screen, but we must. Yes, there are many times when we do need to see the foot contact - especially farther away, full screen shots. But aside from that, we need to let those feet travel off screen as we get closer to the upper torso and head.
In the Darth Maul video I put up above, Joel mentions some very important tid bits about the realism injected due to subtle eye movements and the like. This stuff is what really drew me into watching the series in the first place - watching the interaction between characters. Their eyes and mouths. How they don't stare at the person they're talking to, but more glance at them and then look away as they explain. Natural subsequent movements. Instantaneous eye positioning. The fact that their visemes don't over-exaggerate every sound in the voice. Watch a person talk once. Then do it again and again. You'll notice that the actual mouth movements don't seem to match the words that closely - especially with area-specific slang or slurs of speech. Most of the movement takes place in the sound - between the tongue and inner mouth. Not so much the lips and jaw.
So I've noticed that, during dialog, the Clone Wars animators got the tongue right. It's moving just as I've noticed in normal speech patterns of real people.
Oh my... look at the time ;)