Johnny 5 Need More Input

So if my plan goes as I expect, I should have a bunch more time pretty soon to get back into writing and talking about animation... so that basically means more time for watering the blog, more time for personal work, and more chances to create stuff for the educational community. 

I have been thinking for a long time now about creating an instructional DVD

training course for intermediate/advanced level animators. I have watched a whole bunch of these kinds of DVDs over the years, on different topics, and I have a good understanding of what makes these things useful... but most importantly I just know I could create a really good one for animation!

My main goal would be to clarify a number of issues that many training DVDs seem to gloss over; most importantly the process of how you actually generate ideas that play well on screen, and how to actually turn those ideas into structured animation. I would also like to explain a properly detailed insight into how to actually take a shot through blocking, with some different approaches and methodologies behind blocking techniques. The blocking aspect is a key thing for me, as I found it one of the hardest things to learn how to do, but once you master it, improves your ability as an animator in immeasurable ways.

I would love to animate a medium length shot, but record the whole process in its entirety from start to final, with no "so earlier I finished up this part" sections. Its always those edited out parts that seem to contain all the secrets! I want to show the real blood and guts of how a shot gets finished, including all the "that looks horrible" bits and how a professional animator would actually work through and solve those exact kind of problems.

Please comment below with the kind of things you would like to see covered in a training DVD set. Ask yourself these kind of things:

• "If I could get an animator to just sit down and explain something to me, what would it be?"
• "What seems like a stupid question, but I just can't figure it out myself?"
• "What was really annoying last time I did some animation training, because the instructor just didn't explain it properly, or just glossed right over it?"
• "What kind of format would be good to watch and learn from on a DVD?"

If I don't get many comments I'll just have to figure it all out myself, but I would really appreciate input from you.

Flip Review no. 2

This review discusses a shot close to the final stages of production. Thanks to Mohammad Sadeh for submitting the animation for review, he can be reached at moh.saadeh@gmail.com

Quick Trick: Crop Your Shot

This is going to be fast. It's all I get time for these days!

A little trick I started using recently that helps me to evaluate my work is to trim how much of my shot I playback when I set it to loop and sit there watching it.

I find it hard to "evaluate" motion unless its complete to a certain level. Sometimes I find myself changing bits of animation that are really working just fine, and its the motion after that I haven't started working into yet that is changing my perception of it ( I tend to start refining from start to finish in sections, as opposed to passes across the whole shot ).

So its quite simple... if you just want to get a feel for how stuff is going, try setting your playblast to not include the last 10 frames, or however many frames you feel are not "figured out" yet.. and just get a feel for what youre up to... kind of like thinking "if my shot just ended here, is that motion working?"

I know... strange one... but helps me.

Over and out.

The importance of cleanliness

I didnt really want to start off this blog with a "techie" post, but recently its become very clear to me how important a good clean visual workspace is, and I wanted to post something up that people will find useful. By the way, I don't mean making sure you wipe those coffee rings, or vacuum the crumbs out of your keyboard, I'm talking about visual clarity in all that clutter that fills your screen when animating.

Game animation comes complete with a worrying, but unavoidable lack of emphasis on silhouette. Practically every game today is set in a 3D environment, and characters and events are often seem from almost every angle you can imagine, as well as from vastly differing distances. Because of this I've nearly always animated without a camera reference or a set "shot" that is designed from layout or storyboard, working merely in a perspective panel and orbiting constantly around my character as I create poses and movements. Due to working in this manner, I've never really animated in a 'pose to pose' way or spent much time thinking about it.

Then of course, when you start to animate a shot from a pre-determined viewpoint, the power and absolute necessity of silhouette, staging and composition hit you like a train wreck. I noticed that Maya has no real "animation viewport" and found that working in tear-off panels, or trying to mix and match different views within the program was messy and confusing:


mess !

To remedy this I bought another monitor and wrote the "animation viewport" I feel is crucial to working on a cinematic shot. I have one screen setup as the interactive viewport where I rotate around freely and manipulate the character controls, and another screen almost entirely devoted to a single clutter free and clean representation of the shot I am working on. It works wonderfully. I find because of this I am much less hindered by things being "in the way" and switching between different views and states with Maya... that ultimately gives me more brain time to concentrate on the performance. ( by the way - you don't have to fork out and go dual LCD. I have two 20" CRT monitors, and yeah they take some space but they cost me under $200 for both, and work like a charm. )


much cleaner and more workflow intuitive ( the script creates the large window with the black borders )

I have put this tool online so you can download it and use it if you like. The link has more info on some of the features. You can grab it here:

shotView for Maya

If you're anything like half as messy as me, this will help you out a treat.