Tuesday Tip: Scaling Keys

If you’re scaling, keys end up on weird in-between frames. Make sure to “snap” them to whole numbers before moving on.

Animate the Whole Face

Quick little tip I wanted to post. One of the biggest issues I see with people first starting animation (and especially when animating dialogue) is they don't think of the whole face as a unit. And I was a victim of this as well when I first started. I needed the characters' mouth to open, so I grab the jaw controller, open it up and move along. Not once thinking about how the face works and how its connected. Open your mouth as wide as you can right now....what happens? You probably widened your eyes, raised your eyebrows, your mouth corners pulled in...the whole face is involved. Think about the face as a whole unit, not just one jaw controller you open & close - it will breath so much more life into your animation.

Quick and dirty example I made - see how much more life there is once you start involving the whole face

iStabilizer

I wanted to use this post to plug the iStabilizer. I shoot video reference a lot and having a quick and handy camera tripod is very key. Most of the time I just use my phone to film reference & this little guy is compatible with most all phones. I also like how you can bend & shape the legs into different shapes, this allows for a lot of flexibility when positioning the camera. It's only $21, definitely worth it if you're into filming reference :D

Composition

One thing I find that often plagues animators that are just starting out, besides forgetting to bathe cause they are animating too much, is composition. What is compositoin you say? Well lets go to the dictionary.

composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art or a photograph, as distinct from the subject of a work. It can also be thought of as the organization of the elements of art according to the principles of art.

Well that was wordy and boring...so what does it mean & how does that apply to animation? Composition has to do with where characters/objects are on the screen, within the frame of the shot. Too often than not, I see animators import a couple of rigs, throw in a camera and start animating. But why is the camera there? Why are the characters standing where they are? What is the composition? Why am I asking all these questions?  Thought and planning should go into your composition just like it does in your acting choices. When you go see a Pixar movie, they didn't just barf the characters & cameras onto the screen...at least..I hope they didn't. Lots of thought and time goes into where they should be in relation to each other & where the camera should be. Here are some tips, examples, & rules... don't worry there are images, cause reading text is boring.

Fill Your Frame - You don't want the viewer to have to squint to make out what they are looking at. If the character is the focus of your shot...make sure you can see them. Now, sometimes having a character small on screen can be used for dramatic effect, but if this character is talking or doing an important action, make sure we can see em

Rule of Thirds - The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) You want to place your main points of interest at the intersections or along the lines. Now this is a rule...and if I've learned anything in my days, its that rules are meant to be broken. So don't think you have to follow this all the time. But its good to understand the rules, so if you do break them you can intelligently talk about why you did.

Mood - This is a big one, you can use the angle/position of your camera to help evoke an emotion or mood. If your character is happy or sad, using a camera to help tell this will only make your animation that much better.
Placing a camera at a low angle looking up makes the subject look more powerful/strong. Vice versa, looking down at a character makes them feel more weak/helpless.

Positioning the character off to the side can create the feeling of loneliness and isolation.

Pushing the camera close in on a character can create a more intimate feeling.

Lines - You can use lines to help lead the viewers eyes to important parts of the shot.

These are just some examples and ideas. I highly recommend that everyone who is interested in animating try and learn more about composition! Here's a link that has even more info, cause you don't want to listen to me carry on all day. Happy Animating!

Helpful Hints: Shortcuts!

Working in the video game industry, the name of the game is usually speed. Turnarounds can be very fast and being able to animate quickly is key. Something I find very helpful for animating more quickly is setting up shortcuts. I didn't use many shortcuts when I first started animating, but now I swear by them. If I find myself starting to use a certain function repeatedly, I'll create a shortcut for it. You'd be surprised how much time you can save by not having to navigate through windows & menus.

Here's an image and quick breakdown of the main shortcuts I use. Depending on the shot, I'll sometimes add more specific ones having to do with the rig (selecting controls, hiding body parts, etc)

 For those who don't know, you can customize your own shortcuts in Maya by going to
Window/Settings&Preferences/HotKey Editor
Here it lists all of Mayas default commands and you can Assign New Hotkeys to them. Using the bottom portion you can also create custom ones with your own commands.

Helpful Hints: Mute It!

Here's tip I often use to see how my animation is working. Turn off the sound. By muting the audio it really forces you to focus on the characters acting/emotions. It shouldn't just be the audio that tells us what the charactesr are saying/thinking it should also be their body langues, gestures, facial expressions, etc, etc. Here's a video I made that really showcases this. It goes through some clips from movies/tv, but without any audio. Notice how you still fully understand the emotions the characters are feeling & are still able to follow along with whats going on. If you're working on an animation, try muting it and see if you can still understand what the characters are thinking/feeling.