INSIDE & UNMISSABLE: DISNEY’S 12 RULES OF ANIMATION
animation U lt i m at e
g u i d e t o 3d
MASTER NEW 3D SKILLS!
196
pages of animation advice!
The secrets of creating amazing 3D animation
F REE VIDEO T UTORIALS
Over 37 hours of training in Max, Maya, Blender & more
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CONTENTS
044
106
031
Contents
1
Pro tips
024 25 animation tips
031 Disney’s 12 principles of animation 044 Character design secrets
Discover the secrets of cutting-edge animation with the world’s leading 3D experts
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CONTENTS
2 3 Setting up
136
Animating
052 Rigging a rat in Blender
088 Animation shortcuts – top tips
120 Lip-sync a cartoon character
058 Animation rigs in Cinema 4D
090 Animating a spacewalk cycle
124 Facial animation in Blender
064 20 character rigging tips
096 10 steps to better walk cycles
130 Animate the Hollywood way
068 Skinning a game character
100 15 ways to be a better animator
136 Animate the Hollywood way – part 2
074 Rig tank tracks in Maya
104 Master the illusion of movement
142 Animation tips for game artists
080 Create a versatile character rig
110 Create an action-packed animation
146 Automate secondary animation
116 Better animation sequences
152 Create light in an animated world
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Dynamics
158 Cloth simulation at Pixar
168 Working with Maya’s nCloth 174 Dynamics in Cinema 4D
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CONTENTS
008
190
014
5 Features Turn over for...
Business advice
182 Kickstart your film!
008 Azureus Rising
188 Animation funding secrets
014 The best animated shorts
190 Profile: Hillary Yeo’s Godaizer
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25 PRO TIPS 25 animation tips
TOP TIPS ON ANIMATION
l? e v e l t x ne e h t o t r n e o d i i t s a n i m ni se a e r h t u o h y t i sw ake t e ng i u o t q d i a t n e n l h a c m e W ro rt f u s o e y l p e i v c Impro guiding prin s… l tips and n professiona o i t a m i n a of Walt foundry e s of th in principle is cades th over de tudios, the 12 in d e d p te lo n eve ation s t prese im rs ssic n fi a la c re ’s n, the ere we Disney given h isney Animatio applicable to n o ti a anim n. As Life: D ey Johnsto sion of hich th nd Ollie rawn 2D for w h of The Illu a in s a rm m fo Tho d-d d eac y Frank are to the han nsidere s guide b u’ve co ey o ce help y th n t e a s u a th q D e g digital 3 eived, checkin ny animation s r work. nc you in a were co ing principles ment in d move n uid a g r e s te e th harac erate c you gen
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01
25 animation tips PRO TIPS
SQUASH AND STRETCH
Your animated objects should compress and stretch as they move. As a simple example, think of a rubber ball that flattens slightly as it hits the ground; but the principle applies equally to muscles in the body, for example. Squash and stretch is most obvious in exaggerated or cartoony animation, but applies to realistic styles too. In realistic animation, the volume of the object should remain constant as it stretches.
R TIP INSIDE as stuck with
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ANTICIPATION
Prepare the audience for a major movement or change. As a simple example, think of a golf swing where you would show the club going backwards first. But you could equally show a character’s head turning towards a door before someone enters the room, or an object becoming the focal point in the camera frame before someone picks it up.
hat’s w just w is You kno in th happen eel going to Will & the Wh om fr e m a fr
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SETTING UP Animation rigs in Cinema 4D
Step-by-step Cinema 4D Character animation
FOR Cinema 4D R12 TIME TAKEN One hour TOPICS COVERED • Inverse kinematics • Forward kinematics • IK/FK blending • Setting up a rig • Controller types
Take control of your animation rigs in Cinema 4D
Steven Maguire introduces the principles behind inverse and forward kinematics, and guides you through some simple techniques for building your first character rig
his tutorial will explore the difference between IK (inverse kinematics) and FK (forward kinematics) animation, their benefits and how and when to use them. IK and FK are both terms used in 3D animation to describe the process of how joints move and their effect on connecting bones. This is best explained using an arm as an example. In FK animation, the position and rotation of the forearm and hand are calculated and controlled by the rotation of the shoulder, which is the parent of them both. In short, FK animation is the control and rotation of child nodes through the movement and rotation of the parent joint. IK animation works in a similar way, but instead of controlling the parent joint, you control the child node; in this case, the hand or wrist joint. As you move and rotate the child node, it will affect its parent joints – the elbow and shoulder – which will move in a more natural and fluid way than with FK. Deciding when to use IK or FK is largely down to personal preference and animation style. There are those who swear by using FK for creating a smooth and perfect arc movement for a walk cycle, and there are those who prefer the subtle and sometimes accidental nuances offered by IK animation. In either case, most animators will tell you that you need access to both systems – and using both has been made much easier. There was a time when mixing IK and FK animation meant creating your own IK/ FK switch or slider – daunting if you were new to rigging – but most 3D packages now only require you to create an IK chain, from which there will be an FK slider ready-made within its modifiers.
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About the author Steven Maguire is animation supervisor at SparkleVFX, specialising in modelling, rigging and animation work sparklevfx.com
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A blend of two So what are the differences when it comes to animating with IK and FK? IK is considered a much more fluid or organic way in which to animate. It may not always be as precise as FK, but it does offer the ability to pose and re-pose characters very quickly, which will always help towards a more realistic movement. IK can also be extremely beneficial when animating awkward movements or gestures like jumping, climbing or raising a hand. These type of movements can be achieved using FK, but would require the movement and rotation of each individual joint, whereas in IK you’re able to simply select the IK goal (which on an arm is the hand) and pull the arm into the position you require. However, one downside of IK being so quick to manipulate is that the animator must be careful not to get lazy. It’s easy to push and pull an IK’d arm into position – and it’s just as easy not to notice you haven’t correctly manipulated the elbow, leaving your character with an inverted arm halfway through the movement. This is where mixing IK and FK becomes useful. For example, a fairly complex movement such as picking up a cup or having a character snatch something from a table can be best achieved by initially using FK then blending in IK animation. In the first stages of the movement, it’s easy to raise the arm and reach out toward the object – a case of rotating
Beneath every great animated character is a great rig. Blending IK and FK gives you more options for animating
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Animation rigs in Cinema 4D SETTING UP
Jargon buster Aim constraint
Null object
Much like the up vector, the aim constraint makes the object or bone at a specified point or object point along the desired axis.
This is an object with no or ‘null’ behaviour or mass in 3D space. If the null object is a copy or conversion of something that has attributes or constraints, the null object will take these on but will not appear in render. They’re normally used as targets for aim or up vector constraints.
Gimbal lock This occurs in 3D animation when two of the world’s axes become aligned and lock, meaning two of the axes have the same rotational properties on an object.
Tweening Short for in-betweening, this is the process of adding intermediate frames between two poses on a timeline to create a smooth, animated image.
Hierarchy A hierarchy consists of one or more objects or bones that are linked together in a top-down construction. The top bone would be the parent of the bone connected beneath it. The bones beneath are referred to as children.
the shoulder and extending the arm in a relatively straight position – using only FK. IK would be used for the second stage of the movement as the fingers, hand and elbow all rotate back toward the chest or face of the character. The elbow would return to the waist but would also rotate the forearm slightly, just as the hand would raise and the wrist would rotate. This is all achievable using FK animation, but blending the two together yields a more fluid and realistic movement more quickly. The same solution can be applied to a walk cycle. The main arc movement of the leg would be controlled by the FK slider, as it’s a simple motion: forwards and back rotating on only one axis. At the point where the leg is fully extended, you could use IK to slightly flare and rotate the foot outward. The trailing leg could then be rotated inward at the knee and the foot made to point upward, giving the walk more of a ‘skating’ feel.
Rig a leg In the following walkthrough, in which I’ll show you how to rig a leg and a foot, I’ll be using Cinema 4D R12. Before beginning to rig a character, it’s always important to make sure its mesh is modelled in the correct position or pose.
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For biped models, this is the T-pose, in which your character is standing in its most natural position, with its arms outstretched, knees slightly bent and head looking forward. The hands should have the palms facing down, with the fingers straight out and slightly bent at the knuckles. For other types of models, such as quadrupeds, you should ensure that they’re standing on all fours with the head aligned perfectly with the spine. If your model has a tail, it should also be aligned horizontally with the spine. If a character has wings then they should be treated as arms and be outstretched as in the T-pose.
Up vector The up vector constraint makes the Y axis of an object or bone point to a specified point or object.
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ANIMATING Master the illusion of movement
Video Guide Maya Animation
FOR Maya TIME TAKEN 12-15 hours TOPICS COVERED • Props • Constraints • Blocking out • Spline animation • Curve editing • Polish ON THE WEB View videos and download source files from: 3dworldmag.com/ animation-guide Password: 3dwa
Includes
2 hours
of workflow video clips
Master the illusion of movement in Maya About the author Seth Gollub is a senior animator at Framestore New York. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he’s now teaching a junior-year animation course framestore.com/ny
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Create a production-quality piece of character animation with this video masterclass, recorded especially for 3D World by Framestore New York’s Seth Gollub www.3dworldmag.com
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Master the illusion of movement ANIMATING
Seth Gollub’s animation shows how to get characters interacting with their environment
nimating a character can be difficult enough. Having your character interact with its environment and additional props adds a degree of complexity to the animation process, but can really sell the shot if done properly. In this tutorial, I’ll guide you through the process of animating a shot in which a character is interacting with several props of different scales. It will be a good animation challenge: you’ll have to show tension in dealing with objects that are small and light, and then with something that is quite large and heavy. One pitfall that new animators sometimes fall into is simply parenting objects to the character’s
A
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hands and leaving it at that. The result is that the props tend to feel stiff and disconnected from the character. I’ll explore some techniques here to help sell the interaction between character and prop, which will make the overall animation feel much more cohesive and solid in turn. This tutorial is an overview of one scene from start to finish. I’ll cover the basics of each step in the process and discuss some of my techniques and methods for animating with props and dealing with tension and weight. The first stage is about gathering reference and planning out the scene; an important step that’s often overlooked in favour of immediately diving right into animation. From there,
I’ll block out the animation, focusing on solid posing and pinning down the timing, after which I’ll spline out the animation before adding final layers of polish and detail on top. The goal is to create a production-quality piece of animation. The desired result is for your character to feel not just like he is holding props, but interacting and performing with them. Thanks to Shayne Ryan from Framestore New York for assisting with lighting and rendering the final animation. The tutorial uses the Andy rig, created by John Doublestein for the Savannah college of Art and Design (creativecrash.com)
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ANIMATING Lighting tips
Expert Tips Any software Animation
FOR Any software
All images © 2007 Disney/Pixar
TOPICS COVERED • Vignetting • Fill lights • Solid base lighting • Global illumination
Follow our expert tips and discover how to light your animated world the Pixar way
How to create light in an animated world Pixar Animation’s Danielle Feinberg reveals how to create cinematic lighting using real-world techniques as employed in the production of WALL•E ighting in computeranimated films has progressed by leaps and bounds over the years. Technology has played a big role, giving us great new tools, things like ambient occlusion and global illumination. The ease with which you can get decent looking images with these techniques makes it tempting to rely on them for the majority of your lighting. This is a common problem we see with student work, where there hasn’t been time or access to learn the more cinematographic approach to lighting. At Pixar we are always striving for as much control over lights and colour as we can get. Instead of
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About the author Danielle Feinberg is a director of photography for lighting at Pixar Animation Studios. She is currently sinking her teeth into the look of her next film, Disney Pixar’s The Bear and the Bow pixar.com
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giving up control to the computer, we always want to drive things, aiming to do something more akin to painting with light. This enables us to use light, composition and colour to help support the story, no matter what the situation. We know that no matter how cool a look is, if it is not an integral part of the story it will do nothing but distract from the movie. The following is a collection of things I’ve learned over my years of lighting at Pixar and applied to the computer-animated film WALL•E. They are key pieces to the whole spectrum of lighting, laying out how to make good cinematographic choices, to go with all the beautiful techniques technology is giving us.
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Lighting tips ANIMATING
01
Use advanced vignettes
01
Vignettes are commonly used to frame a shot and guide the audience’s eye. Many times we see vignetting done with a simple comp operation to add elliptical darkening around the edges of the frame. Consider using more advanced techniques that will give you a vignette-like result without being so heavy handed. If you have walls, floors or large flat surfaces in the background, ramp down the intensity of the light on the surface, darkening it toward the outside edges of the frame. This will give the same result as the composited vignette, but will feel more organic, subtle and successful. Strategic shadows from off-frame buildings or plants can do the same thing, helping you frame the action. If you need to go with a traditional composited vignette, consider doing something more than just an overlay of grey, perhaps using it to effect saturation or colour as well.
02
Illuminate the story
When beginning the lighting for a shot, remember to take the time to ask yourself, “Why is this shot in the movie? What story point is it supposed to tell? How can the lighting help support that?” This may seem like an obvious tip, but it is an issue we see over and over again and is absolutely crucial to good moviemaking. It is very easy to get swept up in trying to make an image look good, forgetting all else. Just imagine this scenario: you have a shot in which some small characters are chasing a car. You get excited about the shot and spend all your time getting the fog from the street lights falling just so, adding awesome star filters on the tail lights of the car, and so on. However, when you play back the shot you realise you can’t even see your characters chasing the car any more. The shot might look absolutely fantastic, but you’ve totally blown the story point.
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Finesse with fill lights
Fill lights are the unspoken heroes of any lighting setup. For successful cinematographic lighting, you must not only direct the viewer’s eye, but also use your lights to give objects excellent structure and shaping. The most obvious part of this comes from the key light, but great shaping on your fill lights will get you a subtle but vital level of finesse in your lighting. A fill that is more of an ambient type source or even just a little flat will still function okay, but you won’t achieve dazzling results. Look at your fill a little more closely, adjust its position so it feathers with the key light and also falls off nicely on the off-key side. Add subtle colour shifts as the fill falls across a surface or finesse how quickly the light falls off across surfaces. Mastering this will also make you better at lighting night or low-key setups where you need to have a lot more control over low-level lights in order to make things look good.
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04
Set your solid base lighting
05
Create your own style
Good fundamentals to your lighting will provide a solid base upon which everything else functions. Bad positioning of your key, fill or bounce can never be overcome. No amount of fancy extras will ever fix the problem of badly placed lights. Try turning off your key light: do your fills and bounces still look good? Is your key light giving you good shaping, and providing an appealing look to the set and characters?
In order to create your own style and unique look, try recreating real life first. Create a single shot and try to make it look as real to life as possible. What components do you think are critical for reality? Push these pieces to determine which ones must be accurate and which ones you can exaggerate to create a different style. >>
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TRAINING Physics-based animation
animation U LT I M AT E
G U I D E T O 3D
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