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ChooChoo ^^

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 23:54:45 +0900

ChooChoo ^^

The Organic Speed-The technical perfection of timing a scene...

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 17:42:15 +0900

The Organic Speed-

The technical perfection of timing a scene including slow in & slow out doesn’t guarantee that the animation is now has sprung to life. While mechanically perfect, the texture of the animated movement might still appear clockwork and mechanical. For life to be invoked, the speed of movement has to feel organic and natural.

This organic texture is very personal and an essential quality that defines an animator. There is no technique that can address this organic speed because it lies beyond the mechanical aspect of movement. It is a ‘feel’ that the eye senses a movement.

However, there are ways to coax the organic speed into the movement by consciously ‘feel’ a designated force prior to animating, then allowing it to subconsciously come across through the animating process by constantly referring to this ‘feel’ as a anchor.

(Here, study sketches for the scene above in ‘My Little WORLD’)

On Slow-in & Slow-out-In a way, slow-in & slow-out is...

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 03:00:03 +0900

On Slow-in & Slow-out-

In a way, slow-in & slow-out is part of the larger ‘timing’ principle, placing attention to the exhilaration and deceleration of movement. While simple in nature, it is often overlooked especially at the earlier stages of learning to animate. Same to the early days of animation, the spacing of drawings tend to be in equal increment, resulting in unnatural one-speed movement from start to stop.

In movement dynamics, a mass takes time to pick up speed and same to slowing down. It is an interaction of cause and effect between force and form.

From a physical outlook, slow-in & slow-out yield information to the strength of force and gravity. And from a deeper sense, it is an important component to performance. It brings grace to movement, carrying emotional info through the control of exhilarating and decelerating duration. Imagine a single musical note is strike on a piano. The way a note lingers and fades away is rooted in the force that strikes it.

It is good to keep in mind to vary and contrast the starting in relation to the stopping speed. For example, if the action is slow to exhilarate then good to have a quicker decelerate (instead of same ratios to starting and stopping).

Most critically, slow-in & slow-out has to stay true to reflect the interplay of physical forces or its expressiveness would be hollowed.

ChooChoo ^^

Wed, 23 Nov 2016 18:16:30 +0900

ChooChoo ^^

On Timing-Much of the vitality in an animated movement is rested...

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 04:39:42 +0900

On Timing-

Much of the vitality in an animated movement is rested in ways that it is timed. With all the 11 principles of animation in place, it is lastly ‘timing’ that make or break a movement.

Timing addresses both mechanic and performance.

From the mechanic aspect, timing should reflect a flow of interacting physical forces between the internal and the external, from one body of mass toward another through the varying speeds.

And since movement is information and a critical element of storytelling, the way a scene is timed greatly affects the interest of a performance, bringing about the underlying emotion that is encased within the physical action.

Cue to timing is rooted in ‘feel’, an essence that is critical to the animator. Feel out the action of a performance and committing to a pattern of flow (like a phrase of music) prior to animating is the anchor to timing a scene.

(Above, a clip from an unfinished short film that I started a very long time ago and am intending to finish some day. And here, a rhino study for the short film)

My feline companion ChooChoo ^^ :D

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 23:08:11 +0900

My feline companion ChooChoo ^^ :D

Interpreting the Animation Principles-Hand-drawn animation...

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 16:25:22 +0900

Interpreting the Animation Principles-

Hand-drawn animation requires all 3 conditions- solid draftsmanship, fluid mechanics and compelling performance to enable a character to life.

And in the pursuit of these conditions, some distinctive patterns emerged. They were noted by the master animators from the Disney Studios back in the earlier time and written into the 12 principles of animation.

When studying animation, the 12 principles become a technical guideline and often taken at given surface values. For example, ‘squash-and-stretch’ is necessary to keep the movement pliable, organic and not stiff-looking. A body part must squash and stretch from a technical point-of-view. But it really is much more than that and has much to do with how an animator senses a feel of mass in relation to force.

I feel it is very resourceful to question the principles, to fully understand how certain principle came to be from a more personal perspective. Through this in-depth understanding, an animator can truly apply them effectively, and in turn, adding new personal revelations.

(Above, my very first scene for the industry from Disney’s ‘Rescuers- Down Under’. I was animating more on instinct for most of my earlier time and not as consciously aware to the underlying nature of movements, causing me to be much slower at arriving to a result…)

Production Approach to Clean-up Animation 02-A hand-drawn...

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:35:33 +0900

Production Approach to Clean-up Animation 02-

A hand-drawn character has to stay consistent in movement textures while looking on-model, flowing seamlessly from scene to scene as if just one animator created it.

And in feature production, maintaining a character’s look to be on-model is very achievable. However, to maintain a consistency to the movement texture of such surface details like clothing articles are more challenging within a group effort, because each animator will likely sense the flow of such particular fabric differently.

There are 2 ways to overcome this difficulty. One is to enable a single animator to handling a block of successive scenes. Another is to have just one designated assisting animator to tie-down a block of scenes and addressing the overall follow-through while following the established character performance in the rough pass from the various animators.

When viewing a classic Disney film such as Snow White, each character looked, moved and feels very consistently as if just one animator animated the entire character. From my observation, the clean-up process was quite different back in those days. The role of the animator was to arrive at the essence of a performance, opting to leave out many surface movement details undefined. The rough animation is then followed up by the assistant animator, putting character into final model and completing the remaining surface animation such as clothing articles.

The assistant animator in this production approach is very well capable at animating and only missing the ability to generate a compelling performance.

In the above clip from July Films ‘My Little WORLD’, the scenes were animated by 3 different animators (my friends Steve Wong, Casey Alexander and Michael Koizumi); each kept rough with right characters proportion but not needing to be exact on model. I tie-down the 3 scenes and the final clean-up lines by my other friends.

My cat ChooChoo ^^

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 17:13:04 +0900

My cat ChooChoo ^^

Production Approaches to Clean-up Animation 01-The sensibilities...

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 00:09:22 +0900

Production Approaches to Clean-up Animation 01-

The sensibilities required of the clean-up artist is differs pending on production preferences. In our presence time, the animator is required to keep the animation drawings very well defined, fairly clean and on-model.

The clean-up artist follows the animator’s line very closely and narrowed it down to a final line with precision to steadiness, thickness and density. The clean-up work is tuned to the technical side of drawing mechanic, adding finer model details, refining volume consistency and perspective in motion, not on surface movement texture as this task was entrusted solely to the animator.

In this approach, if one animator is handling a block of scenes then a consistency is maintained. But due to production schedule, often animators get assigned disjointed scene within a sequence of film. The result is that while the character is looking on-model, it is often appearing inconsistent on film due to the differences of interpretation to surface follow-through from scene to scene by the many animators working on same sequence.

It is quite different when greater responsibility was entrusted to the assistant animator in the clean-up task, where the ability to animate also a requirement to help maintaining consistency to surface look of movement throughout a sequence.

(This was my very first scene for Brad bird’s ‘The Iron Giant’, assisted by my late friend June Nam who was my Lead Key for this project :D )

Clean-up Animation-It is often the case that when rough...

Sun, 14 Aug 2016 03:06:46 +0900

Clean-up Animation-

It is often the case that when rough animation go through clean-up, a bit of the vitality is lost when view in motion comparing to the rough stage. In true, each step in the process should bring the animation to further refinements and the last clean-up stage is the important final statement.

By nature, the clean-up process requires the precision of shape definition and steady line-work. This step is more technical and since the focus is to clearly define each individual drawing, its relation to motion can often be overlooked. In such instances, the texture of the animated movement is compromised and appearing stifled.

One explanation to why the rough seems to have more vitality than the clean-up is that rough has more lines, deceptively appearing lively in playback with vibrating line-textures in motion. With that said, the clean-up line styling is part of the art direction for the final film-look. The line can be precise and smooth or rough-looking. The choice of pencil or mechanical pencil, digital brush type is also part of the final texture.

However the technical choices, it is very resourceful to always keep in mind the feels to movement for every building step till the final screen result. To maintain the organic feel to movement, the attention is placed not just on the line-work but just as much on the breathing of shapes that the line encompassed.

(Above, a scene from ‘My Little WORLD’, a hand-drawn feature that I’ve been working on for quite some time now :D )

More on Rough Tie-down and Prep for Clean-up-For me, the rough...

Fri, 15 Jul 2016 18:44:24 +0900

More on Rough Tie-down and Prep for Clean-up-

For me, the rough animation stage is consisting of rough first pass and tie-down prior to clean-up and on to ink & paint.

Once the drawings for rough first pass are made, it is to be pencil-test and timed. The rough timing is then marked onto each drawing with corresponding frame exposure.

Next is to select the extremes. The numbers of extremes are depending on the complexity of the movement. It is my habit to have many extremes within a scene (to achieve a more organic and spontaneous feel).

Only extremes are to be tie-down. Each drawing ID number is named after its placement within the scene’s frame count (instead of systematic 1,2,3,4, etc.) The rough-pass inbetweens are discarded and replaced by timing chart based on their rough position and exposure.

Once the tie-down extremes are made, it is then re-inbetween for further review. Not all tie-down inbetweens are necessary, just enough for the animator to be certain of scene’s fluidity and its info through movement is reading as intended.

While these tie-down inbetweens don’t need to be as precise and accurate as the clean-up inbetweens, they are nonetheless time-consuming and not a direct part of final on-screen outlook. (It is resourceful to keep this in mind from a production managing viewpoint.)

Extreme drawings are indicated by a circle around their drawing number and often accompanied by a timing chart. This clear identification is very critical for the final clean-up stage.

Tie-down Animation (Animation Workflow 09)-The tie-down process...

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 18:02:47 +0900

Tie-down Animation (Animation Workflow 09)-

The tie-down process begins with selecting extremes from the rough pass. Only extreme drawings are to be tie-down.

The inbetween drawings in the rough pass are discarded. Its timing and placement is reassigned to the new tie-down extremes through the timing chart. It is then re-inbetween by using the new tie-down extremes. In this stage, the scene doesn’t need to be fully inbetween, just enough to read the movement info clearly and pending on the animator’s personal preference.

It is very resourceful to roll the drawings and see motion as the rough extremes are being tie-down. This condition will enable the tie-down line to fall into the right placement aerodynamically, in turn, generating a more organic flow to movement’s texture.

Unlike the loose rough stage, tie-down animation requires the discipline of drawing aesthetics and therefor taking longer time to create. Since the focus is on transforming the rough into a solidly defined drawing, it is easy to lose sight of its relation to movement and treating it as a still drawing. For this instance, the final result might appearing stiff, mechanical and doesn’t breathe organically.

Once the extremes are tie-downed with all the necessary in-between, the scene then go through one final timing check. Sometimes finer timing adjustment is needed before sending to clean-up.

Here, ‘Blue’ the main character in ‘My Little WORLD’ as seen through the various stages. And from the clip above ‘Tiny’ is Blue’s best friend, animated by Natalie Kim and I did the tie-down :D

Hello Mike, I was wondering if you did the clean-up on the shot of the Iron Giant you posted on Animation workflow 8?I am asking because I was wondering why there often is less life(here I am not very specific since I am not quite sure what is it exactly that is different) in a clean up then a tie down? Thanks a lot for this blog it is always very fascinating to read your posts.

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 02:39:56 +0900

Hello Jerome ~ Thank you very much for your very kind feedback ^^ I did the tie-down rough for the shot you’ve mentioned but not the clean-up. In recent industry’s standard, animator is required to tie-down the rough animation, making it clear for the final clean-up lines to follow. The clean-up drawing is what you see in the theater (not the animator’s actual drawing).

The different is that the tie-down line-works can be a bit looser and scratchy with some finer info of character’s model maybe left out. This is then follow-up by the clean-up artist. Here, the line-work of the drawing has to be meticulously clean, steady in thickness and density with no open gaps within a color regent of a character model.

You are right that often the surface texture of a clean-up scene appearing less lively. There are many reasons for that- most notable is the the tie-down rough generally has more pencil lines, giving them an extra textural movement that makes the animation feels more lively (sometimes deceptively).

But the main problem is that clean-up works put major emphasis on the solid single drawing and often overlooked it’s relation to movement, making the final result appearing stiff in motion while technically sound when view as a single frame.

In a way, it is like photocopying, for every step away from the 1st generation, the image is degenerated a little.

With all that said, yes there are ways to keep the clean-up animation just as lively and vibrant (but it will be different from the rough by its physical conditions) :D

Pleasant day to you ^^

Here, a sample of rough & clean-up from my work-in-progress feature ‘My Little WORLD’ ^^

Analyzing Rough Pass (Animation Workflow 08)-In a way, rough...

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 01:10:01 +0900

Analyzing Rough Pass (Animation Workflow 08)-

In a way, rough pass is like a moving thumbnail and enabling a much closer evaluation to the scene’s intention.

Rough pass is not meant to be perfect in detail; rather it aims to give the overall impression of a scene in broad stroke with minimal time loss. After the drawings are timed, the performance choice can now be analyzed for its effectiveness prior to tying scene down (for which is most time consuming in the animating process).

In this sample scene from Brad Bird’s ‘The Iron Giant’, I was thinking of a young mind being very curious, energized and playful at finding a mystery. After feeling scene out and made some exploratory thumbnails, I made a quick take 1 rough pass and proceeded to show Brad for feedback. He thought the performance choice was too active and would like to see much subtler. In take 2, I toned down the arms movement but now there is a spatial separation between face and flashlight, inadvertently making the scene busier with 2 focal points- face and flashlight. And so I tried another rough take keeping flashlight minimal and secondary by positioning it to bottom edge of frame. I choose to show take 3 to the director and all was good to proceed to tie-down…

Rough Timing (Animation Workflow 07)-Timing has to communicate...

Sat, 04 Jun 2016 04:05:44 +0900

Rough Timing (Animation Workflow 07)-

Timing has to communicate the emotion encoded within the movement and finding the right feel to an action in relation to the scene length. Soon as the roughs can be taken to pencil test, the scene foundation can be properly analyzed and built on.

Timing takes its cue from the original committed ‘feel’ to the flow of force prior to animating. Without being in touch to this origin, timing a scene can become lost and confusing.

To start with, rough drawings are exposed evenly on 2’s, on 4’s or on 8’s pending on faster or slower action. This step enables the animator to view the raw speed of the animation. From here, timing can be adjusted through 24 fps playback and frames can then be added or taken out based on the feel of velocity visually.

Generally, greater adjustment to adding or shorten frames to fit an intended scene length can be made at slower phrases of movement. At faster phrase, there is less flexibility as the timing needs to be just right (not too fast to become abrupt and not too slow to be sluggish).

The timing of one phrase in a movement can affect the timing of other phrases within a scene. Speeding up in one part might require another section to take more time. The flow of a scene can also be overall faster or slower in comparable ratios.

The animation should be set to the right scene fielding prior to timing. A movement can appear correct in closer field but if zoom out, it will appears slower in relation to the film frame.

When viewing scene in a playback loop, it is helpful to add 12 blank frames at end of scene to visually breaking up the loop, giving a clear starting and stopping point to accurately read the scene’s flow. It is also resourceful to keep in mind that viewing a scene in a loop is quite different from viewing a scene just once on-screen in context to a sequence.

Hello! My name is Jacob Wells, and I wanted to thank you. I just stumbled onto your blog, and I have to say this is what I have been searching for, for so long. I am trying to learn to be a character designer and animator in my spare time and your blog really inspires me to continue my journey. Thank you for making this. I don't have enough words in my head to express my level gratitude toward your generosity. Have a wonderful day.

Fri, 27 May 2016 13:35:40 +0900

Thank you very much Jacob ^^ Your very kind feedback helped reassure me that my writing is communicating in some ways and within general interests…I’m most grateful :D

Wishing you the very best to your creative journey ^^

Keeps Rough (Animation Workflow 06)-It is resourceful to keep...

Wed, 25 May 2016 02:06:47 +0900

Keeps Rough (Animation Workflow 06)-

It is resourceful to keep the initial animation pass to be rough and loose or with simplified structure. This would allow the animator to quicker establish a rough movement foundation. The sooner a scene can be view in motion, the sooner its effectiveness can be evaluated without losing much time to drawing aesthetic at this point.

Animation is built on single frame and there is a tendency to make each frame perfect before moving on to the next. It is good to be reminded that doesn’t matter how beautiful each single drawing is, if the overall movement doesn’t communicate then all efforts is lost.

Keeps rough enable the animator to search for the right ‘feel’ in less time. They can be untidy and missing finer details, long as the general character’s proportion is maintained within range.

Another approach is to keep structure simplified in stick figure. The weakness here is that while the gestural movement can be effectively addressed, the feel of mass is missing.

Delayed Parts (Animation Workflow 05)-Once a leading compartment...

Thu, 12 May 2016 16:15:51 +0900

Delayed Parts (Animation Workflow 05)-

Once a leading compartment in a character is established, the attention is turned to addressing delayed parts. Like a chain reaction, the parts follow the lead compartment in an orderly manner, from being faster near the lead cause to successively slower away.

There are 2 conditions to be considered- the unfolding order and the corresponding velocity (spacing) of each compartment and joint. In a way, it is follow-through & overlapping working together with slow-in & slow-out within a character’s structure, generating a very organic feel to the movement. When an animated movement looked rigid and unnatural, it is likely that all the parts start and stop all at the same time.

In this sample from a scene I made for Brad Bird’s ‘The Iron Giant’, Hogarth looked to his right side with hand holding a flashlight. There is a potential problem that both head and flashlight lead at the same time, causing the action to feel too busy or mechanical.

This scene has 2 phrases. It begins in mid-motion with eyes already locked onto screen right, coming to a very short pause. While the whole body is at full stop, eyes initiate a new direction toward screen left.

Eyes come to a stop (1). Head follows lead, then shoulder, body and arm with flashlight. Head exhilarates slower into speed, in contrast to flashlight moving faster with one frame stretch. This accent allows flashlight to be louder and takes lead from the face area for a slit moment in a more supportive role. Flashlight comes to abrupt stop (2). Face retakes focal point, taking time slowing into stop creating contrast in speed. Rib-cage comes into stop (3); head continues its path and stop last (4).

When animating, I’m not at all analytical and consciously implementing all these to do list in its rightful order, but letting the leading force to dictate the natural unfolding of all components, only becoming analytical when viewing pencil-test.

Could you be able to post the scenes you did for Belle on Beauty and the Beast please?

Tue, 03 May 2016 16:09:42 +0900

Hello there ^^ Thank you very much for your inquiry but I afraid I failed your request. Although I was credited under ‘Belle’ in Disney’s ‘Beauty & the Beast’, my contribution to the character was embarrassingly minimal. In true, I was rather ineffective in this production and didn’t quite fit in. I did many incidental scenes for the film before settling into the Belle unit (but more on paper than in practical terms). When I think of Belle, I think of James Baxter, the lead animator who shaped her to be the memorable character on screen along with his unit.

It was my 3^rd production for the Disney Studio at the time, right after the college years. I was much younger, idealistic and perhaps not as reasonable. I was not especially prepared creatively for the industry sensibility, since this was not my chosen path in life. Rather, I was more interested in a personal connection to animation and life.

And so here sharing with you is an image of the twirling napkins. It was the very first set of scenes I made for the production (a personal memory to my relation with this film).