Planning, planning, planning.
Importance of planning: “In order for the audience to be entertained by the characters, the shots need to be appealing in composition, posing, rhythm and phrasing, and contain acting choices that feel fresh.”
Emotional choices, acting.
What happens before the shot, during and after, in order to keep continuity across the shots.
12 rules:
1. Character does not always need to be in motion, actually, juxtaposition with still (moment of stillness) poses works best.
2. Dialogue doesn’t drive action, but thought does. Establish the emotional state of the character.
What are the main emotional poses? Decide on the timing of the changes between the emotional states.
3. The melody
base = main poses
middle = overlapping actions leading into and out of main poses and eight shift to support small gestures
high = non-verbal body movement (head, shoulders, eyes)
moments of stillness = punctucations
“character’s performance like a song—layering rhythms on top of each other to create interesting texture and timing within your animation. “
4. HANG TIME just like a bouncing ball, loosing its energy when boundsic back and getting stack in the air
HANG TIME = the thought processing moment, there must be a time allowed for the shift between emotions
5. Create a neutral pose for your character (Do not naimate on default T pose of the rig)
What are the character’s main traits?
6. What’s the style of the movement? Style fo the movement gives away about the charchters personality.
e.g.:
Spanish flamenco dancer Buzz Lightyear Toy Story.
redefining non-vanilla walkcycle (sassy, drunk, confident etc)
7. The line of action to create expressions.
face
shoulder lines
hip lines
Contrapposto is an italian term, and is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot.
Contraposition: one side is stretched while the other side of the face is squashed
8. MOVE THAT BODY : Sincerity of the feelings to be expressed through an entire body movement, not only a face.
exaggerate the TY (Translate Y) value in the hips to connect the lower body more to the performance, which enhances the emotional delivery
9. EXAGERATION + extreme poses + smear
juxtaposition of opposites (extreme balanced out with subtle) that gives the animation MORE energy and life
10. Thoughts no words
When a scene does have dialogue, a great trick to figuring out how to animate to a character’s thoughts is to write out the actual dialogue on paper, leaving spaces between the lines. Then, in a different color, write what the character is *thinking* right below what they’re saying.