Blockage
I want to be better at blocking out my shots.
For me, roughing in the animation is by far the most important part of the shot process, and completely sets up the shot for success or... well, not failure as such, but definitely something not as good as success. If I can get this working consistently then I think I'll be doing OK.
I have my ideas and my drawings and childlike enthusiasm, so that's a good start. I just need to plop them into my shot in a meaningful way that conveys my intent to the creative leads. In fact, putting the keys in is usually fine too (given my job and all), but how much further to go to sell the idea and win people over to my way of thinking? It is this balance that is a tricky sucker to grab hold of. On one hand you can rough in very little and risk not getting your idea across, and on the other putting too much detail would really hurt you if it's not quite the right idea and changes are required - you have wasted all that time!
With good blocking the rest of the animation process can proceed very smoothly, and the shot should be done in no time. As a computer animation student, myself and everyone else I know didn't block, and relied on layering things up. While this is a perfectly valid way of working, looking back now I found it harder to get the intent of the performance over quickly, for I would change one thing and then have to redo some work that I had already thought was complete. Unlearning this and going all "Old School" has certainly helped me to think about things in a new and better way. There is a reason why this is an established convention in traditional animation!
I definitely play blocking a little more cautiously than many, I would wager. I'm a pretty slow animator, as the species goes, so having to change things is a time drain that I really don't want to have to deal with. Hopefully with practice I will be able to hit the balance every time, and help me make the whole process faster and smoother.
For me, roughing in the animation is by far the most important part of the shot process, and completely sets up the shot for success or... well, not failure as such, but definitely something not as good as success. If I can get this working consistently then I think I'll be doing OK.
I have my ideas and my drawings and childlike enthusiasm, so that's a good start. I just need to plop them into my shot in a meaningful way that conveys my intent to the creative leads. In fact, putting the keys in is usually fine too (given my job and all), but how much further to go to sell the idea and win people over to my way of thinking? It is this balance that is a tricky sucker to grab hold of. On one hand you can rough in very little and risk not getting your idea across, and on the other putting too much detail would really hurt you if it's not quite the right idea and changes are required - you have wasted all that time!
With good blocking the rest of the animation process can proceed very smoothly, and the shot should be done in no time. As a computer animation student, myself and everyone else I know didn't block, and relied on layering things up. While this is a perfectly valid way of working, looking back now I found it harder to get the intent of the performance over quickly, for I would change one thing and then have to redo some work that I had already thought was complete. Unlearning this and going all "Old School" has certainly helped me to think about things in a new and better way. There is a reason why this is an established convention in traditional animation!
I definitely play blocking a little more cautiously than many, I would wager. I'm a pretty slow animator, as the species goes, so having to change things is a time drain that I really don't want to have to deal with. Hopefully with practice I will be able to hit the balance every time, and help me make the whole process faster and smoother.
posted by Kevan at
2/01/2006 06:17:00 PM
6 Comments:
i have had to learn about animation largely on my own, (with a little help from a certain yoghurt-loving welshman) but blocking, i have come to realize, is key. my timing isn't as crisp as it could be, but on my current shot, i wouldn't have been able to get the timing right without spending literally 3 days on blocking. i spent that time tweaking the poses for clarity and pushing groups of keys around to get the thing to work.
i get nervous when i have to start offsetting things so that it doesn't all hit at once. i know that once i do that, i need to have the timing pretty-much nailed because it's gonna be a lot harder to change after that. hopefully if you've paid attention up to this point,it should pay off.
great post
-drew
By
Drew, at 7:40 AM
Yeah, I learnt pretty much on my own too, for although my Uni degree had "Computer Animation" in the title, it was really a TD making course for clever people. The efforts put to the creative side of things were rather, well, crappy to be brutally honest.
Looking back, I think I had an eye for animation, but I didn't have the brain, and it wasn't until starting work at PDI that I actually started to *learn* the medium, (and this was two degrees later!)
By
Kevan, at 7:46 AM
I'm a big convert to getting good solid blocking as soon as possible to get your ideas across. I recently did a couple of classes of AM and there was a big emphasis on the blocking stage and limiting the amount of work the computer does for you. We were told to think of each pose as drawings and make sure that they were clear and read well. Although I'm not in the same leage as you fellas its good practice to do this no matter what the level. It'll save a load of aggro further down the line as I've learnt on many occasions.
By
Mathew Rees, at 7:49 AM
I'm becoming a convert to the blocking phase too but I'm still having a psychological bump in the road when it comes to finishing the shot (IE converting to splines and the attendant my-god-it-looks-like-crap phase that invariably follows).
Maybe you could get into a little more specifics on your workflow... (I know this varies from person to person but it's always good to get a new point of view).
By
Paul, at 10:32 AM
I know I'm just a mere rookie at this, only being in the industry for less than a year now, but I do agree blocking is key, however I feel that getting your idea to communicate and how the timing will work should move rather quickly. In any given shot, there so many ways things can be done its hard to really know or feel your using the strongest one. Theres a big difference to me between rough blocking and blocking. I'll tend to rough in my poses and timing, keeping everything as clean and minimal as possible, and throw those poses around using different timing, leading different ways, etc,etc, pretty much experimenting. this is of course after I feel out what I'm doing and throw down several thumbnails. Once thats working, and the directors approve, then I feel confident in going into those poses and spending the time to really make them strong.
To me this is one of the advantages of CG (although it can easily fall into one of its biggest disadvantages if your not careful)
Imagine if someone wanted a characer design of a nasty old witch. Would u have a better chance finding that 'one' by thinking and thinking and thinking about it, then carefully and tediously drawing one badass looking witch who may or may not be what your director/superior, whatever was looking for? Or presenting 30 or 40 rough sketches of a witch and then spending time on the one he/she responded to the best?
Thats just my two cents, or maybe thats worth only 1 cent, or some lint. Theres my two pieces of lint.
By
McGovernment, at 1:09 PM
Specifics on my workflow?
Hmmm, well, I don't think I'm doing anything that everyone else doesn't do. I put some stepped keys in, that may or may not look awful after I then change the curve type, and then have to work into stuff a lot so that it's begins to look OK!
I often add a few little inbetweens at the blocking stage (for the head, or body etc) just to sell an idea, and this helps when converting the curves.
By
Kevan, at 3:10 PM
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