Consistency of Image Over Time

[Sierra Rose]

I love both these comments so much as you men are describing most of my life every day.

Tweening is actually a lot fun for me now that I have accepted the labor of animation. It just tickles me to do it.

And you can't help but add something here and there when you trace...make the eyes squint a little here or shift the pupils a bit there. Life is born.

[idragosani]

Tweening is almost a lost art with 2D vector and 3D CG animation taking over everywhere

[slowtiger]

I remember that one of my first films completey hand-drawn featured a character about 2 cm high in the beginning of the film, then shrinking down to less than 1 cm over time ... It is a common mistake that everyone has to overcome.

Others already mentioned several tricks to keep size and volume of characters consistant. Since I did a lot of assistant and inbetween work, I should mention some more tricks:

1. Keeping a spare layer (like Paul) helps a lot. Recently I aquired the habit to copy certain poses of important body parts into that layer and even copy it into different scenes. That way consistency is assured over the whole project. This is like having a pose sheet pinned to your drawing board (a pose sheet collects some useful extremes of one character, in addition to the model sheet, which just defines the non-exaggerated proportions.) Note: when starting a scene with your character in a different size, adapt the size of the pose sheet first.

2. As much as I like tracing and using the lightbox, it is much better to flip through your drawings to control the volumes. This is common advice, my animation teacher said something along the lines of "nobody who still uses tracing paper is an animator, animation starts with flipping". When I do keys and breakdowns, I work out the poses, then go through the whole scene and correct the volumes. Only then I do cleanup and inbetweens. (In Mirage, I only can do that as long as my poses are not spread over time.)

3. One of the drawbacks of digital animation is the non-ability to take the animation "off the pegs". This was a useful trick in the days of pencil and paper: you could arrange the sheets in a way that the body part you wanted to check lay on top of each other, no matter how much your character turned and flipped. Checking a revolving body is the most difficult task in Mirage. Last week finally I had an idea which is at least helpful for the flatscreen and cintiq users: I trace the body part I want to check on a piece of cel, and this piece I place on the cintiq wherever the body appears in a frame. After all it doesn't matter if I draw over or under it when all layers are equally transparent!

4. Tracing non-moving parts is helpful, but on the other hand it may lead to what Paul calls "cut-out look". I know that I am always in danger to fall into that trap since I was used to break up characters into several layers, so sometimes I try to animate like that from the start. At least it is not a good idea to already paste body parts in rough animation. If something's not moving, just leave it out. Any holds may be pasted later in the cleanup stage of your workflow.

Bear in mind that these tricks apply for the very clean industry style animation I was trained in. A loose style like Paul's or Klaus' could get away with a lot more difference in the frames.

I know that I have a copy of official studio guidelines for inbetweeners somewhere. If I accidentially dig it up, I'll post it here, if you're interested.

[Paul Fierlinger]

A loose style like Paul's or Klaus' could get away with a lot more difference in the frames.

In my case I have developed this style deliberately for that purpose. Disney developed his style to assure that with the expected volume of turnovers among big studio crews he would have a style that was easy for anybody to imitate. He did such a good job of it that people are imitating his style to this day -- long after his own studio has abandoned 2D animation entirely.

I developed my shaky line style to adapt to paperless drawing on a Wacom tablet, quirky stories to allow for quirky changes in volume of characters, diametrically changing characteristics of drawings and painted backgrounds from one scene to the next to allow for the insertion of last minute script changes... all of this stuff I deliberately created to allow myself to work fast yet become protected from problems associated with unexpected changes that pop up in the process of a lengthy project in a one man studio (yes, I even think about that; Q: what if something happened and I had to even paint my own scenes in the middle of a film? A: I ask Sandra to change painting schemes throughout the film.)

This is why animators shouldn't imitate what they see others do. In the end it will bog them down because they won't be able to imitate another studio work flows. When young animators imitate styles they are attracted to by watching TV or going to the movies, they are setting themselves up for failure. I read books instead, because writers teach me how to tell a story.

[masterchief]

Paul,

I still have Tulip clips and series of clips and project files for Slocum.. they are simply marvelous and a treat to view.
You are the master. I have purchased MANY training DVD in area of 3d animation software usage. Your work would go a really long way in areas of 2d animation and would help increase sales for your software of choice!

I would purchase any DVD you sell

regards,
William

[Paul Fierlinger]

How about Mirage 2.0?

[masterchief]

LOL... I am actually laughing out loud here..

your animation work, silly
Any training material would be wonderful contribution to animation community, IMHO. Are you still teaching classes???


regards,
William

[Paul Fierlinger]

I'm still laughing at that joke myself!!

I am entering exploratory discussions with my producers right now, inspired by that N.Y.Times article by Paul Krugman, to create a coffee table size book and a series of DVDs explaining how I arrived at the film's style, what led me to paperless animation and then I would go into minute details about how I worked out certain problems -- so that the bundle would turn out to be a huge tutorial. The problem though will always remain that we 2D animators and software developers and marketeers are a very, very tiny market (thus consumer) niche.

I would have to figure out ways to make this book/DVD package attractive to other branches of the art industry such as illustrators, educators and advertising agencies, to create a wider range of potential buyers. I would have to bring out critical thoughts about the way art is taught in American schools, the way art is badly perceived by most add agency creatives ... so much to research and put together while venturing straightaway into the next feature film ...

[Sierra Rose]

A huge start would have been all that amazing material you posted over time on the Bauhaus forum. I still feel an ache when I think of that loss. If I'd known they were going to ditch that treasure hold, I would have done a lot of downloading of your posts.

You generously passed on so much of your knowledge for other animators. It would be a real gift if you did such a book.
2D animators are a small bunch now, but in future it may call to more artists.

Is there such a thing as a research grant for art projects? When you are done with Slocum....ah, I dream.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Grants are welfare for artists... I'll take a grant if there is no delivery of work attached to it, but I have refused to take welfare checks even under the Communists. My thinking is, if I can't make something that enough people are willing to pay for to make it pay enough for me to make, I won't take a grant; and if I can get paid for my work I don't need a grant. I've received a few fellowship grants in recent years that have been offered me for the body of my work and I took those with a sense of pride, but there were no conditions attached.

[Sierra Rose]

I disagree grants are welfare, unless it is the welfare of the society as a whole. Many wonderful works have been funded by grants that would not have been born otherwise.

But then I've never had a grant myself and I certainly would have trouble with the "strings".... being the independent cuss that I am.

[idragosani]

I am entering exploratory discussions with my producers right now, inspired by that N.Y.Times article by Paul Krugman, to create a coffee table size book and a series of DVDs explaining how I arrived at the film's style, what led me to paperless animation and then I would go into minute details about how I worked out certain problems -- so that the bundle would turn out to be a huge tutorial. The problem though will always remain that we 2D animators and software developers and marketeers are a very, very tiny market (thus consumer) niche.

Funny... I hadn't seen this discussion about books when I asked the question about books in the "LInks" board. Now your response about your meeting becomes even clearer

[idragosani]

Others already mentioned several tricks to keep size and volume of characters consistant.

I'll throw in my 2 cents here also... when designing your character, learn how to draw a turnaround. This is essential when creating character sheets for other animators, but it definitely helps even if you are just doing it for yourself, at least until you have mastered the concept and have gained more experience. With a turn around, you are drawing your character in full view from different angles. Start with the standard fromt 3/4 view, then to the left of the front 3/4 view you draw a front view, then to the right of the front 3/4 view you draw a side view, then to the far right you have a rear 3/4 view. So your line up will be this:

[Front] [Front 3/4] [Side] [Rear 3/4]

If you turn on the graph in TVPaint, you will be able to line up the features, joints, etc., fairly precisely and it will help keep the volumes as well. If you draw each view on a separate layer, you can do some tracing and then adjusting.

Here's a rough one I did for a character design class (it has some issues, it was my first attempt, and done in Mirage). I also used a green box to help keep head proportions right. Once you do this more and more and more, it will be come second nature after a while, and then you can get away from the formula and loosen things up!

[Paul Fierlinger]

I disagree grants are welfare, unless it is the welfare of the society as a whole. Many wonderful works have been funded by grants that would not have been born otherwise.

But then I've never had a grant myself and I certainly would have trouble with the "strings".... being the independent cuss that I am.

Subsidies perhaps? I wouldn't want to call it an award if it is given to someone who can't make a living. By refusing to join the ranks of subscribers of grants when I was just growing into the animation profession I forced myself to learn quickly what kind of films I need to do to make a living; basically utilitarian films that serve the needs of some group (children, coal miners, advertisers, to name the first few I served). Out of those experiences I learned what I needed to know to do what I do today. None of the people who lived off of grants back then ever became professional animators as far as I can tell -- they all went into other disciplines; a couple of them committed suicide.

[Anim8tor Cathy]

Wow - there have been so many really great contributions to this thread - I thank you all.

Like Master Chief, I also dabble in 3D and so I'm exploring avenues in both disciplines. I can't help but think there has to be a better way for one person with very limited working time to produce quality animation. That's my Holy Grail. I do believe it's possible - I just haven't hammered out a pipeline yet.