Sunday, February 28, 2010

Reminder! Go step by step!


As I'm going through the Online Workshop pieces and shot ideas, there's something that came up which is very important.

I know dialogue stuff is a lot of fun, but you need to have the basics and mechanics down 100%. A lot of work goes into dialogue clips. It's all about the character and the acting choices, you don't want to struggle with mechanics during that process.

I recommend to everybody starting out with 3D animation that you do a bouncing ball first. Then a ball going through an obstacle course first. You can add a tail to the ball for added complexity. I know it sounds basic and you're going WTF? But bouncing balls are the building blocks for so many things. Then build on top of that with a human like rig (like Norman): do a jump, a walk cycle, a run cycle, have a guy standing and then sit down in a chair (or whatever), have a guy lifting something heavy, etc. Go step by step before doing a lip sync. Is every piece up to that point the best you can do? Is it as good as shots you see in animated features? Try a pantomime piece first. Can you show emotion through body language, without the help of sound?

Check out these posts as guide to what type of clips you could do:

What should I animate? Pt.1

What should I animate? Pt.2

Don't rush, take your time and master the basics first.

Cheers
JD

pic source

1 comment:

Michael Mahy said...

I was thinking the whole time while reading. When is he gonna say everybody should buy the step by step dvd collection :)

But yeah Bouncing ball first. And then the ball with 2 feet character.