Animation Tips

Over the course of making Tin Woodman of Oz many suggestions were made to improve the process, quality and enjoyment of animating. While not all may be universally agreed upon some may work for you.

Note: Some tips have been edited for clarity.

• Lead with the eyes by a frame or two. Follow with the head. Then animate the body last. (SF)

• The head should have an arc to its movement (you can do this not only by animating the head, but the body also). If you can actually SEE the arc then the arc is probably too big. If you can FEEL the arc (its not a robotic straight line movement) you probably have it close to working. (SF)

• Soften the end of a movement and don't have it come to a complete stop. The head might come to a stop but the body may continue to move marginally. It may not necessarily follow along the same path but still should have some movement to break it up. (SF)

• Have overlapping movement on the head. For example, have the head tilt first (perhaps a frame of two only) and then turn. (SF)

• Add some anticipation to a sigh. Do this by perhaps moving the body and shoulders up first (while tilting the head down fractionally), and then as the body comes down, tilt the head up and the down. This should give the effect of a sigh. Hold the anticipation a bit too as you can use that to emphasise the breath in. (SF)

• Dont have all the movement follow along one path. If necessary use a whiteboard marker on your screen to plot paths frame by frame. If you find the path following one line without any arcing movement figure out a way to put that movement in. (SF)

• Add a bit of shoulder movement (perhaps as part of an anticipation) to break up any robotic stiffness in the move. Get the appropriate timing, posing and then add overlap and anticipation to each movement. You will really start to loosen up and work much more effectively. (SF)

• Add some minor eye darts to bring life to the character. Eyes are CONSTANTLY moving even if only via imperceptable movements. Adding in eye darts (very minor ones which you would not automatically register) will make a character really wake up and come alive. (SF)

• Film yourself as a refernce doing the action you intent the character to perform. Then watch the reference film FRAME BY FRAME to note what moves first, last and simultaneously. (SF)

• Always think about the weight of the object. Thinking about weight in each shot helps to sell the believabilty of the movement of a character. In a sigh the head will drop, and the weight of the head will cause it to drop a little too far and then recover slightly. (SF)

• I was assigned a scene (Tinman juggling his axe) and found I really liked Tinman's pose done in the following scene by another animator. I wanted to use this pose for my last keyframe as a means to maintain continuity and elimiate the need to redo what was already done so well. I exported the desired choreography action to an action file, opened that action in my project and copy/pasted the frame where I needed it to be. This method saved me from having to add a new action in the choreography and I find it works even if you switch beetween IK FK. (M)