What approach do you use for characters in a series?

[strider2000]

There are so many possibilities to animating that it's a bit overwhelming to me when I think of anything beyond simple sequences. So I'd like to know how those of you who have been animating for a while approach something like characters for a series. I can see that for a one time animation you might use a number of one off constructions of the character, but would the same hold true if you wanted to use the character in for a series? In addition I'd like to know what techniques and approaches are considered best in ASP11, given the state of the art.

For example, the character wizard, and earlier versions of ASP seemed to create separate bone rigs for each of the classic views. However, the later character examples seem to focus on using smart bones for body and head turns. However, I've seen some videos that seem to use an approach closer to traditional animation where they don't really rely on bones, but seem to key all the points, basically like doing your inking and coloring by dragging points.

Clearly the latter will give the smoothest animation whereas the multiple rigs approach can have a choppy and flat appearance without tweaking. So what if I don't have tons of time to do 5 seconds of the highest quality animation, but I'd like something smoother than a choppy switch from front to 3/4 view? What would you do? Are there approaches that were good 2 years ago, but are now more easily done by other approaches, because of the advancements in ASP?

Right now I'm tending to create characters that use smart bones for body and head turns and then perhaps separate rigs for side and back views. What are your thoughts?

Also are there tips or rules of thumb you'd like to share about constraints you consider in animating characters? Here I'm thinking about the idea that it's pretty easy to create a rig that can do simple moves such as talking and simple interaction. Do you then create a more flexible rig or set of rigs for more complex motions such as fighting or flipping?

I realize there are stylistic choices involved, but that's fine, I'm just interested in hearing what others do so I can learn. Everyone here does such amazing work and I just enjoy seeing what everyone does. Thanks for any ideas you'd like to share.

[funksmaname]

No doubt Greenlaw will be in here shortly with his encyclopaedic knowledge and sort you out (in fact he's probably out there writing it while I send this )
It may not be exactly what you're asking, but having a script will tell you how many characters you need, having a storyboard will tell you how many rigs you'll need (if any), without a plan of shots you may not know that no turns are necessary - cuts might work just fine, and it'll save you a lot of preparing rigs for head and body turns you may not need.

You can probably get away with a lot more than you think with animation, I think we get too focused on the details of making things look perfect when turning a smart bone slowly because we're seeing it in, effectively, super slow motion compared to when a sequence is in full flow.

Script, plan, storyboard, record sound, THEN think about rig breakdowns - in my humble and almost purely theoretical experience

[ernpchan]

One thing that will greatly dictate how your character is built is what your style is. In television animation, a lot of shows stay in 3/4 view a lot. Look at Dora. She's usually always in 3/4. A lot of Disney shows are like that too. I know Disney shows are done in Harmony so you can see a similarity in how their rigs are built and animated.

Then you have a show like The Fairly OddParents where the character design is very specific to where the characters are rarely in a different view.

One thing I've been doing a lot lately is watching animation on PBS and the cable channel Sprouts. You'll see a lot of work that's very economical is style and technique.

For television animation, I don't think you're gonna see a lot of animation that's like the old Looney Toons. That's style of animation is very labor intensive. One thing that's not seen in TV animation is varied line width. Everything is done digitally and the consistent line width style is just easier, therefore quicker and cheaper to produce.

Rigs that give you fluid head turns are nice but you'd be suprised how little is needed for a quick head turn. As long as you animate towards the head turn and then flip the head you're probably ok. In TV animation a lot of moves are quick and snappy to disguise the lack of a lot of drawings. It also makes your animation more energetic versus slow and drifty.

My team and I have been trying to create character rigs, not in ASP, that are as complete as possible but it's close to impossible because it's hard to account for every single possible scenario that the writers will come up with. Unless you come up with a hard list of dos and don'ts based on what your rig can and can't do.

These are just my observations.

[Greenlaw]

No doubt Greenlaw will be in here shortly with his encyclopaedic knowledge and sort you out (in fact he's probably out there writing it while I send this )

[funksmaname]

I meant this in the most complimentary way possible Greenlaw, in fact I was looking forward to your insight - I've been enjoying your long and useful posts, hope I wasn't misinterpreted!

[dueyftw]

I have a script about people telling stories around a campfire.

Before I do story boards, I'm going to do the characters sheets. Then I will storyboard it in AS. The storyboard will end up as the animation. I'm lazy. But some thing in the script, like a character running away will be one AS file. The script dictates the shots in storyboard. Most will be straight on the character that is speaking. But to make the animation interesting I will add shots of characters stoking the campfire, or looking bored.

So my point is that if you just did what is in the script you lose out on make something more than what is just written.

Dale


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[synthsin75]

But to make the animation interesting I will add shots of characters ... looking bored.

[dueyftw]

I'm on vacation and I do not care about spelling.

Dale

[strider2000]

Bummer, I had written a response, but went downstairs and my session timed out and I lost it all Ok, well it's late so I'll be short.

Thanks for the ideas. I definitely get that for a one run animation you create what you need. But I'm thinking more like, imagine that something like Kim Possible or Teen Titans Go (or perhaps Fairly OddParents ) had been done only with ASP11 (Of course I know it wasn't. I just imagining.) Also imagine you're trying to use FBF as little as possible, just to save production costs (or the animators ..., ie me just don't have a lot of time ) What would the rigs for say, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable be like? Would they be the standard 3/4, front, 3/4 back , and back, with no smart bone head turns, or would they be like Scarlett Riggs.

Right now I think that approaches like Scarlett Riggs is best, because subtle head turns and bobs seem to be helpful for giving life to the character. Subtle body turns are also nice, but is a rig with a true body turn, not just subtle movements, more work than is needed. Right now it's seeming to me that the complexity of getting layer movement to work and shoulder and hip joints to look nice is doable, but more complex than just having a separate rig with a different body position. I'm sure that the fight scenes would be combinations of specialty rigs and FBF.

Anyway, that's probably the best way to visualize the idea I'm thinking through. Sure I can start with one rig at a time, but I'm kind of wondering if the direction I'm heading in is the best one. Not a big deal, because I'll learn things either way, but I'd definitely love to know what approaches others would take

[ernpchan]

What I would do is create all those different rigs (3/4,front, back 3/4) and then use a smart bone for your subtle head turns and then pop to the different rig when you need it.

If you're able to make a complete profile to profile rig then you could use that one rig. It'll depend if your design allows for that.

[Greenlaw]

I meant this in the most complimentary way possible Greenlaw, in fact I was looking forward to your insight - I've been enjoying your long and useful posts, hope I wasn't misinterpreted!

Relax...when I read your post, I actually was in the middle of typing a response.

To the OP: It's all in the planning. Before you start rigging and animating anything, think about how and what you want to say in your animations, and how frequently you intend to release an episode. Is this project doable? Seriously? Okay, now think about how you can make it doable.

A few weeks ago, I posted some information about preproduction that might be helpful: New from Little Green Dog. And if you mosey on over on our website there's a short article about storyboarding: Storyboarding Happy Box

Regardless of scale and budget, making an on-going animated series is a matter of refining the process so that it can be efficiently and predictably repeated with each episode. Naturally, it’s impossible to predict every situation/obstacle that may pop up in the future but, as Ernest mentioned above, you can avoid a lot of that if you impose some guidelines and stick to them.

That might sound like you’re hindering your project but personally I find that giving myself at least a few constraints helps me focus on what's really important, like telling an engaging story with appealing characters. All that other stuff is usually just window dressing--I mean, sure it’s nice if you can afford the time to make the most beautiful animation ever, but if you have a good story to tell, you could probably use sock puppets and still make it entertaining. What I'm saying is that there's a broad range of ways to tell the same captivating story. Don't make the project difficult on yourself. Choose the medium and style you're very comfortable with because when you decide to create an episodic, you should be thinking more about meeting release dates and less about how to draw, rig and animate.

Speaking of schedules: put your production a schedule! Break the episode down into specific tasks and assign target dates for each task. Keep the tasks small and doable in a reasonable time. Remember, many small accomplishments can eventually add up to very big ones. Assigning yourself smaller tasks that you can finish in a couple of hours or less keeps you from becoming overwhelmed. And watch those deadlines. Once you commit yourself to them, deadlines can get you thinking very economically about design and workflow.

When you have your project mapped out and locked down (including designs, storyboard, and preferably an animatic too,) then your ready to start rigging and animating.

I was going to talk about what happens when you don't factor in the above. My Brudders music video project is a prime example of how not setting limits on a project can derail and keep it from ever getting finished. This short started out as a simple 'machinima-style' production based on a dumb song I made up when my daughter was in preschool but because I never set limits on how I was going to do it, it just grew and grew, Now it's become something that looks really grand and complicated but at its core it's still just about a dumb song. Now my daughter is in the 3rd grade and I'm still not finished with it. Sigh! Maybe if I had stuck to the original machinima approach (the constraint,) the film might have been completed two years ago and it would have been just fine. There's a lot more to say on this topic but I'll save it for later. Right now, I gotta get back to work on this project.

(Actually, after two years of neglect, this project is almost back on track again, and only because my producer Alisa has put some limits on what I'm allowed and not allowed to do, and it's getting me to work out a sensible schedule for finishing it.)

Hope this helps.

G.

[GCharb]

Many of the things that we're said so far are true, producing a series is very demanding, and as far as TV production is concerned, You can get away with murder.

Here is a short video tutorial I made a few years back, it's quick and dirty, but still, You see even worst in most TV productions.

http://gcharb2d.blogspot.ca/2011/07/hea ... ogues.html

You can also find several good sources online on how to create series from pros, often by the studios themselves, like these.

http://chrisoatley.com/creating-animate ... on-network

http://azureprostudios.com/Blog/2013/ma ... web-series

[funksmaname]

Relax...when I read your post, I actually was in the middle of typing a response.

HA! I knew it heheh

[strider2000]

As a quick note, I'm just a hobbyist. In fact, just a doodler compared to all of y'all (from the South, can you tell ) but I share you're passion and I love learning from everyone. As an example, when I talk about episodes, I'm not thinking that I personally would actually be able to work on TV episodes (well in my dreams ) but I do think of doing short episodes using the same characters. For example, I do see myself creating things like 1 to 2 minute videos for the 4th and 5th grade Sunday School at our local church. I want to take the principles they're teaching and illustrate them in an engaging and entertaining way. So very small by comparison.


Greenlaw, thanks for sharing all of your rich information. I appreciate it greatly and I'm sure everyone else reading does too! I definitely understand the planning and constraints points, since I write software for a living. So one of my constraints is very short in length, not stripping out the planning.

I love the note from your website

our main interest is always to tell an entertaining story with pretty pictures. It was also our goal to make this movie quickly and cheaply

So a couple of quick question for you.
1) For your 3D animations, like "Happy Box", when you create another movie, with the same characters, you don't create them from scratch again do you? I expect not, so I'm thinking a bit that way for my 2D stuff. Sketching something on paper is easy for me. Quality drawing is longer, vector drawing is longer and character rigging even longer. So, for me, in my mind my 2D rigs are similar to 3D models in the sense that I'm willing to invest more in construction so that they can be reused.
2) In Scareplane was most of the 2D stuff frame by frame work? I think it's Ratatoullie (sorry if that name or spelling is wrong that flips up the seats. I can see that might be a rig that could easily be used again (with perhaps exception of the outfit) but I can see how much of the work is unique to the action going on. Would you reuse any of the characters from that one?

By the way, Brudders music video is beautiful. No wonder it's taking a long time

What I would do is create all those different rigs (3/4,front, back 3/4) and then use a smart bone for your subtle head turns and then pop to the different rig when you need it.

Yeah. That's kind of where I'm leaning now.

Here is a short video tutorial I made a few years back

Thanks for sharing that GCharb! (Thanks for the other links too.) I think it really illustrates a key point I'm starting to see, that is:

Quite radical moves, like the 180 flip, can still look very nice when integrated with proper animation technique.

I saw that same thing the other day when I was analyzing a snippet of "Kim Possible" one frame at a time. I knew about the principles of animation and was working to apply them, but most of the books I had read were from the days of traditional FBF animation, which is way too time consuming for a doodler like me So in the books I've seen, they would never have suggested flipping a head 180 degrees in one frame, you'd have at least several in-betweens even for fast motion (again, at least in what I'd seen). So I saw the principles as adding personality. It never occurred to me how well you could animate between radical moves or significantly different rigs if you use proper animation at the right spot.

Well off to more reading, watching, and playing.

[ernpchan]

For example, I do see myself creating things like 1 to 2 minute videos for the 4th and 5th grade Sunday School at our local church. I want to take the principles they're teaching and illustrate them in an engaging and entertaining way. So very small by comparison.

What you could also try is to animate a riddle. You have the setup and punchline already. Just have to bring it to a visual representation.

you don't create them from scratch again do you? I expect not, so I'm thinking a bit that way for my 2D stuff.

Oh my no. That would be a wasteful way to work. You build your rig and then reuse it everytime you start a new shot.