From
storyboard to final render: making a short film.
With your
award winning script written, brilliantly interpreted visually in your
storyboard, sound track recorded, visual style guides signed off you
should now be looking down the barrel of serious production. Good
animation comes from sound planning. Excellent animation comes from
rigorous planning. Below is schematic description of how we approach the
production process at Cactus Ink Animation Studios.
At this
stage assuming that the brief, proposal, design have been approved by your
client we can move into the production phase. This consists of the
creation of a storyreel and/or animatic, the animation process then any
further lighting/effects work prior to rendering.
The
Storyreel.
With your
approved storyboard in hand (this
is a page of the storyboard for part 2 of Play Without Words), you can
now extract the storyboard panels to create a storyreel. When you save the
individual frames make sure your filenames have the following naming
convention:
[STORYBOARDNAME].nnn.ext
First
the root name of the file ext = jpg/tif
/tga/iff nnn = number 000 to 999
Save/transfer these images into
the sourceimages folder of your Maya project. In Maya, go to an
orthographic view, create an imageplane and import the first image
of your storyboard. In the imageplane option, click on the
use frame extension. This enables us to set key
frames to advance through the story frames. If your storyboard
starts with a nnn of 000 then make sure to set the
frame extension to 0 in the image plane attribute window. Click
close then we can get into the creative phase of
storyreeling.
There is no
real academic approach here. Your story reel should essentially aim to
flesh out the timing of the key information giving moments
of the film. Move to the moment where you believe there should be
a change in the storyboard panel, either dependent on your soundtrack or
your pre-calculated timing.
Make sure
that your keys are set to have stepped tangents. That way
your frame will change exactly where you want it to. Select your image
plane (select your camera and it should be listed in the INPUTS) Move to
the frame where you want the next frame to change then set a key for the
frameExtension variable.
Don't be
too particular at first with your placement, just get them all on the
timeline in the right order. When they are all down and you are happy you
can start to move them around on the timeline (Shift LMB drag on the
timeline to select keys then drag the selection).
For the
second half of Play Without Words the graph editor for frameExtension
looked like this
Note: depending on the
size of the images from your storyboard and the speed of your
processor, you may find that normal playback does not give a true
reflection of timing, so to be sure, create a playblast
(Window>Playblast) and tinker with the frame placement based on
the playblast timing.
The
Animatic.
The Storyreel will have to be scrutinized by
your director/producer/investors and when it is signed off we can
move into the animatic. The animatic builds on the storyreel, using
the same key poses and adds camera movements. A well planned
animation production should have the characters and props modelled/
textured and rigged in parallel with the storyboard/storyreel
development such that they are ready and waiting to be used in the
animatic. The first phase of the animatic is to interpret one for
one your storyreel using your 3D characters, props and sets.
It is very important to get both your character poses and timing
perfect at this stage. Your poses have to be readable and your
timing has to be spot-on. All good animation hinges on pose and
timing. If you get it wrong here, no subsequent technique can fix
poor poses and timing.
For signoff from directors/producers
etc you will probably have to apply spline or linear keys to give
the executives a proper feel of character/prop movement.
The Animation Process
There are many many excellent resources available on the web that
describe the processes of animation. In the spectrum of animation
technique there are two poles; organized and free keyframing
Free keyframing has no structure nor boundaries imposed and has
the potential to be either inspirational or just plain messy,
painful and (worst of all) time consuming.
Organized keyframing revolves around establishing the key moments
in space and time and then filling in the inbetween motions to
create the illusion of movement. The problem with organized
keyframing is that it may appear to contrived and robotic.
I encourage a hybrid of the two. Use the structure of organized
keyframing to set the bounds for small bouts of free keyframing.
After breakdowns are set, you can switch to free keyframing and
inject some life into your animations.
Keys
Essentially the animatic will have already mapped out all your
key information giving moments so phase 1 will already be complete.
Start your work using the first version of your animatic (not the
linear tangent version).
NOTE: You should still be making keyframes using stepped
tangents.
Extremes
The extreme keyframes are used to pinpoint the delimiting
positions during movements. The following are examples of extreme
keys
Contact Extremes: when hands touch objects, feet touch
the ground/objects or body parts touch body parts.
Limit Extremes: when motion trajectories reach their
highest/lowest, point, eg, the top of a jump, the weight bearing
down pose of a walk etc.
The actual timing of extremes and subsequent breakdowns is not as
critical as for your keys. In fact the more unstructured they are
the more fluid your final animation will appear.
Breakdowns, anticipation, holds, and follow
through.
Keys form the structure, extremes delimit the motion, but the
true character of your movement is born in the breakdowns,
anticipation and follow throughs. Computers are very good at
interpolating between two points and if you rely on tangential
interpolation you will end up with that old "CG look".
Motion arcs help to overcome the look of CG interpolation as well
as for correct posing decisions.
Timing of breakdowns is really where you start to convey the
weight, strength and quirkiness of your character.
Breakdowns are used to express anticipation, moving holds and
follow throughs all of which are energy expressing movements. They
all describe how much energy is needed to get the motion going, how
much energy is needed to stop it, balance it, support it, etc...
Straight Through keyframing
That is essentially the end of organized keyframing. What is left
is the injection of character into the spaces left in the organized
structure. At this stage you can relax a bit and use your creativity
to try and create different motion paths that serve to breathe
believeable life into your character. Use your observational skills
of playblasts to see where your animation needs keyframe sculpting.
Try to keep in mind that whilst less keyframes is desirable for
manageablitiy, do not be scared to get down and dirty by animating
key by key if required to get a certain feel to a motion.
