Summer 2010 Demo

Here are the drawings and pencil tests from this assignment that I did with the students.

Day 1 (1 hour 15 min of drawing and 30 min of timing and pencil test)
These are the key drawings that I did in the class demo. They're really rough and they shrink and grow, but they get the idea across. There are 27 keys here and they took about an hour and 15 minutes along with all the talking and acting the movements out to the class.

I took them home and scanned them in and did the rough timing in Premier. This is just my first pass through to block the scene out. and see if it's moving properly. There are a few secondary keys missing as well as some recovery keys along with all of the breakdowns and obviously all the inbetweens. Right now it's timing out to 9 seconds 10 frames at 30fps. I really should be shooting it at 24 fps but I just used an open project that I was working on previously that was at 30 fps.

My next step is to go back over the drawings and resize them so that they're all back on model to the original key pose. I'll also add in the missing secondary keys and recovery keys and shoot a new test and adjust the timing a bit more (at 24 fps).

Phrasing
Just like the Step Up/Step Down assignment, there are three "phrases" to the scene. A phrase can be described as an action of some sort. In this case, the first phrase is the character bending down to grab the object. The second phrase is the character lifting the object off the ground and the third phrase is the character placing the object onto the platform.

Each of these phrases or actions requires an anticipation before and a reaction or recovery after it. In my example here, the character takes a couple of short steps forward to position themselves over the sphere better. The first step will require a slight anticipation. In some cases you can blend the recovery of an action into the anticipation of the next move depending on what the actions are and what the timing or thought process of the character is. If there is no thought process required by the character, you can blend the two together. There is no simple answer or rule to when or how to use it, it's just a matter of the correct type of acting for the situation and the character. Act it out yourself and see when you pause and when you don't.

Pausing the Character
Speaking of "pauses", It's o.k. to have your character pause for a moment to collect themselves for the next phrase. Just be sure that you slow into the held key softly and add in any overlapping action that you can so the character doesn't appear to just lock into the pose suddenly with a jerk. Be sure the held pose is strong with the correct attitude and nice lines of action through the body. An awkward pose can make the hold seem unnatural.

Make sure the hold is long enough to reflect any thought process that the character is thinking at that moment. If the character is thinking, "I wonder how heavy this is? I hope I can lift it." How long does it take for them to think this? Half a second? 4 seconds? Time yourself saying this in your head or out loud. How long did it take? That's how long the hold should be for.

Animated Holds
It would be best, if you do decide to put the character into a hold, to do what is called an animated hold. This is where you trace back the key you want the character to be in, twice. Now you have three drawings all the same of the character in the held pose. You then shoot these three drawings over and over again for the length of the hold. When you trace a drawing, you can be as careful as you want to but you will never duplicate the original exactly the same way. When you shoot the three drawings in sequence for say 3 seconds, the lines will move slightly to create a bit of life to the action... or non-action in this case. It helps to keep the character from looking as though they've frozen solid.

Day 2 (4 hours of drawing and about 30 min of timing and pencil test - total time to date: 6 hrs 15 min)
I took the rough key poses from the demo class and went back over them again to:

1) Strengthen the poses and put them on balance
In almost every case, I needed to push the poses a bit more to exaggerate the action and make the extremes read more clearly. I had to ask myself, "Is this the farthest that I can push this pose?" Obviously I didn't go "wacky extreme" but I wanted to add some flavour to the action. If you haven't read this yet, it might be a good idea to look it over now before you start into fixing the poses. Dynamic Posing.

The balance issue was primarily because of the angle that I was drawing the animation during the lecture, I was shifted off to one side so the camera could see over my shoulder and this made me draw the characters on a bit of a slant, leaning backwards. I didn't notice it until I took a look at the drawings later when I got home.

2) Fix the shrinking and growing issues... mostly shrinking.
I always have this problem in longer pieces of animation. I tend to just keep on stacking the sheets of paper on top of each other to the point where you can't see through them any more. And when the character moves around a bit, that makes it even harder, especially in this case when the character crouches down, then back up and down and up again.

3) Add in the missing key poses for the anticipations and recoveries
Because of the speed of the lecture, I left out some of the keys for the walk forward at the beginning, and the bounces on the recoveries for the lift. Normally, If I was animating this on my own, I wouldn't have left them out. I just didn't want to bore everyone.

For the step forward at the very beginning, I actually started just straight ahead animating the walk. It was a bit tough to fill in after the fact because I had a start and stop position that I absolutely had to stick to. It was a little restricting as opposed to if I had done them in sequence from the beginning, I may have ended up with a slightly different end pose.

4) Add in a few breakdown poses to describe the broader actions more clearly
Some of the broader actions really needed a few breakdowns to clearly describe the path of action, mainly on the arms and the head, for overlapping action.

5) Add in a few inbetweens
I addded the inbetweens for the lift up, just so I could show you the stagger effect as quickly as possible. I'll show the pencil test in a bit after I go through the drawings.

The Keys
So, I ended up with the exact same number of primary keys that I first drew in the demo class: 27. Adding in the secondary keys, I now have a total of 40 keys... that's an additional 13. I still need to add in the hand and shoulder adjustment action after he grabs the ball on the ground, probably 3 more keys.

Here they all are.

Here is the new pencil test with revised timing. Still not quite right, but closer.

It's running at 13 seconds now at 24 fps. I need to add in a bit more time at the beginning with an animated hold, the timing on the step forward isn't quite right, I need to add in the hand adjustment at the ball grab, I'll slow down the step forward with the ball and the lift up isn't quite right yet either. With these minor adjustments I'll probably end up around 17 seconds total, but if you subtract the two one second animated holds at the beginning and end, that's 15 seconds of animation x 12 drawings per second = 180 total.

I have 40 keys done and 7 inbetweens so that leaves me with about 133 drawings left to complete. They seem to be taking me only 5 minutes each, which works out to 665 minutes or about 11 hours.

Time to start drawing!

Day 3 (2 hours of inbetweening and 30 min of timing and pencil test - total time to date 8 hours 45 min.)
Today I finished up the missing keys and started plowing into the inbetweens. I haven't finalized the timing charts yet, so I'm still on the lettering technique, doing all the half way breakdown inbetweens for the whole piece. It's pretty much a given that there will be at least one inbetween between all the keys and that it'll be a half, so at this point I still don't need to worry about figuring out my timing charts or numbering the drawings. There should be about 40 inbetweens total. The inbetweens seem to be taking only 2 minutes each to do, which is about half the time it took to do the main keys.

Once I shoot them, I'll retime the whole thing to correct all the little errors and then lock the drawings down and start numbering and adding the timing charts. This now leaves me with about 45 drawings left to do or about 2 1/2 hours.

Here's the pencil test with the half inbetweens and the timing finalized.

Day 4 (2 hours of inbetweening and 30 min of pencil test - total time overall was 11 hours 15 min.)
My next step is to number all the drawings and write out the timing charts. This should be very simple and straight forward as all I need to do is look at my timeline in Premier (or your exposure sheet if you're using something like ToonBoom Pencil test , etc.). Just count off the frames and numbers.

Exposure Sheets (a.k.a. "X Sheets and/or Dope Sheets)
If I (and you) are really trying to be good at this, it would be a good idea to fill out a paper exposure sheet, so that you have a physical copy that you can use at your desk. Working it out on your exposure sheet is something you should begin getting used to. As you move on to any animation dealing with lip sync, you must have an exposure sheet. You can't animate efficiently without it.

Any time you have to animate a stagger, an animated hold or a cycle within a scene, you need to alter the sequencing of the drawings. It's not just a straight through shoot where you start at 1 and go through sequentially to the end. Having the exposure sheet clearly lays out where all the drawings go for each frame of the scene.

Many students find this tedious and confusing when they first start to do it and often suggest that they can just remember it in their head or scribble it on a napkin or sheet of paper. The reality is, that once you get into a studio, you must use an exposure sheet, you can't get around it. That's just the way it's done. Studios often complain that many graduating students don't know how to use an exposure sheet and they must then spend time educating the student themselves. This is A) embarassing for the student, and B) a waste of time for the studio.

Start using them now and you'll find that by the end of the semester you'll wonder how you could have animated without it.

Here are a couple of pages from my scene:

 

On this first sheet which shows the first 30 frames, you can see the information that I have pencilled in: on the far right side towards the bottom you'll see "1:00" and "1:04". These are my notations for the "one second frame" and "one second 4 frames". (In Premier, the frames are counted as seconds + frames.)

In the "EXP" column I have written in the numbers for the individual frames (I personally only number the odd frames to cut down on the amount of writing).

If you look over towards the left side of the sheet under "Top" and "6" you can see my alpha numbering of the drawings and the frames that they are exposed in Premier. A is in frame 1 and extends to frame 21, then drawing A0 is in frame 22, A1 is in frame 24, A1A is in frame 28 and A2 is in frame 30. This reflects the placement of all the drawings in the timeline.

"How did you know which frames to put those drawings in?" you might ask. I just stuck them in there and then played the scene back and asked myself, "Does this seem to be timed right?" If it wasn't, I would have moved the drawings around a bit, adding two frames here or 6 frames there to slow the action down a bit or shortening the number of frames to speed an action up. I just kept rewatching it and making adjustments until I was happy with the results. It really requires some very close study as you watch it over and over again. You get a sense of the cadence of the movements. In some cases, it can be very obvious when something is moving too fast or too slow. Sometimes just the difference of one frame can make something look better. Timing is more of a gut feeling as to whether it's working or not. Sometimes you can see it yourself and others you can't. That's why it's always best to have someone else with fresh eyes take a look at your pencil test.

The downside to asking other peoples opinions is that they might not know what is right or wrong and they could give you improper feedback. Asking for multiple people to look at something can really mess you up because everyone will have their own personal opinion which can cover a whole spectrum of options. It's always best to get someone with experience to look at your work - that's what your instructors in school are for.

In the column under "Bot" and "1" you can see the numbers that I've assigned to the alpha drawings. "A" now becomes "1". Next, as you look down the column you'll see that I've numbered every other space - 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, etc until I get to drawing "A0" which is numbered "4". "Why did you do that?"

I did that because at the very beginning, I want to hold on drawing #1 for the 21 frames. Instead of just using drawing #1 by itself for the whole 21 frames (which would make the drawing look frozen) I will go back and trace off #1 two more times to create drawings #2 and 3. Then when I shoot them, I'll cycle them for the 21 frames. This will create an "animated hold" which will give the illusion that the character is alive and not "frozen" during that first second. I do the same thing a couple more times when I want the character to pause momentarily.

You'll also notice between drawings "A1" and "A1A" I wrote the number "6". This is the missing inbetween that I still need to complete. I've gone through the entire exposure sheet and basically filled in every two frames with a number. Any place that there is a blank frame in the alpha numbering, means there needs to be an inbetween drawn in.

On this second sheet which is from around the 5 second point, it gets a bit more complicated. This is just after the character has bent down to grab the ball and is adjusting their hands with the shoulder roll. You can see on the left side are the original key drawings from the demo (E) and the new keys I drew along with a couple of inbetweens. On the right side you can see the Premier time in seconds and frames.

In the level 1 column are the new nubers for the drawings. As you read them down from the top you can see that they don't follow a sequential order: 51 then 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, then to 56, 59, 51, 52, 53, 59 then a blank frame which I accidentally wrote in 56 then erased it but forgot to write in the new number which should be 54.

So why do these numbers jump around like that?

The reason is that I wanted the action to pop between E2 and E1A 58 to 56 is the action moving backwards fast, then going from E1A back into E I needed a new inbetween and the next number available was 59. And as it just so happens, 59 was also the 1/2 position inbetween between 53 and 54, so rather than redarw the exact same inbetween, I just reused 59 and saved myself a couple of minutes of extra drawing. "Big deal", you might say, however, later on, an inbetween on something similar might take you 45 minutes to complete... that's a big savings in time if you can get it!

After the Exposure sheets were filled in, I just sat down and completed the remaining inbetweens for the whole scene including the tracebacks for the holds. They took me about 2 hours total.

Here's the final pencil test with the BG in as well.

There seems to be a few extra frames added in where the arms come down around the ball, which was not on my final pencil test and is probably a glitch in the encoding... just so you know.