The Order of Character Animation...

[Laconic]

Hi!

 

I've modeled my character for animation in the T-pose. I plan to use Anzovin's "Setup Machine" so I can start posing and animating my character.

 

My question is: Should I do all the coloring and decaling of my character BEFORE rigging and animating, or should I animate my mesh, save the actions and then add them to a character who has been "decorated" after the movements are done?

 

Any ideas would be appreciated, regarding flow.

 

Tim

[arkaos]

Tim, I guess you can do it either way. As for which is the method taught in film school, I wouldn't know. I tend to complete the model before I do the preliminary animating. If you plan to use standard, reusable rigs, you could work out the core keyframes using a proxy model and replace the proxies with the finished models at a later time. I guess it all depends on how you want to approach it and if you are teaming with other people. In a team setting, the proxy approach is beneficial because the modellers don't have to be completely finished for animation to begin.

 

Work in the way that is best for your feng shui, is my advice.

[luckbat]

Speaking from experience, I'd say finish your models before you start your final animation. (No reason you can't do tests while you're modeling, though.) The reason for this is, you never know when what looked like a minor costume change might directly affect your character's range of motion or balance.

 

You'd be pretty upset if you moved your character's sword scabbard from his left leg to his right leg, only to discover that his right arm was constantly passing through it in the animation. You'd have to spend days re-keyframing just to work around a simple costume tweak.

 

Anyway, you can see where I'm going with this. You're always allowed to make changes to your model after you've started animating, but try to get as much of the work done as you can beforehand.

 

At a studio, all models have to be "locked" before final animation can begin. (The animators would kill the modelers if that wasn't enforced.)

[Dhar]

The title of this thread says: The Order of Character Animation..., Which First? Coloring/Decals? Rigging? Animation?. So, I'd like to comment about this important subject.

 

-The first step in any animated project is the story.

-Then comes the storyboard with dialogue.

-Character design, style, color.

-Then sound track.

-Modeling in A:M.

-Rigging (to see how the mesh will react when animated. No use coloring if everything's gonna look wierd when animated).

-Color/decal.

-Animate.

 

That's some of what I learned from courses I've taken over the years. It's certainly not set in stone, but it comes from the experts and the order is logical. It helps to avoid pitfalls.

 

Hope this helps

[robcat2075]

I recently visited Mike Sanderson, one of our forum members at his job at DNA where he's working on the feature Ant Bully.

 

Based on what I saw, the animators there work in completely default shaded gray, no texturing is done until after the shot is finaled.

 

But that's big-time production pipeline stuff. For an independent animator it may make sense to have the character as finished as possible. You can see if your animation is weirdly distorting a decal, for instance.

 

Coloring and decaling is pretty flexible in A:M, you can do it anytime in process and it won't physically alter your animation.

[Slipin Lizard]

Just a word of caution about using the TSM or TSM2. If you've got lots of rigging experience, then don't read any further. But if its all new still, just wanted to mention that The Set up Machine isn't just a simple "click here" and your character is perfectly rigged and ready to go. From what I understand, it makes rigging a whole lot less work, but you still need to know how to rig the chraracter properly. There's lots of guys that use it, and love it, so I'm sure its a good investment. However, still being new to AM myself, I made the mistake of thinking, "ok, I'll use the TSM2 so I don't have to learn about rigging". Wrong. You still have to set things up to work with your character, and if you don't know how to rig, you'll be lost.

 

If you're new to rigging, I'd learn to rig from scratch, and once you have that down pretty good, then go ahead and get the TSM2 which will make the process a lot faster. Not putting down the TSM2, just trying to give you a heads up that its not an instant fix, or a by-pass to learning about rigging.

 

Good luck, and lets see your character!

[Laconic]

Hello!

 

Thanks all for the super advice! On we go!

 

T

[robcat2075]

You needn't be cautious about using TSM rigs. If animating is your goal, you want to start that journey now, it's a long one. You don't want to delay with any more of a side trip to rigging than necessary.

 

TSM rigs don't make the skin around joints deform automatically when you move a bone. But no other rig does either. That's what "fanbones" and "smartskin" are all about. Those are relatively easy tasks compared to designing and executing a whole character rig that controls the body well and doesn't stand in the way of the poses you want to make.

 

You may learn much making your own rigs, but that knowledge does little to inform the task of character animation. And you'll still have to learn to fanbone and smartskin anyway.

[heyvern]

Actually...

 

You may want to storyboard first... get an idea about the EXACT actions the character needs to perform.

 

This would also tell you how the camera will "see" the character. The angles used in the film.

 

Then a "rough" character before shading could be used to test those positions.

 

This might actually save time in rigging and decaling. If you never see his feet up close... no need for a detailed decal... or spending a thousand hours making a special rig so he can wiggle his toes.

 

I have heard here on the forum from extremely talented and experienced animators say that they will actually do smart skin or tweaking specifically on poses within a specific scene that has some problems.

 

Rather than trying to cover every situation possible before you begin.

 

------

 

I have found I try to make my characters capable of every single motion possible under the sun, with gorgeous textures from every angle... only to find they don't need all that.

 

I often build parts of models for the Image Contest only to find hours of work are facing away from the camera... that always makes me feel sleepy.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr