![]() We don’t look down at all when we blink – if we’re looking at something, we keep looking at it. Perhaps it just seems more ‘animated’.įor a long time, I animated this way myself, but it isn’t realistic, at least for a casual blink. Perhaps it’s because they don’t want to have a frame where only the whites of the eyes are visible (which I agree doesn’t look very appealing). You can deviate from it in special cases: for example, for a character in pain, or for anime-style inverted smiling eyes.Īnimators sometimes move the irises of a character’s eyes down as they blink, then back up as the eyes reopen. If this is the case, be sure to change the blink height value, if it exists, or to double-check your eyes’ closed position. But some character rigs come with a neutral blink right in the middle. When we blink, our eyelids usually come down below the midline between the corners of the eye. Avoid blinking along the median line of the eye ![]() This works for any eye pose, from a neutral pose to the eyes wide open, including a chilled-out/bored expression.Ħ. ![]() Instead, lower the corners of the eye, and move the peak of the eyelids closer to the pupils. What I call an almond-shaped eye is when the corners are right on the midline between the lower and the upper lids. If the character is lifting their shoulder very high, you may need to rotate the head, neck and chest as well. Move them forward and backward as well as up and down. I’d suggest involving the shoulders whenever the character’s arms rotate more than 30° away from the body. Otherwise, you’re noodling the limbs.ĭon’t forget to use the shoulders! A common mistake is not to move them when posing a character’s arms, but they’re where the motion is actually coming from, particularly when the character is lifting their arms. Only do this sparingly: the viewer should feel the result, not see it. (You could do the same for the calves, but the calves of the Malcolm rig already have a nice slight curve to them.) It creates the illusion of real muscles and bones, like the triceps in the upper arm, the radius and ulna in the forearm, and the quadriceps in the thighs. For a more natural look and a better silhouette, bend the arms, forearms and thighs slightly. Malcolm already has big hands, so perhaps this makes them too big, but this trick works very well when you’re animating a child character.ĬG characters can be very rigid, with straight tubes for limbs. Making them around 1.1x bigger than they would be in reality gives them more presence. Your character’s hands are the second thing that the audience will notice about them, after their eyes, and they say a lot about the character’s overall attitude.īonus tip: I like to scale up my characters’ hands. Instead, follow the previous tip about creating natural-looking poses: rather than squeezing the object inside a fist, make the palm of the hand and the fingers go around it. It’s tempting to use a fist pose when your character is holding an object. ![]() Can you get your hands and feet into those positions naturally? If not, change them! For example, in the image at the top of the story, pulling the heel up helps the overall pose, making the character look more grounded.Ģ. When you’re posing your character, make sure they’re comfortable! Check the overall pose by rotating around the character in perspective view and make sure that their ankles and wrists aren’t bent unnaturally.įor a human character, you can check the pose against the limitations of your own body. However, the tips themselves apply to any animation software. The images for this article were created using AnimSchool’s Malcolm 2.0 rig, which you can download free to use in Maya 2017+ on Windows or macOS. Eliminating them from your own work will add that extra 5-10% polish to a pose or to an animation. In this article, I’m going to reveal 10 subtle errors that animators often make: things that I’ve learned from supervisors, leads, peers and my own day-to-day experience working at studios like Illumination Mac Guff, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Pixar, on movies including Minions, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Lightyear. Small details can make the difference between a good character animation and a great one. Turn a good animation into a great one by fixing Pixar animator Eddy Okba’s list of 10 subtle errors that even experienced artists often miss – from unrealistic poses for hands and feet to unrealistic blinks and lip sync. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |