Animation Cake

Shawn Kelly, Animator at ILM and co-founder of the online animation school 'Animation Mentor.com' has given this recipe for the "Animation Cake" in his newsletter. Its quite funny to read but at the same time very useful. Here it goes-

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ANIMATION CAKE:

1 gallon of rough thumbnail ideas
2 quarts of video reference (created and/or found)
1 quart of thumbnails derived from the reference

*Note to chef: Be sure to include timing notes! Exaggerate thumbnail timing and posing to personal preference

Mix contents thoroughly and pour into a pan
2 tablespoons of saving key poses based on your thumbnails
1 heaping cup of breakdown poses, again based on your thumbnail poses and timing notes
Season breakdowns with anticipation, weight shifts, eye animation, and rough arcs
Mix with original contents and stir until terrible computer-created in-betweens are completely dissolved
Add contents to baking pan, and place in oven until ready

If possible, allow animation to cool before decorating, to have a fresh eye

Once cooled, polish Animation Cake with Arcs Frosting, Overshoot Sprinkles, and top off with Secondary Animation Candles!

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Sweet!!....... isn't it ?!

For further reading, go here --> 'Recipe for Success: Baking Your Animation Cake'

Animation tips

I am listing some of the animation tips I got on web recently, but some of them are old ones.......
I found them to be very useful...here we go

Jeff Lew's tip:

Happened to see the sneak peek of Jeff Lew's 3d character animation DVD. He advises not to have a bone joint in the chest area, and reasons it out very well. The rib cage is stiff and does not bend itself. Having a joint there will allow for bending which will look unrealistic and too 'spliney'.

Stefan Henry's tips :

It was good to dig this one out. Its a very old one, but definitely stands true till now and will stay that way for ever. In his article in Gamasutra titled Anatomically correct character modeling , he discusses the placement of bone joints effectively that will help proper posing of characters and will animate correctly, all explained with clear images.

Jeremy Cantor's tips :

His article over at Zaayats.com discusses various pitfalls in cg animation and offers solutions to them. Good one !