Animation Boot Camp - Week 3 - Peels

The last week of Animation Boot Camp is peels. Peels are not having all the parts of your body arrive at the same spot at the same time, like when you grab a cup, each finger wraps around the cup at a different frame, not all at the same time. This way you don't get a claw effect whenever you grab something. Lets look at some peels I did during the boot camp exercises.

For this first one, I had a hand come up to a wall and flick a light switch. The peel happens when the hand touches the wall, not each finger arrives at the same time. This is especially important when looking at a shot this close because the fingers are the main focus of the shot.

In addition to the peel here, it's also important to lead with the wrist to create a nice arc for the motion, as well as following through with the pointer finger to emphasize the motion of flicking the switch.

In this second clip I was thinking of ways to use peels to anticipate movement. Especially during the hold when the hand its at it's highest point, getting ready to grab the bat. Doing the finger moves at this point draws the eye there, no matter where you were looking before, because aside from a light moving hold, those fingers are the only things moving. You then get to follow the hand as it goes in for the bat. When talking to my animation director, he mentioned this second peel to be slightly repetitive, because it is exactly the same as the first, in terms of timing. If I were to do it again, I would change up the timing to be a bit more varied.

It's important to remember that peels not only apply to fingers, feet have them too. They are very prominent in walk cycles because when we pick up our feet, it's heel first then toe last, and then when we place them down again its heel first then toe last (on most occasions, some walks have different rules.) This quick shot is of one step where the peel really brings some life to the shot, as opposed to having robot feet, where the whole foot leaves the ground at the same time.

Using peels in conjunction with other animation techniques (like takes), will further add to the realism of your animations.

This concludes my animation boot camp posts, while I worked on these exercises, I also got to block out the scenes I plan to use in my demo reel. Stay tuned because I will be covering demo reel stuff in the near future. I also encourage you to check out my website raresgruian.com because I will be posting updates and works in progress there more frequently.

Animation Boot Camp - Week 2 - Takes

Week 2 of Animation Boot Camp was takes. Takes are a way of reacting with an emotion shift, that includes an anticipation, overshoot, and then a settle. An important thing to remember is that not all emotion changes are takes. Since I talked a lot about the rigs in last weeks work, this week I'll skip a lot of that and jump straight into the takes.

Here I was going for a smooth confident guy, possibly looking at a girl he likes. He then takes a closer look only to be surprised by what he sees, what he sees is up to the viewer, but the fun part is making the audience guess. Here is a breakdown of the 4 main steps of the take.

On the last day I really wanted to have some fun with the take so I tried to push the Norman rig to its limits to try and emulate a Tex Avery style. This time our character really sees something he likes but at first he's not quite sure. So the emotion shift here would be curiosity to very surprised.

Sometimes you can add appeal to your animation takes by giving a bit of story to your scene. This may be adding some sort of antic to the beginning or end of the animation. Its also incredibly important to treat the eyes with a lot of care (especially when the camera is more zoomed in.) Keeping in mind the mechanics of the eyes will add more life to your animations. Some include leading with the eyes (having them look at something before the head turns all the way), blinking to anticipate turns, and including eye darts. All these factors together will add to the animation. Here are the key poses for the second take.

Next time we're taking a look at peels, a way to add some secondary motion when moving hands and feet around.