The only breakdowns should be in your animation planning

During first semester in 3D classes we were animating using the Jason Ryan technique.

Boiled down, and for animators at the start of our 3D animating careers, the technique is all about planning our animation sequences fully before we open the 3D software.



Despite trying to encourage understanding of this animating method, I still observe animators absolutely bursting to turn on their computers and open the 3D 'animation' software to, what they think is, 'start animating'.

It is quite a challenge to communicate/ demonstrate to animators, despite the software titles, that animation does not happen in the 'animation' computer program.

The core of animation occurs in our planning. And that is where we should concentrate our style, time and effort.

Back to the Jason Ryan technique: Draw story telling poses, then add 'extremes', then start the break down process so that the whole animation is planned before employing the "computer inbetweener". Pretty much don't let the computer do more than 2 or 3 inbetweens as you plan out your early 3D animation explorations. That is what we should get the hang of as we are learning.

This is where I'll bring in Shawn Kelly from AnimationMentor. He is a big gun.

"Well, as far as I'm concerned, you've hopefully done some planning and know what your poses are going to be on what frames, at least generally speaking. If that's the case, then you're just going to a frame, sculpting your pose, and then saving a key on everything, and then moving on to do the same thing a few frames later or whatever, right? Hopefully, that is the way you are working. If you are only in the first five or six years of being an animator or are a student, then I strongly believe you SHOULD be working that way."

This comes from a post by Shawn discussing how he prefers animating hands using inverse kinematics (IK) rather than forward kinemetics (FK)... Read more