Wednesday, March 11, 2009

What makes animation look pose to pose?

There are times when I get a comment like your animation looks pose to pose or it is easy to spot that animation is just going from one key pose to another key pose. I understand what the comment means, but sometimes I don't know how to solve it.

While animating today I realized that if I break down animation into different body parts and loosen up the body (not too much or it will look funky) I can remove that pose to pose feel. So it's about adding proper overlapping action, arcs, follow through and secondary motion. But instead of doing it randomly or following just one rule, like hand always lags behind, find out what leads the action. Is it the torso that leads the action or force, or hands or pelvis or legs? Then it is good to draw thumbnails of how you reach your key pose with a particular body part leading the action. And always important, try to feel the action inside your body.

I just re-realized this so I thought I should write it down.