Straight Ahead: Animation Workflow
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- čas přidán 25. 07. 2024
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Straight Ahead workflow is 1 of 3 main workflows in computer animation. Join me as I demonstrate the power of Straight Ahead Animation. This video aims to give you a solid understanding of the value of a good workflow. I use Blender for the tutorial, however Maya and any other animation software will have the same Straight ahead workflow. Speed of blocking is the true power of this workflow.
Check out the Pose to Pose workflow tutorial: • Pose to Pose : Blender...
Character download: studio.blender.org/characters...
If you are new to Blender have a look at my Intro to Blender video: • Learn Blender Like A P...
Chapters:
0:00 Workflow Intro
3:02 Scene setup
4:30 Workflow steps
5:29 Idea
13:40 Blocking
49:20 Refining poses
1:07:26 Finished Straight Ahead
#blender #animation - Krátké a kreslené filmy
This is gonna help me in ways I can't even imagine. Thank you so much for this! Will be grateful to you forever.
You are the most informative 3d animation youtuber ever ! Its so hard to believe this is free to be honest
Thanks for the note! Happy to hear the video is helpful.
Workflow is such an important part of animation. Happy to share what I know.
I just want to look straight ahead and say, thank you. So. Here I am, looking straight ahead. THANK YOU! Dg
Much appreciated! Thank you for your note!
Was eagerly awaiting the next installment. Many thanks, Alex - LOVING this content. Nothing else like it out there.
Thanks for the note, that's nice to hear!
Layered workflow video should be up soon.
If there is anything you want to see animated/explained just let me know.
Alex, you keep putting out bangers. You're teaching me more than my education in 3D design and animation did.
Thanks for the note Robin!
Happy to hear that. It's sad, but thankfully we have tools like CZcams to cut useless schools out of the equation. I too did not learn much from my 1 and a half years of art school. Let me know if there is something specific you wanting to learn.
@@alexonstory It's very valuable just to hear you think aloud while working. But specifically I'd love to hear it if you have any good tips on staging. Particularly in a sequence with multiple shots. You probably have some thoughts.
Another idea is more abstract animations. I work in advertising, where there's much more animation of products and symbolic shapes. If you have any experience with that kind of motion, I would be fascinated to watch.
@@robinsquares Great suggestions! Very cool, thank you for sharing.
I do use staging a lot in Layout so yes I'll make a number of videos on using staging.
Abstract animation is cool. In part it's motion graphics and playing with space and flirting with 2D and 3D. It's an area I enjoy and still exploring and yes I'll share what I know.
Its so hard to believe this is free to be honest thnx you brooooooooo lots of love from my side
Happy to share, thanks for your note!
Hello Bro, My Name is Rohan and I am from India I have learned blender in 2020 at the time of corona because after that I wanted a job. It was my dream to learn animation but after corona finding job was a very difficult task.. So, from 2020 I was working in B.P.O sector and now from last 1 week I am watching your videos and the way you are teaching is best. I appreciate all of the lessons you've shared and the advice you've given us. You've helped me to gain the confidence I needed to set goals and the knowledge to achieve them. You have shaped my professional success in many ways, and I thank you for your continued support...😇
Thank you for your great note! People can do great things! Bit by bit we incrementally improve.
Set a goal to do 1 animation shot a week. In 3 months put a reel together of your work. Celebrate! Then do it again. Set out to do 1 animation shot a week for 3 months. At the end of that time put another reel together of your best work. Then apply with that animation reel. Hopefully you land a job. If not, that's okay keep at it. Remember we improve incrementally. So the idea is to get better over time. When learning a specific thing take the time to learn and apply it properly so that you add it to your tool kit.
Good luck! :D
@@alexonstory Thanks for the suggestion I will do it... Last 2 Weeks I have learned a lot and will continue to learn more.. 😇
I am working on a animated short right now i I just got to the animation stage which I was really excited for but when I started everything ended up really bad and I didn’t like it and I almost lost all inspiration so I took a week break just to regain myself and hopefully get in burnt out, then this video came out and I immediately started watching because I really only use straight ahead (which I probably shouldn’t but I find pose to pose really difficult to do) and not only did I learn some tricks to make my animation better but also you have gave me that inspiration that I had before back and now I am ready to start animating again so thank you for all the animation videos that you post, you are really helping a lot of people like me out, keep up the great work 👍
So happy to hear that! Thank you for sharing.
Animation is one of those crafts that can beat you down. I have felt what you have with your short hundreds if not thousands of times over my career and in school. Good for you for taking a break and then coming back!
If you have not done this yet. Try doing a first pass for your short in 3D. Block it out so you have a 3D animatic to watch and even get feedback on. Then just go in and finish shot by shot knowing that your idea is working.
Shorts are not easy! Keep going! Finishing a short is a big deal. You learn a lot. 1 important thing you pick up is a better understanding of the process. Where you need to improve and where you should spend more time and effort.
Thanks again for your note!
Alex you just became the Bob Ross of animation. And although your demeanor and approach would get you eaten alive at any given studio. You give some solid foundations you won't find anywhere else from any other seasoned animation CZcamsr.
Kudos to you! You are doing God's work.
haha :D
Thanks for the note!
You are really doing the most Alex. Thanks for the tutorials.
Thanks for your note:)
Effective and clear, great content, and thanks for sharing!! blessings.
Happy to hear that, thanks for your note!
Thanks for doing what you do, Alex! Really!
Thanks for the note Marco!
Happy to share!
Top content Alex as always!
Thank you for the note! Happy to hear that!
wow super tutorial, your teaching method is too good. i can visulise your thought procees. i was trying to learn from many years but due to hard work timeline, i can't. but now i have started.
Good for you! I know it's not easy, hopefully my videos help you get to a better understanding faster. Happy this video is helpful. Good luck and keep going! If your wanting to learn something specific just let me know.
Thanks for the note!
this my favorite type of animation tutorials , thank you so muuuch !
That's great to hear, thanks for the note!
Superb! Thanks a lot for your tutorials!
Happy to put them together. Thanks for the note!
These are such great videos with invaluable information. I LOVE this long format, and not many youtubers will go through the entire process like this. Keep it up!
That's great to hear, thanks for your note!
This is great loving it! 👍
Happy to hear that, thank you for the note!
I like the idea of having 2 "root" controls
one true and one just for adjustment as you've shown at 13:25
I never thought of it that way before. I'll definitely consider adding something like this to my rigs
Yes having multiple controls is really nice. I prefer having 2 or 3 controls for the same part of the body to using animation layers.
I really enjoy your videos. You explain everything with detail and certainty. Go on please.
Thanks for your note! Will be back to making more videos soon.
You are amazing!!!!!!! I will practice with the previous video.
Thanks! That's awesome you got this!
Please do these kind of video in the future, as a student need to absorb these kind of things.Many thanks for the tutorial
Thanks for the note! I'll continue to share what I know :)
I love Blender! But it's people like yourself that make learning it so exciting! New subscriber and actually the first video that I have bookmarked is the Baqir large gap jump tutorial; so I can't wait to get started! Cheers!
That is awesome! Thanks for your note and for being here!
Happy to hear your getting good info from my tutorials!
Aw man, I was really hoping to see the process of adding a run cycle while the character was moving like that with the straight ahead
Didn't want to make the video too long. I'll make more videos like this and I'll focus on a run similar to this video.
@@alexonstory Thanks, that would be super helpful! I always have trouble with moving from place to place in animations
@@Nebularban Yes it's not ease.
When ever possible having a walk/run cycle helps. But yes will work on something that shows that.
great vid man! me as a self taught animator , im super thankfull .
That's great to hear! Happy the videos are helpful.
Thanks for the note!
Thanks for you effort! Even though I'm learning in maya these helping a lot!
Happy to hear that!
Thanks for your note!
such a helpful content for me as a beginner in animation!
That's great :) happy to hear that!
Good workflow，good job~
Thanks for your note!!
You are the best
Much appreciated, thank you!
@59:45 - and then we really turn violently, which is ok 😂.. thank you for these informative videos 😊
:D hehe
Thanks for your note! Happy you like the videos, will be making more in a bit.
sir my blue berry is not move exactly with charecter
Hey, you have 3 options.
You can parent, constrain or key the blue berry by hand. For my test I went with option 3. I posed out my blueberries and keyed the in-betweens.
Hope that helps!
非常感谢！
Happy to :) Thanks for your note!
Thankes for another video maybe i will get to show you my work as a begiiner soon as i am only 16 yaers old and trying my best i am struggling with the walk cycle but this videos sets as a motivation to keep going
Very cool! You got this. Keep things simple and don't skip over development steps to fast. Might take many tests of the same assignment (like a walk) until you have a good grasp of it. But once you do understand it, you'll have it part of your skill set. Thanks for the note!
Man this is some good food thanks for making this I can't wait for the layered approach!
its hard to find information about the layered approach and I don't have 3 grand sitting around to attend a Michal Makarewicz workshop
Thanks for the note!
I hear you. Working on the layered tutorial now. Should be out soon.
great speaking! and body language! Editing!
Thanks for the note:) happy it's clear!
Good
Thanks!
Alex, thanks a lot for your tutorials. Your video so valuable for me. Could you give advise, which one workflow choose for fighting scene?
Thanks for the note Alexey! Happy it's helping you!
Fight scenes are fun and challenging. One of the hardest parts of a fight is the choreography. In order to stay loose and open to new ideas as your blocking I would Straight Ahead animate the fight. Make a very rough blocking pass to see if you like how it's playing. If you don't, just try something else. Keep it rough. Once your happy with the action then start going back in and strengthening the posing and timing.
Hope that helps!
@@alexonstory Thank you!
Wow! this is great content, can you please share the link for the environment if possible.
Thanks!
Here's the link to the set.
skfb.ly/oLFMD
Thanks very much I got it, I appreciate big time.@@alexonstory
Would’ve loved to see you do the part when he’s running
I know! The video would have just taken so much longer.
I'll create more videos and some will be about runs. Getting into and out of them.
Thanks for your note.
great video thank you! but if I were to do an anime inspired fight sequence where the emphasis was on snappy, dynamic movements, is it ok to have a 'hybrid' of pose to pose/straight ahead/stepped and spline etc to get the desired effect please? there is no right and wrong, correct?
Thanks!
You got it! You for sure can combine aspects of different workflows into the same shot.
This short video might help answer a few questions.
czcams.com/video/_0iqhQUmlNQ/video.htmlsi=bd7gHQ5zYp9Gv05-
Good luck with your fight sequence!
Do you have any tips on dealing with gimbal lock? I wanted to animate a human character placing hand on his nape and sliding it off afterwards, but the elbow just didn't want to follow the hand controller beyond a certain point.
Gimble lock can be frustrating. Sometimes a simple in between key will fix it. Other times your fighting with it the whole time.
There is a number of options.
1. There are third party solutions. For Maya you have AnimBot. I'll look into it if there is any built-in/addons for Blender. If there is I will reply back here.
2. While still in blocking try to identify when scrubbing back and forth if there is any gimble lock going on. If so fix it in the pose by looking at the rotation values of the affected control.
3. Third option is facing the gimble lock head on and identifying where in the animation it's worse. Key the frames on either side of the gimble flip. Force things as much as you can then over one frame make the switch to the other side of the gimble rotation.
Hope some of these things help you out.
As I make more video if I encounter a gimble lock I'll share it and how I go about solving it.
@@alexonstory Thank you for answering!
@@Jiftoo For sure :)
I got a question, how do you animate hair or a cap influenced by the wind or This kind of movement ?
Really good question!
That kind of movement is called secondary movement. For the most part I would do that as a straight ahead workflow. Start at the beginning of your shot and block out what you feel the movement should be. Block it out quickly. If you like how it's looking your on the right track. If not try something different in the movement. The good thing about blocking out the movement quickly is your not committing lots of time so you can test out multiple ideas.
Hope that helps!
I've watched your series on different ways to animate now and they are all really good.
And that double Root control, why don't all rigs have it?
As making that tumble animation as fast as you do here without that extra root control whould have been much harder.
That said could you do a video on how to do full body rotation animations in any axis or several without such a control and with. Say tumbles, martial arts spinns, hanging by hands etc?
Thanks!
Yes I'll be doing a bunch of action animations and each one will use a different method. Hopefully something in them will help you out.
Amazing tutorials!! 🖤 why do you refer to the char as a sprite character though?
Thank you! That's what that type of character is called in the short movie. I just added a link to the character in the video description. Blender now allows anyone to download it.
its layered method of blocking a think....
maybe i am wrong but straight ahead it's move every element of character frame by frame. from 0 -> end. you go to start. playback. make/fix frame. repeat.
best use case is work in straight ahead between key poses, after you find and define timing.
Yes there is some similarities for sure in the blocking. The more action a shot is the more rough you want to go. Posing in afterwards from start to the end.
@@alexonstory agree) but I always think about methods between two poses) except a layered. And I need reread Richard Williams about this, maybe a I am wrong.
@@dmitryvolkov7178 If your two poses are extreme and you have more to solve between them. Then being loose and exploring ideas in straight ahead works. Straight ahead is great to freely block out your scene or action and come up with ways of movement that's more spontaneous. There will be times when blending workflows happens.
@@alexonstory yes) maybe its another level of method) thanks for answer)
I am doing something better than liking and that’s putting this series to one of my organized playlists! I only have like 15 of them or so for blender stuff ha
That's really cool!!
Thanks for the note!
At 33:03 is there a reason why you don't animate the main control while he's running?
Ive seen this done in other animation breakdowns, but it was never explained to me.
He starts explaining his decision for this at 10:44
@markusberg195 oh wow thank you man 👊🏾👊🏾
Thanks for your question. Mark's timestamp response went right to the answer.
Hope that helps. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.
Thanks for helping Mark!
name of model used there are lots of forest loner thanks
That sounds like a good name for a forest character.
Why use fk to animate the arm instead of ik to animate the arm, and what's the difference?
I use Fk because I am prefer it. I usually don't switch in the shot so I just fake the contact on the ground for this shot.
IK is great if the hand are contacting another object.
Ii have done a video on that. czcams.com/video/c1iv0dbtMJ4/video.htmlsi=Km0Ke0dk7Ka0Eq5Y
Hope that helps!
You read a lot.@@alexonstory
Which character is this 🤔
studio.blender.org/characters/sprite/v1
Sorry but isn't this more like a Layer animation rather than Straight Ahead?
There are similarities in that 1 control is used in the blocking pass. Layered focuses on adding detail 1 control at a time. For straight ahead the detail is added with poses that feed into the next pose. I find the more complicated the action the more important it is to block out the general action with 1 control then commit to storytelling poses.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” - John 3:16 God bless everyone here. Jesus loves you and died for you on the cross. He did this to wash away the burden of sins, and if you open your heart to Him, He can take away the burden of your sins and give you a peace incomparable to anything in this world. ✝✝🙏
Thank you for that!