Great tutorial. I also really like the cheat sheet. I wish I had it months ago when i switched from a VFX house (which i worked at for almost a decade) to a cartoony project at another studio. One thing id like to elaborate on, if it helps anyone, is the concept of Major and Minor pose changes. Major pose changes are BIG and usually happen on emotional beats (i e the character goes from happy to sad, or thinking to realizing). You should not have too many Major poses changes or you wont give your animation any time to breathe. A formula i loosely follow is a major pose change around every 30ish frames but again its more important to hit the emotional beats of a shot than having a major pose change exactly every 30 frames. I like to break down my shots like I would if I was drawing comic panels. I use Major poses to tell the story (these would be the panels in a comic) Minor poses to keep the rythm and flow of a shot. Major poses change should be completely different than your previous and again the focus is to tell the story of the scene, minor changes help us feel the rythm of the dialogue etc. You can also use keep alive which is even less movement than a minor pose change to add a bit more texture to a shot (ie eye darts, small head movements etc) good luck everyone and hope this helped!
Hello Chester! I have been using your guides for sfm, and my animations have improved than my previous ones! Thank you so much for providing these guides! These help so much!!! I hope everything in your future goes amazing! :D
Thank you Chester once I started using this workflow and understanding it everything became so much more clear I can't thank you enough! would love a video of this workflow for facial Expression.
Hey Chester, hope you're doing well. Thanks for creating such a great tutorial. I would also love to see a similar video but on the spline process. You're so great at explaining things so I'm sure it would be extremely helpful to a lot of people! Keep being awesome!
Hope you keep doing more animation videos!! your way to present things and humor is great! please make more videoss, maybe doing breakdowns of animated movies or something like that, it would be awesome to see more
i always found tracking arcs as a boring and tedious process until i came across your method of tracking the intersecting points of the manipulators. That was a game changers for me.. and now the whole cheat sheet is a cherry on top ;) B) great tutorial as always thanks a bunch!
hey chester, i was wondering how you would apply this workflow to a walk. would you consider each contact pose a key and then the passing as a breakdown? thanks for the videos!
This is by far the best workflow ive come across thats made me feel like I'm getting somewhere with animation. However, the biggest thing I struggle with is the timing which im not sure is massively covered here. Do you have any tips for getting the timing right. It seems like you're constantly changing the timing of your golden poses in this workflow example?
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation of your workflow! :) When planning out your shots, do you tend to create thumbnails for the keyposes first, or do you work out your keyposes directly in Maya?
Great video thank you! When you start blocking in stepped, do you put poses every 10 frames at start please? Or doesn’t it matter? I have seen people do it every 3 frames/5 frames/20 frames then once the overall poses are complete they start moving frames closer together. Is this the normal workflow please? Everyone seems to do things slightly different.
I do animate primarily in camera view but I suggest making sure your main held poses are balenced in all perspectives so you know you are working between solid poses when doing your blocking plus pass
Great video! sorry if this is a dumb question but should arcs only be implemented on breakdown keys? or should they also be on key pose frames if needed? Thank you :)
Please please I need your help on a decision making (So I want to learn animation..3d/2d) as a beginner/novice , would you advice I go for an iPad or laptop that works with making animations.. Which would you advice I go for (Learning for the purpose of creating short stories/content creation)
After creating pose A and pose B if I add anticipation for pose A then I add workflow in middle pose A and the pose A anticipation? or i consider the pose anticipation is the mid point of A and B i mean the fastest mid point like yours workflow ❤❤❤ thank u
Hey Chester, if you have the time, what is the purpose of the tween machine? How would it affect your animation to just let the poses interpolate and follow the workflow?
@@ChesterSampson can u do more please, more length video like this please, like from blocking to spline then polish hahaha, sorry for greedy request :))
Hey chestor. No one talks about ik vs fk chest. When to use which one. Could you please explain it a bit to me Or probably a dedicated video. Not much information is available on internet about this.
Personally I always prefer FK spines since they preserve anatomical accuracy. The few times I’ve used IK spine is when the rig does not have a reverse FK spine, for example when the character swings like a monkey with their arms. So just be aware of what you are doing in your shot, are they doing complex motions like swinging? Then check to see if the rig has a reverse FK spine. If not, then use IK. If you aren’t doing any complex movements like that, just stick with an FK spine!
is there a reason you are using the tweenmachine u linked vs the one u have from animbot and why youre tracking the gizmo instead of using animbots motionpath? New to animation just trying to understand
1) No practical reason I just wanted to use classic tween machine as it's a free tool anyone could get whilst animbot is a bit expensive. 2) Motionpaths are slow and buggy, I think it's better to train your eye to track your spacing. hope that helps :)
@@ChesterSampson Oh, Well I feel silly, I have a couple of mates who currently work for Disney who say differently, I guess they're just animation snobs haha! This seems like a fanastic method to me!
Yep! For games you just need to be make sure to animate with every angle in mind. In film all the audience gets to see is what the camera does. But in games (unless the game has a locked camera) the Audience can view the animation from all angles.
Download the cheat sheet here - drive.google.com/file/d/1U5RD9mjhm_m2azNWtCyhx81qTHdYWJMD/view?usp=sharing
He made the best animation cheat sheet out there and stop uploading, what a legend
Great tutorial. I also really like the cheat sheet. I wish I had it months ago when i switched from a VFX house (which i worked at for almost a decade) to a cartoony project at another studio. One thing id like to elaborate on, if it helps anyone, is the concept of Major and Minor pose changes. Major pose changes are BIG and usually happen on emotional beats (i e the character goes from happy to sad, or thinking to realizing). You should not have too many Major poses changes or you wont give your animation any time to breathe. A formula i loosely follow is a major pose change around every 30ish frames but again its more important to hit the emotional beats of a shot than having a major pose change exactly every 30 frames. I like to break down my shots like I would if I was drawing comic panels. I use Major poses to tell the story (these would be the panels in a comic) Minor poses to keep the rythm and flow of a shot. Major poses change should be completely different than your previous and again the focus is to tell the story of the scene, minor changes help us feel the rythm of the dialogue etc. You can also use keep alive which is even less movement than a minor pose change to add a bit more texture to a shot (ie eye darts, small head movements etc) good luck everyone and hope this helped!
Thank You Chester. your helping the Animation community alot. Thank you.
The amount of focus it took to watch this 😅 But great workflow, amazing explanations, very clear and detailed!
Clarifies a lot of questions I had from the previous video, good demo.
"Your presence on UA-cam is like a blessing to me. Thank you for existing."
Hello Chester! I have been using your guides for sfm, and my animations have improved than my previous ones! Thank you so much for providing these guides! These help so much!!! I hope everything in your future goes amazing! :D
It's crazy how fast and efficient you work! That would have taken me probably 4 times as long. lol
Thank you Chester once I started using this workflow and understanding it everything became so much more clear
I can't thank you enough! would love a video of this workflow for facial Expression.
Hey Chester, hope you're doing well.
Thanks for creating such a great tutorial. I would also love to see a similar video but on the spline process. You're so great at explaining things so I'm sure it would be extremely helpful to a lot of people!
Keep being awesome!
Hope you keep doing more animation videos!! your way to present things and humor is great! please make more videoss, maybe doing breakdowns of animated movies or something like that, it would be awesome to see more
i always found tracking arcs as a boring and tedious process until i came across your method of tracking the intersecting points of the manipulators. That was a game changers for me.. and now the whole cheat sheet is a cherry on top ;) B)
great tutorial as always thanks a bunch!
BEAUTIFULL! This has been the most usefull tutorial on 3D aimation I've seen. And I've been seraching for a while ahah Thank you so much
Thank you again.. your demonstration is always clear and easy to understand
WOW! I've never seen a work flow like this. Genius ♥
Chester, we love you ❤
bless you bro, thank you for the knowledge you gave to us
using this in my assignment this week!! thanks
Amazing Demo! thanks alot for sharing!
Fantastic video, thank you!
p.s. special shout out to the dog on the background :D
I've been waiting for this one!
He's back! Great video, Ches
super video, again! It resonates well with Owenferny's last one!
Yes! animating a cube is another great exercise to get some practise with this way of working
Thank you, Chester, you are really awesome
Thank you Chester!!
Thank you, sir. this is beautiful stuff👏👏
one minute of silence for those didnt find this video yet.
Awesome work !
great one as usual man ❤
hey chester, i was wondering how you would apply this workflow to a walk. would you consider each contact pose a key and then the passing as a breakdown? thanks for the videos!
Yeah im pretty sure the contact is the key poses and the passing is the breakdown
he's aliiiive 😮
Sensei Chester .. ❤
I would love to see your workflow on how to do slow movement
It’s doable but I like to work with more spline heavy workflows when doing subtle stuff
This is by far the best workflow ive come across thats made me feel like I'm getting somewhere with animation. However, the biggest thing I struggle with is the timing which im not sure is massively covered here. Do you have any tips for getting the timing right. It seems like you're constantly changing the timing of your golden poses in this workflow example?
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation of your workflow! :)
When planning out your shots, do you tend to create thumbnails for the keyposes first, or do you work out your keyposes directly in Maya?
Depending on the style of the shot I will usually shoot some video reference to come up with ideas.
Thanks!
Thanks so much Chester!!!! This is so great!!! If I could subscribe twice I would :)
So gooooood
nice video. im a blender user and i love your honesty. hahahaha
Awesome! 🤩
Great video thank you! When you start blocking in stepped, do you put poses every 10 frames at start please? Or doesn’t it matter? I have seen people do it every 3 frames/5 frames/20 frames then once the overall poses are complete they start moving frames closer together. Is this the normal workflow please? Everyone seems to do things slightly different.
Broo can i have a question? When doing a cycle, how do you track it? with a workflow like that
Thanks
Did you still making tutorials about animation? it's been a month. we need more :)
Cool demo! Do you always animate using only the camera viewport or is that only because it's a simpler shot?
I do animate primarily in camera view but I suggest making sure your main held poses are balenced in all perspectives so you know you are working between solid poses when doing your blocking plus pass
Thanks alot
Great video! sorry if this is a dumb question but should arcs only be implemented on breakdown keys? or should they also be on key pose frames if needed? Thank you :)
Once you start addingg breakdowns + eases you can touch the keys to help make your spacing and arcs work. There's no need to avoid touching them :)
@@ChesterSampson Awesome thank you!
Hey Chester, how did you get to use autodesk maya
Please please I need your help on a decision making
(So I want to learn animation..3d/2d) as a beginner/novice , would you advice I go for an iPad or laptop that works with making animations..
Which would you advice I go for
(Learning for the purpose of creating short stories/content creation)
you are the best👍👍
After creating pose A and pose B if I add anticipation for pose A then I add workflow in middle pose A and the pose A anticipation? or i consider the pose anticipation is the mid point of A and B i mean the fastest mid point like yours workflow ❤❤❤ thank u
If the anticipation is a held pose then you use the workflow to move between held pose into the next held pose :)
@@ChesterSampson sorry sorry what is held pose? held pose mean like pose A and B?
@@james84490 yes exactly!
Hey Chester, if you have the time, what is the purpose of the tween machine? How would it affect your animation to just let the poses interpolate and follow the workflow?
it was 10 moth you didnt gave us graph editor or splining vid we are waiting for
Check the channel bro, I uploaded a new video recently about the graph :)
@@ChesterSampson can u do more please, more length video like this please, like from blocking to spline then polish hahaha, sorry for greedy request :))
Hey chestor. No one talks about ik vs fk chest. When to use which one. Could you please explain it a bit to me Or probably a dedicated video. Not much information is available on internet about this.
Personally I always prefer FK spines since they preserve anatomical accuracy. The few times I’ve used IK spine is when the rig does not have a reverse FK spine, for example when the character swings like a monkey with their arms. So just be aware of what you are doing in your shot, are they doing complex motions like swinging? Then check to see if the rig has a reverse FK spine. If not, then use IK. If you aren’t doing any complex movements like that, just stick with an FK spine!
*was about to run away being an noob of blender* 😢
yo man ,,, its been a while .. i hope that everything is going well ..
is there a reason you are using the tweenmachine u linked vs the one u have from animbot and why youre tracking the gizmo instead of using animbots motionpath? New to animation just trying to understand
1) No practical reason I just wanted to use classic tween machine as it's a free tool anyone could get whilst animbot is a bit expensive. 2) Motionpaths are slow and buggy, I think it's better to train your eye to track your spacing. hope that helps :)
@ gotcha thanks a ton, these videos are super helpful!
Finally, here I come Disney fear me >:)
I know you’re just messing, but fair warning, Disney animators do not use the Pose to Pose method. In fact they mock those that do 😬
@@Wattoh I've worked with lots of Disney animators at different studios - I can confirm that many do in fact use pose to pose workflows
@@ChesterSampson Oh, Well I feel silly, I have a couple of mates who currently work for Disney who say differently, I guess they're just animation snobs haha! This seems like a fanastic method to me!
@@Wattohmock? Why? What do they do instead?
Yo yo! I appreciate the lesson! But is this applicable to game animation?
Yep! For games you just need to be make sure to animate with every angle in mind. In film all the audience gets to see is what the camera does. But in games (unless the game has a locked camera) the Audience can view the animation from all angles.
🤣🤣blender don't run away lol cause I was about to leave when I heard Maya
jk
Awesome stuff!