This workflow really doesn't scale well for either teams or big projects, sadly. But I could totally be used in self contained instances inside AAA projects?
@@timmygilbert4102 They do squash and stretch. But they use rigging to do it. Not frame by frame retopology and mesh manipulation since they are working with far more detailed meshes for their models. Maya has a lot of tools to performe organic motion without manipulating your models
this is so cool, i love how many different solutions there are to any given problem. the process is almost like going way back to the 90s and doing vertex animation. this would be so useful for small objects that only need to animate once or twice in a piece.
This is a game changer for people who like to animate traditionally. I really have to think to start using grease pencil and you're way to forget the rig.
Mentioning this just in case, shapekeys can still be a very tedious process (sculpting or setting vertices each frame takes time) and for highpoly meshes rigging is often necessary, but you're right this would be pretty useful for traditional animation and I do like it as a alternate approach, best of luck!
@@ArsalanHasnain Agreed, recently I saw a from the movie Turning Red how they used a bone cage to create a more flexible rig so advancers are happening.
This is how I did my very first animation. It was in some old game engine and I didn't know about bones yet so I animated a run cycle, hit, and death animation for my character by pushing verts 😅
Lol, I had a similar past eperience, later I joined a game studio and discovered that everyone was just using mixamo for things I had been pulling my hair out over
Thank you so much for this! A friend and I were discussing the exciting idea of using shape keys as the source of animation frames, but we were facing some puzzling aspects. Then you essentially posted a video that for me could have been called "Hey you, do this to get what you want!" I've passed your video on to my friend and I am sure he's going to love it as much as I. I was not even aware of the option of using absolute shape keys so this is a real revelation.
a very interesting approach. Would it be possible to show a sped up version of the entire process from start to finished animation? I think it would be quite interesting to see.
I don't have the recordings for this project but Ill try to record the entire process for my future videos cause that does sound like a good approach, thanks for the suggestion!
This is an interesting approach. It works well for shots like the ones you used but if I think about very dynamic shots it would be a real struggle... additionally there's no adjusting arcs like this. The biggest + of CG animation is in my opinion it's flexibility to adjust animation at any point. Changing arcs, retime, layered animation... all these things get lost with an approach like this.
Yeah you're completely right, this is primarily meant to be time saver on the rigging front or if you want to really break the constraints of using a rig and instead go for a solo frame by frame aniamtion, but I would defo not recommend it on a large scale projects with larger teams because as you said it looses advantages on several fronts
it's not just for short shots like these. for facial animations like lip syncing, deformations and even precise movements, these are great. Using both rigs and shape keys is the actual "big +" of CG.
@@midorifox Of course blendshapes are good for facial animation. That's what they are used for mostly because it's linear movement. But normally these blendshapes will be integrated into a rig to make it easier to smoothly blend between these shapes.
@@ZigealFaust not really. Animating a face or some gestures or some deformations are better done via shape keys, but as OP said "The biggest + of CG animation is in my opinion it's flexibility to adjust animation at any point," and discarding any variation of workflow in favour of whatever is the status quo at the moment, is the dumbest way of thinking imaginable. I'm not saying this is better, nor worse, than rigs, but having this and rigs is what is actually "working smarter."
this is good for specific cases like these. i cant imagine making a minute of animation using this method, making hundreds of shape keys each time feels like a nightmare.
That was one of the most informative, short form pieces of content I've seen! I've seen relative shape keys a ton, but not absolute. Definitely going to be adding this to the workflow. Thank you!
from approving your fantastic post in fb group to seeing it in my youtube feed is absolutely amazing and i am feeling quite good seeing such creativity nice job Arslan really apreciate your work.
this is a really interesting way to animate! I most likely won't try this, since animating without a rig seems like a bit of work for me, but I tend to merge these two methods a lot! I usually have a bunch of shape keys for the face, and I sometimes use shapekeys to fix odd looking mesh deformities. but still this is really cool! I love your style :)
lol i watched this video like a week ago thinking it was a useless, quirky way to animate, but now I find myself coming back because it's a great way to animate cartoon-ish oval shaped eyelids like patrick's eyes. thanks
Other than the fact that this video provides some good information, is anyone else other than me amazed by the fact that this guy created 3D Patrick the Krusty Krab and other things still making it look AMAZING and just like the cartoon?
You can achieve the same effect even with Relative Shapekeys but it takes a few more clicks. The advantage of that is that you can combine Relative and "Absolute" Shapekeys on one Mesh: If you want to go from Key1 to Key2 you can simply change the "Relative To" property of Key2 from Basis to Key1 Then if you want to have a thing similar to the Evaluation Time that Absolute Shapekeys have, you can use a driver on Key1 and Key2 values (however keep in mind that this way, editing shapekey that comes before others (in this case it's Key1 because Key2 is based on it) will also edit Key2 shapekey; in case you don't want that it can be solved probably by multiple ways but the one that comes into my mind right now is duplicating the object and after making changes to the original, joining it back as shape and changing the new shapekey's "Relative To" value again) From the 2 min. of googling I just did, there seems to be addon named "BsMax" that helps you with setting this Relative/Absolute shapekeys combination. If you want a showcase of how to set it up once installed, UA-cam video named "Blender BsMax Multi Target Shape Key" shows it clearly.
@@ArsalanHasnain it's alright, your content is worth waiting for just please please don't be one of these people that disappear and stop posting or post once every 3 months .. keep it up!
Yeah, what many people seem to forget is that a rig is typically meant for fast general positional controls while shape keys are typically for reusing the exact same position multiple times and stupidly complex (transitional) animations you rather never do again. It isn't like you want to shape your mouth to form the A sound hundreds of times. The best example I can give is to look at anime and how they do their front and side profiles of the face. They are NOT the same in 3D. XD
The factory that Laika relies on for clay production recently reported that it is low on clay; so low, that it would allow Laika to make one more movie. This could save the studio.
Makes me wish CartoonNetwork went the Harvey Birdman route of incorporating random characters together in "real life" scenerios. Like some type of a pseudo CN x Nick crossover webseries when those were popular.
Yeah that wouldve been amazing miss those cross overs, I originally wanted to animate "where are they now" sort of clips for old school cartoons interacting with each other hosting podcasts and what not and basically show them in current time but for now just recreating memes took too long... But Ill try
I never would've considered this level of fidelity on shape keys alone even possible. You have an incredible style and beautiful animations! Excellent work!
I LOVE YOU, MAN. ❤ Never heard of “absolute” shape keys, but I love the power & control of shape keys…until they get in each other’s way. This is an alternative approach to all kinds of things. Thanks 🙏 BTW. As you pointed out, if you create your shape keys with a super-low poly framework for subD, life will be much easier. ✊🌏🕊🍷🎩
Love you to man! Yeah that was exactly the issue I kept running into because relative shapekeys really dont work together, glad you found this useful as well!
If you use a lattice, then the model can be as complex and high-poly as you want. You just add shape keys to the lattice and manipulate the lattice's vertexes. The mesh will then automatically deform with the lattice.
True adding a lattice would be very useful but it would need to be very dense if it the only thing used for animation and it might not fit perfectly with the character because of its boxish constraints
@@ArsalanHasnain You can just use multiple lattices. One lattice for the arm, one lattice for the head, one lattice for the body, etc. Then you can use vertex groups to isolate vertexes to a particular lattice. And because you can rotate and scale lattices, you can make them fit the shape of the character.
@@ArsalanHasnain Another possibility is to use the Mesh Deform modifier. This allows you to use *any* mesh as a lattice, so you aren't limited to just boxes. So you can create a simple mesh which you use for rigging, and then use Mesh Deform to bind the complex mesh to the simple mesh.
I always create shape keys for characters that I will use later in video games, especially for simple movements like hand opening-closing, turn necks in all directions, and so on. It helps me later to combine these SK with the full animations in-game engine in a natural way, without having to create a full animation like "walking watching left"... ...Despite using them for years I did not even notice the Relative setting, so I learned st curious from this video, thanks. From my point, it is not so good for production as to create a regular animation, but it is good to know this possibility
The cult of blender awaits you (also disclaimer 3d animation pipelines are also pretty complicated you should definitely try but hope its not overwhelming)
You might consider posting all your shorts to instagram? Your content is so high quality - I am certain if you make more noise - you’ll have a gargantuan following in no time!
Good God, you're work is amazing! I really aspire to make long form videos like yours with actual story arcs.. but so far Ive been struggling with animation god nows how you're managing, also thanks for the advice! I'll start doing so
Can you do a tutorial on just subdivision and how you achieve those smooth yet well creased geometries of Aku? When I try I am just getting blobs :( Anyone has any idea?
I think this style of animation is super expressive and dramatic. I would love to see more AAA movies taking this approach.
This workflow really doesn't scale well for either teams or big projects, sadly. But I could totally be used in self contained instances inside AAA projects?
YES. YEEEEAAAAAAH. sad tho
They do, but only where it matter, look movie image by image you'll see
@@timmygilbert4102 They do squash and stretch. But they use rigging to do it. Not frame by frame retopology and mesh manipulation since they are working with far more detailed meshes for their models. Maya has a lot of tools to performe organic motion without manipulating your models
I only know the similar animation is hotel transylvania 😂
The Blender community is so creative 😍 love the art style and animation!
Thanks! glad you like it
but they overrate Sculpt mode xD
im ur thousanth like
Gklip. V vj. N vo l. K
this is so cool, i love how many different solutions there are to any given problem. the process is almost like going way back to the 90s and doing vertex animation. this would be so useful for small objects that only need to animate once or twice in a piece.
but i think we can divide the big projects wright or wrong ?
Ooh I didn’t think about the implications of that!!! Not having to rig something you’re going to use once is a huge game changer
This is a game changer for people who like to animate traditionally.
I really have to think to start using grease pencil and you're way to forget the rig.
Mentioning this just in case, shapekeys can still be a very tedious process (sculpting or setting vertices each frame takes time) and for highpoly meshes rigging is often necessary, but you're right this would be pretty useful for traditional animation and I do like it as a alternate approach, best of luck!
@@ArsalanHasnain Agreed, recently I saw a from the movie Turning Red how they used a bone cage to create a more flexible rig so advancers are happening.
This is how I did my very first animation. It was in some old game engine and I didn't know about bones yet so I animated a run cycle, hit, and death animation for my character by pushing verts 😅
Lol, I had a similar past eperience, later I joined a game studio and discovered that everyone was just using mixamo for things I had been pulling my hair out over
@@ArsalanHasnain haha nice!
jeesh! I can't even imagine how long that took!
Thank you so much for this! A friend and I were discussing the exciting idea of using shape keys as the source of animation frames, but we were facing some puzzling aspects. Then you essentially posted a video that for me could have been called "Hey you, do this to get what you want!" I've passed your video on to my friend and I am sure he's going to love it as much as I. I was not even aware of the option of using absolute shape keys so this is a real revelation.
Lol thats great, I'm glad that I posted this on the right time then, thanks for sharing and best of luck with your project!
a very interesting approach. Would it be possible to show a sped up version of the entire process from start to finished animation? I think it would be quite interesting to see.
I don't have the recordings for this project but Ill try to record the entire process for my future videos cause that does sound like a good approach, thanks for the suggestion!
@@ArsalanHasnain I would love to watch that !! And follow it to practice hehe
@@ArsalanHasnain it would be great if you did that but didnt speed it up
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5 no ❤️
@@ArsalanHasnainThis is by far the best way to give 3D a 2D feel. This is how I will do my feature film. Please do a breakdown.
Feels very natural, it's like modeling every frame
I’ve always had this style of animation in my mind, I always wondered if it’s possible and if it’s used but this proved it to me
This is an interesting approach. It works well for shots like the ones you used but if I think about very dynamic shots it would be a real struggle... additionally there's no adjusting arcs like this. The biggest + of CG animation is in my opinion it's flexibility to adjust animation at any point. Changing arcs, retime, layered animation... all these things get lost with an approach like this.
Yeah you're completely right, this is primarily meant to be time saver on the rigging front or if you want to really break the constraints of using a rig and instead go for a solo frame by frame aniamtion, but I would defo not recommend it on a large scale projects with larger teams because as you said it looses advantages on several fronts
it's not just for short shots like these. for facial animations like lip syncing, deformations and even precise movements, these are great. Using both rigs and shape keys is the actual "big +" of CG.
@@midorifox Of course blendshapes are good for facial animation. That's what they are used for mostly because it's linear movement. But normally these blendshapes will be integrated into a rig to make it easier to smoothly blend between these shapes.
Yeah, doing just keys is like, just working harder not smarter.
Even having a basic rig to assist with this method is infinitely more viable.
@@ZigealFaust not really. Animating a face or some gestures or some deformations are better done via shape keys, but as OP said "The biggest + of CG animation is in my opinion it's flexibility to adjust animation at any point," and discarding any variation of workflow in favour of whatever is the status quo at the moment, is the dumbest way of thinking imaginable.
I'm not saying this is better, nor worse, than rigs, but having this and rigs is what is actually "working smarter."
This is great! I was looking for a way to animate like this for a long time. Thanks for the tutorial!
Thanks! glad you found it helpful!
"Is this a rigged animation?"
"NO! THIS IS SHAPE KEYED!"
Aku is my favorite character of all!! I did loved your job, keep up!
The quality and knowledge in this tutorial is insane!
Thanks! Also you're work is really amazing!
this is good for specific cases like these.
i cant imagine making a minute of animation using this method, making hundreds of shape keys each time feels like a nightmare.
That was one of the most informative, short form pieces of content I've seen! I've seen relative shape keys a ton, but not absolute. Definitely going to be adding this to the workflow. Thank you!
Glad it was useful!
Knowing about absolute shapekeys is perfect for stylized VFX animation. Thanks for sharing
Great! glad I can help
from approving your fantastic post in fb group to seeing it in my youtube feed is absolutely amazing and i am feeling quite good seeing such creativity nice job Arslan really apreciate your work.
Thanks man! I really appreciate you're support
Would "Absolutely" love to see a full process video with a more tutorial based approach, this is an incredible technique!
Sure, I'll work on more detailed breakdowns
Wow, I was looking for a way to do this a few months back but didn’t think to uncheck relative. So cool!
Yeah accidently came across it myself
This opened my eyes to the power of shape keys, thanks so much!
No prob!
this is a really interesting way to animate! I most likely won't try this, since animating without a rig seems like a bit of work for me, but I tend to merge these two methods a lot! I usually have a bunch of shape keys for the face, and I sometimes use shapekeys to fix odd looking mesh deformities.
but still this is really cool! I love your style :)
Yeah it can be a bit of tedious process and thanks!
@@ArsalanHasnain yeah! no problem! hope to see more of your stuff soon :)
Looks hella hard but can't deny the results. Very cool style.
This is insane!
this helped me a ton thanks so much!!
No prob! and glad it helped
Its like frame by frame, Great Video Arssalan. Awesome!
Yeah pretty much, and thanks Mr. Fab!
Wow. Awesome video and great animations my man! Subscribed immediately after viewing. Cant wait to see more of you!
Thanks! glad you liked it, sure I'll work on more
Bro its soo smooth never see something like that
this looks cool
This tutorial is my rig solution, thanks man.
This is seriously amazing!!! Please keep the great work!
Thanks!! I will
This is freaking glorious
That looks so great. Im very thankful for this technique and I would love to see a (full) tutorial on stuff like this
lol i watched this video like a week ago thinking it was a useless, quirky way to animate, but now I find myself coming back because it's a great way to animate cartoon-ish oval shaped eyelids like patrick's eyes. thanks
Lol thanks and yeah its mostly just a quirky method, but still Ill myself be mainly using this for simple objects
im so happy knowing theres a game now where patrick looks as amazing as this
This is just amazing! Thanks for sharing this wonderful technique
No prob, glad you found it useful!
Super Cool! Thanks for sharing
Clever way to use Grease Pencil to illustrate your point, good stuff man! :D
Yeah thanks! it really came in handy, btw you're content is great! :)
@@ArsalanHasnain Thank you man! So is yours! Never thought of trying absolute shape keys before ❤️
Really NICE!!
Wow, this is great. Can't wait to play around!
Great animation! Thanks for sharing the process.
WOW!! This is supercool!! I'm definitely gonna try it
As an Aku enjoyer- that model is as well made as this entire video. Great work!
You are so talented bro thanks for this fantastic content🌹❤️
just change the mob vote to be voting for what mob will be added first, and then add the rest later, makes so much sense
Other than the fact that this video provides some good information, is anyone else other than me amazed by the fact that this guy created 3D Patrick the Krusty Krab and other things still making it look AMAZING and just like the cartoon?
Omg if the thumbnail was a new Nickelodeon game, I'd buy it so fast
You can achieve the same effect even with Relative Shapekeys but it takes a few more clicks. The advantage of that is that you can combine Relative and "Absolute" Shapekeys on one Mesh:
If you want to go from Key1 to Key2 you can simply change the "Relative To" property of Key2 from Basis to Key1
Then if you want to have a thing similar to the Evaluation Time that Absolute Shapekeys have, you can use a driver on Key1 and Key2 values
(however keep in mind that this way, editing shapekey that comes before others (in this case it's Key1 because Key2 is based on it) will also edit Key2 shapekey; in case you don't want that it can be solved probably by multiple ways but the one that comes into my mind right now is duplicating the object and after making changes to the original, joining it back as shape and changing the new shapekey's "Relative To" value again)
From the 2 min. of googling I just did, there seems to be addon named "BsMax" that helps you with setting this Relative/Absolute shapekeys combination. If you want a showcase of how to set it up once installed, UA-cam video named "Blender BsMax Multi Target Shape Key" shows it clearly.
Yeah youre right, this is a pretty interesting method as well thanks for the input!
So inspiring! Thanks for this!
I am a game developer, we use this technique in the character editor when you need to choose the parameters of the nose / lips /hollow cheeks and more
Really Helpful tutorial ! Learned nice tips. :)
Thanks Saif Bhai!
We need more tutorials ! You’re absolutely amazing animator. (MSc in animation dude saying that. )
Thanks man! Will work on more
@@ArsalanHasnainI'm waiting to see more haha
Sorry man still learning the ropes of video editing, tbh really need to work on my pacing over all hopefully will get better with time
@@ArsalanHasnain it's alright, your content is worth waiting for just please please don't be one of these people that disappear and stop posting or post once every 3 months .. keep it up!
Nice job!
I love how the animation looks like claymation.
Thanks! I was aiming for that
Thanks dude, this was interesting!
This is cool!
Where were you bro all my life???
Im right here bro
Yeah, what many people seem to forget is that a rig is typically meant for fast general positional controls while shape keys are typically for reusing the exact same position multiple times and stupidly complex (transitional) animations you rather never do again. It isn't like you want to shape your mouth to form the A sound hundreds of times.
The best example I can give is to look at anime and how they do their front and side profiles of the face. They are NOT the same in 3D. XD
Wow, you've given me some ideas. Keep going!
Thanks! I will
awesome!
This is so creative, holy smokes 😮 The CG equivalent to claymation is here!!
Seems like using absolute shape keys for the face and a rig for the limbs would be a nice middle ground. Cool video.
The factory that Laika relies on for clay production recently reported that it is low on clay; so low, that it would allow Laika to make one more movie.
This could save the studio.
Amazing ❤
❤️
Very interesting! You're sort of like doing claymation
Yup, basically digital claymation
you have done a Great Job Keep it up😇
Thanks!
You fucking rock dude. This is amazing.
Creative!
That was very inspiring!
Amazing, thank you!
Makes me wish CartoonNetwork went the Harvey Birdman route of incorporating random characters together in "real life" scenerios. Like some type of a pseudo CN x Nick crossover webseries when those were popular.
Yeah that wouldve been amazing miss those cross overs, I originally wanted to animate "where are they now" sort of clips for old school cartoons interacting with each other hosting podcasts and what not and basically show them in current time but for now just recreating memes took too long... But Ill try
Samurai Jack character are really hard to pull off in 3d, nice work.
Is this how the canceled Popeye movie was going to be made? Now I know how to recreate a replica of the animatic scenes
Deadass looks like it’s from sponge on the run
Please puedes hacer un directo desde 0 como hacer modelo 3D hasta la animación
Thanks a lot. Just learning to animate :)
I had some trouble understanding what you're saying, but the info is solid
That'll be an idea for 2D animation if we had everything 2D shading.
Because Quake 1 was truly the peak of technological innovation.
I never would've considered this level of fidelity on shape keys alone even possible. You have an incredible style and beautiful animations! Excellent work!
Thanks! That's really kind of you
Its 3d but with 2d artstyle angle. I love it
The workflow kinda reminds me of traditional clay animation
I LOVE YOU, MAN. ❤ Never heard of “absolute” shape keys, but I love the power & control of shape keys…until they get in each other’s way. This is an alternative approach to all kinds of things. Thanks 🙏 BTW. As you pointed out, if you create your shape keys with a super-low poly framework for subD, life will be much easier. ✊🌏🕊🍷🎩
Love you to man! Yeah that was exactly the issue I kept running into because relative shapekeys really dont work together, glad you found this useful as well!
This is the deeper stuff…it’s appreciated. ✊
Forget the instructions, 0:01 that one is funny.
Dude make more videos! i really like this!
okay animate without rigs is crazy yo
If you use a lattice, then the model can be as complex and high-poly as you want. You just add shape keys to the lattice and manipulate the lattice's vertexes. The mesh will then automatically deform with the lattice.
True adding a lattice would be very useful but it would need to be very dense if it the only thing used for animation and it might not fit perfectly with the character because of its boxish constraints
@@ArsalanHasnain You can just use multiple lattices. One lattice for the arm, one lattice for the head, one lattice for the body, etc. Then you can use vertex groups to isolate vertexes to a particular lattice. And because you can rotate and scale lattices, you can make them fit the shape of the character.
@@ArsalanHasnain Another possibility is to use the Mesh Deform modifier. This allows you to use *any* mesh as a lattice, so you aren't limited to just boxes. So you can create a simple mesh which you use for rigging, and then use Mesh Deform to bind the complex mesh to the simple mesh.
I would love to see invader zim animated like that 👽
Looks incredible
Love your content, very curious as to why your watching blender tutorials, and thanks!
I always create shape keys for characters that I will use later in video games, especially for simple movements like hand opening-closing, turn necks in all directions, and so on. It helps me later to combine these SK with the full animations in-game engine in a natural way, without having to create a full animation like "walking watching left"...
...Despite using them for years I did not even notice the Relative setting, so I learned st curious from this video, thanks. From my point, it is not so good for production as to create a regular animation, but it is good to know this possibility
more and more I am thinking blender over toonboom, will probably have to learn it this summer
The cult of blender awaits you (also disclaimer 3d animation pipelines are also pretty complicated you should definitely try but hope its not overwhelming)
Amazing 🤌🏻
My facial controls are entirely shapes keys based.
for very short animations it's less time consuming to do it this way. but for long animations, it's absolutely impractical.
Of course wouldnt recommend it for long projects myself
Keep this up and I'll subscribe
guys just learn bone rigging, most of the time its better trust me (and also more possibilities, u can add bone jiggle and other constraints...)
So cool! Thanks for the tutorial! :)
Thanks Savannah! Absolutely love your animations and your beard👌:)
@@ArsalanHasnain Hey, thanks! I'm growing it out B)
Is there any chance you could do a full breakdown of this from modeling to animation, I'd pay for this hands down.
You might consider posting all your shorts to instagram? Your content is so high quality - I am certain if you make more noise - you’ll have a gargantuan following in no time!
Good God, you're work is amazing! I really aspire to make long form videos like yours with actual story arcs.. but so far Ive been struggling with animation god nows how you're managing, also thanks for the advice! I'll start doing so
Can you do a tutorial on just subdivision and how you achieve those smooth yet well creased geometries of Aku? When I try I am just getting blobs :( Anyone has any idea?