This month at Escape Studios our second year undergraduate student animators are polishing their character animation skills by entering The 11 Second Club, the monthly character animation competition in which aspiring animators compete to win prizes and get their work noticed. Animators from all over the world participate, animating a character speaking a line of dialogue, which is provided on the first day of every month by the club. 11 Second Club
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| "Balloo" thumbnails by Disney legend Frank Thomas |
Participating animators can share their progress with one another and critique each other's work - just like in a real animation studio.
At the end of the month, all the competition participants vote for the submission that they consider the best for that month.
The idea of the 11 Second Club is "to give animators a chance to practice their skills in a fun, challenging environment".
December 2022 Competition
This month's competition is an eleven second piece of dialogue:
Key poses in Maya on stepped curves
Once you have done your preparation, and you know exactly what you plan to do, execute the plan. Create character poses in Maya on stepped curves, and get the blocking of the shot right. Don't deviate from your plan - stick to the thumbnails. You can change it later if it doesn't work.
Breakdowns
Once you have a pose test in stepped curves, get feedback from animators whose opinion you respect, tweak it, and, once you are happy, use the TweenMachine free Maya tool to help break down your poses.
Spline and refine
Finally, when everything is working, spline your curves and refine the final result. Remember to leave the lipsync to the end - this is the least important part of a good acting shot. To see more about how the Eleven Second Club works, read this blog post.
This month's competition is an eleven second piece of dialogue:
Voice 1 "Oh my God (laughing)"
Voice 2 "I look like a deer in the headlights in this photo"
Voice 1: "No you don't"
Voice 2: "Yes, I do. It's a pretty decent photo of you though. Look at that".
Voice 1 "Probably the only one in existence".
Planning Animation
A good animator tries to imagine the scene in their head before starting out. What is the scene about? What is happening? Try to think of interesting take on the line - and see it play as a movie in your imagination. See more about how to plan animation read this blog post.
Getting started
Since there isn't a lot of dialogue to work with, you should start by doing some rough thumbnail sketches of what the shot might be about, and work these up into storyboards. Something weird is going on in this shot, and you need to figure out visually what it's going to be.
Import the Audio into Maya
Download the line of dialogue from the 11 Second Club homepage and drag it into your Maya scene file. Now you can see roughly the timing of your shot, and you can start to match up your storyboard panels with the precise timing of the audio.
Your Maya timeline will show you where the big changes are in the waveform - these are your big accents, roughly where your key poses will go.
Act it out
Act the scene out yourself and film yourself doing it on your phone - or get someone else to film you. Don't worry about not being the greatest actor ever. You just want to get some ideas for the key poses in your shot.
Thumbnail sketches
Once you have some ideas, and you have shot some footage, do thumbnail sketches, based on the key poses in your performance. Film your own acting, and then import the footage into your shot and use an image plane to help create your key poses. Below are my rough thumbnail sketches for this month's competition.
Planning Animation
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| Thumbnails by Disney animator Cliff Nordberg |
Getting started
Since there isn't a lot of dialogue to work with, you should start by doing some rough thumbnail sketches of what the shot might be about, and work these up into storyboards. Something weird is going on in this shot, and you need to figure out visually what it's going to be.
Download the line of dialogue from the 11 Second Club homepage and drag it into your Maya scene file. Now you can see roughly the timing of your shot, and you can start to match up your storyboard panels with the precise timing of the audio.
Your Maya timeline will show you where the big changes are in the waveform - these are your big accents, roughly where your key poses will go.
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| waveform in Maya. |
Act it out
Act the scene out yourself and film yourself doing it on your phone - or get someone else to film you. Don't worry about not being the greatest actor ever. You just want to get some ideas for the key poses in your shot.
Thumbnail sketches
Once you have some ideas, and you have shot some footage, do thumbnail sketches, based on the key poses in your performance. Film your own acting, and then import the footage into your shot and use an image plane to help create your key poses. Below are my rough thumbnail sketches for this month's competition.
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| Thumbnails for December 2022 11 Second Club |
Key poses in Maya on stepped curves
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| "Ursula" thumbnails by Ruben Aquino |
Breakdowns
Once you have a pose test in stepped curves, get feedback from animators whose opinion you respect, tweak it, and, once you are happy, use the TweenMachine free Maya tool to help break down your poses.
Spline and refine
Finally, when everything is working, spline your curves and refine the final result. Remember to leave the lipsync to the end - this is the least important part of a good acting shot. To see more about how the Eleven Second Club works, read this blog post.
Character Animation Playlist
Creating Thumbnails - Video
To see more about how to use thumbnail sketches to create great animation, watch the short video below:
The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of
animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt starting in September 2023, follow this link.
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