Smear Frame Animation Tutorial in Maya

In this brief tutorial we show how to animate a "Smear Frame". Smear Frames simulate motion blur in super-snappy animation, in the style of the old Tex Avery or Chuck Jones cartoons.

But how do you do a Smear Frame in 3D animation, using Maya character rigs? Watch our free tutorial to find out.

Eric Goldberg - Master of the Smear Frame

The master of the smear drawing is animation legend Eric Goldberg - who boarded and animated the "You'll never Have a Friend Like Me" sequence from Disney's Aladdin. a masterclass in cartoony animation. 

Looney Tunes

I worked under Eric both on Pocahontas and on the cartoony "Looney Tunes - Back in Action", animated in the super-snappy Warner Bros style.  Eric taught me a lot about comic timing and smear drawings; he showed me how much you can get away with by tightening up the timing of your animation.

Smear Drawings in 3D Animation
But how do you do a smear frame in 3D? In the short tutorial below I show to to create some simple primitive objects to create super fast smear frame animation.

Smear Frame Tutorial in Maya

Work Method

Follow the steps below to create a two frame "smear frame" in Maya. 

1. Start by animating a character leaving the scene in a hurry. In this case we're using the cartoony "Willy" rig (if you can't find a copy, email me at info@animationapprentice.org). The animation for this is in a separate tutorial.
2. Get Willy into a nice anticipation pose (top right) so we know he's about to exit stage right.
3. Remove Willy from the shot 
4. Create/Polygon Primitives/Cylinder. Create two cylinders, and shape them into a turquoise smear - like the middle image on the right
5. Then one frame later, create a new Polygon Cylinder, and shape it into the bottom turquoise smear on the right. 
6. One frame later, have a blank screen. Willy's gone. 
7. That's it!

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