What is the animation production process?

First analyze the story version of the last shot, and then determine the proportion of models with the model group. Then import the low-precision scene model and binding file, and start the active storyboard to match the front and rear shots.

Animation production method

outright

Commercial manufacturers do not advocate this method. It's hard to control. Once the action doesn't conform to the director's idea, it will be quite troublesome to change it. This will affect the whole production schedule.

pose

Choose the animation key frame posture and realize the action through correct timing. Accurate posture and accurate timing are the keys to successful movements.

1. Shorten the production time and make high-quality actions.

Let the director see your movements as soon as possible.

3. Organize the action structure as conveniently as possible through the key frame data.

audio

When we get an audio, the most important thing we have to do is to listen to this conversation repeatedly. Analyze where it is rising, where it is falling, where it is stressed, which part is the main posture and which part is the same posture, but there are also small high tides and small details in it. Of course, what kind of expressions and actions are needed is to be considered after this. All we have to do is bring them into the character's mind and think about how to speak and pause.

If you can take some time to sit down and listen to the dialogue audio repeatedly, listen attentively and understand its artistic conception, and get some inspiration from it, your animation will be more vivid.

After listening, we usually perform the action of this dialogue ourselves and choose one of the two. One is to start doing blocking gestures on the computer, thinking constantly and making gestures constantly.

Or draw your ideas on a sketch. The effect of the two is the same, but it can help you to have more observation and consideration in sketch. Especially the sketch of your expression recorded in the lower part can help you more.

Sketching is usually very simple and quick. Mind you, it's enough to know what you should do. It usually takes a varied animation sketch as the final product. This is convenient for you not to be locked by your mind when you want to modify some places. This is really a good way to start animation.

Layout and design. block

In 3D, the first thing we need to do is to get the characters, backgrounds and cameras we need for our work. The layout here is the first step, which mainly includes the posture of the characters in the first frame, the background of the props needed, and the camera lens framing.

Once you have finished the layout, you can start animation immediately. First, look at your original sketch. Listen to the audio clip of the dialogue and start to make key gestures.

I am used to using the "step" key when making. This method is that if you have one posture in the first frame and another posture in the 20th frame, you only need two postures of key, and the others can be "held" without inserting key frames. It seems that one posture will suddenly switch to another posture, because there is no transition key frame in the middle.

If you want a pose, again at key frames 1 and 20, you must first set the pose at key frames 1, and then calculate how long it will take to keep the pose, or you think it may take 15 frames, then go to key frames 15 and set key frames for all parts of the character. It is exactly the same as the pose in frame 1. Then we go to frame 20, and the key points give a second different pose, so that the frames from 1 to 15 can remain unchanged and there are no redundant key frames. Then, the posture changes at frame 20.

Most of them are constantly cycling new postures, holding postures, and then new postures, holding postures until they are finished. Some examples can also be shown, and some holds should be moved, because pose will not change much in real action. Anyway, as long as you pay attention, the current animation is still very, very rough.

The function of blocking

Masking is simply taking a snapshot of the pose, explaining what happened in this shot, and making sure there seems to be no mistake.

The importance of the blockade is as follows:

1. It can be done quickly by adding basic POSE.

2. Explain what the role's performance is about.

Timing is not the most important thing here, you should make a camera action first.

4. The key frame of every posture on the body is on the same key frame. This allows you to easily shift curves and timing in post-production.

Rough animation

When you feel that the main posture, performance and basic timing are appropriate and safe, the next step is to start making details in depth. You still keep the "Linear" key, so you don't need to worry about the errors caused by "Spline". In this process, you will start to adjust the time of posture and their displacement.

When you think it's almost time, you start to add decomposition and refinement actions, add more details on the basis of the original posture, and I will also add anticpation and follow through in the whole process.

If you still use linear keys here, the animation should start to look more complete. If you set keyframes for multiple parts of the body, you should still ensure that all keyframes are saved in one keyframe. There is no offset, but there are more details, more exquisite, Pose, timeing, details.

Generally, I do about 50- 100 frames at a time, so that I can concentrate on making a small piece, make it look good, and then continue. Here are three clips from the production process.

In the first clip, what is really done is to start adding the details of the opening clip, that's all.

In clip 2, everything is better. Because the expression animation is not made, the face is hidden, but the eye animation is still kept, so that we can better understand how the animation should continue. In the third part, we decided to add more postures and exaggeration, especially some changes.

Importance of rough stage

1. Timing has been modified correctly.

2. The posture is more refined and the middle posture is added. It also increases the preparation and following posture.

3. There is still no expression animation.

4. All animation curve types are still linear.

At this stage, the body can be animated as well as possible, although the curve is only linear.

Facial animation

When the animation of the body is a linear state curve has almost been completed, the expression animation begins.

First of all, we started to do mouth animation, which was very beautiful. This is the clip 1, and then we went back and added some emotions to the mouth animation. More or less smiling or frowning expressions are added to the whole clip. Key frames are still linear state curves.

When the shape of my mouth is finished, I will start to animate my eyes. I will make the necessary expression changes on my eyebrows and eyelids. They are all linear key points, and only the key points need the posture of expression to keep the whole timeline clean and tidy. This is the animation of clip 2. Make sure your eyes look in the direction it needs.

Facial animation

Finally, prepare to adjust any lipsync and facial expressions, and add highlights to the posture so that the expressions meet the basic requirements. Here are still all the linear bonds. This is facial care 3.

1. All curves are still linear.

2. Add mouth animation, and then add expressions.

3. After the production of this part, the animation of body and expression has been basically completed, but it is still liner.

Clean up animation

Finally, I began to enter the "clean-up" stage and adjusted our key frames to be smooth.

This will give you perfect smooth movement. Generally speaking, you need to change the curve to spline/smooth and manually modify the tangent handle to eliminate excessive motion.

Watching the animation play, and then refining some unreasonable parts, you can shift some curves, slightly adjust others, shift some rotation positions if necessary, or shift the frame delay of spine bones, and so on.

Preview the original film repeatedly to ensure that there is no problem when zooming in on the screen.

1. Smooth/Spline keyframe

2. Offset the curve as needed.

3. This is the final animation