Planning Poses

As mentioned in an earlier post, strong poses are very important for the audience to read what's going on with the character.

Planning usually plays a fundamental role there. “Usually“ because I bet there are some that can skip this part and reach great results like grandmas that don't need a recipe to cook those fabulous meals :-) .

Of course we need to plan animations too...but, I'll just take one step at a time and discuss planning of poses now. To keep things illustrated as we move along, we'll use the theme balance :-)


Reference

A good start is gathering reference, taking into account the theme you're working on. Search google images, reference sites (like http://www.gettyimages.com/), Eadweard Muybridge's books and also look around you, what do people do to express the feeling you want to transmit? Depending on the amount of time available, also check out movies or youtube videos. And, of course...see what YOU would do. That's a model that will always help you and even if you won't always be able to do what you have in mind, most of the times it helps. :-) Take pictures and test different ideas.

How would we look for reference if the theme is balance? Dances, slacklining, surfing, circus acts, yoga, ...there are lots of possible keywords to find adequate poses. Sometimes you also find poses that may be of use for a future project.

Sketching
After you've got plenty of reference, select a few poses that please you or seem more apropriate for what you're working on. Make a few sketches. You don't need to draw all the details, just a skelleton suffices really. Make sure you have the hips and shoulder rotations in there.

Check it for physical principles...is there balance? Is the weight well distributed? Is there a clear line of action in it? These are the important points, you don't need to be a wonderful drawer to make clear sketches (take a look at mine and you'll know what I mean ;-) )

To draw your sketches or evaluate your poses, it sometimes helps observing the negative space: if there's an empty area between the arm and the body, how much space is there between the legs. Sometimes it helps seing negative if you've looked for too long at something for example.

See if you can make it more interesting...can you push it a bit more? Wouldn't it be nice to add some exaggeration to it? In the end, your character will probably not look exactly like the reference you chose because maybe his body is a lot different or maybe he would look nicer if you push the pose a bit more.

Get feedback! Other people will have a fresher pair of eyes and are likely to help you out a lot with that :-)

Posing

Now let's start posing! You'll follow the reference you've got, but since your character is 3D, you can always chose the best angle of your pose. Take a look at the silhouette, is it readable? Do you have a clear view of what's going on with the legs, arms, body?

If you can understand roughly what's going on only by looking at the silhouette, you're on the right track! Always be sure the camera angle you chose lets you see the line of action - can you draw a nice clean line through the character's body. More about line of action here.
So here's my pose after all these steps:

By the way, the pose I chose comes from one of my favorite videos on youtube, so I thought I'd just share it with you...it's Polina Semionova dancing to Herbert Grönemeyer's Letzter Tag, really beautiful :-)

I realized the posts in this blog were getting too crowded with text in two languages. I couldn't place images/videos in the middle of the text, so it wasn't so nice to read. The one in English will stay here and you can find the text in Portugese here:
http://www.denisehippler-pt.blogspot.com/

As postagens deste blog estavam ficando muito cheias por causa dos textos em duas línguas. Além disso eu não podia colocar imagens/vídeos no meio do texto, já que ambos os textos faziam referência a eles. Assim, decidi deixar aqui a parte em inglês e migrar a parte em português para:
http://www.denisehippler-pt.blogspot.com/

* Seja bem-vindo! Estamos nos separando agora, precisávamos de mais espaço...
** Welcome! Stay here to read the blog in English and visit denisehippler-pt.blogspot.com to read in Portuguese!

First steps / Primeiros passos

Everyone has a unique walk, so there are always particularities that depend on the factors like personality, physical characteristics and mood of the walker. This is not what I'm going to talk about this time. Before animating a personality walk, it's important to have the foundations right and learn a basic walk...the so-called vanilla walk.

A walk is one of the tough things in animation...it is such a simple movement in real life and we're so used to it that it's easy to notice if something is not feeling right. And that's pretty easy to happen when we're learning it, because there are sooooooo many details to consider!


Hip rotations

• when we walk, we rotate our hips, especially from one side to the other (around the y axis).
  

Hip Translations

• there is obviously the translation that allows us to move forward, but there's also a shift of weight from one leg to the other, so there's a side translation as well. And, of course, let's not forget the ups and downs
  

Feet

• when raising the foot and moving it forward, the toes drag behind a bit for a while, after all, first the heel raises and only then it comes off the floor. And before reaching the ground the toes are pointing up.
• what's the path of the feet? It's not a simple arc...the peak of the path is closer to the moment when it leaves the floor, not in the middle the two contact positions (as depicted in image 1).

Arcs

• a very clear arc-like movement that has to be present is from the hips: the up/down movement, in smooth arcs. Check out an example on image 2.
  

Timing

• We gotta get the timing right otherwise it will seem the character is walking too slow/fast or that he's raising his foot much too quickly, etc. A general timeline for a vanilla walk is on img 3.
  

Knee popping

• this is one of the toughest things in a walk...it's when the knee goes forward and then backwards for a moment. To illustrate it, nothing better than an example of the knee popping. You can find the frame number in white on the lower right hand-side. From frame 1 to 4 the knee from the contact leg is moving forward, but on frame 5 it goes back before moving forward again. That's the pop. It can be taken care of by stretching the leg. For example, one can make the leg get longer so that the knee keeps moving forward.

Well, this was a huge amount of information, but there's always more to be added. It's a nice start in any case :-)






Cada pessoa tem um jeito de caminhar único, então sempre há particularidades que dependem de fatores como personalidade, características físicas e humor do caminhante :-) Não vou falar sobre isso desta vez. Afinal, antes de animar uma caminhada com personalidade, é importante ter uma base sólida e aprender sobre uma caminhada básica...chamada caminhada baunilha :-)

Uma caminhada é um movimento tão simples na vida real e estamos tão acostumados a ele que é fácil notar se algo não parece certo. E é fácil de isso acontecer, quando se está aprendendo a animar os primeiros passinhos, pois há MUITOS detalhes a considerar!


Rotação de quadril

• quando andamos, rotacionamos o quadril, especialmente de um lado para o outro (ao redor do eixo y)
  

Deslocamento de quadril

• há obviamente a translação que nos impele para frente, mas há também o deslocamento de peso de uma perna para a outra, então há uma translação lateral também. E naturalmente não podemos nos esquecer que há o movimento vertical também.

Pés

• quando levantamos o pé e o movemos para frente, o pé não se move como um bloco só: primeiro levantamos o calcanhar e só depois disso os dedos saem do chão. Antes de alcançar o chão novamente, os dedos estão apontando para cima ainda.
  Qual o caminho do pé? Não é um simples arco...o pico ocorre mais perto do momento em que o pé deixa o chão e não no meio dos dois pontos de contato (como mostrado na figura 1)

Arcos

• este é um dos princípios da animação e deve estar claramente mostrado no deslocamento vertical do quadril. Veja um exemplo na figura 2.
  
  

Timing

• deve-se acertar o timing, senão pode parecer que o personagem está andando muito rapidamente/lentamente, que está levantando o pé muito rapidamente, etc. Um planejamento simples para uma caminhada-baunilha pode ser vista na figura 3.
  
  

Estourando os joelhos

• ocorre quando o joelho vai para frente e depois volta atrás, quebrando a fluidez do movimento. Para ilustrar, nada melhor que uma animação. O número do quadro está em branco na região inferior à direita. Do quadro 1 ao 4, o joelho da perna de contato (com o chão) está se movendo para a frente, mas no frame 5, volta para trás antes de continuar a ir em frente. Pode-se cuidar disso esticando a perna. Assim, por exemplo, no momento em que o joelho iria para trás, a perna seria alongada (sutilmente) e o joelho continua se movendo para frente.
  

Bem, esta postagem foi cheia de informações, mas sempre é possível adicionar mais alguma coisa...mas é um bom começo de qualquer modo :-) Ah, vale comentar que animação ainda pode ser aprimorada... ;-)

Image 1

Image 2

Knee popping video

Image 3

And finally...the vanilla walk! Oh, it can still be improved.