Brainstorm

People usually don’t think twice about the small details when they go see a animated movie at the theater. Usually people would go watch a movie, they would appreciate the story and they might appreciate the visuals and the animation too, but they may not know why. I’ve had many experiences where you end up liking a movie and you’re not too sure why. It is exactly that, those details that are crucial in an animation that makes it stand out, but might is not noticeable unless you try and notice it. I had an experience in my 3D animation class where everyone had to make an animation following a reference video. It was a short video, around ten seconds and it didn’t seem that complicated. However, it wasn’t easy at all. I picked a ballet animation, so I had to illustrate the ballerina being graceful. There are many things you need to take into consideration. The animation needs to be smooth and not have any jitters or body parts phasing through other parts. You got to take weight into account. You need to understand the timing of every little movement. There are so many more things you need to consider in animation. In the end, we saw everyone’s work and we saw that some was better than others. The worse ones weren’t as good, exactly because of all of those reasons. Either the weight wasn’t well shown, or the timing was off, or the feet were sliding, etc. All that to say that animation isn’t an easy task. It was really interesting to see our animation teacher show us everything that was wrong about our animation throughout the semester. He would call you up and show you all the poses on every frame that were wrong and why they were wrong.

But what about it is so difficult and why?

I know from experience that people struggle with weight and balance. I heard the teachers talk about junior animator struggling with weight. For example, if you want to animate a guy lifting a bowling ball, he can’t just pick the ball up quickly, or the ball would look like a rubber or a light ball. You have to make it look like the guy is struggling a bit to pick the ball up. Weight isn’t only for objects, but for humans too, like when they walk. There is a weight shift from one leg to the other. The weight is also intertwined with balance. So, if you put the weight on the wrong leg when someone is walking, he would appear off balance and it would make the animation look bad. Speaking of balance, it is a very important element to understand in animation, and many people struggle with it. When you animate any pose, you always need to make sure the character is in balance. If he’s standing on one leg, his pelvis should be over the grounded foot, he shouldn’t be leaning too much, etc. When you take all of those things into consideration, you understand that animation isn’t something you do quickly and easily. In the industry, when they work on a film, they would animate around 2-4 seconds per week.