How to Get Hireable Animation Skills Fast

you dream of animating in the studio like Pixar Blizzard and went out and you know you need an awesome demo reel to pull that off but if you're anything like I was as a student you're probably lost on exactly how to get there step by step I mean how close are you to getting hired how good is good enough how fast can you get there what specific exercises should you do to get through all that and get there quick here's what you need to know let's jump in there are five levels of animation skills there's fundamentals mid-level mechanics advanced mechanics acting and advanced acting every level of skill builds off another ball bounces prepare you for character walks character walks get you ready for more complex human movement and once you can create those believable movements it's much easier to create movements that have emotion as the difference between you know a character that's turning around and a character that's eagerly turning around to greet their long-lost love can you figure out how to do both the movement and the emotion that's the acting and that's a huge layer of complexity and that's why a lot of animators who try to jump from a character walk straight into acting struggle like health but here's the great news you don't need to reach all these skill levels to get hired do you know which level of the five are allowed to start accepting jobs any ideas level three advanced mechanics is a level where you can finally start making shots that could get you higher and what's amazing is if you learn the right way you can get a decent handle on advanced mechanics and as few as three months that means that you could be a professional animator in less than a year which is pretty crazy go from not being an animator to working in a studio working on games and movies pretty awesome so obviously getting into advanced mechanics should be your number one priority oh oh what's that you are you're already focused on it great why then are you struggling to reach this level you probably got stuck after finishing the fundamentals right here in mid-level mechanics and it's not your fault I mean there are tons of great resources out there on the basics it's why so many animators know to start with a ball bounce it's why so many animators learn the basics pretty fast but when it comes to body mechanics everything gets a bit hazy every school workshop tutorial podcast can lead you in different directions you know and you're left wondering what exercise should I really start with what body mechanics skills am I really trying to learn and how exactly does this relate to the fundamentals that I just learned and how do I know when when it's good how do I know when it's good enough if you're like me these questions probably made your head spin and without a clear game plan you probably just give up and you try animating a bunch of different random stuff based off whatever you're excited by in the moment from week to week and you don't really have this clear perspective on what to do or how to get there so I want to give you a solid strategy for learning body mechanics fast and this is way more important than any challenge or tutorial or thing you're gonna look at for the rest of the year step one realize that body mechanics is a huge complex topic it's not like there are only two skills to learn with body mechanics there are a bunch of separate animation skills that combine to create great animation like bold posing spine overlap arm overlap hip wait foot peel offs shape change settles rhythm and momentum often you're practicing all these skills and more when you're doing a body mechanic shot and getting good at all of them allows you to create characters that feel powerful flexible heavy or fast anytime you want on the job this is what lets you switch between animating a character like the Hulk who is powerful and heavy to animating somebody like spider-man who's quick and nimble and making both of those characters feel unique like they're supposed to it will also help you switch styles like animating something cartoony versus something realistic you go about learning all these skills quickly you know it's a lot of skills to get under your belt step number two break body mechanics down into simple chunks with simple exercises if you try to go from something like a basic character walk straight into advanced mechanics that maybe is something like a dynamic spider-verse web swing you'll learn something for sure but you'll most likely learn very little overall and you'll confuse the hell out of yourself why why would that happen you're taking on 20 new skills at once stuff that you haven't really learned from the character walk and it's kind of coming all at you when you start that shot and you're expecting it to turn out great it's like trying to eat a whole pizza in one bite if you eat one slice at a time it's a lot easier to enjoy and digest I promise you that you'll learn five times as much twice as fast with simple exercises because simple exercises let you focus on improving a few skills at a time instead of twenty and all at once for example a stand up from chair animation is great for focusing on spine overlap very quickly you can test out your workflow for creating drag without having a lot of other animation that's like super complex that you have to deal with and all these problems to solve it's also an ideal exercise for starting to learn mid-level mechanics because it builds directly off of the last thing you learn in the fundamentals which is walks right where you're you're using weight and moment' balance timing spacing all of those things together to create believable movement so it's building off of that and then adding some spine overlap so now you might be wondering what are the you know the simple exercises that you should do to learn all of these levels of body mechanics fast number one I would go with the standard from chair like we just talked about because it lets you focus on spine overlap there really you know the core of the body is really important fast learn early number two I would go with the jump forward this lets you focus on foot peel offs in shape change as well as building off of everything you learned in the stand-up from chair number three I would go with a simple dance because it lets you focus on adding rhythm to your movements and you can even put in things like the arms at this point forearm overlap this is pretty much the same thing you learn with a spine just adding in another layer number four I'd go with a jump and climb up this lets you really focus on character weight and weight shifts as well as momentum kind of combining it all in one of how a character would pull himself up for number five I would actually go with an advanced mechanics demo real shop after you've gone through these four simple exercises you should be just about ready to start making those first demo real pieces so that's what this would be here and it's it's just advanced mechanics it doesn't really get into acting but it can still be really cool because it could be a sports action piece or something along those lines these animations may not sound sexy to you but that's not the goal you're not trying to impress anyone yet you're trying to get good fast to make those first demo reel shots and by the time you finish the jump and climb up you'll be ready to start making those first mechanic demo reel shots and they increase in complexity as you go forward through these exercises so you're layering in these new skills with each new animation which leads nicely into the next step step number three animate each simple exercise with limitations to keep the mechanics as simple and a straight forward as possible so you can learn fast you need frame limits you need deadlines and more these things really keep you on track without overcomplicating a simple exercise here's a quick run-through of all of them so you can jump right in and start animating the standard from chair so a character will stand up from sitting in a chair and the goal here is for you to practice that spine overlap and to have some decent weight of momentum like you would have you know in a character walk the limitations are 120 frames max with a static camera you don't need a moving camera and you really only need the side view that's the most important the other thing you can do is hide the arms of your character because really that's just like animating the overlap in the spine that's the same kind of skill you don't need to have more of the same thing at this point and the deadline is two weeks jump forward so from a standstill a character will check take one jump forward and settle they'll be in an idle pose they'll anticipate they'll jump forward and the land the goal here is again spine overlap with weight just in a new and new movement but you're also gonna be practicing the squash and stretchy shape changes of the body and then the legs and foot peel offs with this so that's gonna be very new your limitations are 120 frames max with a static camera again no arms and you really only need to focus on the side view the front view is gonna repeat the same stuff that you're doing from the side and deadlines will here would be again two weeks the simple dance so I really want to put emphasis emphasis on a character doing a simple dance it doesn't need to be something that's like super complicated or hard to figure out when you're looking at it could just be like a little salsa move or like a 70s old dance or something along those lines and the goal here is for you to practice that rhythm in the hips and how the tempo changes and how that carries the energy from one move to the next you know and you're carefully following whatever reference you find here and you're gonna limit yourself to 192 frames with a still camera and you're gonna avoid those complicated dances with really complex or a ton of like subtle moves so there isn't like 300 keyframes you need for the feet because there's there's a bunch of little tap dances going on or something and the deadline for this is also two weeks so the jump and climb up this is really the last shot before you try to make your first Demirel piece from here your character will start out a run or stand still and they're gonna jump and pull themselves up onto a higher platform and the goal here again is to really focus on you know power of your character to have enough energy to jump and believably pull himself on top of a platform there's a lot of weight shifts there's a lot of weight in general that you need to sell with this from the hips and into the arms the limitations are 192 frames max with a static camera and the side view is still the most important from here you could start really looking at the the front views because you're gonna have some weight shifts probably from side to side so you can start adding in that and the deadline for this one is actually three weeks so for your advanced mechanics in demo reel shot this is your again your first demo reel piece that's using solely advanced mechanics not acting here are some great ideas for you Olympic events an ice skater a gymnast a diver a high jumper some kind of sports action tennis swings basketball dunks soccer goal kicks or game action so you have like a heavy weapon attack or a combo attack all of these things can be really really impressive if you have highly polished weight and you know everything is very fluid and powerful this this can be really cool to see on a demo reel and those kind of shots are what you make on the job as an animator in so many different situations so for VFX for games for feature that won't even involve a lot of acting the limitations for it are 250 frames you have a static camera you can have one simple prop so if you have a heavy weapon attack it's you know an axe or something along those lines and I would avoid any extra movements that that overcomplicate things anything that's really focused on like storytelling or acting so now you have the exercises and the limitations that let you just jump right in and start animating but how do you know when you're creating quality body mechanics though that's where step number four comes in compare your animation to know what good enough looks like as you're working your way up through these body mechanics exercises you'll need some examples of what good enough to get hired looks like that way you know the quality that you're aiming for yeah you could turn to games and films like spider-verse cocoa or overwatch for inspiration but many of those shots are done by animators with years of experience on the job plus they were part of a team that you know helped them create their art so while they are absolutely awesome examples for you to reach higher levels in your own work you don't need to hit that level to get your first job for close to body mechanics examples here are some of my students animations that got them hired notice how much you feel the power of the weight the momentum and the dragging each of these they aren't perfect and the animators who made them will tell you that but they are a good bar for you to compare your own progress against so part of your strategy will be returning two shots like these and you can go and find more on your own but you want to return to these over and over to see how close you're actually getting as you're working on those body mechanics see if it feels about the same or if yours still feels clunky and it still feels like there needs to be work done that way you know if you need to practice a little bit more or you can start raising the difficulty of your animations instead of just being lost in the dark and trying random exercises now leveling up past the fundamentals should be a lot less hazy you have both a big-picture perspective on how far do you need to go as an animator before you can make it and you have a solid strategy for creating those animations that will get you hired this alone will see a few years of trial and error you know where you're just you know randomly doing a bunch of exercises and you're hoping to get there which is way more than most animators but it won't do anything for you if you don't act on it let me say this again if you watch this right now and you're you don't go in animate with this in mind after the fact it won't make any difference for you great animators are the ones who always act on what they learn so if you're actually committed to becoming a better animator I have a challenge for you right now start animating the stand up from chair exercise at least animate some solid blocking you don't need to finish it completely I just want you to start animating some solid blocking this will start the ball rolling on you becoming a better animator and that's really what we're after here that's why I made this whole video so that you you know take action in the right direction and you become better and really start animating then I'll help you dive deeper into how to make that animation stronger next week that's it so are you in for the challenge if you are leave a comment below saying I'm in for the challenge then I know you're in and I'll be looking forward to helping you later with pushing that stand up even farther and helping you really learn and last question did you enjoy this big picture perspective did you find it helpful to have this solid strategy for moving forward if you did then I recommend subscribing and ringing the bell so that you can hear anytime I bring out more videos like this in the future ok I'll talk to you soon and until then happy animating take care

Channel: Rusty Animator

Views: 53,389

Keywords: how to animate, rustyanimator, how to, animation tutorial, animate faster, simple animation, rusty animator, animator, animation, tutorial, animator vs animation, alan becker, 3d animation, body mechanics, animation skills

Id: K9U_Z2rDe_Q

Length: 16min 56sec (1016 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 15 2019