/3/ - 3DCG

[Anonymous No.941045]

Be honests animator fags.

How many of you study shit like dancers, coreographers, stunts, actors, mimes, circus actors, jugglers, martial artists and try to learn from them?

[Anonymous No.941066]

>>941045
All the time. I sit down to animate something I gather youtube references for what I'm about to animate and watch it in 25% speed til I have a good feeling for it. If it's something very tricky or hard to keep track of I record it and go frame by frame identifying the keyframes I need and nail down the exact timing of the move.

[Anonymous No.941239]

>>941066
No, I dont mean references.

I mean, like studying the fundamentals of choreography and dancing and acting and shit like how to structure a fight scene.

[Anonymous No.941303]

>>941239

I intentionally avoid that, if you follow a film-school formula for how to construct a 'fight scene' you're funneled down to something that takes you
very far away from what a fight is supposed to look like. Huge emphasis will be put on making everything readable and telegraphed, which looks fake as fuck
and removes all the tension and chaotic energy you get from spectating real fights like the UFC or view actual combat footage or police bodycam etc.

People bob, weave, flinch and do minimal direct effective movements with no warning or setup. Properly capturing the energy of something like that is best done studying a real source
rather than any film depictions that often will have athletically unskilled actors doing awkward inefficient movements trying to hit narrative beats.

As for dancing and choreography that is supposed to be structured that way but often if you listen to someone teaching you a movement or describing how something is done
if you then slow down footage and look at what they actually do you'll find that they're doing something quite different than what they themselves think they're doing.
I've seen no shortage of parkour and martial arts tutorials by highly proficient athletes teaching technique only to mischaracterizing the actual kinetic chain
that happens when you view them perform the action at full speed.

They're not trying to lie or misconstrue their impression of what they're doing is just different from what they actually are doing.
To me there is no substitute from scrutinizing primary sources and build your account of the bio-mechanics involved in the movement you wish to depict.

[Anonymous No.941305]

>>941303
do you seriously think you can just watch a bunch of fight scenes and just copy paste shit without knowing the story structure of a fight scene, dancing fundamentals, stunt fundamentals and basic shit from matials arts vocabulary, like the attacks and feints and other basic shit from fencing?

Can you even tell a haymaker from a hook from a uppercut?

[Anonymous No.941306]

>>941305
and I forgot, you must always have a mental vocabulary of master scenes and shit from real masters.

What I mean is that you should fucking speak first the langage of each of those skills, if you want to properly copy the masters.

This is like telling me you can compose music by only listening to it.
which is why 90% of the retards that can do can only copy the surface elements of any serious composer.

[Anonymous No.941337]

>Can you even tell a haymaker from a hook from a uppercut?

Can't just about everyone who ever watched just a few boxing matches in their life do that?
What kid who's into action film doesn't know super basic martial arts long before they're old enough to operate animation tools?

>do you seriously think you can just watch a bunch of fight scenes and just copy paste shit without knowing the story structure of a fight scene

There is no such thing as a 'story structure' to a properly constructed fight scene, You decide how proficient each fighter is supposed to be
who is to win the encounter and then you set out to sell it by depicting every participant trying their best to win and have the outcome be determined by range, timing, action and reaction.
It's supposed to be moment to moment fluid interaction where what one does dictates how the other attempt to respond in a very seamless chaotic fashion.

Do you rather watch a gunfight where A) every participant is working cover, angles and display fear for their life, flinching and hesitating to expose themselves acting as if their life
was actually in danger and the outcome of the fight could go either way?

Or B) Have the hero run wide open and win the gunfight by having everyone somehow miss them with every shot while the hero hits just about everything?

[Anonymous No.941338]

>dancing fundamentals, stunt fundamentals like the attacks and feints and other basic shit from fencing?

Stunts done digitally are very different, you think about those in terms of the physics involved since you don't have to fake anything making it look worse than it really is.
If that guy is to be hit in the face full force with a baseball bat so he falls off the roof and get hit by a cement truck you can do just that to your digital actor.
You don't have to study body-falls or develop angles that 'sells it' and make it look impactful as you'd have too if you'd be faking it by shooting a live stuntman on a live set.

As for fencing I'd recommend you study highlevel HEMA guys actually trying to win over one another in full force competition
rather than study stage fighting where actors will very obviously stand far enough apart that their weapons can't really reach the other person
and just engage one another's weapon for no reason - making swords go cling-clang over and over.

You can depict people fighting in a way such that one participant would actually die if they failed to evade when you animate things in the computer.
You can't approach the subject like that on a film-set so trying to bring the structure of how you'd shoot a fight scene with live actors into the digital realm
just serves to imposes a limit you don't need to have.

Dancing is different in that it's supposed to be choreographed, where as real fighting isn't choreographed.

[Anonymous No.941372]

>>941045
fuck off, cris.

[Anonymous No.941378]

>>941338
Most people don't care what a real fight looks like. What's important is that it looks good and is easy to follow for the average viewer. Real life is something to be referenced, not to copy.

A real fight is hard to follow, and you need constant slow motion replays to truly appreciate what's happening. Of course it depends what your project's aim is, but if it's entertainment, and not animation for a UFC game or something similar, then you're an idiot if you try to mimic real life, instead of making use of established animation/film guidelines, honed by experts during the 100 years or so animation has been a thing. Even games that use mocap manually edit the recorded data to tune timings and exaggerate movements, to make it more readable. Yes, animation differs from live action movies due to limitations that come with real people, but that doesn't mean you want to aim for 100% realism.

I'm not saying the other guy's take is all that great either. You really don't need too deep of a knowledge on a subject matter to be able to animate it, basic knowledge and some references is enough 99% of the time.

[Anonymous No.941433]

>>941045
>Be honests animator fags.
>How many of you do actually do your homework?

What the fuck is the point of this thread?

[Anonymous No.941566]

>>941045
fuck off, cris.

[Anonymous No.941967]

>>941338
>>941337
t. mocap AAA animator