Hey Ron! Nice to see ya here for everybody to pick your brain a bit! Couple things I’m curious about: 1) What was the most difficult thing about transitioning from games work to feature work? Animation going from more physical/action to more emotional/character-driven? Level of quality/polish? Typical work hours? Time allowance for shots? 2) In your workflow, how tightly do you block your shots before moving to spline/refine stage? How detailed as far as fingers, facial etc. before you switch over? 3) Lastly, what was a day in the life like when you first got to PDI DW as far as training time, orientation, learning of software, doing tests etc. before being in the full swing of animation production? Hope everything’s goin’ smoothly on Megamind!! -Glovka
A:
Yo Ryan!
1) The most difficult thing about transitioning from games to feature animation:
The most difficult thing transitioning from games work to feature work is soley based on the kind of animation you’re doing at a particular game studio, which can either make it easier or more difficult to transition to a feature animation studio. If you’re at a game studio spending 100% of your time on cycles (which is what “most” game animation consists of), and cycles is all that you would have on your demo reel, then chances are you’d be a good fit working as a “cycles” animator (if you so desired to make the transition to a feature studio). If you’re at a game studio working on IGC’s (In-Game-Cinematics) or any “performance” based animation (check out some of the masterwork that Blizzard (Starcraft, World of Warcraft), Sony Santa Monica (God of War) and Team Ico (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus) have done, then chances are that you would be a better fit for a “non-cycles” animator position (depending on the need) of a feature studio. But truth be told, feature studios are specifically looking for “performance-based” acting work, so its CRUCIAL to have some acting tests on your reel which can show you understand “acting and performance”. I personally aspired to work for a feature studio ever since I decided I wanted to be an animator and knew that the kind of cycle work I was doing (during the time I was in gaming) wasn’t helping my demoreel get noticed by a feature studio to say the least. There were no “stand out” performance shots or anything showing examples of my acting sensibility and acting choices, mostly looping animations. There were some acting tests on my reel, but they just didn’t cut it compared to some of the top animation tests that students were producing at the time. That is why I chose to attend Animation Mentor (while working full-time in games), to relearn as much as I could – and boy did I learn SO much, and take advantage of that knowledge, in hopes that my acting work would revitalize the demoreel I aimed to eventually send out to feature film studios.
There is, however, the rare instance when they are looking for more physical/action based animation. Here’s a good example, a colleague of mine (super-talented animator Cameron Fielding) went from working at a few game studios in Canada, then to ILM, and then onto PDI DreamWorks. The reel he submitted to DreamWorks consisted mostly of In-Game-Cinematics (IGC’s) that he’d done on the game “Turok” for the XBox 360. People at DreamWorks were so blown away by his dinosaur/creature work, that they immediately wanted to hire him to work on “How To Train Your Dragon” (which had just begun production at the time of his hiring). Call it great timing since his reel and the “need” for fantastic creature animation kind of collided the moment they were reviewing his reel in a reel review. Cameron also had some beautiful acting tests he’d done which also showed that he had the ability to “act” and breath life into characters (his acting tests were highly entertaining, yet beautifully subtle in his acting choices). His stuff was also SUPER polished and showed that he put a lot of time, love and care (TLC) into every single frame of animation. So that kind of pushed the folks at DreamWorks over the edge into hiring/investing in someone so well versed in all types of animation, in his case: creatures AND acting/performance.
In terms of “work hours”, I’d say that both game and feature studios share the same kind of work hours, even when a project reaches it’s home stretch, known as crunch time. “Crunch” has become something all animators get used to, but only towards the very end of a production. “Crunch” is determined by every department schedule, which can vary the degree of the “crunch” – which usually runs during the final month/s of production). Crunch is nice for me because I get to see my paychecks increase from all the overtime pay. 🙂
In terms of speed, I’d say that the animation turnaround in games is MUCH faster than it is in a feature studio (even though the need for speed in features grows every single day). There are many reasons for this. First, It’s faster in games simply because there is such a vast amount of base/core animation needed to be done for the “X” amount of characters in a video game. Games are just HUGE. There are SO many different actions a player expects to have in the character/s they’re playing – which just expands the amount of base animations needed to make that character all the more real and interactive. Not saying that some feature films lack an insane amount of characters found in most videogames, Madagascar 2 had a TON of characters with a LOT of background cycle animation needed to make the film come to life and feel populated. What makes crowds in features easier… is that the many secondary, and most tertiary background characters that we animate don’t have to be seen in 360 degrees or be interacted with by the gamer. The closest we’ve come to games (in film) is watching a film in Stereo-3D. Another thing to think about (which effect the speed differences between games and film animation) is the fact that game animation simply have a different set of rules to live by. Those rules are dictated by gaming hardware, and it takes a talented team to work around any hardware limitations. God of War 3 (one of my favorite games of all-time)… has some of the most amazing animation and visuals I’d ever seen in a piece of entertainment (film or game). The animation is just above and beyond what I’ve seen in most games and I commend their team for what they were able to do with the PS3 hardware, playing to the Playstation 3’s strengths and just went all out on an artistic level, focusing first and foremost on the players gaming experience, and on top of that… had kick ass animation to boot. Feature animation doesn’t have to worry about the limitations of any gaming hardware, memory, or asset compression. Feature animation focuses on “the shot” rather than the “interactive gaming experience” which is a completely different beast altogether. Features, however, have their own set of problems to worry about. haha.
2) My workflow:
I find the “planning” of a shot the single most important aspect of all before setting a single key on a curve. First, I think about whether or not the shot will involve some kind of acting reference, or none at all. I tend to use reference a lot, so its pretty rare that I decide to skip out on that part of the process. The only time I could remember (when I decided to skip out on reference) was on a few shots from “How To Train Your Dragon”. I would just fall back on the simple basics of a ball bounce, a tail, a pendulum. It’s the same thing, just more complex with more parts. Also, I think about how I can simplify the amount of curves that I would be animating. There are literally thousands of controls, but I limit my options to less than 10 for then entire body. I also think about whether or not I should animate hands in FK/IK, and then switch accordingly.
As soon as I’ve spend some time “thinking” about the type of performance I want to bring to the shot (based on what the director wants)… I shoot video reference. Reference helps me to understand what the body is doing, all the weight shifts, hip shifts…etc, but most importantly… the acting, performance, and little nuances/personal touches. I don’t copy exactly what I see in my reference… I only use the reference as a tool to see what a particular “key” pose is doing… then turn it into an “animation pose” (keeping in mind: silhouette, line of action, positive negative space, appeal, clarity, etc.). Once I decide which frames my key poses will be on, then I’ll block the entire shot out in stepped (facial poses, fingers and all). I don’t worry about blocking on two’s or three’s…. that all seems a bit too technical and procedural for me anyways. To me, animation is more of an organic process. I simply… hold where a pose needs to be held, add then an in-between where an in-between is needed, then I favor that pose to a main key pose, adjusting my timing. I also don’t worry about lip sync until 2nd or 3rd pass. When it comes to the face, I focus on the overall shape and “mood” of the mouth (sad, happy, surprised) and MOST importantly… the eyes and the brows. I animate the eyes and brows without lipsync so we can get a nice read on what both the body and the face are doing simultaneously without being too distracted by the lip sync. I also try not to move the head around too much since it can distract an audience from focusing on the eyes/brows – taking them out of the moment. Trying to stabilize and limit the amount of movement the head is doing is KEY. You want your audience focused on the face, which (depending on the type of scene you’re animating), IS the most important aspect of your shot. For a pure “acting” shot… its certainly the case.
Once all of my main key poses are blocked in, I then turn off my reference and adjust the main keys in order to nail the timing, phrasing, etc.
As SOON as my blocking is reading clearly to both to me and my supervisor – depicting exactly what i intend the animation to say (capturing all of the beats the director is looking for, as well as, bringing my own personal touches to the shot) – THEN it’s ready to show the director as a first blocking pass. For a 250 frame shot, I’d spend less than a day shooting reference, and adjusting that footage to the dialogue. I would show the director that same day in dailies as a “Reference Pass”. Once the director gives me the thumbs up on the reference, then the next day or two I’d spend blocking in the entire animation, and adjusting the timing. By day 3 or 4, I’d show “first pass blocking” to the director for approval before moving onto “next pass” (next pass – which to me is a more detailed version of blocking – which includes offsets and bringing the “art” out of the shot – arcs, refining of poses, tightening the timing, favoring, holds etc..). So I’d say that the director dictates how soon its safe for me to move to spline, then polish. The main goal for any animator here at DreamWorks is to get to the final stage of animation as quickly as possible, without sacrificing any number of these crucial steps. Some directors are SUPER picky about what they want (and for good reason), so I make sure that I do as much prep work as possible to make life easier (and simpler) for both myself and the director. Once the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed then it should be a smooth ride up until the end when you walk into dailies hoping to final your shot. 🙂
3) A day in the life when I got started at PDI
DreamWorks gave me 3 months to do 4 animation tests whilst learning the software and ramping up before I began my first shot (ball bounce, walk cycle with character, acting test 1, acting test 2). Orientation lasted the first week, then it was just training, training, training. Taking class after class discussing the in’s and outs of our proprietary animation software package and learning how to navigate through Linux OS. I came on during the last few months of Madagascar 2, so those 4 shots in 3 months soon turned into 3 shots in 2 months. Having to learn new software so quickly did feel daunting at first since I was so used to Maya. But in the end… it’s just another piece of software where the most important “essential” becomes clear – Animation. Onto the animation tests… So I began with a ball bounce for test # 1. For test # 2 I had to animate a character walk cycle with one of the main characters from Madagascar (I chose Alex the lion). Then for test # 3, I wanted to challenge myself and do a quadroped animation of a zebra. Rex Grignon (my main mentor when starting at PDI and Head of Character Animation on Mad 2) suggested I squeeze the “acting” test into my quadroped animation. So I came up with a Marty the zebra test where I ended up having him turning around to face us… walking towards camera, then speeds up to galloping then slows back down to trotting all while talking and acting. I killed myself to get that test looking right, and it made a good impression on Rex which made me happy.
As soon as my tests were complete and Rex thought I was ready, I was then placed on my very first shot (roughly 3 months after starting my training).
Right now Ryan…..
MegaMind is complete, and now I’m currently working on the MegaMind DVD short film (on a 1,253 frame long shot – the longest shot i’ve ever had to work on). It’s the longest shot on this DVD short film that I’m sharing with another animator – the amazingly talented Robyne Powell. Pretty nuts! I’m animating Minion.
Hope I answered all the Q’s and filled in the blanks with all the extra “blah blah”. 🙂
Q & A
Q:
Hey Ron!
Nice to see ya here for everybody to pick your brain a bit!
Couple things I’m curious about:
1) What was the most difficult thing about transitioning from games work to feature work? Animation going from more physical/action to more emotional/character-driven? Level of quality/polish? Typical work hours? Time allowance for shots?
2) In your workflow, how tightly do you block your shots before moving to spline/refine stage? How detailed as far as fingers, facial etc. before you switch over?
3) Lastly, what was a day in the life like when you first got to PDI DW as far as training time, orientation, learning of software, doing tests etc. before being in the full swing of animation production?
Hope everything’s goin’ smoothly on Megamind!!
-Glovka
A:
Yo Ryan!
1) The most difficult thing about transitioning from games to feature animation:
The most difficult thing transitioning from games work to feature work is soley based on the kind of animation you’re doing at a particular game studio, which can either make it easier or more difficult to transition to a feature animation studio. If you’re at a game studio spending 100% of your time on cycles (which is what “most” game animation consists of), and cycles is all that you would have on your demo reel, then chances are you’d be a good fit working as a “cycles” animator (if you so desired to make the transition to a feature studio). If you’re at a game studio working on IGC’s (In-Game-Cinematics) or any “performance” based animation (check out some of the masterwork that Blizzard (Starcraft, World of Warcraft), Sony Santa Monica (God of War) and Team Ico (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus) have done, then chances are that you would be a better fit for a “non-cycles” animator position (depending on the need) of a feature studio. But truth be told, feature studios are specifically looking for “performance-based” acting work, so its CRUCIAL to have some acting tests on your reel which can show you understand “acting and performance”. I personally aspired to work for a feature studio ever since I decided I wanted to be an animator and knew that the kind of cycle work I was doing (during the time I was in gaming) wasn’t helping my demoreel get noticed by a feature studio to say the least. There were no “stand out” performance shots or anything showing examples of my acting sensibility and acting choices, mostly looping animations. There were some acting tests on my reel, but they just didn’t cut it compared to some of the top animation tests that students were producing at the time. That is why I chose to attend Animation Mentor (while working full-time in games), to relearn as much as I could – and boy did I learn SO much, and take advantage of that knowledge, in hopes that my acting work would revitalize the demoreel I aimed to eventually send out to feature film studios.
There is, however, the rare instance when they are looking for more physical/action based animation. Here’s a good example, a colleague of mine (super-talented animator Cameron Fielding) went from working at a few game studios in Canada, then to ILM, and then onto PDI DreamWorks. The reel he submitted to DreamWorks consisted mostly of In-Game-Cinematics (IGC’s) that he’d done on the game “Turok” for the XBox 360. People at DreamWorks were so blown away by his dinosaur/creature work, that they immediately wanted to hire him to work on “How To Train Your Dragon” (which had just begun production at the time of his hiring). Call it great timing since his reel and the “need” for fantastic creature animation kind of collided the moment they were reviewing his reel in a reel review. Cameron also had some beautiful acting tests he’d done which also showed that he had the ability to “act” and breath life into characters (his acting tests were highly entertaining, yet beautifully subtle in his acting choices). His stuff was also SUPER polished and showed that he put a lot of time, love and care (TLC) into every single frame of animation. So that kind of pushed the folks at DreamWorks over the edge into hiring/investing in someone so well versed in all types of animation, in his case: creatures AND acting/performance.
In terms of “work hours”, I’d say that both game and feature studios share the same kind of work hours, even when a project reaches it’s home stretch, known as crunch time. “Crunch” has become something all animators get used to, but only towards the very end of a production. “Crunch” is determined by every department schedule, which can vary the degree of the “crunch” – which usually runs during the final month/s of production). Crunch is nice for me because I get to see my paychecks increase from all the overtime pay. 🙂
In terms of speed, I’d say that the animation turnaround in games is MUCH faster than it is in a feature studio (even though the need for speed in features grows every single day). There are many reasons for this. First, It’s faster in games simply because there is such a vast amount of base/core animation needed to be done for the “X” amount of characters in a video game. Games are just HUGE. There are SO many different actions a player expects to have in the character/s they’re playing – which just expands the amount of base animations needed to make that character all the more real and interactive. Not saying that some feature films lack an insane amount of characters found in most videogames, Madagascar 2 had a TON of characters with a LOT of background cycle animation needed to make the film come to life and feel populated. What makes crowds in features easier… is that the many secondary, and most tertiary background characters that we animate don’t have to be seen in 360 degrees or be interacted with by the gamer. The closest we’ve come to games (in film) is watching a film in Stereo-3D. Another thing to think about (which effect the speed differences between games and film animation) is the fact that game animation simply have a different set of rules to live by. Those rules are dictated by gaming hardware, and it takes a talented team to work around any hardware limitations. God of War 3 (one of my favorite games of all-time)… has some of the most amazing animation and visuals I’d ever seen in a piece of entertainment (film or game). The animation is just above and beyond what I’ve seen in most games and I commend their team for what they were able to do with the PS3 hardware, playing to the Playstation 3’s strengths and just went all out on an artistic level, focusing first and foremost on the players gaming experience, and on top of that… had kick ass animation to boot. Feature animation doesn’t have to worry about the limitations of any gaming hardware, memory, or asset compression. Feature animation focuses on “the shot” rather than the “interactive gaming experience” which is a completely different beast altogether. Features, however, have their own set of problems to worry about. haha.
2) My workflow:
I find the “planning” of a shot the single most important aspect of all before setting a single key on a curve. First, I think about whether or not the shot will involve some kind of acting reference, or none at all. I tend to use reference a lot, so its pretty rare that I decide to skip out on that part of the process. The only time I could remember (when I decided to skip out on reference) was on a few shots from “How To Train Your Dragon”. I would just fall back on the simple basics of a ball bounce, a tail, a pendulum. It’s the same thing, just more complex with more parts. Also, I think about how I can simplify the amount of curves that I would be animating. There are literally thousands of controls, but I limit my options to less than 10 for then entire body. I also think about whether or not I should animate hands in FK/IK, and then switch accordingly.
As soon as I’ve spend some time “thinking” about the type of performance I want to bring to the shot (based on what the director wants)… I shoot video reference. Reference helps me to understand what the body is doing, all the weight shifts, hip shifts…etc, but most importantly… the acting, performance, and little nuances/personal touches. I don’t copy exactly what I see in my reference… I only use the reference as a tool to see what a particular “key” pose is doing… then turn it into an “animation pose” (keeping in mind: silhouette, line of action, positive negative space, appeal, clarity, etc.). Once I decide which frames my key poses will be on, then I’ll block the entire shot out in stepped (facial poses, fingers and all). I don’t worry about blocking on two’s or three’s…. that all seems a bit too technical and procedural for me anyways. To me, animation is more of an organic process. I simply… hold where a pose needs to be held, add then an in-between where an in-between is needed, then I favor that pose to a main key pose, adjusting my timing. I also don’t worry about lip sync until 2nd or 3rd pass. When it comes to the face, I focus on the overall shape and “mood” of the mouth (sad, happy, surprised) and MOST importantly… the eyes and the brows. I animate the eyes and brows without lipsync so we can get a nice read on what both the body and the face are doing simultaneously without being too distracted by the lip sync. I also try not to move the head around too much since it can distract an audience from focusing on the eyes/brows – taking them out of the moment. Trying to stabilize and limit the amount of movement the head is doing is KEY. You want your audience focused on the face, which (depending on the type of scene you’re animating), IS the most important aspect of your shot. For a pure “acting” shot… its certainly the case.
Once all of my main key poses are blocked in, I then turn off my reference and adjust the main keys in order to nail the timing, phrasing, etc.
As SOON as my blocking is reading clearly to both to me and my supervisor – depicting exactly what i intend the animation to say (capturing all of the beats the director is looking for, as well as, bringing my own personal touches to the shot) – THEN it’s ready to show the director as a first blocking pass. For a 250 frame shot, I’d spend less than a day shooting reference, and adjusting that footage to the dialogue. I would show the director that same day in dailies as a “Reference Pass”. Once the director gives me the thumbs up on the reference, then the next day or two I’d spend blocking in the entire animation, and adjusting the timing. By day 3 or 4, I’d show “first pass blocking” to the director for approval before moving onto “next pass” (next pass – which to me is a more detailed version of blocking – which includes offsets and bringing the “art” out of the shot – arcs, refining of poses, tightening the timing, favoring, holds etc..). So I’d say that the director dictates how soon its safe for me to move to spline, then polish. The main goal for any animator here at DreamWorks is to get to the final stage of animation as quickly as possible, without sacrificing any number of these crucial steps. Some directors are SUPER picky about what they want (and for good reason), so I make sure that I do as much prep work as possible to make life easier (and simpler) for both myself and the director. Once the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed then it should be a smooth ride up until the end when you walk into dailies hoping to final your shot. 🙂
3) A day in the life when I got started at PDI
DreamWorks gave me 3 months to do 4 animation tests whilst learning the software and ramping up before I began my first shot (ball bounce, walk cycle with character, acting test 1, acting test 2). Orientation lasted the first week, then it was just training, training, training. Taking class after class discussing the in’s and outs of our proprietary animation software package and learning how to navigate through Linux OS. I came on during the last few months of Madagascar 2, so those 4 shots in 3 months soon turned into 3 shots in 2 months. Having to learn new software so quickly did feel daunting at first since I was so used to Maya. But in the end… it’s just another piece of software where the most important “essential” becomes clear – Animation. Onto the animation tests… So I began with a ball bounce for test # 1. For test # 2 I had to animate a character walk cycle with one of the main characters from Madagascar (I chose Alex the lion). Then for test # 3, I wanted to challenge myself and do a quadroped animation of a zebra. Rex Grignon (my main mentor when starting at PDI and Head of Character Animation on Mad 2) suggested I squeeze the “acting” test into my quadroped animation. So I came up with a Marty the zebra test where I ended up having him turning around to face us… walking towards camera, then speeds up to galloping then slows back down to trotting all while talking and acting. I killed myself to get that test looking right, and it made a good impression on Rex which made me happy.
As soon as my tests were complete and Rex thought I was ready, I was then placed on my very first shot (roughly 3 months after starting my training).
Right now Ryan…..
MegaMind is complete, and now I’m currently working on the MegaMind DVD short film (on a 1,253 frame long shot – the longest shot i’ve ever had to work on). It’s the longest shot on this DVD short film that I’m sharing with another animator – the amazingly talented Robyne Powell. Pretty nuts! I’m animating Minion.
Hope I answered all the Q’s and filled in the blanks with all the extra “blah blah”. 🙂
Cheers dude!