T.A.S.K. by R. Williams - Part 1: History and Principles

I've recently read through The Animator's Survival Kit, a book which covers a lot of topics surrounding animation. Although the book mainly talks about 2D animation, a lot of the theories and principles apply to 3D as well. I will write a quick paragraph about the unimportant chapters, and go into more depth with subjects with will help me more with my dissertation.

Because each of the blog posts are quite long, I've split them into different posts to make it easier to read and find specific notes in future. I've given each of the posts a different heading to describe what is talked about in each.

Pages 1 - 40

Williams talks his career and experience with animation, and how he feels that it's important for animators to have good drawing ability; though he specially states that 3D animators don't necessarily need to have good drawing abilities, it does help to have a good understanding of anatomy and mass.

He suggests doing a lot of life drawing, which with time, can make even the most inexperienced of artists capable of drawing advanced creatures and scenery. Although I already have some basic drawing skills, I have taken his advice and have started doing some simple life drawings, and will continue to do so when I find the spare time.

Pages 41 - 83

Most of these chapters talk about how the 2D animation industry works, as well as the timeline of work and demands of employers. There is a lot of information about how to cut time using in-between frames and creating charts to explain what needs doing to assistants, who can fill in the unimportant drawings whilst the main animator works on the 'extreme' poses. Though very interesting, a lot of the information doesn't apply to 3D animation.


Pages 84 - 101 'More on Spacing'

This chapter starts to get more relevant to my work, so I'll make some notes below.

Classic Inbetween Mistakes

Richards writes about how 'inbetweeners' (frames which are not main poses) are often not done correctly. When making an inbetween frame, one should be able to understand and complete eccentric actions such as anticipation. 

Watch Your Arcs

Most actions follow arcs, and generally an action is an arc. Arcs are usually wavelike or go in figure 8s. Sometimes arcs are angular or straight. Straight lines give power.

The arc of the action gives us the continuous flow, and the bones don't shrink and grow as they move - they maintain their length.

It all seems quite simple, but when we deal with sophisticated images and actions it can all go wrong.

Richards talks about a Hollywood assistant who was having trouble making a realistic horse animate correctly, and after looking closely at the arc of the eye, the problem became obvious.

Everybody thinks they know the bouncing ball example, but swap the ball with a heavy billiard ball, and it won't bounce. Balls also wouldn't slow down as they fall, they speed up.

Getting More Movement Within the Mass

This chapter is about finding ways to get movement within movement, getting more 'change', more bang for the buck.

To exaggerate a hit, such as a creature shooting through the air into a cliff, one could make sure he makes contact with the cliff before suddenly slamming into it. One could also stretch the creature before it touches the cliff, giving a stronger impact to the hit.

Take The Long Short Cut

The long way turns out to be shorter, because something usually goes wrong with a short cut, and it turns out to take even longer trying to fix everything that went wrong. It's quicker to just do the work.

With animation, you have to be very specific. If a drawing is out of place, it's just wrong - clearly wrong- as opposed to 'Art' or 'Fine Art' where everything is amorphous and subjective.

It's obvious to us whether our animation works or not, whether things have weight, or just jerk about or float around wobbling amorphously.

There's nothing more satisfying than getting it right.