Tips for Polishing Animation from a Disney Animator

Polishing Your Animation with Alan Ostergar

In this video, Alan Ostergar, a character animator at Disney, discusses the process of polishing animation. He shares his insights on what he considers polish and how he approaches it.

Approaching Polish

• Polish is done after the blocking and acting ideas are already there.

• Before getting into the details of playing in the graph editor, look at the shot overall to see if there are places where you can take a frame out of an action to make it snappier.

• Create a checklist starting from the hips outward to track arcs and adjust spacing and timing.

Timing Adjustments

• Rob frames from one action and give them to another action to play with subtle things and timing.

• Adjust timing early on so that you don't have to re-fix arcs later.

Final Touches

• Look at the shot overall before getting into details in the graph editor.

• Viewport from camera view is important for final touches.

Overall, Alan Ostergar emphasizes that polish is done after blocking and acting ideas are already there. Before getting into details in the graph editor, look at the shot overall for timing adjustments. Create a checklist starting from hips outward to track arcs. Finally, viewport from camera view is important for final touches.

Animating Workflow

In this section, the speaker discusses their workflow for animating and how they prioritize different aspects of a shot.

Prioritizing Animation

• The speaker prioritizes certain aspects of a shot depending on what is most important. For example, if the hips are leading the action, they will focus on animating those first.

• They often work from the root outwards, starting with the torso and head before moving onto arms and legs.

• Sometimes they turn off certain parts of the character to focus on specific areas, but they also keep everything on to avoid accidentally affecting other parts of the animation.

Polishing Animation

• After blocking out a shot, the speaker sometimes turns off limbs to focus solely on animating the torso. They then turn them back on later to polish everything together.

• When polishing animation, they often delete unnecessary keys to make it smoother and cleaner.

• The speaker likes to keep their keys organized during blocking but becomes more disorganized during polishing since performance is already nailed down.

Dealing with Half Frames

• The speaker dislikes half frames and tries to avoid them when scaling keys. They use a script that puts keys on whole frames without changing the curve.

Graph Editor Workflow Tips

In this section, the speaker shares tips for working in the graph editor.

Being Careful with Graph Editor Changes

• Be careful when making changes in the graph editor to avoid watering down the animation.

• Know why you're making changes and be aware of how they affect the timing, spacing, and arcs of the animation.

Polishing Animation

• When polishing animation, focus on hygiene of curves by checking arcs for hips, elbows, wrists, knees, feet, head and base of neck.

• Pay attention to overlapping action and follow-through to make sure that movements feel organic and lifelike.

• Use subtle offsets to add weight and body mechanics to animations.

Applying Techniques to Facial Animation

• Apply techniques used for body animation to facial animation by tracking mouth corners and ensuring that movements are made in arcs.

• Start with jaw rotations when animating dialogue and copy those curves onto other parts of the face.

Polishing Techniques

In this section, the speaker discusses their approach to polishing an animation shot. They cover various techniques they use to make the animation feel more organic and natural.

Approaches to Polishing

• The speaker uses curves to copy movements from one part of the face to another, such as copying curves from the eye movement to the cheeks.

• The speaker works on blinks and mouth movements, making sure that everything in the face is working together.

• The speaker emphasizes the importance of line of action and how it can be used for impact in action or acting shots.

• The speaker talks about using line of action for subtle changes in shape during character movements.

• The speaker discusses hand and finger movements, emphasizing their expressiveness and importance in acting.

Tips for Polishing

• The speaker recommends posing out hands early on in blocking but admits that they sometimes get lazy with them.

• Feedback is crucial for developing a sense of polish. Getting feedback from someone who knows how to polish can help identify areas that need improvement.

• Lip sync is an area where people often struggle with polish. Animators should avoid opening their mouths on every single syllable when animating dialogue.

Importance of Polish

In this section, the speaker emphasizes the importance of putting care into polishing an animation shot.

Putting Care into Polish

• Animators should strive to put 110% effort into polishing a shot even when they are tired of it.

• Lack of polish is a common issue in student work. Animators should aim to bring their polish to a higher level by seeking feedback and putting in the extra effort.

Tips for Polishing Animation

In this section, the speaker provides tips for polishing animation and improving acting and performance.

Importance of Good Acting and Performance

• The acting and performance are the most important things in animation.

• Over-animation can make a shot feel unbelievable.

• Say what you need to say with the fewest poses possible.

Studying Other Animations

• Study other animations to help with polishing.

• Ratatouille is a good example of polished animation.

• Frame-by-frame analysis can help understand organic movement.

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