Six Tips to Help You Get Your Computer Animation Career Off the Ground



These days, animators are provided with some of the most advanced and professional applications which they can access right at their fingertips. The ability to easily incorporate some of the best hardware and software into their designs and workflow has given animators the opportunity to easily creating stunning pieces of animation work from the comfort of their own home, something which has certainly upped the level of competition when it comes to the animation industry, resulting in more and more animators striving to earn valuable skills and expertise in decades-old animation techniques in order to gain edge over newcomers with all the latest design tools.

Although it’s clear to see that the world of animation has drastically changed over the past few decades and even years, many of the basic, old-fashioned hand-drawn techniques and methods still apply, even indirectly, in much of today’s animation environments. No matter how many sophisticated tools you have under your belt, the following tips can help you significantly improve and fine-tune your character animation skills.

1. Use Unique Postures to Animate Standing Characters

When you see a crowd of standing people – whether it be in a queue for tickets, on the subway platform, or gathered at a show, you’ll notice that each person has their own, unique posture which can tell you something about their personality or emotions. For example, somebody who is feeling tired might slouch forwards with their arms folded, or an angry person could stand defiantly, with their hands firmly placed on their hips. You will also notice changes in people’s standing posture as they interact with others. You should always keep this in mind when you are animating standing characters. Using unique poses which are distinctive gives your character personality, whilst the type of posture that you give them can tell a whole story about their attitude, emotions, or personality.

2. Observe Real People

Along with mimicking real life people when designing standing poses for your characters, it’s also important to keep real life in mind when it comes to moving poses as well. The best way for you to ensure that your animated characters and sequences are as realistic as possible is to spend a lot of time observing real people and the way that they walk, talk, sit, eat and interact with each other. This could be as simple as watching your family around the home, or observing your friends when out. Or, you could even go to a local park and people-watch to widen your knowledge even further.

3. Learn from the Best: Disney’s 12 Principles of Animation

There’s no denying that Walt Disney is one of the biggest names in animation. Over three decades old, Walt Disney’s 12 Principles are to this day still viewed by many in the industry as the absolute bible of animation. Although self-taught animators are constantly on the increase thanks to the huge range of learning materials and software available via the internet along with online learning courses which people can take from home, anyone who is academically trained in animation such as the team at Qudos Animations, knows that Disney’s 12 Principles of Animation is used around the world as a common textbook for introductory and even some more advanced animation courses. Although it may be getting on in years, the key principles covered by the king of animation himself in this valuable book are still hugely relevant for today’s computer based animation courses and can be very much applied to modern, software-led animation techniques. When you master Disney’s 12 Principles, you will immediately improve your animation skill set whether it be hand-drawn or computer-based.

4. Indicate Depth with Colour and Sharpness Adjustments

You can easily and instantly give your animated characters the illusion of depth by mimicking the shallow depth of a film camera’s field. This technique is hugely important when it comes to giving the appearance of more ‘believability’ and designing your animated characters in such a way that makes them look more realistic to the human eye. This can be done easily by blurring the background objects and using colours which are strong for the foreground along with weaker, less saturated colours in the background of your animated image. Perfecting this technique can give your animated characters and sequences a more realistic appearance when viewed by the human eye.

5. Motion Blurring

When creating animated sequences, it is important to keep in mind that audiences are accustomed to the way cameras render the motion of objects and people during live action film. No matter how amazing it may be, computer animation simply imitates real objects and settings, therefore learning and perfecting your techniques for motion blurring is hugely important in order to ensure that your animated characters and objects can easily be perceived as moving.

Motion blur is a very simple setting, but it is also a hugely powerful indicator of perception which when done incorrectly, can make an otherwise awesome animation look terrible. Your motion blur setting lets the viewer know not only that the character or object that they are watching is moving, but also shows them how fast, and in which direction. Practicing and perfecting your motion blurring techniques will really help your animated characters come to life by conveying the illusion of movement in a realistic manner.

6. Shadows and Grounding

Without a shadow, your animated characters and objects could easily end up looking like they are simply floating in the air. Shadows are a huge crucial element of computer animation, and can often be the difference between an animation being extremely cartoon-like, or extremely realistic. Shadows anchor your animated characters and objects to the ground, giving a sense of depth, making them an element of character placement and orientation which should always be at the top of your priority list. Additionally, the use of shadows can also have a significant function in not only conveying the time frame to your viewers by suggesting the time of day – e.g. longer shadows could mean that it is evening, but they can also serve as important psychological triggers.

Pursuing a career in computer animation has never been easier, but don’t forget the timeless basics!


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