Friday, March 18, 2005

March's Free Web Tutorial Online!

Hey kids! The first of the new monthly free web tutorials is online and available. This month's topic, as noted before, is the Moving Hold. Hopefully this one is useful to folks.

While I'm here, I feel like I need to kinda explain the krunky animation quality for these tutorials. I admit the stuff is kinda... um... rough around the egdes. That's on purpose, really. If I took the time to noodle these things out to the max I'd never get them done. The point is to illustrate a singular principle or example in motion, not to wow you with my mad ninja skillz as an animation polisher. I've been in training sessions with world renowned traditional animators who can draw like nobody's business. I mean like crazy great draughtsmen. But the funny thing is that their drawings on the whiteboard when teaching are usually horrible! Heheh. That's because they're not trying to prove anything. They're trying to teach. So in that same vein my "animation sketches" in these tutorials will be just that- sketches to get a point across.

At any rate, enough of me covering my butt. Go download the tutorial and enjoy mocking my slop-imation. Heh.

-k

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, great tutorial on moving holds. I wonder if you can use someting like this on your animation clips that you post in tutorials, for showing frame number.

http://www.jonathanrnelson.com/tutorials/dailes/daiies.html

Jason Newkirk said...

Wow Keith, you're so giving of your time for the love of animation. RESPECT!

Great tutorial on the moving hold.

~jason

Anonymous said...

Hey Keith,

Great stuff and very useful! It is nice to have have this stuff layed out. I find, like you, that the process of laying something out for students really helps me get a handle on the concept myself. Of course, it's even better if someone else does it for you!

Two other comments:
1. You flip around between avis and quicktime movies. Not really a problem, but I prefer quicktimes for a couple of reasons. You can scrub them properly and they don't automatically rewind. (I think there may be a setting in media player to fix this; I just can't find it) The rewind thing is important for something like this tutorial because it's really hard to see the holds at the end of the animations if they pop back to frame one.
2. The contrast concept is great. It's kind of like a mini antic, isn't it?

Pat
pat@patrickmcnabb.com
www.patrickmcnabb.com

Keith Lango said...

Yeah, apologies for switching to MOV's in the middle there. My bad on that one. And yes, you could look at contrast in motion as a sort of pre-anticipation, but I'm not sure that ideal applies across the board. It's just a good mnemonic to help figure out how to settle something. You'll still need anticipations for moves regardless of the hold direction in almost all circumstances anyhow.
-k

Anonymous said...

Great, no, fantastic tutorial! I had one question on contrast. What are your experiences on using a moving hold to contrast anticipation versus contrasting the following pose? Perhaps that would be to much contrast. Thanks again, can't wait for the subscription service.

Keith Lango said...

Well, then you'd probably be kinda overthinking things. One thing that I remind our animators at work is to avoid anticipating your anticipations. It just ends up looking funky-junky. I'd prefer to see something run a little smoother than that. Thanks for the great feedback! Glad this one hit upon a need. :o)

-k