Animation - Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish - page 188

fi rst, create a duplicate of the template scene fi le, and name it “shot01.blend”, obviously substituting the shot
number you are actually working on.
Animation Order
When you are beginning the animation phase of your project, the temptation may be to attack
your hardest or most spectacular shot fi rst. Unless you are seasoned veteran, you should prob-
ably start with something a little less ambitious. Your goal is to fi nd a relatively short shot that
can be reanimated later on without too much trouble. When you set the fi nal keyframe on your
last shot, you will almost certainly be at a different place as an animator than when you began
the project. If you've chosen your opening shot or the big action sequence for your fi rst one to
animate, it will have a signifi cantly different look from the shots animated later on.
In The Beast , I animated straight through from shot 1 to shot 13, which was a mistake. When I
was fi nished with main animation, the later shots were much better than the fi rst one. Because
both the opening and closing shots have the greatest impact on the viewers' memory in the
fi nal production, I couldn't let that stand. So weeks after animation was completed, I found
myself reanimating the opening shot.
You do not want to do this.
Choose some fairly short, insignifi cant shots for your initial forays. Try to pick one with only a
single character and minimal to no prop interaction. If the animation isn't that good, well, the
shot should be relatively insignifi cant. If you don't have time to redo it, it won't be the end of
the world. If you have an extra day or two, though, and the shot isn't very long, you may have a
chance to revisit it, bringing it up to the standard of the rest of the production.
Take a look at the story reel and storyboards for this shot. Eliminate any characters and cameras from the fi le
that will not appear. If you're the nervous type, you can simply move unneeded characters, props, and cameras
to an unused, hidden layer. Once again, you are encouraged to use the same layering scheme across all of your
shot fi les so that if you put unused assets on layer 19 in this fi rst fi le, you should continue using layer 19 for
that purpose throughout the production.
Figure 11.1 shows a good starting confi guration for animation work. The Action Editor window is where
you will see and adjust your animation keyframes along the timeline. It will also be swapped out occasionally
with an Ipo window for fi ne-tuning timing for certain types of actions. An Outliner window sits to the left
of the main animation window and provides convenient access to library and object information. Along the
bottom, you fi nd a buttons window, and a little 3D window set to a camera view. A Timeline window for
scrubbing and toggling Automatic Keyframing completes the screen.
As you work, you will also fi nd it benefi cial to use the Shift-Spacebar hotkey to toggle the main 3D view
into and out of full screen mode. I have found that as I work, I tend to work on full poses with the 3D
view maximized like this, dropping back into the normal screen view to deal with timing, adjustments, and
keyframes.
So, no more fooling around. It's time to animate.