Animation - Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish - page 203

have been shifted a couple of frames to the right (forward in time) so that their motion begins slightly after the
overall body motion. Finally, Figure 11.31 shows the end keys for the arm bones moved even further beyond
the end of the body motion. The result is that the body begins to move, followed shortly by the start of arm
and shoulder motion. After that, the body motion slows and ceases, followed by the end of arm motion. Not
only are they not moving at the same time, but, because we changed the interval between the start and end
keys, they are moving at slightly different rates as well. This variance produces a much more natural look.

Figure 11.30 The arm keys are offset Figure 11.31 The ending arm keys are further offset

Now here's where time and resources come in. If you really wanted to, you could go back and add overlap
and offsets for every joint in the motion. The shoulder would move one frame before the upper arm, which
would move one frame before the lower arm. You can get as detailed as you like with it, depending only on
the amount of time you have to devote to the shot. Of course, the way that you structure the overlap will go
a long way toward showing where the force of the action is generated and focused.

Think about an arm, waving goodbye. The force begins in the shoulder and moves outward to the hand.
Whereas someone who is holding fi rmly onto, say, Bigfoot's tail would show a completely different chain of
motive force. Bigfoot would shake his enormous behind, moving fi rst the hand, then the arm, the shoulder,
and beyond. How you decide to offset the keys could very much enhance the effect.

A corollary to this notion is that overlap must be created with deliberation. Don't simply say, “Well, this shot
needs overlap!” and start offsetting keys randomly. The result will be sloppy, random animation that lacks a
sense of force. Think about what moves fi rst, where, why, and how it affects other body parts around it.

Also note that you are in no way constrained to simply pushing keys around in the Action Editor to create
overlap. If you are being even more careful in your animation, you can offset the keys as demonstrated here,
then further refi ne the poses on those offset frames to truly optimize the motion.