Thanks so much Clay!
(Also thanks for the encouragement!)

Cheers,
andy

As to a lack of games animators, I think a lot of animators have their sights set on features. What I tell people is to get a job where you can, learn as much as you can, and don’t ever stop growing. That may lead someone to be the best game animator out there. It may also lead someone to move from games to features. The problem I see is that some people may ignore video games as a viable place to learn. Because of that, they don’t get in to games and never get enough experience to get good enough for features. In the end, their career never goes anywhere. Video games are definitely not the only way in to features, and I’d say that I actually don’t know many animators that worked in games before, but they are a place to animate. I think games are great - and not just as a stepping stone. Like I tell people all the time, working in any of these formats (web, video games, television, or feature animation) is a hell of a lot better than bagging groceries for a living.

Magnus - Woot back at ya! To learn, you do have to keep testing. Otherwise, you’ll never get closer to knowing what your poses and timing will produce. The key is to not always rely on it. See my reply above to Alonso.

Bobby - Yes, it was cool. My master plan is slowly coming together.

Chelsea - You’re welcome. I feel lucky too. James was a great resource for me when I was doing my first animation tests at Disney.

Peter - I’m glad you noticed my pushing. The next part of the interview is crazy-deep! I can’t wait to get it out.

Ed, Shawn, Sean, Andy, Amrit - Cheers! Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Benjamin - Good to hear from you. Like I said before, the next part is going to go deeper in to the gory details of animating. Actually, I should probably do all my intros when I’m too tired to think about being in front of a microphone.

Doron - I hope you’ve animated something by now!

Jim - Ha.

Dave - Your excitement encourages me! Thanks for commenting.

Rudy - That’s quite a compliment! It’s really appreciated!

Andy - Spacing is the visual distance of an object from one frame to another. In CG it’s fairly simple to see since everything (generally) is on ones. It’s a little more complicated in hand-drawn animation when things may be every frame or every two frames, but the concept is the same. Bad spacing happens when something that should move consistently across the screen moves with uneven patterns. This is only good when you want something to feel erratic. It does all come down to slow-ins and slow-outs. I find that I have a quirky way of explaining stuff that sometime offers that alternative perspective that makes the concept click so I’ll try to do some posts that illustrate some of these things in more detail.

As far as working without shooting, I’d say the key is to learn from what you’ve done by paying attention. This sounds really simple, but it is much harder than it seems because the playblast is right there, waiting for us to shoot. You will only learn timing if you force yourself. I would expect a good animator to know exactly how many frames a hand gesture should take, or how long a look needs to be on screen for it to read, or how fast a character drops to the floor when they trip.

In The Illusion of Life, there’s a breakdown of speeds for doing a head turn. I can’t remember the exact examples but it goes from something like a 20 frame burning stare to a 1 frame hit with a frying pan. The speed determines the feel.

One thing about shooting your work is that it takes time. Add up all the time you may spend shooting just one shot. It’s probably tons of time - more if it’s drawings on paper. If you could skip all that time by knowing what to expect, think of how much faster you would be.

Here’s a way to look at timing your animation: There are holds and there are transitions. Ask yourself how long a hold (call it a pose if you like) should be on screen. In the old days, a stopwatch was used and I don’t know why that’s not still common. At the same time, try to pre-determine how fast a transition should take. Like I said before, this comes from experience and paying attention. If all you ever do is move timing around until it feels right, without making a mental note, you will keep repeating the same search, shot after shot. This was kind of a ramble, but I’m sure I have solid ideas in there so maybe it can help.

Patrick - Don’t sigh too hard, you’re doing work that many people only dream of.

Alan, Ben - Thanks to you too!

Another question I have is that it seems like animators may be unaware of or even ignoring the games industry. Is this true? There is so much work in video games for animators, but they seem hard to come by.

Is it the distance something moves realative to the starting pose/position?

cheers,
andy