CREATURE ANIMATION MASTERCLASS - PART 1 - with Daniel Fotheringham | Webinar

CREATURE ANIMATION MASTERCLASS - Part 1- with Daniel Fotheringham | Webinar

Timeline - Jump to:
0:00 Start
2:25 Introduction
5:06 Fast Animating
14:47 Fast Animating Workflow Top 10…. And more!
22:19 Miscellaneous Mind Dump
52:05 Develop Your Animation Brain
53:38 How to be a Good & and Fast Animator
56:41 An Approach to Reference

World Space Locator Script by John Turello - Download here:

More Videos from our Webinar Series!

Approach to Acting in Animation - Part 1 - with Arran Baker

Approach to Acting in Animation - Part 2 - with Arran Baker

Animation Principles in Sipder-verse with Arran Baker

'HAPPY' From Netflix Animation Tutorial with Arran Baker

Animation on Two's with Arran Baker

Approach to Dinosaur Animation with Navdeep Signh

An Organic Approach to Animation with Matt Tovar

Biped Walk and Stride Length with Brian Horgan

Quadruped Walk and Stride Length with Brian Horgan

Daniel has worked at the biggest VFX studios in the world including WETA Digital, Industrial, Light and Magic and Double Negative. He currently is an Animation Supervisor for MPC in Los Angeles. He has breathed life into iconic characters such as Smaug from The Hobbit:Desolation of Smaug, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Simba from Lion King.

Shots discussed in this webinar are:
-Lion King (2019) - Walt Disney Pictures/Fairview Entertainment.

Daniel’s popular quadruped animation tutorial breaks down his methodology for animating four legged creatures which can be found here:

To see Daniels latest Animation Demo reel:

For more information on Daniel’s work history check out his LinkedIN page:

Royalty free music by:
Artist -Whitesand
Track - Glory

GRIFFIN ANIMATION ACADEMY
To enrol in our courses visit Griffin Animation Academy at:

Subscribe to Griffin Animation Academy’s YouTube Channel

Follow Griffin Animation Academy on Instagram

[JoshLangeD]

This was fantastic. Figured I'd paste my notes here:

Creatures are comprised of different animals
Build your personal library of anim experience and apply it repeatedly over time. You need large volumes of variety. Don't dwell on one thing and limit your capability and speed.
lots of small references > one long reference
lion king: 6 mo previs, 1 year finals. under 1 shot per week.
lion family shot took 3 months. killed him with complexity. 8 walk cycle shots in two weeks. walk shots became tools to do prowling shot, which became a tool for the fighting shot (building blocks).
setup (4 days) and controlling the scene: base cycle for scar didn't work for set. keys on the rig didn't work when the cycle was applied over a space, so he retargeted and remade the cycle for scar in the newer shot. used 2 part paths for scar over the terrain. bumps that he would move over would spill down his body. footfall silhouettes (choosing which foot gets to fall first) improves the mechanics and helps get a shot approved since it improves readability.
quads try to be efficient, but when they hunt they change the patterns of their gates automatically (like how adults shuffle step). children aren't aware of how to efficiently move, so that clumsiness should be factored in when you animate younger animals and kids.
Simba vs. Nala fight: prevized and brought that animation into finals. did not use reference or reinvent the wheel.
Reused breathing and twitching animation on background characters that needed less specific motion. Reusing is vital to turn over shots quickly. Resist the urge to own every little thing.
Hotkeys are mandatory--sort yours out. Avoid clicking windows and hunting/pecking.

Fast Animating Workflow:

1. Hotkeys\shortcuts: sort yours out. slowly moving your mouse around whne your supe is lookin gat our screen wasts time. get good with your instrument. avoid hunting and clicking.
2. Develop multiple workflows. They're not always what you think. Sometimes you need to get somewhere then discard that and possibly pick it up again later on.
3. Study mechanics and physics. Learn the science and posing. Literally learn a tiny bit of physics such as gravity.
4. Collect a familiar set of tools. Like hotkeys, these are things you can bring from job to job.
5. Be loose and agile in your approach. Animators focusing too much on pose can slow you down.
6. Be prepared to throw away and start again
7. Work from the inside out. Start from the center (COG) and work your way out to the edges. Look to the roots, not the leaf, to understand a tree.
8. Understand Animation Layers. He uses almost addictively.
9. Studio Library: steal, borrow, reuse, and collect animation. Stable, amazing, massively important.
10. WorldSpace animation. Move away from a rigged character to avoid double transforms.
11. Setup. You must be effective and make sure your scene is fast to work with. If the rig is slow, use proxy geo to block things out if necessary. Almost impossible for someone to help you if your scene is slow (playing an instrument underwater).
12. Bake Your Animation. Many are too fixated on keyframes and where everything should be, but to be fast, you need to be able to bake so you can use Anim Layers and constraints.
13. Stop Noodling Tangents. Perfect tangents are overrated. You can avoid tangents just by adjusting your workflow to get the general sense right. You can clean arcs later!
14. In the past, Animation was painstakingly slow. It's speeding up, so keep up! Things will only get faster.

Miscellaneous Mind Dump/Word Cloud:

1. Gravity. Should not be subjective, this is science. It should be 100% understood so it can be used for chest falling timing, knife tossing, etc. Use Morgan Loomis ML animation ballistics toolset to create a curve to match your object to. You can also use Maya Ncloth and physics to test timing. This is an absolute truth that can be used effectively as a realism tool.
2. Center of Mass. As you contort your body, the pivot should be able to change and be modified. Andy Jones worked on Lion King tool to adjust the COM pivot. You can use ratios to blend constraints between chest, hips, etc. You can modify any rig with this.
3. Use markers like a 6 foot tall person to remind you of the scale you're working with. Eyeballing fall timing contributes to inaccuracy that audiences can detect subconsciously (compared Y curves between an example ball and a lion's torso).
4. Balance. Use weight triangles to know where the COM should reside (every rig should have a weight triangle option + COM ball on Y0).
5. Turning. Decide what kind you'll do (graceful, awkward, etc.). Table sim shows how if you pull legs out, the top drops toward that side. Tandem bike analogy: if the front turns immediately, the front rider moves with it, but the rear rider moves forward, compromising the balance. If the rear rider turns first, it "folds" the riders into the turn together in a better sync. Animals move with their back front first.
6. Hotkeys. Use them please! k/tilde to scrub timeline. Shortcut to frame fwd/back, skip to first frame, last frame, toggle on Zero out anim layer. All hotkeys on left side of keyboard. AnimBot, A tools available to boost productivity. Do it now!
7. Rig hierarchies. Animating a parent is problematic because the child is put on diagonals and you're robbed of your curves. Bake Locators script allows him to bake a locator onto a position without losing any animation (locator matching), which returns real world parameters. World space is the key when you're bumping into walls. Tails and arms for creatures especially need control from world space rotations, such as on oscillating frames. World space controls give you a looser feeling.
8. Banking. People miss this a lot because they want to bank from toe pivots. In reality, you need to bank from the COM. He stays away from paths in freeform animation "they will ruin you." BH_PathAnim script helps you to break up the parts of a character to be on different paths. Gallop: contact drives direction changes, they don't occur mid-air--this mistake commonly occurs in path animation.
9. Animation Layers. You can fade between a walk and run by animating the anim layer's blend. Different sections and timing from these blends can be an opportunity for free animation. Red9 tool allows for fast feet locking. Add an anim layer to the foot, set key, set key at takeoff frame, use tool to stabilize the foot by copying WS position and applying it to takeoff frame. "Pinit" anim layer can be used for this.
b. Anim layers used for 'sculpting clay' to experiment with different ideas, and blending helps this. You can create a "war chest" of animations saved to Studio Library, such as small or large head adjustments to add life to a walk cycle, toe wiggling on footfalls, even clips from other animators. Anim layer weighting can be amplified past 1 by lifting fcurve in the Graph Editor if you like.

Develop Your Animation Brain

Ask yourself, how would you describe the way things move?
People see animation differently. As a supervisor, learn what their framing is.
-boom boom, waaa boom (sound effects)
-poses
-music
-theater/acting
-science & mechanical analysis
-play time
-reference
-words

How to Be a Good & Fast Animator
Observe/Control/Play/Decide

-Continously develop your knowledge of movement
-Control. Learn Maya's tools, develop your workflows and how you interact with your instrument
-Play (with toys!), have fun. Imagine. Create!
-Make good decisions. Be certain of the brief and keep your eye on the goal! (Know which shirt to wear to the party for faster shot approvals and sensible decisions within the project)

Go with your strengths but be careful to not be good at what you don't want to do. He learned to love creatures after first being interested in acting animation.

Reference Concerns:
-Ref can be a savior, but also a poison fruit. It can slow you down, especially if you don't know freeform animation. It's only 1/3-1/2 of the story. Use it bit by bit. Interaction with your colleagues is key too!
-Some animators rely too much on ref and are too slow in a production environment. Even rotoing is too slow and is normally not even signed off by the supe (not the right tshirt for the party).
-Study ref, don't just copy.
-Practice Freeform Animation more than copying ref.
-When you use ref, STAY IN CONTROL and MAKE IT YOURS. Otherwise you will get lost in it.

[jothomas]

working fast ( using short cuts, smart work, moving your mouse 5 times faster, taking no brakes, avoid food, avoid chatting in your break time if you take any breaks e.t.c ) is good for the company and that is the only reason the a state of animation Industry is like this, it has become like a Sprint competition between companies and coworkers ( no team work ). When you know you are sprinting there is no way you can relax when you are in need.

[phm]

Amazing stuff, though I still wonder how people who give masterclasses won't use proper microphones. Not complaining though, this video is ace!

[morbid.]

I work in Motionbuilder and using layers is probably the best thing ever, it works so good and gives amazing flexibility w/o interfering with base animation.

[deepakwadhwana]

I really like the way of your work(without using reference and create by your own imagination) because in my personal project I do the same as always.

[stebu]

Thanks for doing this interview and posting it up, Eddie. Been following Dan for ages and highly recommend his quadruped workflow for anyone trying to up their anim game quickly. Breaking things down to simple parts and keeping up your speed in production are some incredibly important skills and he's a master at it.

[animatorzohaib]

wow what an amazing knowledge and for free. Thank you so much Griffin Academy

[DonQuijoteD]

Amazing presentation! So well organized and so much effort put in it. A lot of very useful things to keep in mind! Thanks Eddie and Daniel!

[asicilia]

Amazing Mastercalss !Dan is awesome, great stuff Griffin!!

[elainascott]

Great stuff!! Thank you Daniela and Eddie!!

[Brynhildrify]

Installing red9 emptied out my custom shelf... couldn't install zvparent master back, but apparently resetting maya made it work somehow and now I've got both on the shelf. Now I just gotta re setup all my hotkeys and

[pawelbhandari]

hope soon i will be the part of griffin animation academy as a student....super....and love you from Nepal..😍😍😍😍

[ThadeousM]

FK = Local Space * IK = World Space = Thank you Dan

[GriffinAnimationAcademy]

ENJOY OUR WEBINAR SERIES!!! Like, comment and subscribe! forget to hit the bell 🔔 for notifications on future videos!
Timeline - Jump to:
0:00 Start
2:25 Introduction
5:06 Fast Animating
14:47 Fast Animating Workflow Top 10…. And more!
22:19 Miscellaneous Mind Dump
52:05 Develop Your Animation Brain
53:38 How to be a Good & and Fast Animator
56:41 An Approach to Reference

[BlazeZ__]

I didn't understand that weight one so the ball near the lion jumping is simulated but how did he did that ring thing on the ball

[kjeneGoldfish]

if I may know how long it will take for one shot animation work? thx

[bluurgh]

this was really awesome! is the triangle COG thing available anywhere online already?

[Tammy_Inks]

whoa @30:41 I've only just started looking into creating realistic quadruped animations and i've never seen this on any rig! is it only on this rig? how would i set this up? sorry if you have this info on your channel i just don't know what to type haha

[pradeepmewada]

Where can i get that real world gravity tool and walk cycle on path tool?