Original subtitles

- It's time to detail our idol blocking

and also give it a timing path.

Character is entering the shot after a run cycle.

Have a look around smell the air,

held something and flee into a neuron cycle.

The first thing I will do is to offset the second jump.

So I will select the root bone

and I will change the last key

by increasing its value by minus 0.7 meter.

This is the distance our character is traveling per bounce.

Enter the stage the route is at zero,

travel by minus 0.7 during the first jump

then stop and stays at minus 0.7 during the second jump,

it will travel to minus 1.4 meters.

From there I will be working on the first pose.

So I will just give me some space,

moving the key frame a bit forward in time.

Whenever we build the breakdowns as we did during the cycle,

we mean to address any specific changes or big changes

between each key poses also called golden poses.

So the run cycle our characters stops on three legs

and is having a look around.

I will create two breakdowns to absorb

the impact of the landing

and define the steps made by the front legs.

It lands on both front leg

and then I will make him switch

from left leg to right leg.

So there is a little shuffle.

The most of use was to flatten the feet

as our character is stopping the feet are well-grounded.

As I want my character to raise one

of the front leg to make a step leaning

the character toward the foot in contact with the ground.

If you remember in the previous video

we were talking about balance.

So whenever my character is raising one leg

is shifting his weight toward the one

in contact with the ground.

So you need to input a bit of location offset

in each controller and a bit of rotation in each controller.

A bit of twisting too remember to use the body controller

as the main controller while the hips

and chest controller are here to shape our character.

I oftenly reset the rotation and location of the chest

and hips controller by pressing Alt+R and Alt+G.

And then re-transform them when I'm creating a breakdown.

When I'm happy with the pose I will slightly offset it

on frame 15 and insert a key frame on every controller.

Now I will refine a bit the pose by scrubbing back

and forth onto the current pose and the previous one.

I'm trying to figure this transition motion

between the new pose and the landing pose.

But I will make the tail drag a bit

by rotating it a little down.

And since the chest and head of our character

are also weighted or heavy I will make them drag a bit too.

So I will slightly push the head inward the bodys

quash a bit and rotate it a bit downward.

As the tip of the nose is dragging into the next pose.

Don't hesitate to check out the provided file

to have a better reference of the current pose.

For the next breakdown I will select my key pose

on frame 20 and duplicate it.

To build a nice transition between frame 15 and 17.

I will calculate the motion path of the body controller.

I've already explained you before

that arcs in animation are very important.

This is why I'm using motion path is to see those arcs.

Here we can see that the frame 15 is higher than frame 17.

So I will push frame 17 up and frame 15 down.

Make sure that you check your arcs as soon as possible.

This is really something I wish I knew before.

Because as soon as I've learned this technique

and I've embraced it my animation quality

and speed to produce it have leveled up very fast.

So even if you're blocking will take a little more time

it will be way more accurate and way more appealing.

Hence the polishing stage will be way easier and way faster.

Don't forget to check your arcs from every position,

the top the side et cetera.

As the body controller arcs looks quite right,

just drag a bit the chest the head and the front leg

between frame 15 and frame 20.

On this frame 17 I'm creating and easing

toward the frame 20.

From there I will mainly be tweaking

the poses on frame 15, 17 and 20,

20 being our key pose 15 and 17 our breakdowns.

So I'm double checking the arcs

of the body controller from the top view,

And then I will mostly be refining

the tail of the character.

I want to have quite of a contrast

between the different poses.

We watch the reference the squirrel

has very snappy motion of the tail.

And it wipes it quite a lot even if it's a subtle motion,

each time it changes pose the tail has rapid wipe motion.

That's why I'm trying to bring some contrast

in the tail pose during the blocking.

Those poses will give the rhythm to the idol.

I will offset a big chunk of the animation.

The next step I want the character

to hold the pose for a second or so

and then jump into the one.

So here it's out to give you a tip of whatever to say,

hey you have to input maybe 10, 15,

20 frame between the two poses.

I'm just playing the animation and thinking,

okay will jump he will stop have a look around

and then switch to a more relaxed pose.

And you won't find any footage of this

but I'm almost acting the scene

I am figuring out that I am the squirrel I stopped,

I'm curious about what's around me

and then I relax and sit.

So I figured that 10 frames was okay for the time being

but holding the pose for 10 frame is a bit too much.

So I will just build a new pose

upon the frame 20 and frame 23

and bring some sort of variation especially in the tail

I want to change the shape of the tail.

Change a bit the orientation of the head stuff like that.

I can imagine the character smelling the air for example.

As usual when I feel like the pose is okay

I will keep frame all the controllers

to avoid foot sliding and stuff like that.

From there we can transition into the next pose.

The pose where our character is sitting on his back legs.

We will first create an anticipation

where our character is crouching,

then we will have a transition pose

where the head and the chest will be dragging

while our character is moving backward to sit.

So I've started by creating the crouching pose,

the anticipation if you prefer,

and I'm building it from the current pose.

But since I'm still using the motion path

for the body controller

I know where the character body is going to be.

So I'm just pushing him down to create a new arc.

And as I build or pre-build this new pose,

I can create the intermediate pose with ease.

So this will be really a transition pose

where I start to rotate the body

and the chest, neck and head will drag behind.

Just imagine that your character

is being pulled by the hips.

The danger here is to overdo the anticipation in a way.

This is a pretty lightweight character.

So the anticipation should be very settled.

The heavier a character

the more energy he will have to gather

before moving into the next pose

so the bigger will be the anticipation.

So honestly while I'm recording this specific video

I haven't started the polishing of this animation.

It made this anticipation more subtle when I will switch

to spline and start polishing this animation.

Getting the right sense of weight is I believe

the most complicated thing in animation.

And also one of the most important thing

if you want your animation to be believable.

Even if it's stylized.

So I'm pretty confident I will get a nice animation

at least something appealing

but nailing the motion of the squirrel

even in a stylized animation

this is not something I will promise

but we will try our best for sure.

We will now detail the turn animation.

There are two very important things to look after,

as usual the motion arcs and then the body transfer.

The sitting pose our character will transition

into the standing up pose.

I will then add a couple of details

by making the character raising even a bit more

and smelling the air.

As I'm transitioning between those two key poses,

Look at the arcs drawn by the body

and the nose of the character.

I've exaggerated them a bit for the sake of this tutorial

but I'm sure it will look pretty decent and way better than

if I was doing a straight rotation between those two poses.

The second very important thing here is the weight shifting.

As the character is turning to his left,

I'm also translating his body controller

and I'm opening the left leg toward this new position.

The wider the legs are opened,

the more balanced will be our character.

Last detail on this pose is the right end dropping down.

When the character is raising into the left turn position

he drops his right hand to counter balance

the weight that has been shifting on the left side.

And as he's rising he straighten his tail horizontally

to get some better balance.

To better understand what I'm showing you here,

stand up and try to raise your nose as high as possible.

You will intuitively and naturally push your hands

towards the ground.

You will pull every part of your body down

to be able to raise as much as possible

the tip of your nose.

Your arm will be spreading and pointing downward

in order to lower your center of gravity and be balanced.

So the more you spread any body part closer to the ground,

the lower is your center of gravity,

the more balanced you are.

For the transition into the last pose

our character is hearing a node in his back.

So his attention is dragged behind him.

So beyond curiosity our character

might be scared or feel in danger.

So what I want to show you here

is that the head is leading the animation.

Parting from the previous pose,

we can see that on the next pose,

It's the head that has the broader motion.

And beyond this head rotation the heels

are also already pointing at the final destination.

When doing a head turn you generally first rotate

the eyes towards the target and then the head follow.

If you have watched cats or dogs

I'm sure you have already spotted how mobile their ears are.

So in those breakdowns I want to show

that the ears are currently leading the animation.

I've created a second step where the character

hear the noise again and the ears are pointing

toward the noise and he rotates his head more precisely.

And as he's getting scared I straighten the tail.

Again think of it and act it

when you are getting scared

you instantly get straight as a stick.

So from there there is no more doubt.

Our character is scared so I will transition

into the anticipation before the jump.

Here the hips are pulling the characters back

into the most squashed position as possible.

The ears are still pointing back towards

the source of the noise.

To want to put in short pre-data on whatever,

lets build last pose that is almost the same

where the character is squashed a little more.

Animation wise this pose will last maybe for one

or two frame maximum before the character jumps forward.

The last thing I've done to finish this blocking

is to duplicate the keys where I want my character

to hold the pose.

So that when I will switch to spline,

my character won't be moving

because I will have two identical pose.

So I wont have any interpolation between them.

And he will hold the pose.

Next video will be a time lapse

where I build all the breakdowns we have been talking.