Release. Pressure. Animate.

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This picture shows the difference between pipeline and workflow. Also „Animator Interest‟ is depicted to show the field of interest (for development) of an animator (that only does animation.) This image can also be found in the attachments in a bigger size. This is a simplified example of a 3D production; therefore some stages may be missing. The pipeline is the overall line of production and the order and connections of the contained building blocks. For example a production pipeline could contain modeling, rigging, animation, rendering and compositing. For pipeline development there are a couple of points that are of high interest: - Flexibility, - Simplicity, - Accessibility, - and Scalability. The scheme depicts a straight line and although the mentioned blocks basic structure is often in that order it almost always happens that steps back and forth will be made throughout production. Therefore parts of the pipeline should be easily interchangeable and thus be flexible. Even more it should exceed at its simplicity by being organized, clean and non-redundant. So, the whole pipeline should be easily manageable and accessible. And, any pipeline that will be developed should be flexible enough to scale up and down based on the needs of its production. For this all to work smoothly it is important that the pipes between the building blocks – hence the word pipeline – are organized and streamlined. This picture shows an example of the workflow of animation for 3D animators. A workflow is one of the building blocks for in a pipeline. This image can also be found in the attachments in a bigger size. A workflow is one of the building blocks in a pipeline and depicts how such a building block is done from start to finish. For example an animator might use references as inspiration and building blocks, and then work out ideas working towards and with sketches and testing the developed ideas. Then he‟ll start working on the character in 3D by selecting, posing and managing this and will end-up with a stage of clean-up and tweaking. A workflow can be very personal as one - for example - might even work 1. Creativity and Flow 1 2
without any reference or sketching. As long as the workflow provides consistent quality and speed throughout its progression it is reaching its primary goal, which is high quality delivery in time. But a good workflow constantly consists of a clear goal and constant progression in as well the product as the user‟s skillset. A workflow needs efficiency in speed, organization and simplicity. And it should provide a constant vision on the current task, what step is next and how he‟s (easiest) able to complete these tasks. Besides, the way the animator works should constantly motivate and bring inspiration and clarity to himself and (possibly) others. Even more, as discussed for flow, the choices of the animator should provide a good challenge to skill ratio so he can reach flow (as described by Csikszentmihalyi.) An animator in big productions will solely focus on animating. But in most school project, at small studios and also with the production of Mac „n‟ Cheese the animator isn‟t just the animator. I, for example, was the lead animator, animation supervisor and technical director. For this I did supervision, animation, rigging, troubleshooting, techniques testing as well as pipeline building. But besides just these general descriptions I‟ve been dealing with concept art, story development, cinematography, data wrangling, editing and promotion as well. An example picture of the Mac „n‟ Cheese pipeline (compressed to the biggest parts only) showing the division of my personal time and tasks throughout its pipeline. This image can also be found in the attachments in a bigger size. As you can see things add up and often this can make the user needing to deal with multiple tasks at the same time. To be creative, feel free and intuitive at the same time a structured and consistent workflow is required. As we‟ll see in the coming chapters there‟s room for improvement for almost all 3D animators. And even more in line of this research, there seems to be very much room for improvement in student productions (and small studios) and their pipeline, workflow and flow. 1. Creativity and Flow 1 3
Page 1 and 2: PRESSURE. RELEASE. ANIMATE. How to
Page 3 and 4: “Art challenges technology. Techn
Page 5 and 6: Table of Contents Table of Contents
Page 7 and 8: Introduction Not a very long time a
Page 9 and 10: This is all evolving around the mai
Page 11 and 12: There are two difficulties in discu
Page 13 and 14: 1.2 How can a flow be maintained or
Page 15 and 16: this piece of art - posing the char
Page 17: You know that feeling when you watc
Page 21 and 22: 2.1 Animating like a puppeteer. (St
Page 23 and 24: ond with the character often create
Page 25 and 26: everything done smoothly at the mom
Page 27 and 28: same, hence a „tick‟ of the lig
Page 29 and 30: This paragraph is about what in gen
Page 31 and 32: “Too much action spoils the actin
Page 33 and 34: working clean and keeping your head
Page 35 and 36: think in the ways of those strong p
Page 37 and 38: the motion and action of the charac
Page 39 and 40: this can be a reliable way for „i
Page 41 and 42: It‟s hard to have a clear distinc
Page 43 and 44: the background. Any distraction at
Page 45 and 46: or the mixed approach as described
Page 47 and 48: customizing and tweaking the whole
Page 49 and 50: as the character parts don‟t actu
Page 51 and 52: As with traditional animation and m
Page 53 and 54: example you could divide the pipeli
Page 55 and 56: ecognizable style on its own, but f
Page 57 and 58: issue. “While early production mo
Page 59 and 60: There‟s a need for a strict goal
Page 61 and 62: Simplicity is what animators seem t
Page 63 and 64: Simple thinking Complex effects Ful
Page 65 and 66: creating a thorough plan that doesn
Page 67 and 68: Because using the early computer sy
Page 69 and 70:
work you‟re looking at, regardles
Page 71 and 72:
we‟ll see. According to a job des
Page 73 and 74:
day polishing splines, arcs and spa
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It‟s important to allow supervisi
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doesn‟t. For him they were mainly
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- Discuss with supervisor. - Animat
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the animator (like reviews by the s
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By now I‟ve presented the importa
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the final movie too. They might see
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progression of the shot before star
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In management I‟ve noticed while
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already know exactly what pose happ
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(Autodesk Whitepaper - The New Art
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with a limited amount of informatio
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information to be (possibly) presen
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for. Sometimes it is necessary to a
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pop out is simplicity. For every ta
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goals (based off of storyboard and
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up and shut it down instead of a co
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development 22 . Since the tracking
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The same accounts for playing the a
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animation studios, and if it were u
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on it, as well as use it automatica
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offer functionality for this in a r
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guessing right away what the best t
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to focus on only these parts and ma
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een developed through the years for
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data to handle through the years se
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applying it to your objects animati
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allows you to quickly sculpt tweaks
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quickly and easily check your anima
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without worrying about what and whe
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viewing and commenting accordingly
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stimulation might interfere with ac
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A picture depicting an overview of
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of the animating) could need this t
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tools that really helped with the c
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never really ended up using it as f
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But looking at the character from t
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otate around his head took me at mo
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As stated we worked faster and were
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Conclusion The main focus of my res
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management, start using it and twea
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Reference Sources Animation Mentor
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Hoffman, Hans; T. Weeks, Sara; H. H
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1. Workflow and Pipeline clarificat
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Release. Pressure. Animate.

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