Moho Forum

okay- well i suppose this may come naturally to some but for others I'm lost-

choreography- not just for dancing, but for other things such as fights

does anybody know of any websites or info for this- most of them regard live action or dance choreography

I'm studying alot of films and cartoons but I can see already a big difference in films and cartoons- theres a flow thats totally different in an animation from live action, although I suppose you can animate anything

The main reason is because I think the little bit I've ventured into fight scenes- my fights don't have any pop- they're actually quite realistic in a sense

which unfortunately is not eye catching- I need help making them more....animated

imho, editting can make or break a scene - you don't lack the ability to create dynamic snippets, but the 'pop' in your work is probably lost in lingering editing that kills momentum... maybe something worth looking into instead of actual 'choreography' - the obvious main difference is that with real people you can correct them and change the entire thing over and over through a session - you just can't do that with animation.

I think working on your storyboarding skills will really improve this, plan more angles and cuts and make the storyboard completely 'readable' before starting to animate, with a clear plan on how the editting will put it all together. You might find you end up having to do a lot less 'work' with the actual animation part

I might be completely wrong, but that's my thought on it right now

I think a lot of what makes animated fight choreography look great is careful selection of staging.

Poses and impacts need to look powerful, or elegant, or intriguing. Even the simplest punch can look powerful with careful staging and editing.

If you place a camera in a position so that the viewer is proverbially living in the scene where they can see the action and the power, then impacts seem much more incredible.

Ponder this scene. A floating head approaches an aluminum can, dismayed. He punches the ground, causing the can to pop up into the sky.

Here's an example of the scene with really bad staging.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDzDhNi7GI4

All the props in the scene are laid out to the audience, but do you feel any connection to what's happening. Do you even realize where the aluminum can is placed?

Here's a bit of better staging where the actors are placed more prominently in the scene. Same animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jxcKGEyhzk

Staging in this scene is better since you see the aluminum can up front and you see where the head is looking. When he brings his fist down, you are right there in the scene when the can pops up and you even try to follow the can. However, you lose some of the relativity of size and distance between the can and head.

Here's the staging I used in the final for this project. From just this, can you figure out what is going to happen next after the can is popped up given his pose, the position of the can, and the green bin at the right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBsS2KFU3mQ

The thing about staging is that you want your scene to be clear, AND you want your audience to feel as if they are somewhere relevant in the scene. You don't want to have them removed from the scene unless you have a specific purpose. If the audience don't have any connection with the scene, they won't feel the power or subtlety that you are trying to convey.

You can read Brad Bird's little visual rant in composition to get a base point on where to begin.
http://www.animationmeat.com/pdf/televi ... _comps.pdf

In essence, you want to place all important actors in the scene and you want to make things look interesting. You want to lower the horizon line so that things are displayed more prominently. You want the audience to be there when the action happens.

Here's the most important thing. Your staging and composition needs to follow the action, especially in fight scenes. Once you have an opponent step into the fray, you need to make sure that all the actors are staged in such a way that you can see all the action and the action looks powerful/slick/whateveryouareworkingfor.

And some food for thought, look at this scene of a FMV made by a very big game development company.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgatL2LQ ... page#t=85s

Staging is good up until 1:38. Can you tell me what the hell just happened there? Is he feeding him? Is his arm being bitten? Is it actually dead? Do we get any anticipation when he's attacked from behind? Is there even a reason for focusing on the spine floating in mid air?

Starting at 1:38, the staging allows us to see a struggle between Zeratul and the hydralisk. However, the staging is weak in that what's happening in the struggle is entirely unclear. Clarity and power are completely lost as a result. The second hydralisk comes in at 1:40 with little anticipation, something that could have been solved with better staging. The scene cuts to the spine that had been cut off and Zeratul grabs the spine. We gain a sense of intimacy with the scene, but we lose clarity of what is going on in the next shot. Clarity and power is localized to the spine, but in doing so, we are separated from the rest of the scene in a way where we no longer have bearing in relation to Zeratul. This problem stems from a little bit of bad staging and bad editing. Zeratul and the hydralisk should have always stayed in frame so that when Zeratul finally plunges the spin into its head, you know exactly what's going to happen and you can feel the power from the strike.

This is what you have to be aware of when doing fight scenes. Things are not clear? You're dead in the water. Things don't have enough power? You're dead in the water. There are many, many things you have to be aware of, but the most important part besides motion, is staging since that is what puts your audience in the moment so they can really feel that pop.

You need to direct your audience on where to look and how to feel it or else, no matter how by the books your motion is, it'll still end up looking and feeling weak.

LOL thanks alot

I guess this what happens when you don't go to school for this stuff- then again, I went to school to drive a forklift...

and I've only been an artist since last november...

I can see how staging can make or break something along with actual movement

I think- I need to draw ALOT more

This might seem extreme, but I highly recommend enrolling in some martial arts classes yourself. This will help you get a feel for the balance and the flow of energy involved in artistic fighting.

If you haven't already, I also highly recommend checking out the original Street Fighter II anime. It has some of the best animated fight scenes of all time! While the fighting was very technical and precise, I remember clever use of close-ups that put you right in the action and let you really feel the impact of some of the blows. I even ended up tracking down the complete set of storyboards for it so I could study them in detail!

I also agree that staging is very important and the key to this is careful storyboarding. To help with this, I recommend checking out fighting manga instead of just anime, as the staging should be easier to follow.

As for other references, there are tons of martial arts pose books available on amazon.co.jp, eg:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E7%9E%AC%E9%96 ... pd_sim_b_6

Thanks alot Rudiger-

In fact I used to take the sword art iaido and you're right it does help to know the movements and poses

I'll check out that anime

Try to always move in arcs. Big beautiful arcs. It's helpful to have guide layers with motion arcs.

Here is a bit of inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBk3ynRbtsw

You may have seen it before, but look at the motion arcs.

2ner wrote:Try to always move in arcs. Big beautiful arcs. It's helpful to have guide layers with motion arcs.

Here is a bit of inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBk3ynRbtsw

You may have seen it before, but look at the motion arcs.

this is very beautifully done- but it looks rotoscoped, maybe its just me

~~ I watch this every day trying to emulate its awesomeness http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX6IIfoKdj0

it's all tension and release

You'd still want to move things in arcs. The animation is Samurai Champloo is also is arcs, if you break things down frame by frame.

The big difference between Thought of You and Samurai Champloo is the timing in the actions. Thought of You tries to use a more realistic bodily cadence. Samurai Champloo uses a quicker, almost jittery tempo to their timing so there's a more staccato like rhythm to the action.

Thought of You tries to be naturalistic. It's trying to emulate "natural".

(Actually, there's a documentary Making-of: http://conteanimated.com/the-animation/the-documentary/ I'm not sure if it's actually full rotoscope. He got a studio to do a dance choreography, but he animated based on the choreography, not directly rotoscoping the choreography. Whether or not you consider that workflow rotoscope or not, is up to you. Guy is actually a pretty good draftsperson. Worked on Spiderman and Cowboys vs Aliens. I'm going to mention that he picked non-dramatic staging for a very specific reason: to NOT manipulate the viewer. You can't really do this in something fully narrative and cinematographic unless you knew what the hell you were doing or you had some specific intention which he had.)

Samurai Champloo tries to be stylistic, probably in one of the most Japanese ways.

In addition to practicing staging and draftsmanship, I'd also suggest working on timing if you want to emulate something similar to Samurai Champloo. I doubt you'd find much animation that is similar in timing to serialized Japanese anime.

Naturalistic tempo is great for motions that should look natural. When done right, the animation just looks freaking beautiful, like in Thought of You. Naturalistic motion works ok for faster motions, but I personally do like the stylistic flair of Japanese anime in comparison to naturalistic motion.

The more frenzied, stuttered pacing of Samurai Champloo lends itself well to fight scenes, especially those with really fast and exaggerated motions. I personally don't think it works that great for regular scenes.

If I were to make something stylized, I'd use naturalistic cadence for normal and subtle actions, but switch up the tempo to something more frenzied for broad, fast actions. That way, I gain things from both worlds.

I love how imaginative and intriguing anime can be, but I can't stand the lack of inbetween frames sometimes. Even if I were to adopt Japanese style timing, I'd still draw or animate all frames. No exceptions.

Some of the best compositions can be found in manga and anime, but so many corners are cut when translating into animation. Also, a lot of anime, and cartoons stateside, don't even attempt to put in some keep alive.

WE HAVE COMPUTERS! KEEP ALIVE IS PRACTICALLY FREE! ANIME STUDIO GIVES KEEP ALIVE FOR PRACTICALLY NOTHING AND PROGRAMS LIKE AFTER EFFECTS CAN ADD EVEN MORE (if done correctly and not cheesily).

I guess maybe I should put this here?



jittery- yup but at 24 if I try to do inbetweens it slows down the strength of the keyframes

Like I said in the other post- I didn't storyboard this- completly "organic" so I had no idea how the fight would go or what would happen and I didn't know she would do the somersault

Cool. Draftsmanship is definitely getting there. Timing is good up to the somersault. I think you need to rethink the timing on that. The transition from slash down to somersault is unclear because it doesn't feel as if there's enough force to propel her up in the air. In fact, she's kinda floating there.

There are many ways to try to retain power. Traditionally, the way to keep power is to have a lot of followthrough action, specifically in the cloth. Another way is to increase anticipatory action. These ways are really traditional though.

For a more stylized effect, you can try simply using less frames for the somersault and use a blurring/bridging technique, either multiples or smearing.

If I were to animate the scene, I'd inbetween everything. I'd look at the slash down before the somersault another time, and see if I could finesse the timing. I really feel that there should be fewer frames devoted. She seems to be hanging in the air honestly. That, or an extreme frame is missing. Regardless, at the somersault, I'd shorten the entire action to 1, maybe 2 frames if I were to keep the tempo and draw out the reactionary action more. Knees bent down more. Allow the scene to breathe a bit more.

AnimeNub wrote:Cool. Draftsmanship is definitely getting there. Timing is good up to the somersault. I think you need to rethink the timing on that. The transition from slash down to somersault is unclear because it doesn't feel as if there's enough force to propel her up in the air. In fact, she's kinda floating there.

There are many ways to try to retain power. Traditionally, the way to keep power is to have a lot of followthrough action, specifically in the cloth. Another way is to increase anticipatory action. These ways are really traditional though.

For a more stylized effect, you can try simply using less frames for the somersault and use a blurring/bridging technique, either multiples or smearing.

If I were to animate the scene, I'd inbetween everything. I'd look at the slash down before the somersault another time, and see if I could finesse the timing. I really feel that there should be fewer frames devoted. She seems to be hanging in the air honestly. That, or an extreme frame is missing. Regardless, at the somersault, I'd shorten the entire action to 1, maybe 2 frames if I were to keep the tempo and draw out the reactionary action more. Knees bent down more. Allow the scene to breathe a bit more.

yah even at 24fps that somersault was frames back to back which I thought came out too quickly- If I skip a frame thought it really comes out wrong and looks like frame skipping i can try and slow down that action so it has enough time

I actually think it's just a matter of moving the node over one

It's kinda hard to do stuff on this old laptop because I get so much lag in playback I have to render the scene fully and watch it on another computer before I go on

i think the problem is the pause before summersault is killing momentum - its like a jump/pause, then floaty roll - i think if you just started the rotation from the 'still facing left' paused frame to link it to the roll it might bridget that and look more flowing? worth a try

AnimeNub wrote:There are many ways to try to retain power. Traditionally, the way to keep power is to have a lot of followthrough action, specifically in the cloth. Another way is to increase anticipatory action. These ways are really traditional though.

"Anticipation" and "follow-through"... Definitely! I think anime uses these principles at lot, but they often switch the camera angles between phases. So they might show a close up of the person's feet for anticipation, a mid-shot for the action, and the opponent's expression in the follow-through.

that's the problem with not planning - you create one set up and push it for longer than you probably should when you should maybe cut to different angles to make the scene more dynamic...