How to Keep Your CG Characters Alive

Shere Khan by Milt Kahl

One of the most common mistakes made by junior 3D animators is to have their characters stop moving at the end of the shot - or sometimes, in the middle of it.

Unlike in 2D animation, where a held drawing can be very attractive, CG characters tend to lose their sense of life if they stop moving completely.  Digital characters need to stay alive, moving just a tiny bit, shifting, breathing, or just being.

The best way to achieve this to have a little bit of a drift or ease-in on your curves, so that the character never stops dead, but keeps moving, just a little bit.

To achieve this, it's a good idea to set keyframes on all your control curves at the start and end of the shot.

The Problem
The problem is one inherent in CG animation - the digital puppets that we work with have no intrinsic life in them, and they tend to "die" if they stop completely. A good animator keeps them moving, just a bit, even when they are stationary, to simulate the illusion that the character is living and breathing.

Set Keyframes at the start and the end
One simple solution to the problem is this: always keyframe the start and end of your shot. That means selecting all your control curves at frame 1 (or, often, frame 101) and setting keyframes on them. Then, go to the final frame of your shot, select all the control curves, and make sure you keyframe them again. Once you've done this, make sure that you have a slight ease-out at the start of your shot, and an ease-in at the end.

Keep your character alive
The reason for doing this is that CG characters lose their sense of life if they stop moving completely. Characters need to stay alive, moving just a tiny bit, shifting, breathing, or just being. The best way to achieve this to have a little bit of a drift or ease-in on your curves, so that the character never stops dead, but keeps moving, just a little bit.

It's different in 2D
In 2D animation the rule doesn't apply; you can hold a pose and, if it's a good pose, just leave it alone, maybe adding a blink or two to keep the eyes alive. But in 3D animation the illusion of life dies when the character stops moving altogether.

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