Live Action Ref Should Match the Camera Angle

Anim Ref and Anim by Elin Berrio Pena

Most experienced animators know about the importance of shooting live action reference to create great animation. 

However, to get the best out of your reference, you should always be sure to match the correct camera angle in your shot. If you don't, the reference you shoot won't be nearly as useful.

Avoid Slow-Motion Live Action Reference

Leopard Animation Using Live Action Ref by Daniel Amor

One common mistake made by junior animators using live action reference to plan animation for the first time is to use slow-motion live action reference.  Slow motion reference is very common, because complex actions - especially action shots or animal reference - can be hard to see in real time. 

Animators should avoid slow-motion reference because the vast majority of the time we want our animation will be in real time. If you download slow-motion reference, you will have to re-time your animation, which adds an extra layer of complexity to the shot.

Great Tripod to Film Live Action for Animation

One of the best ways to get live-action reference for a piece of animation is to film yourself acting it out, capture the footage on your phone, and then import the footage onto an image plane in Maya.

The best way to film yourself is by mounting your smartphone on a tripod. 

We're recommending this excellent (and inexpensive) tripod, made by Linkcool, for mounting your phone/camera, while you do the acting and give the performance.

How To Import Live Action Reference Into Maya

The video above explains how to import live action reference into Maya.  There are two basic methods; importing a series of individual frames, and importing a movie file. Both can be fiddly - watch the video to see how it is done.  To see more detail on  how to use live action reference to create animation in Maya, read this blog post. 

Animate "Monty" Doing Riverdance

Animate "Monty" Riverdance

We've uploaded a new animation tutorial - how to animate a character dancing. The tutorial shows how to employ live action reference, and uses the free Monty rig, which you can read about here.  

The purpose of the tutorial is to learn how to import live action reference footage into Maya and use it to create believable animation.  You can find the tutorial, which is free for all our students, at our Vimeo Channel.

Horse Rearing Tutorial Using Live Action Ref

Horse Rearing Tutorial with Live Action Reference

We've uploaded a new animation tutorial to our expanding Vimeo tutorial channel - how to animate a horse rearing up - using live action reference.

The purpose of the horse animation tutorial is to learn how to import live action reference footage into Maya and use it to create believable animal animation.

You can find the tutorial, free for all our students, at our Vimeo Channel.

Jim Van Der Keyl Live Action Reference

Above is a lovely piece of live action reference by animator Jim Van Der Keyl who I worked with many years ago on Brad Bird's classic animated film "The Iron Giant". Jim, like many animators, used live action reference to help create the best animation possible with the most believable acting choices. In this case, he ended up being nominated for an Annie Award for his hard work. 

Why Live Action Reference Needs Exaggeration

Edward Muybridge

Using live action reference to create great animation is one of the key techniques we teach at Animation Apprentice. However, as a technique, it has its risks, the main risk being that the animator follows the live action too closely, and the final performance ends up being floaty, weightless and "spliney".

Animators should always remember that our job is to give a performance. This means using live action to create realistic, believable animation, but then going further, pushing it, and exaggerating the results. Good animation is a caricature of life, not a copy of it.

Live action reference is a very powerful tool, one which I have myself relied upon countless times on many feature films to get my shot completed on time. It is a technique used by animators all over the world.

How to Fix Floaty Animation Based on Live Action Reference

Leopard Animation by Daniel Amor

The use of live action reference to create great animation is one of the key techniques that students learn at Animation Apprentice. 

But one of the dangers of using live action is that, if you follow it too closely, the final animation can be floaty and weightless.

Live Action Reference with Pernille

A while back I was teaching a class at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark, one of Europe's best animation schools. Students are required to film themselves acting out a shot and then use the acting as reference for the animation. One of the best examples was this shot animated by Pernille Flyvholm.  Like all the students, Pernille filmed herself acting out the shot, filming multiple takes until she got it just right. The live action has some great detail in it - such as the little flip of the phone in the character's hand - an authentic detail that makes the acting feel believable. 

Framestore: Live-Action Reference & Animation

Ross Burgess and Oz Gani acting out some dinosaur action

Framestore are a London based animation and VFX company that keeps raising the bar for animal and creature animation.

Paddington 2, was animated at Framestore, and they out-did their own work on Paddington 1 in terms of the quality and believability of the animated performance.

Last week two senior Framestore animators (and the head of talent development) visited my classroom at Escape Studios, to check out our students' work and give us some insights into the Framestore animation workflow.

50 Ways to Sit by Kevin Parry

50 Ways to Sit by Kevin Parry follows on from 100 Ways to Walk, an inventive and clever imagining on the many different ways in which people move, and what this tells us about their character and personality. 50 Ways to Sit takes the same idea, and shows how much variation there in the way that different people might carry out a normal, simple action, like sitting down. It also shows how important it is for animators to get used to acting out their shots, filming themselves, and then using the footage as reference for their work. It's one of the most important, and least well understood, parts of the animation process.

Where Do Animators Find Live Action Reference?

Where can animators find useful live action reference? Reference is often a necessary starting point for producing believable animation. Of course, YouTube is a great resource, but it can be hard to find what you want, and you may need to dig within YouTube to find particular channels that specialise in what you need.  Below is a list of some of the best online resources that we are recommending to find the perfect live action reference.

Tripod for Filming Animation

Photo-R Tripod

One of the best ways to get live-action reference for a piece of animation is to film yourself acting it out, capture the footage on your phone, and then import the footage onto an image plane in Maya.

But how you film yourself acting it out, if it's just you? Someone has to operate the camera, after all. The answer is - you need a tripod. We're recommending this excellent (and inexpensive) tripod, made by Phot-R, for mounting your phone/camera, while you do the performance.

Endless Reference - Free Live Action Reference!

Using live action reference to inform your animation can be one of the best ways to get started as an animator.

I have used live action reference many times on many films, especially movies with human characters, such as The Road to El Dorado and Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron, and especially on action shots where the motion was complex and hard to get right.

Great Reference for Animals and Creatures from the BBC and Getty Images

Here is some great reference for animators, specialising in animal locomotion and behaviour, from the BBC and Getty Images.

The site is easily searchable so, say you need some reference footage of a cheetah running, it's all very easy to find. You can easily download the videos as .mp4 files, and then open them up in QuickTime so you can step through them frame by frame.

Character Walk Reference for Animators by Houman Sorooshnia

Above is an excellent video of walk reference by animator Houman Sorooshnia, who has done a whole series of different live action character walks. It's a great resource, and it looks like he had a lot of fun acting them all out.  As animators, tackling walk cycles is a great way to learn the craft of animation and also a very good way to dig into character.  After all, how someone walks tells us a lot about who they are, and what kind of mood they are in.  If you can convey to an audience the personality and character of someone just by the way they are walking - then you are well on your way to becoming a professional animator.

Edward Muybridge - The Animator's Photographer

Edward Muybridge

Sooner or later all students of animation come across the work of Edward Muybridge.  Muybridge was a pioneering English photographer who spent much of his life in California, photographing studies of human and animal locomotion.

Muybridge's work, now in the public domain (i.e. the copyright has expired) is still of great importance to animators, despite having been done more than 100 years ago.

For almost any kind of animal locomotion, Muybridge is still very useful for life-action analysis, even in the era of YouTube. 

Muybridge was the first person to figure out the precise details of horse locomotion, proving that in a full gallop there was a period in the horse's stride where all four feet left the ground - something that was impossible to detect with the human eye.

How Disney Animators Created Beautiful Acting in Frozen

Watch Disney's smash hit animated film Frozen and you will find some first class acting, beautiful work which arguably takes the medium to a whole new level of sophistication and skill. But how do animators achieve such great acting? The answer of course is just the same as it would have been at the Disney studio 70 or 80 years ago: if you want great acting, study great actors. Below is an excellent shot progression showing how animators on Frozen used live actiion reference to bring their shots to life.

How To Use Live Action Reference For Animation

Horse in Motion by Edward Muybridge

How can animators use live action reference to create believable animation?

Back in the old 2D days of hand-drawn animation, rotoscoping (as it was called) was a legitimate, if much debated, method of achieving a realistic look and feel to your animation.

Today, the technology has changed, but 3D animators can also benefit from using live action to help inform their animation, and this is especially the case when doing complex animal or creature animation. So how, in practice, does a MAYA animator use live action reference to get a great result? Below are some techniques for making it work.