Why Has Arnold Disappeared from Maya?

Arnold is the main renderer that comes free with Maya - but sometimes it goes missing.  A common question new Maya users ask is "Where has Arnold gone?"

The solution is not always obvious. You look in the Render Settings menu and - Arnold has vanished! So, what to do to bring Arnold back?

Always Add a Blink on a Head Turn

When do we blink?

A common mistake made by junior animators is to forget to add blinks on their characters, especially on a head turn.  Everybody blinks a lot, but since we do it without noticing, we barely notice it.

In the video below, I explain why it is that characters need to blink much more often than you might think.  Our eyelids act much like the shutter of a camera, cutting on motion and editing out everything but the important information that we actually need to see. 

And, importantly, when you animate a blink, don't forget to add a little motion to the eyebrows as well. 

Why Animators Should Avoid a Profile View

Two characters talking in profile view

One of the most common mistakes made by junior animators when they start out animating is to compose characters in profile.

When two characters are talking to one other, it seems logical that staging them in profile should work fine, but compositionally it doesn't work well.

Why Animators Should Avoid a Flat Horizon

Flat horizons are one of the curses of 3D animation - nothing gives the game away faster than a blank, flat ground plane extending into infinity. One of the most common mistakes made by junior animators is to animate a character on a flat ground plane - the sort of situation that occurs only in 3D - never in nature. After all, in life, our horizon lines are broken up by landscapes, buildings, trees - the jumble of modern urban and rural life. Watch the short video above for some tips on how to avoid the curse of the flat horizon.

Why It's Best to Animate Just One Character

"Two shot" by Jeton Lakna

Animating two characters acting is, obviously, more complex than animating one, and a lot more work.

So what if an animator has a line of dialogue that involves two characters talking? Do you need to animate both of them?  The answer is no. There are plenty of ways to animate the shot convincingly without having to work on two characters at once.

Six Tips to Make Maya Work Faster

Tip Number 6 - stay low poly

One of the most common problems we encounter at Animation Apprentice is a student's Maya scene slowing down so much that they can't animate anymore, or their scene becomes so slow that animation becomes a burden - not a pleasure.

Below are our Six Tips to speed up your workflow, animate faster, and make Maya work at optimal speed.

How to Install the ParentMaster Plugin

Installing plugins in Maya can be a fiddly process, and often needs troubleshooting. And, worse, every time Maya updates their software, you have to re-install all the plugins you installed a year ago. Above is a handy short video showing how to install the free ParentMaster plugin by Paolo Dominici to the latest version of Maya - Maya 2019. The Parentmaster plugin is very useful for attaching and un-attaching objects. Say you have a character who picks up a phone, and then puts it down again. For this, you need the ParentMaster. To see more about how to install the Parentmaster plugin, see this blog post.

Camera Always Follows, Never Leads

One of the most common mistakes made by junior animators is to have the camera lead the action, instead of following it. One of the basic rules of cinematography (a fancy word for a moving camera) is that the camera always follows, never leads.  For example, if a character is leaving a scene, they should initiate the motion, and the camera should follow them. This is natural on a live action set, where the camera will naturally tend to follow the actor. But in animation, where we get nothing for free, these choices have to be made deliberately, and we need to be aware of the pitfalls.

Why Animators Have Too Many Poses

Art Babbitt & Richard Williams, c1973

One of the most common mistakes made by student animators is to have too many poses, making the overall performance feel too busy, too over-animated.

Veteran Disney animator Art Babbitt used to say that junior animators had too many poses, and veteran animators had too few. When we start off young and enthusiastic we tend to throw in the kitchen sink.

The trick is to have the right number of poses for a shot, and let the characters stay a while in the poses we have chosen. The best way to do this is to draw clear thumbnails at the beginning, with clear poses, and not have too many poses for the shot.

Why Animators Need Sound Design

Sound Designer at work

Animators need sound design. If you're animating a shot, remember that the visuals are just 50% of the experience; the rest is audio.

Audio is made up of music, sound effects, dialogue and - sometimes - narration.

Occasionally, good sound design means having no sound at all, or very little. But there is usually some work to be done, and animators neglect sound design altogether at their peril.

Why Animators Should Always Tell a Story

Animators are story tellers. Every animation should have an idea behind it, one that tells a story.

Junior animators focus on learning technique - and technique is very important. But it is also important to think carefully about the story behind your shot.

Who is your character, and why are they doing what they are doing?  What is the scene about? What do they want, and what do they fear?  These things are important because if your shots forms part of an interesting story, it will be much more interesting to watch.

Animate a "Take" Reaction with "Monty"

Animate a "take" with Monty

In this tutorial, we show how to animate a reaction shot, or "take" with Monty.  Reaction shots are the bread-and-butter of junior animators. On a feature film, once you have graduated from walk cycles and crowd shots, you get given reaction shots to test your skills.

A reaction shot is where animators first start to get to grips with acting and performance.  Just like live-action actors, animated characters on a screen must listen - and react.

The Importance of Anticipation

Anticipation - Illusion of Life

Anticipation is one of the 12 Principles of Animation, and it is one of the key principles that every animator must master.

Every action tends to have three components: an anticipation, an action, and a reaction. If you make the anticipation clear, then the rest should follow effortlessly.

Consider the anticipation drawing of Donal Duck on the left, taken from the classic Disney instruction manual "The Illusion of Life" - still a must-have book on every animator's shelf.

It's absolutely clear what Donald is about to do - even though he hasn't done it yet.

The trick with a good anticipation pose is that it is made so clear that the audience knows what the character is going to do, before he or she actually does it. 

Why Animators Should Do Facial Expressions 1st

Planning out animation isn't an easy process. In theory it is simple, but in practice there are many pitfalls for the unwary.  One of the most common errors made by novice animators is to leave the facial expressions until last.

You might think to yourself "I'll save time by blocking out the main poses, and then work on the facial expressions later", but the danger with this approach is that you might never get around to doing the facial expressions at all, and your animation will be lifeless and flat.

One of the early lessons I learned at Blue Sky Studios on "Robots" back in 2003 was how to block out the character's main facial expression from the very beginning, thus determining the main acting beats in the shot.

What is the character thinking and feeling? This is a choice you should make at the very start.

Why Animators Should Avoid Jump Cuts

A jump cut

What is a jump cut? and why should animators try to avoid them?

A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that are almost the same.  The result of the cut is to "jump" from one shot to another, in a way that can be disconcerting and can take the viewer out of the story.

Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

One of the most common mistakes made by junior animators is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

It's very tempting, mid-way through a piece of complex animation, to want to start again from scratch. Problems with animation can be hard to solve, especially when you're new to the game, and sometimes a blank screen can feel like a tempting solution.

It can be especially hard to dig into the Graph Editor to manipulate the curves when everything seems a bit like a mess of coloured spaghetti.

Why Every Animation Needs an Idea

Animators need an idea

Every Shot Needs an Idea. One of the most common mistakes made by junior animators is to animate a scene of dialogue without clearly thinking through what the shot is really about.

Animators are actors, with a pencil, or a mouse. Like stage or screen actors, animators must always think carefully about what their character is thinking about. Who is the character talking to, and what is the scene about? What do they want, and what do they fear?

These things are important because unless these questions are asked, and answered, the scene will tend to feel empty of meaning, and lack compelling interest.

Why Animators Need "Head Muppeting"

What is "Head Muppeting" in animation? It's a term I first heard used by veteran animator Sydney Padua when she was teaching an animation class at Escape Studios.

"Head Muppeting" is a similar concept to that of "hitting the accents", developed by Richard Williams in his book The Animator's Survival Kit.

It means that, when you are animating a dialogue shot, you need to keep the character's head in motion, to make the audience believe that the character is saying the lines.

Animating Dialogue: Avoid Famous Lines

Animators: avoid lines like "go ahead punk..."

One of the most common mistakes junior animators often make when selecting their first line of dialogue to animate is to pick one of their favourite lines from a movie, usually spoken by a famous actor.

The reason that this is a bad idea is that famous lines spoken by famous actors tend to come with too much baggage.

Why Animators Should Keyframe Everything

"Mery" rig in Maya

One common question asked by student animators is this: "Should I create keyframes for everything, or just for the control curves that I am actually going to animate?"

It's a good question, and doesn't necessarily have a simple answer.  To create a tidy workflow, it can be a good idea to be quite selective about what you keyframe, especially on big, complex production rigs.

However, in the beginning, when students are first learning the craft of 3D animation, the best (and simplest) answer to the question is this: "keyframe everything".