The Hidden Secret of Animation!

animation tutorial part. 1 AKA "the secret of animation" from giovanni braggio on Vimeo. 
In this concise video animator Giovanni Braggio reveals the hidden secrets of computer animation. After all: animation is easy - the computer does it all for you! Forget the tedious business of learning timing and spacing - you just pick your language, ask the character to perform for you, and Maya does the rest. So, if animation really is as easy as Giovanni says it is, why aren't we all doing it this way?

Thumbnails by Ruben Aquino for The Little Mermaid

The secret of great animation is in the planning. Open up a copy of Maya, the leading 3D software, and you just get a blank screen. With CG animation (or indeed any animation) you get nothing for free. So how do you fill this blank space with creative, entertaining animation? The secret of good work is to thumbnail - that is to say, to plan out your work with sketches and scribbles which create a kind of road map of where you want to go.

What Makes a Truly Great Animator? James "JC" Chiang Has the Answer

The animator who brought you surfing penguins

Animator, Director and artist James "JC" Chiang has worked as an animator on many feature films including Robots, Ice Age - The Meltdown, Surf's Up and Open Season, and was animation director on the 2008 Veggie Tales movie. He teaches animation, and is a also an accomplished fine artist in his own right. We asked him to explain what, exactly, makes a great animator.

The Secret of Animation

Norman gets animated - by Giovanni Braggio

Everyone knows that animation is easy - after all, the computer does all the work for you, right? Not like the old days, where you had to draw stuff - all those hand-drawn frames, at 24 frames a second! Now, you just tell the computer what to do, and it does it! Amazing. Below is a very short video by Giovanni Braggio, revealing the hidden secrets of computer animation.

The Secret of Animation - by T Dan Hofstedt

T. Dan Hofstedt - animation supremo

My old friend and former kumrad at Disney animation, T Dan Hofsted, recently posted at Facebook a reply to a student asking how to become an animator. T Dan is one of the best animators I know, a veteran of countless Disney hits including The Lion King, Pocahontas, Hercules and Mulan, so he ought to know a thing or two about how to make it as an animator. Here is what he wrote: