A question from an APT student....

可能是动画学生很常见的共性问题

By Keith Lango @ Sunday, August 10, 2008

编译：Victor Luo @ August 30, 2008

Keith和他的APT学生的电邮交流中发现一个可能是动画学生很常见的共性问题，拿出来与大家共享。你可能觉得场景中的一段已经OK了，然后你转到下一段，突然发现前一段又完全不对了！到处都是问题。如果你任其发生，会很挫败士气的。所以在努力做到“前瞻性”和在动画变得丑陋前进行修正的时候，我的一个学生问道：

我怎样避免陷入我在这个场景所面临的问题中呢？我问是因为我在stepped模式下无法发现问题。“更多的动作分解”是答案吗？那么，是不是我们一旦切换到linear模式就看到一堆没用的东西是很平常的？

I just had an email with one of my APT students and I thought that it was an interesting one- so I thought I'd share it with you. It's a super common problem in animation. You think everything is OK in one phase of the scene, and then you move on to the next phase and suddenly the stuff looks like crud! Problems, problems everywhere. It can be discouraging if you let it. So in an effort to kinda "see ahead" and fix things before they get ugly my student asked...

How do I avoid running into the kind of problems that I faced on that scene? I ask because I couldn't see some problems in stepped mode. Is "more breakdowns" the answer? Then again, is it normal to see so much junk once we go to linear mode?

我记得这个可能算是许多CG动画师们最头疼的问题，我的意思是做电影级动画的专业动画师。每个人在进行到blocking的下一步时都有“嗷，该死，这看起来像便便！”这样的时刻。当你当你观看你完成的stepped模式的blocking时，看起来它们具有生命，非常的“正确”。然后你把所有的tangent手柄变成linear或者spline模式，美妙的生命立即土崩瓦解。大家想要知道一些秘密或诀窍来避免这个丑陋的阶段。这样的诀窍总是回避我们。原因很简单——因为它根本不存在。下面是我对学生问题的回答：

I remember this being perhaps the biggest struggle for so many CG animators- and I mean pros working on films. Everybody has that "Aw geez, this looks like crap!" stage right after blocking. When you watch your finished blocking in stepped mode things look like they have life and are so "right". Then you throw all the tangents to linear or spline and it seems like it all falls apart. Everybody wants to know some secret or trick to avoiding that ugly stage. Such a trick has always eluded us. The reason why is simple- it doesn't exist. Here's what I wrote in reply to the student's question...

我觉得有一个要点，你能看见场景中你看见的东西，你不能看见更多直到你向前推进。动画场景就像探索一片树木繁茂的领地。你可以乘飞机鸟瞰它，你可以研究地图，你可以做计划和实践——但是直到你开始进入到丛林中去你才可能知道每样东西是否各就其位。甚至当你走了丛林里三分之一的路你能够向前眺望的时候，你已经学到了一些东西，而且你现在可以制定一个扎实详尽的进度规划，但是除非你前进，否则你永远不会真正知道你手上的是什么。动画场景有时候就像这个一样。你做你在blocking阶段能做的事情，然后你感觉不错——让你已经通篇考虑好了，而且做到你自己满意了——你进行下去。在这条路上的每一步你都会发现新的东西。它不是需要修正改进的失败或是问题或是弱点。它只是动画。非常有趣，就像是生活一样！：）

I think there's a point where you can see what you see in a scene and you can't see anything more until you move on. Animating scenes is like exploring a wooded territory. You can fly over it with a plane, you can study maps, you can plan and practice- but until you start getting into the woods you don't really know everything that's there. And even when you get 1/3 of the way through the territory you can see ahead, you've learned some things and you can now make a solid plan of progress, but until you go forward you'll never really know what you have on your hands. Scenes are like that sometimes. You do what you can do in blocking and then when you're happy with it- allowing that you've thought it through and have worked it to your satisfaction- you move on. You'll find new things every step of the way. It's not a failing or a problem or a weakness that needs to be fixed. It's just animation. Funny, it's also exactly like life. :)

不管你处在哪个阶段，即使已经“完成”，还总是会有问题出现的。只要向前推进就好。

There will always be problems in a scene no matter what stage you're at- even when it's "done". Just keep moving forward.