All images from Inspired 3D Character Animation by Kyle Clark, series edited by Kyle Clark and Michael Ford. Reprinted with permission.

The last few chapters of this text examine the production of a series of animated shots. It’s an opportunity to combine the fundamentals and processes discussed throughout this book. Hopefully this will give you valuable insight on how to approach your own work and develop your own set of production processes.

I have developed a very short story and created a minimal set with one character. This basic framework should be sufficient to demonstrate the production of shot from beginning to end.

Along the way, I will implement many of the tips, tricks and techniques specific to character animation, as well as recap some issues discussed in Chapter 5: “Approaches to Animation.” In addition, I will discuss topics associated with refining the finished animation.

[Figure 1] A storyboard sequence.

Storyboards
A storyboard is a two-dimensional drawing created to define the actions of a shot or scene (see Figure 1). These drawings are generally produced by story artists and are used to convert the written words of the script into a visual format providing a detailed description of the actions and emotions associated with the story.

The storyboards provide valuable insight into the scripts intentions regarding action, emotion, and orientation. Multiple drawings are usually generated for each scene. This series of images provides the basic beats for the animator. Timings are generally associated with each drawing to supply the animator with a good idea of how long the character needs to perform specific actions.

Drawings generated for this project include 10 shots with 20 storyboards. These illustrations provide insight into the various beat s of the story and suggest certain personality traits that might work in the scene. You will definitely want to use these images as reference.

[Figure 2] Looking tired is an important expression in this short story.

As shown in Figure 2, the story artist has captured a distinct moment in the story with an expression that is characteristic of the attitude and emotion of the main character. The complete set of drawings is shown in Figure 3. Notice the beats the story artist chose to illustrate.

These drawings not only provide inspiration, they create the framework within which you must work. Animators rely on these drawings to define action, paint an emotional picture, and keep track of continuity. In this respect, they are crucial to digit al production.

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