Strongly need a bit of advice
- Thread starter Tony Ivon
- Start date
What sort of resources have you used to study up on clay-animation? Have you watched a lot of Will Vinton and Aardman productions? Or have you seen the Gumby series?
In some ways clay animation can be one of the easier forms of animation to get into, and in other ways it can also be one of the hardest. I think it mainly depends on your level of precision, what tools you use, and your level of patience.
The biggest issue with clay-animation is timing, because unlike certain forms of 2D or 3D digital animation, clay cannot be manipulated or changed later. Each photograph you take is finite, and can only be manipulated in the computer once you've taken it. So if a photograph was wrong, you may have to start the shot entirely over again.
The main way that stop-motion or clay-animation is timed is by using a motion chart: a chart that breaks each movement down into curved lines that span a series of bars representing each frame of your film. Once you have these worked out, then you can start to animate your scene while also using instruments to measure each movement precisely. These two elements primarily will help to keep the animation on track so that your movements won't go too fast or too slow, and your animation will also be smooth. This is how it is done professionally, anyway.
At first, though, it's probably best to simply experiment for a while without measuring tools or charts, and to not hold yourself to stringent protocols like that. My two original stop-motion films that I made way back in 2002 and 2003, were done entirely by eye with no motion charts, and I managed to get them to move fairly smoothly and in-time with my dialogue. I couldn't say how exactly, but it mainly just takes some practice to get used to the process.
Eventually I think a lot of it will come to you naturally, the timing, the movements, the physics, and all of that stuff.
In some ways clay animation can be one of the easier forms of animation to get into, and in other ways it can also be one of the hardest. I think it mainly depends on your level of precision, what tools you use, and your level of patience.
The biggest issue with clay-animation is timing, because unlike certain forms of 2D or 3D digital animation, clay cannot be manipulated or changed later. Each photograph you take is finite, and can only be manipulated in the computer once you've taken it. So if a photograph was wrong, you may have to start the shot entirely over again.
The main way that stop-motion or clay-animation is timed is by using a motion chart: a chart that breaks each movement down into curved lines that span a series of bars representing each frame of your film. Once you have these worked out, then you can start to animate your scene while also using instruments to measure each movement precisely. These two elements primarily will help to keep the animation on track so that your movements won't go too fast or too slow, and your animation will also be smooth. This is how it is done professionally, anyway.
At first, though, it's probably best to simply experiment for a while without measuring tools or charts, and to not hold yourself to stringent protocols like that. My two original stop-motion films that I made way back in 2002 and 2003, were done entirely by eye with no motion charts, and I managed to get them to move fairly smoothly and in-time with my dialogue. I couldn't say how exactly, but it mainly just takes some practice to get used to the process.
Eventually I think a lot of it will come to you naturally, the timing, the movements, the physics, and all of that stuff.
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