I’m just wondering if anybody here uses these for their projects, I’ve never really used one before, other than the Action or NLA editor, but those are in program, so I don’t think they really count. I plan to use them a bit in my newest project to help with timing, well, plus a stop watch, I have a terrible sense timing when shooting from the hip as seen in the “riding the pony” portion of this animation.
I created a simple dope sheet in Excel and it prints off perfectly on legal paper. 100 frames, plus notes, so at 25 fps that’s 4 seconds a page. I know it could get rather tedious for larger projects, but I think that having that plan in advance will help tremendously when actually animating my characters and scenes to get the timing correct. Also for longer less important scenes I can use 2 or 4 frames per box so I don’t have to use as many sheets to plan it out. Anyway, here is my simple dope sheet if anybody wants to use it. legal size exposure(dope) sheet[.xls]
The other related question I had was if anybody had any experience with Monkey Jam . It seems to me to just be a sequencer, but if anybody can help me out there, I’d appreciate it.
I use Xsheets in packages that have them. Like TOONZ or CTP, but then those are for classical animation. Retiming animation is so very easy with xsheet compared to time remappers with splines. Naturally it is a plus if you can see the result of retiming, so Excel sounds bit tedious.
MonkeyJam is for shooting linetests or clay/object animation with webcams. Pretty fine for that use. I guess you can use it as a sequencer for CGI too, pipeline would be like this:
dump keyframes (extreme motion points) of your animation from Blender to image sequence. this is rough blocking only, it doesn’t need to be final animation, just do the extreme poses and dump them
load those frames in monkeyjam and retime them until it works properly
then shift keyframes for proper timing in blender and add in-betweens to proper places
This would be faster way to learn than painfully timeshifting full-loaded character animations in spline editor. And it’s also how work is done in classical animation. Time with keyframes, then draw those in-between frames.
what I meant was that I’ve printed out the one from excel and plan to use it in the planning stages, probably along with some thumbs and then as a reference for when I begin animating. Just jumping in and animating hasn’t worked well for me, I need more practice, and until then I think a good plan is the best idea, plus if ever someone wants to help, I can send them the sheets and we should be on the same page, or at least in the same book.
Thanks for the info on monkey jam, that makes much more sense now. I still think paper is the best planning tool, and I would still want it even when using a program like that. I guess paper xsheets aren’t as high a priority with so much being in a timeline already in the computer. I suppose if I would take a bit more time to think through the timing the paper wouldn’t be so important, but it would definitely make collaboration easier.
Thanks again for your input, anybody else have an experience to relate about x/exposure/dope sheets?
Everybody has a slightly different animation workflow, but with a few things in common. There are people out there who advocate going through and planning out the poses, then getting timing right, before going in and fixing the motion.
I think one of the Pixar animators who posts on the Spline Doctors blog says he regularly makes thumbnail sketches on a sheet of paperto remind himself what the key aspect(s) of a pose in particular points in a scene are.
Yes, doing motion projection on one sheet is very useful. Draw motion start, mid and end keyframes on one paper, and also draw major motion arcs. Then it’s pretty easy to mark more keyframes and in-betweens on those arcs. That’s what I usually start with when doing drawn animation. It’s like a layout with additional motion planning.
Having been trained in traditonal animation then made the switch to CG i’d have to say the best work flow for myself personally is Storyboard > X Sheet > Thumbnails>Act it out>Thumbnails
It just seems logical to me to work out a stroyboard first, then refine where you roughly want certain things to happen, then thumbnail these things then act it out, then refine your thumbnails.
As much fun as animating is I feel it should be the reward of a long process where you plan everything fully.
most of all though, the most important thing is the Acting it out (sometimes a great laff as well)
That sounds like a decent flow Funktioncurve, somehow I thought that the Xsheet would be at the end of the flow though, or combined in the acting out, along with the thumbnails of course, since together the dope sheets and thumbs are a written plan for the animation. I think you are right about the acting out part though, doesn’t have to be good acting, but to get the timing down. I’m fairly new to this, but I think I’m doing ok so far, too bad I’m not in the UK, otherwise I’d have to check out your class.
hevonen, I think that is an awesome idea, one I plan to use with the thumbs, having the motion arcs included I think is brilliant, especially if I do get some help animating, plus because I know it will take more than a day to animate, and I may forget some stuff.
Aligorith, I didn’t want to leave you out, you’ve been a big help, thanks for the tips man.