Preparation of the animation

Before starting the creation of the sequence, it is important to plan what we are going to do.

Writing a short script

We start by organizing our ideas with some brief writing work. We must describe the scene to be animated shot by shot. We can be creative at this moment of the process and imagine any kind of place and situation.

In the first part, we will put some useful information such as the title, exposure (for instance, Out-Day in order to indicate that the action happens outdoors during the day), and the number of the sequence. In our case, there is only one sequence, so we call it Sequence 1. This kind of information is usual in a movie script.

The action of the sequence is in the desert. In a very warm and dangerous place, our rat sees a trap after a very long walk. This trap seems to be there for him.

We will follow a rather traditional script structure. There is an initial situation, a disruptive element that happens, and then the fall. In the case of a short animated film of one minute, there is no time to introduce and develop the characters and an enigma. We must go straight to the point.

For our short film, we will do a staging composed of different camera shots, which will require an editing step later. But we must conceive it now. Maybe you know that cinema has a visual grammar that is expressed by editing. It allows us to make sense of the different shots. It is something that you can learn, and there are certain rules to understand. Going deep in this area can only be a huge advantage for your 3D projects.

In order to write a script, we must describe our shots. There are different types of information. These are the field sizes of a shot:

  • The extreme long shot: This is used for panoramas.
  • The long shot (or establishing shot): This allows us to introduce a situation.
  • The full shot: This frames the characters entirely. It is great for large movements.
  • The medium shot: This frames the chest and the head of the character.
  • The American shot (or ¾ shot): This frames a character from the thighs to the head. It is close enough to a medium shot.
  • The close-up shot: This frames the face of the character, and it allows us to perceive emotions better.
  • The Italian shot (or extreme close up): This frames the eyes of the character.

There are also the angles of a shot:

  • The low angle shot: The camera is low and the frame upwards. This will enhance the character.
  • The high angle shot: The camera is high and the frame downward.
  • The aerial shot: This frames the scenery viewed from the sky.

The camera can also rotate with a pan or be mobile. We often speak of a tracking shot. In cinema, the camera is often mounted on a camera dolly or a steady cam for a perfect smooth shot. There are other types of shots and framing, but these are the main types you should know in order to express yourself.

Writing a short script

The storyboard

Making a storyboard

After this first reflection of writing the script, we can start making a storyboard. It is a technical document that the areas of animation films have been using since the 30's. A storyboard allows us to describe the action with drawings, but it also to goes further than the text in the design of the shots. In the case of teamwork, it is a very useful tool to communicate the work, and it gives a comprehensive view of a project.

Seeing that the storyboard allows us to save a huge amount of time and money, it is a practice that has gradually extended to the field of cinema (classical movies, but mostly special effects movies), theater, clips, and commercials. Even if we are very far from making a blockbuster, and have no team to communicate our work to, a storyboard is a very important step to make a good animated short film.

Don't worry if you are not very gifted in drawing. Many storyboards are very simple and schematic. The most important thing is to clarify your ideas of staging. It must be easy to understand with the indications of stage direction such as camera and character motion.

For our storyboard, we draw the different shots referring to the script that we have done previously. Continuity is from left to right like a comic. To describe a shot, we can make several drawings. For shot 1, three drawings are used to describe the movement of the camera and the character. In order to avoid getting lost, we mark the number of the matching shot at the bottom left of each thumbnail.

Making a storyboard

Storyboard

Finding the final camera placements and the timing through a layout

The layout is an animated version of the storyboard. It is sometimes called an "Animatic". We don't need to animate our character at this stage. We simply need to visualize the shots that we imagined previously with the script and the storyboard. We can then verify if this works and get a better idea of the time we need for each shot.

The process is as follows:

  1. We will import the character in Blender by simply copying it from the RayCharacter.blend file to a new file.
  2. We will save the scene as RatLayout.blend.
  3. We will start outlining very simple scenery with a few low poly 3D models. We will use a plane for the floor and an extruded cube for the mountains beyond.
  4. We will model a simple cactus and duplicate it pretty much everywhere on the floor.
  5. We will also make a simple model of the trap and the cheese. We only need to get the basic shape.
  6. To be more comfortable with this, we will organize the environment by dividing it in several parts. It is much better to display the Dope Sheet, Graph Editor, and camera view in a little window (0 of the numeric keyboard).
  7. For each shot, we will create a new scene by clicking on the + button in the main menu bar, and we will select the Full Copy option.
  8. The placement of our character, the trap with the cheese and making a few tests with the camera are still remaining.

This is the step where we can still make a few changes and test movements and timings.

Finding the final camera placements and the timing through a layout

Screenshot of the layout shot 03 with the rough modeling

Animation references

While animating, it is important to have as many references as you can so that you can have the perfect shot. Many computer animators have a folder with videos of themselves acting the shot. Recording yourself is one of the best ways to understand the gesture of a character. This way you will be able to catch many unconscious movements that you do when you look at the video. It is also a way to improvise different acts. Other reference materials such as character poses or animation cycle images are very interesting. Apart from this, paper and pencil are often useful in order to grasp some poses that you have in mind. You don't need to draw in detail, as a simple stick figure will suffice in order to put the poses ideas on paper.

Organization

Before starting to animate our shots, we will introduce to you how to organize yourself for the whole sequence. The different assets have been created in different .blend files. What's neat about this is that we are going to link them all in one final file for each shot. The benefit of this is that if we want to change the look of one of the assets, we can do it in the original file and it will replicate in the master file. For the rig of the rat cowboy, we are going to create a proxy.

In our case, we have ten shots, so we will create one .blend file for each of them. All these files will be placed in a Scene folder and will reference files that are placed one folder up in the folder hierarchy. Let's create our files:

  1. We will first create a new blank file in Blender and save it as 01.blend in a new folder named Scene. Note that you can create a new folder in the file browser with the I key.
  2. Now let's open the terrain file and select everything that needs to be linked in the shot file. We are only selecting the mesh type objects here. We are going to group our selection with Ctrl + G and rename the group as Terrain in the last tool option subpanel.
  3. We will then repeat the same process with the other asset files. For the cactus file, you can create one group for each cactus.
  4. Now the different groups are ready to be linked in the shot file. In the 01.blend file, select the Link option in the File menu or press Ctrl + Alt + O. We can now click on the Terrain file and navigate to the Group folder in order to select the Terrain group that we've created within this file. We can validate by pressing Link from Library.

    Note

    The Link and Append file structures

    The structure of a .blend file is composed of different sections that represent the file. Each section is related to the entity it contains. For instance, in the Group section, you will find every group that has been created in the file, and in the Nodes section, you will every node that has been created in the file, and so on. This file format is quite nice because it's open and very well organized.

    One very cool feature of Blender is the ability to mix files or parts of files together by linking or appending them. With the Link option, you keep a relation with the original file, so any modification will be replicated. The Append method creates a pure copy of what you want to mix.

    Organization

    The structure of a blend file

  5. The link should be done. You can test whether it works by saving the 01 file then tweaking the Terrain file, and going back to the 01 file to see whether the changes appear. Now we can repeat the same process with the other assets that need to be linked in the shot file. You can easily nest files by linking groups to files that are linked themselves as a group in another file.
  6. Cactus, bones, and bush are linked in the terrain file and they are part of the Terrain group (remember to add them to this group, as it will be linked in each shot file). The terrain is linked in each shot file. The Cheese group is linked to the Trap file, and the Trap group is linked to the 02, 03, 05, 07, and 08 files. We will not link the trap in the terrain file as it won't be needed for each shot. For the rat character, we will simply create a group with the Armature and Mesh object that we will link to the 01, 03, 04, 06, 08, and 10 files.
  7. In each file, we need to create a proxy for the rig of the rat. To do so, we will select the rig, and we will press Ctrl + Alt + P and click on the Armature object.

Note

Proxy

You may have already seen that when you use the link option, you can't do any modifications in the linked file. This is a security guard, so you only manage your art in one file. But in the case of a rigged character, this could be embarrassing. That's why we create a local access of the rig called a Proxy in the linked file with Ctrl + Alt + P.

You can have a look at the structure of our project as follows:

Organization

The architecture of our project

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