Alas_Jason's Animation Workflow

1. Concept

Spend time to come up with a couple of ideas. It's good to always have at least two, just in case one of them turns out to be a dud when it is pitched (just because you like an idea doesn't mean it's gold). It's also wise to never fall in love with your ideas, as they should be as malleable as possible for when you pitch them.

2. Storyboard

Draw out your animations, a storyboard frame per sec is a good rule of thumb. Fully rendered drawings aren't necessary, just as long as your poses and camera choices are as clear as possible.

3. Pitch

A bit self-explanatory; make sure you share your ideas with lots of energy. Act out what happens in your scene as you pitch it, and ask for feedback on what you're doing. More often than not, you'll receive a lot of good input that will make your idea more successful, so there's no room in being shy.

4. Shoot/Seek Reference

Act out your performance from at least two camera angles and multiple takes. Try to mimic the scene as much as possible; i.e. if a character is swinging a bat, then swing a bat, and swing it with meaning! Once you're finished, look over your reference and take note to the key poses you hit in the reference, writing them down or marking them in some manner.

5. Staging

This is where you go in Maya and start setting up your animation file. Place your characters in scene, as well as the set and any props necessary for the performance.

6. Key Poses

Keeping the animation principles in mind, start blocking out your key poses. Work in stepped mode, as interpolation isn't of importance at this point in time; the poses are your biggest concern. Don't spend an inordinate amount of time on any one pose starting out (5-10 minutes per pose), as it is easy to get bogged down and obsessed with fixing minute details early on. Key poses, as with most aspects of animation, can always be changed or polished.

7. Breakdowns

Once all your key poses are blocked in, start inserting in breakdowns in between your big movements in your key poses. This allows for better interpolation so the polishing stage goes by smoother, and it lays the foundation for follow through.

8. Polish (First pass)

Once you've finished all your breakdowns, spline out all your keys. Go through your animation and beginning a first level of polish, fixing odd interpolations, plateauing keys where needed (i.e. feet in walk cycles), and adding things such as overshoot and follow-through. The face hasn't been touched up to this point.

9. Lip Sync

If you don't have dialogue, then skip this step. If you didn't shoot reference of your dialogue, then shoot some (makes the process easier). Write out the dialogue, and note where inflections, and other emotions lay. Writing out the phonetic spelling of the dialogue speeds things up as well. When doing your lip sync, it's not crucial to hit every single phonome, so long as words aren't lost in the lip sync.

10. Eyes and Facial Animation

Make sure you're done with the lip sync, as facial expression will effect the mood of the dialogue greatly. Take care in making the eye lines of your characters avoid direct contact with the camera, unless your intent is to break the fourth wall. Pupils that are frozen dead in the eye seem glassy and spaced out, so move them around, even if slightly. Don't go crazy with the brow and such.

11. Polish (Second pass)

Once all your facial animation is done, it's time for another polish pass, touching up any discrepancies that have been pointed out or that are still present.

Through this whole process, solicit as much feedback as you possibly can, from a variety of people. The more eyes that see the piece, the better.