Animating Sintel
on May 22nd, 2010, by WilliamDear community,
Here’s a much needed update on the animation front of project Durian. I’d like to take you through some of the challenges and workflows that we employ here in the studio.
We now have a little four man club of animators, (Lee, Jeremy, Beorn and myself) that works as its own mini-team. We have our own dailies, we critique each others work, we help others out whenever we can, and having worked as the sole full-time animator on Big Buck Bunny, this is truly a relief! We have some really positive, respectful team dynamics amongst the animators, which really makes this movie a joy to work on. Of course, I’ve only been here for a few montha, so I’m relieved of any fatigue and burnout (so far!).
However, even with more people and a strong team, this film is no walk in the park. The complexity, the variety and the realism makes the animation particularly difficult to pull off well. You instantly spot when something is off when you get close to realism, and some things are just really hard to get right. Luckily, it can also be very rewarding too. Once the animation is completed, it’s incredibly satisfying to see it nicely lit and rendered by the render team. Suddenly it looks gorgeous!
To illustrate our animation workflow, I’ve put together a small movie of one of my shots at various stages:
Cheers,
-William
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Thanks for the nice breakdown!
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 pm
that guy is always making video reference – lmao
i like that – really great vid and project guys… keep up the awesome work
amma be buying a copy soon 🙂
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:34 pm
great stuff. and video/photo/sketch references are a always a must.
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:35 pm
I like it! If only it included a final render shot as well, but I guess that’s wishful thinking.
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:47 pm
I like this video references !!
It’s funny… funny but a little bit scary 😀
Thanks William for news and good luck everyone !!
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Short, but very informative. Keep up the good work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Many thanks for the update. It must be now really difficult to pick something to show without showing us more of the movie.
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Awesome! Very cool to see stuff like this!
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Great! I really hope there will be a decent tutorial on how to rig and animate with the MeshDeform tool. Please please!
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Great to see how it is improving every step.
Thanks for the update!
May 22nd, 2010 at 10:11 pm
nice step by step shots!
May 22nd, 2010 at 10:30 pm
really cool…thank you for sharing William 🙂
May 22nd, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Looks promising. Too bad Nathan has other stuff to work with, cuz his a pretty good animator as well, right? The more, the better.
May 23rd, 2010 at 12:18 am
Dennis: Nathan is awesome, he’s just busy taking care of rigging *and* compositing 😉
May 23rd, 2010 at 12:29 am
pretty cool, William 🙂 this will definitely help me when I’ll work my Simple Cat Rig again 😀
May 23rd, 2010 at 12:30 am
Very useful, thank you very much.
Now, if only she didn’t look like Gollum… 😀
May 23rd, 2010 at 12:41 am
More workflows, please!
May 23rd, 2010 at 1:48 am
It’s really nice that the team works so well together, must be great fun.
May 23rd, 2010 at 2:06 am
This is a nice explanation of workflow. REminds me of Bluesky’s workflow breakdown for the Iceage 3 movie.
May 23rd, 2010 at 3:10 am
Hey William! You are the one that made the “Character Animation” Training Video! I’m just going through it right now, grate stuff!!!
Really liked your post!
Cheers!
May 23rd, 2010 at 4:43 am
This was great to see, I hope there will be more like this on the DVD 😀
May 23rd, 2010 at 5:15 am
Well described and emphasized, William. 🙂
May 23rd, 2010 at 5:43 am
Nice work!
Cheers!
May 23rd, 2010 at 6:45 am
More animation posts! MORE I beg of you! 😀
By the way William, does your mother know there are videos of her son on the internet trying to act like a 16 year old girl? ;P
May 23rd, 2010 at 7:00 am
thanks for sharing some of the Sintel process with us BF, cant wait till the release of Sintel & 2.6(or stable 2.5). Thanks to everyone at the BF and on Sintel for their talent and hard work!!!
May 23rd, 2010 at 7:41 am
Respectful team dynamics… that’s a good way of thinking about it. Sometimes the more talent people have, the harder it is for them to work together.
May 23rd, 2010 at 8:13 am
Man, I wish I was talented enough to be a part of your team- must be really awesome and exciting to work as a part of a brilliant team, all using blender.
Brilliant work, and nice video; we want more!
May 23rd, 2010 at 8:28 am
Really scary video reference 🙂
Did you use it in a video player as a reference or did you put in the blender as a background? As a background it could be used like some kind of “3D rotoscoping” tool.
I also thought about a 2 camera setup: one in the front and one on side. Putting these videos into blender front and right/left views it would be like manual motion capturing. 🙂
May 23rd, 2010 at 9:56 am
Wicked to see the progress from each step. The four of you must be kicking ass I am sure! keep at it!
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:39 am
Is there any dynamics simulation planned on the hair after that?
I would’nt want to see it before the whole movie, not to spoil the global eye candy.
I wouldn’t mind if there wasn’t, it’s good enough for the strory as it is,
it just has to be a deliberate choice, not something you forget about in the rush 🙂
Keep up the good work!
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:40 am
Blendiac: Yes, it’s true, it’s a bit embarrassing 😉 I’m playing an old shaman and a young girl. On the other hand it’s more interesting than if I’d have to animate a 23 year old lad like myself. It forces you to get into character a bit – not always easy!
May 23rd, 2010 at 2:44 pm
William will you be creating or updating a new version of your Animation DVD that will walk people through 2.5?
I’m interested in learning the basics of rigging in Blender but would rather have an something that deals with 2.5 and eventually later.
Thanks,
Todd
May 23rd, 2010 at 3:20 pm
The animation here looks just excellent. Great work guys.
May 23rd, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Very cool animation there! Love it 😀 And yeah, it could be cool if a render pass was in the video, but never mind 🙂
May 23rd, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Very high quality animation. Facial expression is top notch.
May 23rd, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Quite an interesting post, thank you 🙂
May 23rd, 2010 at 6:12 pm
thanks for the video it’s a great! We want more stuff like this about workflows you guys use 🙂
May 23rd, 2010 at 7:20 pm
ray: Yes, this is before the hair is simulated. After the animation is done, hair is simulated, then sent off to the render team for lighting and compositing.
Todd: It would be interesting to update the animation tutorials, especially seeing as 2.5 now includes the really nifty Rigify system for rapidly creating nice rigs. I dunno if it’ll be possible though, but it’s definitely something I’m interested in.
May 23rd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
I never tought Durian’s animation would reach this level… Great, great work!
My suggestion: be sure pupils never get covered too much by the eyelids (especially by the lower eyelid)… Of course you already know that, but I noticed that in many shots this happens more than expected…
However I think this work is already awesome.
Go go go!
May 23rd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
LINK DOWNLOAD PLEASE
DVD training 5: Chaos & Evolutions
May 23rd, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Regular behaviours, great animation! Go Blender team go! Your only competitor is a motion capture device. 🙂
May 23rd, 2010 at 9:34 pm
thank, for the tips
May 23rd, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Thanks a lot for this short, but very clear explanation. You are doing a awesome work. Congratulations!!
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:33 pm
What’s that track playing in the background? It’s awesome!
So is the short tutorial too btw. 🙂
May 24th, 2010 at 1:37 am
Very nice breakdown, and being able to mark those extreames and breakdowns in the action editor is quite nice aswell.
Funny thing is i follow that exact same method here at work, too me ages to learn it, and you sum it up in a min, well done 😛
May 24th, 2010 at 3:23 am
The song is really cool! Is it from the movie???
May 24th, 2010 at 5:18 am
well done!
May 24th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Gollum is back!! 😛
Great vid, congrats 🙂
May 24th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Wow, is fantastic to see you guys work so well togheter and comments and critics yourself in order to reach an astonishing result!
Very appreciated blog post, Durian animation is really top notch!
And please, don’t pay so much attention to us asking for updates.
We all obviously would want to see every moment of the production blog posted here, but we also know very well that the more the deadline is approaching the less you’ll get time to update the blog, so don’t worry about our yell and beg and let the movie being awesome instead 😉
Thank you for your time!
May 24th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Interesting, I didn’t know about the animation process, now I do.
Always thanks.
May 24th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I hear a rich amount of development in the musical score! 🙂 Props to Jan!
May 24th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
A very informative insight into durian’s animation process! It’s always fascinating to see how these things are put together.
(also, if I ever properly get into animation, I will have to remember the Video Reference stage – it looks fun :D)
May 24th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I have nothing to do with the music. I’d guess it’s some CC track.
May 24th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
I really liked the song ^^
May 24th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
The music is “Jaracanda” it comes included with Apple iLife
May 24th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Thank you for the video!
May 24th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
I think it’s not Jacaranda, because its not CC….
May 25th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Sweet!
May 25th, 2010 at 7:27 am
Amazing what you can accomplish in a few “montha” :]
May 25th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
why only a short film? the trailer is great enough to be a 2h cinema movie
May 25th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
I think this blog should also be posted under tutorials … it is a very nice breakdown of the different animation stages. Then later maybe others could follow up with some more detail for each production stage?
May 25th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
I totally agree what Jirms says.
Greetings Blender community.
May 25th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
@ Jirms, added it to Tutorials!, thanks for noticing that.
BTW, I’m preparing a new blogpost 🙂
May 26th, 2010 at 1:21 am
I like it!
One minor issue, for the grunt that she’s putting into it… she doesn’t seem to have the movement there… I would of thought more of a thrust forwards with the weapon as she moves would be more suitable.
It’s like she’s holding it out and grunting/growling but doesn’t move it until the end… as the transition into the “surprise” face just doesn’t seem right.
May 26th, 2010 at 1:25 am
EDIT to above:
Just re-watched it… I can see the thrust but still seems a little awkward.
Overall. I love the breakdown 🙂
May 27th, 2010 at 2:50 am
This progression is wonderful. I know you don’t have the resources, but I wish you could do this for every shot in the film.
May 27th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Thank you Pablo, your awesome!
June 4th, 2010 at 9:54 am
This progression is wonderful. I know you don’t have the resources, but I wish you could do this for every shot in the film.
June 4th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
I hope I can do something like these someday