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  • Male voiceover: Hey everyone, and welcome

  • This week, we're going to be covering

  • the importance of exaggeration, in animation,

  • when it comes to both the poses you use

  • and the performance your character gives.

  • Now, in animation, exaggeration can be utilized

  • on a few different levels.

  • In general, the exaggeration is,

  • or should be, used to accent

  • some sort of action, emotion,

  • or the idea that it's taking place on screen.

  • Now, this can come in the form of pushing

  • and exaggerating a pose,

  • or poses, during an animation,

  • to better communicate what is going on,

  • or altering your timing, in some way,

  • to place emphasis on a certain area of the animation

  • you want to have the viewer see,

  • or maybe just to exaggerate other principles,

  • such as squats and stretch, or follow through

  • to push the idea you're communicating

  • in the shot or the scene.

  • Now, what's important about this principle

  • is that it's only used as it's needed,

  • that it's not overdone, and that it's only applied

  • in a way that will accentuate

  • the action that is taking place,

  • because that helps to add a bit of a contrast

  • between some of the other emotions

  • that may be taking place, as well,

  • during that shot or that action.

  • For starters, let's go ahead and look

  • at some posing examples here,

  • and talk a bit about what I mean.

  • What you can see here is

  • we've got our character posed

  • and, from the base of it, we can tell

  • that he may be looking like he's getting ready

  • to, let's say, punch someone

  • and, for the sake of this example,

  • that's exactly what he would be doing.

  • Now, this pose, if you look at it how it reads,

  • it reads fairly well. You can see the clenched fist,

  • you can see he's got a stare,

  • which may be staring at a target that's, I'm assuming,

  • would be close to him, within punching range,

  • but the pose, it can definitely be pushed

  • and exaggerated to read just a bit better than this.

  • If we go ahead and scroll to the next frame here,

  • what we can see is we've got a much better pose,

  • a much better line of action on this character,

  • where there's much more wind-up here,

  • in a much more obvious sense

  • that he is about to swing

  • at whatever may be in front of him.

  • Now, one good way to test your poses,

  • inside Maya here, is if you hit the 7 key,

  • what this is going to do is this is going to basically

  • change it up so it's in lighting mode only,

  • so you're basically going to be able to see

  • the silhouette here of your character.

  • If we scrub back and forth,

  • we'll see that the character's line of action

  • is fairly boring here, in the first pose,

  • but, if I scrub to the second, it's quite apparent

  • that it's much more interesting and exaggerated

  • in this second pose here, so just keep this in mind

  • as you begin to block out your animation.

  • Let's go ahead and look at an example

  • of exaggeration in an actual performance.

  • If we go ahead and we play this animation,

  • what we're going to see is we've got this character

  • who's reacting to something that, maybe,

  • shows up off screen right here,

  • so I'm just going to go ahead and hit Play.

  • Let's play it through once or twice.

  • He looks, maybe, somewhat startled,

  • but the performance itself,

  • in the action that he's doing,

  • is pretty dull and it's not very exaggerated here.

  • He's reacting to it, but there's not really anything

  • particularly interesting or exaggerated

  • about the motion. It's just fairly plain.

  • If we go ahead and open this other example,

  • what we'll see is we're going to have a performance

  • that is much more exaggerated,

  • and a much more exaggerated response

  • than what we saw in the first animated example.

  • As you can see, the action itself is, like I said,

  • much more exaggerated,

  • and it's much more interesting than the basic

  • kind of step back, you know, what's going on here.

  • It's much more interesting to look at

  • than what we previously saw here.

  • When piecing together an animation,

  • just keep this principle in mind

  • when piecing together your poses

  • and both the performance

  • that you're creating with those poses.

  • A clever use, or a good use, of exaggeration

  • can really bring much more appeal and attention

  • to the animation you're actually creating.

  • That concludes this week's Tip and Tricks.

  • Thanks again for watching 3dmotive.com

Male voiceover: Hey everyone, and welcome

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