How To Animate Faster - Breaking Down My Animation Workflow

[@katakana-kun2122]

In animation school one of my teachers was a veteran Disney animator who taught pose to pose. I remember reading a book by a more obscure Disney animator (can't remember his name) where he explained that he liked to do the whole scene straight ahead to figure out the movement first, then looked for the drawings that could be turned into key poses, perfect them, and drew the inbetweens again with a more controlled timing. When I talked about it to my teacher he just smiled and say "yeah, you should probably stick to pose to pose". I went on and tried it anyway on my next scene, without telling him. When I showed him the scene he said "this is your best work so far" and that's been my process for traditional animation ever since. I think pose to pose has become a standard because it is the 9 old men way, but it's nice to see people try other workflows. I also don't used pose to pose in 3D.

[@aunderiskerensky2304]

Currently in school for the same thing, very similar story, literally even have an ex Pixar teacher and all of my best grades and smoothest work were more free flow and then filling in and adjusting. We all have our own way of things.

[@nimaxo2012]

"The Pose is not important. Animation and the flow is important." You have a point. That was something eye opening. Thank you..

[@michaeljburt]

It's awesome watching pros work. The "rough pass" is what many would consider really good - all the motion, timing and flow looks super good. And then to refine the details further from here is just *chefs kiss*

[@ArtVandelayInc]

I personally think animating like this is way better indeed. It is much easier to figure out timing (which is probably the most important thing in animation) with a cube rather than trying to do it with ready to use complex poses. Spending only 6.5 hours for an animation like this just proves the effectiveness of this method. Lastly, Mark your channel is a gold mine with damn precious insights all over the place. It's always a great experience to watch a professional sharing the knowledge, helping others along the way

[@CharnelCrusader94532]

duuude, idk about anybody else, but this made soo much sense to me, one of my big problems is that i dont like the whole planning phase, I also have a really hard time thinking of it as a bunch of poses and not motion, so your workflow makes so much sense to me, cause first you get the timing of the motion down then you get the pose down. imma start trying this out!, thanks so much!

[@phlipnolen-author8801]

Not only a good technique but also a very well constructed and thought out presentation of how to create and apply the methods.

[@titimariangiusca]

Thanks Mark, this is so relatable. I was looking for a workflow that goes straight into motion. When animating I feel like those "main poses" I make are most likely going to change when I work on the motion of the character and so I was asking myself why should I spend so much time on posing other than having a good base when interpolating. But this workflow just sounds so well to my ears and I definitely need to give it a go. I really appreciate you sharing this, thanks again!! :D

[@rossums_rule7575]

WOW! I've never seen a work flow like this. Genius. Character looks so grounded after simple blocking and a leg pass. Great vid!

[@Zimuus]

Very cool to see, love seeing representation for other "non-standard" workflows!

[@npatch]

I'm a programmer and working in research, I had to do some animation myself occasionally since we almost never have available animators on staff. Weirdly enough I reached the same workflow conceptually when I was given mocap animations for a craftsman without any animation for the tools he used. I now had to fully animate tools based on video references of each step of the craft process and the tool used and the grips in the animation. This was about preserving the mocap detail in the end result, so we wouldn't do any keyframe reduction on them and also, it was a cinematic, so it made sense to try and replicate the tool animation as if we had mocaped the tools as well. To do that, in Unity, I did some animation rigging for the tools and aligned the IK targets to sampled hand animation at points in time that I thought were considered a "change" (kinda like local highs and lows in curves) to get a rough baseline of the animation the tool itself would have in this action and then hand animated the details over that baseline, using the IK rig and based on the movement of the hand, the grip etc. On another note, old tutorials for modelling made you import reference images in Maya/Blender etc in planes.....I see you can do the same for the video, so you can have a very quick rough baseline, by rotoscoping, instead of doing it yourself completely all the while watching the video on the side. That should be a bit faster, right?

[@shoobsinator]

Really nice explanation, I'll try this workflow out soon. Master Tutorials playlist: 4 down, 38 to go.

[@DenisTrebushnikov]

It make sense (principle 4: straight ahead & pose-to-pose) , I'd already met similar workflow in Blender tutorials. Additionally, you don't need the cube layer, you can boldly start with torso + motion trail, except the necessity to block 2+ anim objects in scene. (2 day from start Maya self+tutors learning and diving deep in animation...)

[@zimk99]

Yesss finally found a comment about the forth principle regarding this video. Great analysis bro

[@qwargly]

This seems like a godsend for someone more used to 2D animation, this is wonderful, Ill definitely be trying a similar method

[@brendananimation]

crazy how we all have our own way to do this stuff. very interesting

[@NazimZaki]

my next favourite animation channel. good stuff here. I learn a lot. thank you

[@weebsenpai-3098]

Not even using Maya nor do I have more than few months with Blender, but this has been beyond helpful. Thank you ~

[@Pyraus]

Cool use of the animated cube, and explanation.

[@princeraghav5849]

It's help me lot ❤❤

[@mak_attakks]

You've brought up something important here. A similar layered approach is how most cg animators worked in the earlier days. The stepped pose thing was a workflow developed by and for traditional hand drawn animators who migrated into cg (shared by Keith Lango in his lectures). What's important is that students should be made aware of different workflows and shouldn't get boxed into working one way.

[@ShubhamGhosalkarBdesID2024-2]

whole animation in 3hrs is good, fascinating!

[@gaberilla4932]

Finally someone who gets it! I've been struggling integrating pose to pose in my workflow and seeing everyone just breeze through it made me unsure of my animation skills in general. I kind of like seeing the animation more rather than the pose as I cant visualize the inbetweens in a pose to pose workflow. Thanks for the tips!

[@mhamaddaoud-y6l]

I think this is the most promising tutorial I ever watch pls keep going, can you talk about top plugins you use, and if you can talk more about the layers I like to see why you're using so much layer and how much can improve the process. Thank you!!

[@TylerGutierrez]

This is literally how I eventually began animating with confidence lol love the video

[@mao3d]

thank you for sharing mark, hopefully I can use this method in my workflow

[@anayajones2611]

I'm an animation student, I graduate in 3 months, I'm also experiencing the same issue. Some of my classes conflicted with each other because each professor had their own preferred methods. Some liked working in stepped and others liked spline. This was also happening with character rigs, some would say to focus on the cog and not really touch hip controls and then other professors and lectures would say the opposite. I think I'm slowly starting to figure out my own workflow but I still have a ways to go.

[@Boba3d]

Hey man, your tutorials are great, I am still researching what you share with us. Just little suggestion and minor detail that I noticed. On 8:30 when you delete cube, you say constrain is also deleted. As I know constrain isn't deleted but deactivated because there is no more "driver" object. If you go in outliner you could see constrain is still there. To delete this kind of temporary constrains I am using arrow down/arrow right on my keyboard. In that way maya selects that certain constrain and you could delete it. Your videos are amazing, please keep going with it. I learnt already alot but this is quick minor detail just to help you to make your content even better. Best Regards, Boba

[@jamiejose]

When you got to the leg pass and explained it, I was very happy to find a faster way to animate the feet. But I was also very frustrated because the whole time there was an easier way to animate footwork, and this whole time I didn't know how to use the core control. I majored in 3D animation, but I only learned the basics cuz we basically had one class that focused on each topic (animation, modeling, rigging, etc.) Thank you so much for teaching us about your workflow!

[@cutatube]

Nice vid! Really informative. Would love to see a bit more of this and also the "throw it in engine" testing. Thanks!

[@PlushGrenade]

It would be interesting to see your workflow with layers and how you explore ideas with layers like you mentioned in this great video:)

[@sameermohapatra6548]

Wow, you really have explained everything, at the end of the vdo I realized that for the first time I didn’t have any doubts regarding anything. So helpful….thanks a lot and plz make some more videos…more power to you! 🙌🏻♥️

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Awesome, glad it was helpful!

[@PanArt_]

This is an amazing video my dude! thanks for the insight 👌🏾 and happy holidays 🎅🏾

[@AceOfSpades_211]

Love the hustle man!

[@86glint]

Noob question: 1. Do the game devs not want you to animate the root controller? I've also heard some prefer you keep the animation in place but how does that work with attack combos like this? 2. Are your animation layers "additive" or "override"? Great video, some of the best out there. Appreciate your help!

[@riuthamus]

Love what you are doing. Would really like to see a vide on how you go from cradle to grave in regards to animation. I watched a ton of tutorials on Pluralsight but they were all outdated. It seems like there should be some content out there showing off new methods but it is very limited for Maya. Would love to see the following: 1) Creating a control rig 2) Best practices for control rigs with the gaming industry 3) Set driven keys 4) Weighting, best practices so this doesnt take 5 years :P 5) Layers for pose setups (2 handed weapon vs 1 with a run animation) I really love your style and approach, which is why I am hoping you cover these topics down the road.

[@amsuherdi1111]

Thank you for sharing your workflow! I might want to experiment a bit with this method. I've been having a hard time with the Pose to Pose method lately... It's stressing me out.

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Yeah definitely give it a try! Everyone likes to work differently, so if you feel one method isn't quite working for you experiment with some others. it wasn't until I really started focusing on animation first vs. poses first, did things start to click for me.

[@sammy-zq5sz]

So informative ❤

[@tnturnip]

You did the creature animation for Dauntless?? That's awesome

[@LetsAnimatewithIrfan]

Amazing Stuff Mark ! really love your Chanel!

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Thank you, Irfan! 🧡

[@sivaprasadgonti]

Hey Mark, good to know about the progress of your shot. I would prefer to go with a pose-to-pose approach rather than the process you showed.

[@munishanimates]

i liked ur way . wwill defintely try that

[@ukmonk]

Great video thank you! Might give this a try!! Could I use the Blender animation layers addon for this technique please? I.e use the add on for this layered approach? Would that work?

[@anim8rJMunoz]

Awesome to see the full breakdown… also just hit the animbot share keys button after selecting cog & 2 feet and it’ll set keys for you on the feet ‘shared’ from the cog.

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Thanks for the tip! Yeah, there are still so many tools in AnimBot that I need to dive into more. I also am so in the habit of doing it the old way sometimes that it can be hard to break those.

[@mhamaddaoud-y6l]

3:00 I am beginner and I wasn't using video reference one month pass and didn't end single scene, BCZ I have to imagine every pose, timing, and everything..

[@forzamaya4087]

Should've give a try to this one! Pose to pose steps not working me aswel! 😥

[@bzyku9494]

Great video! This method seems similar to 'layered' method of animating Michal Makarewicz from Pixar is using.

[@vedangsharmavedang]

this is awesome!

[@NightWink129]

Thank you so much! I don't even use Maya, but this is extremely helpful!

[@gfxalchemist6196]

Very cool man!!!

[@Sharkhead123456]

How do you get such a smooth body movements? Every time i animate, its always robotic and jiggles a lot of times, i never get this feeling of a "smooth body mechanic"

[@badonshrimp6851]

i think he's using if in blender called 'Graph editor' ig

[@KubAnim]

I absolutely love it, is there any tool or something to do this on blender??

[@SandroSanakoti]

Great!

[@welatcan6993]

Great tutorial, I love it!!! Where can I get the rig/model you used in this video?

[@DoraKage]

10:56 - sorry I lack context- with the anim.bot tool? Snap to precious frame? What's the anim bot tool?

[@Romaelzo]

KEEP GOING PLEASE!

[@shunraiden9614]

What program do you use at 2:05 (Video Reference)?

[@dannyshotz1092]

Amazing idea for finding reference on specific actions! what app do you use to record and have set frames like that?

[@MarkMastersAnim]

It's called Keyframe. There are two versions, Keyframe MP, and Keyframe PRO

[@mr.hunter5512]

Bro decided to become vergil

[@oscjan]

Great video, trying this workflow now and I can already feel the advantages of it. Just a small question, how do you do that "snap to previous keyframe" command in animbot? Closest I can figure out is just copy+paste poses, but that requires me to step back and forward all the time. Doing it with just one click would speed things up immensely. Cheers!

[@Rewired_by-ADHD]

Hey man, first time here, first time with Grease Pencil Can you make a video, or maybe recommend one for me about... ok, I'll explain. You have your character generated by MJ AI, it's 2D, you need to give it animation so that you can run and jump in your game. The correct thing would be to trace it, map the color, give it rigging and then the animation? I'm completely lost anyway, a video on the process would be awesome

[@MrJones002]

There is one question I do have with one part of this which is the timing adjustment, because everything is on different keys do you have a way to basically make it snappier IE: deleting keys/bringing keys backwards Or do you just mess around and wait till something feels good to you? I always have issues with retiming in layered (only in specific areas that may have a fair bit of detail!) Ever since watching these videos I've enjoyed layering so much more as it allows me to "feel the motion" a lot more!

[@prachinagwekar6458]

Great tips. Extremely useful. Do you have a special setup for the sword by any chance that helps tracking the tip better?

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Glad it was helpful! And no particular setup on the sword. I use animbots motion trail feature which allows me to select a control to track, and then offset the trail onto a specific point of the mesh. Like the tip of the sword for example.

[@sandipanbhattacharjee3088]

Great tutorial ! Really inspiring. Bdw is it a People can fly shirt 🤔 :))

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Thanks! Yeah it is, worked there for a few years!

[@thiago.p6563]

thank you thank you thank youuuu

[@nadjaruiz8112]

thank you! this is very helpful. but, is there any way to do this workflow in blender?

[@SupakAnimations]

Can you someday teach how you work with layers in maya? I really want to learn this workflow!

[@asbcreations567]

hey i have a Daout ?? How To Parent All Character rig to cube pass plz make a video on it !! Thank You

[@vidhyarajkr3144]

Wow this animation is smooth ...where can i get this rigged model ?

[@ShubhamGhosalkarBdesID2024-2]

RESPECT 100

[@Mrsmifff]

Would you use this same workflow for dialog anim or just body mechanics ?😊

[@gcastro3d]

Great stuff Mark! Do you know of a similar bake tool for Blender?

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Hmm, I'm not sure if there is a similar tool, I might have to do some exploring to see.

[@criptocatjr]

How do you connect the character to the box??

[@ever6]

Very cool Mark wow wish ianiamte 2 game ws I took 6yrs ago would've talked more about this it would've helped a ton dang. I totally get why you didn't name your layers just curious and I have 3 questions regarding your workflow for this combo. Did you shoot new vid ref of yourself doing a 2 handed stab when you decided to to have a much stronger attack? Do you remember in those 15 layers what changes your were tweaking off the top of your mind since it's kinda fresh? How difficult was it to readjsut the 2 big changes on the 2 handed stab and then taking out that extra step to idle to stay within under 8hrs? I hope these make sense and I just sub today Darrel

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Hey Darrel, thanks for the kind words! I didn't shoot video reference for changing it to a 2 handed stab since it was mainly a pose change. I did however stand up quite a few times to act it out, and figure out the pose just by acting it out. Most likely a lot of those layers were small tweaks and adjustments. Cleaning up the arcs on an arm, I'd probably throw that onto a layer and tweak it there. Or adding a bit more overlap and settle on the body during the stab would have been a layer. It was pretty easy to make the big pose change on the stab and removing the extra step to idle. To tweak the stab pose, I just added a new layer, with all controls selected, and adjusted that area. For the step back, I added the idle pose onto the layer, and blended from the stab to the idle. It's kind of hard to explain, it could be could for a future tutorial on how to make large changes like the fairly quickly and easily.

[@ever6]

@@MarkMastersAnim Yeah IO think this would be a great tutorial based on what you've mentioned below. Because these are the kinda changes that's always ask for these types of animation and would be great for students as well. Whenever you get a moment "For the step back, I added the idle pose onto the layer, and blended from the stab to the idle. It's kind of hard to explain, it could be could for a future tutorial on how to make large changes like the fairly quickly and easily."

[@loony708]

Was every pass a new anim layer? This workflow looks like it would work best for me as I also like to play around in maya and try out different poses

[@MarkMastersAnim]

In general, each pass was a layer, but there were definitely times when I was making changes on the base layer, especially early on, like the first leg pass was just on the base layer, the first chest/arm pass was on the base layer. Once I get beyond the first pass on everything, then I start making most changes on a layer.

[@javohirparpiyev]

[@philipejem3614]

How can I replicate this method in blender. Please any idea

[@monkey.5075]

informative

[@katyavillatoro1064]

What would you do if the rig doesnt have the option for the IK legs to follow the COG? Im using a rig that can only be put on IK or FK so im having a hard time transfering the keyframes following the COG.

[@MarkMastersAnim]

The easies way would be to keep your feet in IK, grab the COG ctrl, select the foot, and do a parent constrain. That way the feet will follow the COG. And then set keyframes on the feet, bake it off, then delete the constrain. That should give you the same results as if you had an option for IK legs to follow the COG.

[@katyavillatoro1064]

@@MarkMastersAnim thanks! I will try it out

[@HarryClipz]

How would i do this inside blender?

[@mezzokim8392]

you are jenious

[@rexildur3266]

Thank you Mark, might try this on my free time, and also congrats on being part of Ianimate Instructor :)

[@MarkMastersAnim]

You're welcome! and thank you :)

[@sivapandianreffreference]

🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

[@Smartcoughdrop]

I animate in 2D, but this type of workflow is still very applicable

[@amitkumar3dart]

Bro can U please do the same tutorial in blender. It will be great help. I am facing some issues. Please bring up the same tutorial for blender 🥰

[@CGIPadawan]

Actually it looks a bit like how you'd animate in stop motion or if you're playing with action figures.

[@rohitd-d5o]

how to switch ik , fk in this workflow , pleaase reply fast ...

[@EvanMapleMaggot]

Im sorry im new to animation, but what is the point of that method? Speed? Dont u think that lot of lazy people wont continue mastering the blocking poses after watching easy semi automatic ways like this?

[@Deantwotwo]

Hey there! I think you may have missed the point of the video. He is talking about his workflow, and what helps him animate at a faster speed, but he also mentions that this is the most comfortable method of animating for him. Mastering the Blocking phase is not a mandatory step. There are plenty of animators who skip this process, for example, Michal Makarewicz, who is an Animation Director at Pixar. The important thing to take away from Mark's video, is that this is just a workflow, and not the bible. It is not a video on "how to animate", but a video on "how to animate FASTER". One final note, I also use this method, and trust me, it is nowhere near semi-automatic. Lots of planning and understanding of body mechanics is involved :) You mentioned you were new to animation, so I suggest you learn animation whichever way feels best to you, and feel free to come back after a couple years and try this method out yourself! If it works, it works. Goodluck :)

[@Anahronic]

I love it! But I didn't succeed to install the World bake script... (((

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Sorry to hear that! Were you able to find the install instructions on the morgan loomis website?

[@brennderose]

@@MarkMastersAnim Me neither. Also on his page sent me to a new page with the same instructions but no file. I search him on github browser and it throws me this message:"We couldn’t find any repositories matching" What can we do? :(

[@Betscience247]

Pls recommend a làptop

[@KyleHarrisonRedacted]

Me: "Hmm I see. Okay. Interesting but how does- I'm sure he'll exaplain it later..." 10 minutes later, you: "And so I bake a bunch of things and use this script that does a bunch of rejiggering and unlocks this that and the other thing and " Me: "And... if I need to fix anything from that "baked" portion... i'm... screwed?" Maya: "Oh you werent saving 400 history versions of the same file?"

[@Metarig]

Shouldn't we be using mocap videos and then begin refining them these days?

[@bruhidk3341]

its almost as if you could see the 6 hours he spent on animating in his eyes

[@kylesgrave]

Clay.

[@Novaheroan]

Guy I just use lego characters as reference. Everyone has their own way!

[@paparobintv]

too much blah blah blah wtf

[@itsty-ler]

Local commenter cliking on a video about the animation process surprised the animation process is complex

[@brennderose]

Does anyone know what's the program's name for viewing a video frame by frame? And also, does anyone could download the file "ml_worldBake.py" ?? Whenever I press it it took me to a new page. HELP