The Easiest 3D Animation Exercise for Beginners

[@doodley3d]

AU 2024 is happening October 15-17! Free to attend online with 100s of classes. Visit autodesk.com/doodley3d to register and get inspired. Plus, Autodesk makes access to professional tools more affordable with Indie. See if you’re eligible for unbelievable prices on Maya and 3ds Max: www.autodesk.com/campaigns/me-indie

[@Skivv5]

that's the exact same time as equip expo, which I am going to lol

[@nickelp3032]

DOODLEY SPONSORED BY AUTODESK THEMSELVES 🗣️🔥🔥🔥

[@guntherthequizmaster9515]

Is this program cost 💲 money 💰 or it’s for free 🆓❓

[@santyproductions359]

I NEED TO POINT ONE THING FROM YOUR VIDEO. MAYA WAS CREATED AS A PRECURSON OF ALIAS POWER ANIMATOR, AND ORIGINALLY MAYA WAS CALLED ALIAS/WAVEFRONT MAYA. LATER AUTODESK ADQUIERED, ALIAS WAVEFRONT. AND NOW THE REST IS HISTORY.

[@camwing]

turns out there is a correct answer to the question: "I want to learn 3D animation, where do I start?" and it is, in fact, NOT: "I dunno man, I just kinda move stuff around in blender until it looks alright, I guess"

[@thatoneXman]

You have no idea how happy I am for someone else to finally say this.

[@VYPAP02]

Haha, that's basically what we all did 😂

[@Trad0r]

i feel called out

[@alex.g7317]

bro has been a member for 8 months!?

[@camwing]

@@alex.g7317 you seem shocked

[@ringkunmori]

You can't fool me. This video is a blatant attempt at hypnotizing us by putting something in front of us swinging back and forth

[@LlamasAreFluffy]

all hail the magic conch, all hail the magic conch, all hail the magic conch, all hail the magi-

[@mollypearson-odd145]

*Loud audible gasp in absolute shock*

[@FosyDev]

Fish, fish, fish

[@jakko_]

You are getting veeeery sleeeepy....

[@FireyDeath4]

What mental effects is it trying to inject

[@dqflynn]

The year is 2035. Doodley just released a new video to worldwide acclaim. It still relates back to Animating Arms.

[@jayfoo]

1:22 I’m only slightly disappointed this SFX isn’t 50dB louder and it doesn’t shatter my eardrums

[@ChunkyKirby]

That's what am saying!

[@soaringsaberrr]

the music drowns it out

[@tinttiboi]

hello music maker for the popular youtuber doodley, jayfoo

[@jayfoo]

@@tinttiboi hello fellow Doodley enthusiast, tinttiboi

[@FishDrinkLightGreen]

Music man!

[@IveNeverStoodUp]

the doodler

[@lol-ih4wy]

P doodley

[@jacsonf1341]

The dood

[@freddiefishton]

Doodle Pog

[@SecretSwifty]

The doodlerrrrrrr

[@JilliamBilliam]

If doodley doodled dudes, how many dudes did doodley doodle?

[@inkerJ]

Apparently knowledge from messing around with keyframes in video editing software also applies to 3D animation, good to know.

[@game4us_animator]

But then you keep forgetting, i think if i would remember this and incorporate more of the Principles of Animation in my work, i could get way faster and better Results

[@SirloinBurgers]

Seeing how crucial the pendulum exercise is for 3D animation makes me wonder why I haven't seen any 2D exercises recommending the same thing. With all the focus those usually put on communicating mass and volume a pendulum would be really helpful to nail down before something like a walk cycle, just for the physics you have to understand to make it look good.

[@NihongoWakannai]

2D animation focuses on the bouncing ball first because maintaining volume is extremely important in 2D but the computer handles it for you in 3D. Going straight to a walk cycle is definitely too much. Students should be doing something similar to a pendulum for practicing arcs which is really important to know before walk/run cycles.

[@Shining4Dawn]

I can't imagine starting out learning 2D frame by frame animation with a pendulum. Even if you just draw a line - it would be a nightmare. The fact that it's computer animation changes everything about the work flow. If you follow the steps Doodley showed in this video, the first and last frames don't even look the same by the time you're done. That means you'd have to do the entire animation process in your head before even drawing the first and last frames of the loop if you tried doing it on paper.

[@aeroplanCton]

In my second semester at university, I took an animation fundamentals class which focused on traditional animation. We began with the bouncing ball, then we had to animate a pendulum attached to a ball that would speed up and then suddenly stop. In my opinion, it was a very good way of introducing the principles, since we had to figure out the acceleration of the ball, the follow through action of the pendulum slowly stopping and even add some slight squash and stretch to the ball. We then proceeded with a basic stick figure walk cycle and at the end of the semester we even animated a more elaborate scene, with the stickman lifting a dumbell

[@Genixona]

5:42 Realistic hand jumpscare

[@susancubello1340]

Had me quaking in my boots

[@animaticfanatic7516]

I'm starting a 3d animation and modeling class this week, this literally came at the perfect time! I didn't know just how different the approach to 3d animation would be. Thank you!

[@Cartoonkal]

2:42 mario 64 pause sound. Nice. 👌

[@zaow]

Wow, i really jumped on the notification. Now my phone is broken.

[@arson_squid278]

6:44 that was smart delaying the word delay :) nice touch

[@DrawRed1]

I thought that the Blender donut was the 3D bouncing ball

[@inkerJ]

it's the 3D modeling bouncing ball tbh, more specific

[@eveisunavailable]

that would be modelling, not animation

[@DivRaj_120]

3d modelling, yes, that'd be it, Animation? No no no.

[@RRamens]

@@inkerJthe inkerj

[@knucklepilled]

not animation. that ones for the modelling part of 3d arts

[@creativecreeper6147]

When i started doing animation in a free program called Mine-imator (a minecraft animation program), i had no knowledge other than what i've seen, and i've been teaching myself since then. Your videos have helped me out by teaching me things i wouldn't have been able to learn on my own, like easing an animation in and out to make it look more natural

[@Shining4Dawn]

Doodley, congratulations on getting sponsored by Autodesk! That's a big deal! Especially on a space like KZbin where most viewers will gravitate towards Blender.

[@corpsimmons575]

I swear, Doodley could explain to a bear how to change a lightbulb and it would be able to do it.

[@cinnamoncat8950]

how many bears does it take to change a lightbulb? one after doodley teaches it how to

[@youraveragechroma2139]

It’s all pendulums and bouncing balls huh?… it’s like the Golden Ratio but instead of it being used to fight the 23rd president, it’s used for good motion animation.

[@MeloniestNeon]

This video makes me want to pick up Blender and just play around with some cubes. I already downloaded it recently to try and change some models in .OBJs so I could import them into a game (Voices of the Void, which allows you to "3d print" foreign models and put them in the game as decorations), and this is pretty perfect timing now that I've taken the plunge and have it installed!

[@LuigiXHero]

Wait that's sick I gotta check that game out

[@negativefg7922]

Votv mentioned, neuron activation

[@baconwastaken303]

2:42 "It'll work in pretty much any 3D program" My dumbass pulling up with a game engine for kids and a plugin:

[@FinalyMoneyy]

Roblox moment

[@hilariousskullnamedcatzo647]

My brain expanded exponentially after absorbing all of this new knowledge, thank you, dood man

[@Someperson0istaken]

I got hypnotized a couple times watching this

[@navyshark2286]

8:44 I was super confused when I saw the arm because the elbow looks too thin but then I twisted mine and yup thin on one side how did I not know

[@yassinloay7515]

Thank you doodly. I was going ro quit learning 3d animation but when you released this video, it inspired me to not give up and ceep learning. Thank you again and ceep up the good work❤

[@bombkirby]

Brought me back to my college animation class! I wish I kept working on this stuff as my career.

[@Maciiuwu]

Realising i basically did this as my first little animation without even knowing about it because i wanted to try animating a tail wagging to start with something simple

[@THEStrawberrycakey]

Tbh I want to get into 2D animation but watching theses videos can still be entertaining and fun to watch! I love the style of your videos and you inspire me every time I watch one of your videos! If I could I wish I could support your patron because you honestly deserve it so much!

[@Anipalooza]

Love this Doodley!! I just started teaching Spine in a course format and we literally just finished a ball bounce exercise last week. I already feel like the pendulum exercise would have been a much better place to start and this video solidifies that for me 🤪 100% agree about the excitement of watching people unlock information in real time when teaching. That's how I've been feeling with my students and I love it! Love seeing how far your channel has grown, hope you're doing well! ✨

[@tophatgeo]

Dude you're such a good teacher especially when it comes to explaining the importance of a lesson and the reasoning behind it. Might try using this to help learn about aftereffects/da Vinci curves

[@blue-ie]

9:48 - YES STARFRUIT

[@delrodriguez9422]

Its a good day whenever Doodley posts and they teach me 2D and 3D animation with great art and music its so great 😊👍

[@genefour1534]

You couldn't have timed this video perfectly for my 3D animation class because we just learned the bouncing ball! It was super frustrating and deceiving for me when I was adding the squash and stretch animation ( using Maya 2023 ). I never realized how easy it was that Maya decides to add the math for you when adding frames or even adding the motion etc. Super cool! ( I was ecstatic because I felt like I was really animating hehe ). We're just now starting to learn the pendulum arm swing and I think I'll recommend to start with this method for future classes! Thank you so much for this video!

[@ElGamerDesafortunado]

I really wish we had the pendulum as our first exercise three years ago, when I starting to learn animation in university. We had to do the bouncing ball first, THEN the pendulum, neither of them came out really well and I passed those two tasks by some miracle. Wish I could have seen this video back then! Thank you for teaching other animation students, Mr. Doodley!!

[@night_theme]

“Honey! The Canadian doodle man posted!”

[@fadepanther6224]

I think one of the biggest things to take away from this is, "Basic to one person isn't basic to everyone" I've been through three animation courses so far, one went Eff the ball and straight up jumped into copying a running cycle of a provided rigged character. The other two start with a bouncing ball they rigged themselves. I... normally hate the "gotcha" moments of learning programs (Be it games, cartoons, or movies) that take the step back and show the things you were learning were the basics of how this more complex system works. But here, it didn't feel that way. Knowing it is how an FK arm rig works... didn't feel like a gotcha moment and more like... extra credit learning. Like, people can SEE where the bouncing ball can be used, as you showed in the video, but so to can people see blocks irl if they play minecraft for too long. They're not as one-to-one as people think, their not as basic as people think. But the pendulum is one-to-one. And, I'd argue that having the bouncing ball being the second practice is still a bit too soon, but everyone is different. My brain? It'd want to know if there is an IK version of the Pendulum. After all, IK is a godsend, for some cases but will make things harder over all if you soly use it. A bouncing ball is... something that can be highly complex if you put forth too much effort behind its construction. (In 3d animation) After all, how do you squish the ball? You can make the rig of the ball do it, deform the mesh, add some constraints (I know blender more than Maya) and a host of other ways to make the "simple" action far more complex. I feel the second biggest take away is having students build the things they'll end up using. The ball, the pendulum, and so forth. At least to a limit so they can start understanding how the elements of the rig, keyframes, and PC interpolation function. In any animation pipeline, the animator can't get hung up on a rig being weird, and if they can't tell the RIgger what is feeling weird about it, the rigger can't fix it. (I know that's far deeper than this lesson is trying to tackle but I feel it should be something fresh animators should start becoming aware of.) I love solving issues when it shows that I actually learned things. (A few courses had models and rigs that were... not right but I learned rigging before hand and understood what was going wrong and could fix it to match the lesson.) Um, oops. Sorry for the rant. I hope you all have a good day. Aloha!

[@Hajile_Ibushi]

This is interesting. I learned how to animate when i was a flash developer. So all the concepts like keyframes, hierarchies and tweens just got transferred over to 3D.

[@doodley3d]

Yup. They are mostly the same, just with an extra axis.

[@kilojuliet4]

As someone who just started picking up 3d animation as one of my first ever visual art forms, I was wholly unprepared for the "We basically just made an arm" reveal. Thanks for the video! You've given me the confidence to actually go for this!

[@CamTheCan]

Excellent video!! The waving pendulum is definitely the greatest introduction to 3D animation, and it’s fun to mess around with! The knowledge can definitely be translated to a fun hand waving exercise :D It’s also nice to hear that you’ve been teaching. Given your content and work, it suits you well!

[@tnturnip]

Nively put, Doodley. As someone starting out on 3D animation after a few casual years of 2D under my belt, I think the one of the most important skills to master early in 3D is putting keyframes where it matters, while leaving the obvious movements up for the program's interpolation. You're basically telling a 5 year old how to do a cartwheel. Things like anticipation frames, accents, arcs, follow throughs, settles, need to be explicitly defined by the 3d artist, and with how complex a character rig can get, the amount of bones and controls can get overwhelming quickly. Something as simple as a head turn can quickly become a head _ache_ as soon as you try to make it follow an arc, especially through the graph editor. I was extremely intimidated by before even trying it, but hopefuly the swinging pendulum interests 2D animators to try 3D, as intimidating as a switch it may be. Great video as always Doodley!

[@enderzhul_66]

These videos are so high quality I love them so much

[@11ndecisive97]

Wow. Doodley comes out with a new video the day I decide to commit to learning 3D animation? must be my lucky day

[@AnxiousFirebug]

DUDE thank you so much! This genuinely unstumped me from my 3d Art Program confusion

[@uniatq]

I really look forward to these videos, I’m currently trying to get into the animation program at my university and it is daunting and difficult and I often feel like I have nowhere to go for help with simple stuff. These videos have really helped me learn fundamentals or at least encouraged me to look into them further and I would love to see more videos from you, so thank you!

[@grummdoesstuff2983]

Funnily enough, in my 2D animation class, we did a pendulum as our second assignment

[@Teamvoid6674]

Thanks bro im happy somone is able to explain this well

[@FishDrinkLightGreen]

I know it’s probably a common comment you get, but I have pretty much no interest in 3d animating myself, but I always watch your videos because of how engaging and informative it they are

[@FluffyTanooki]

Half a minute in & I’m already hooked

[@Karonclip]

Finally some honesty in this world I rather pay a 4 Year tuition than course

[@andrewprahst]

8:45 Liked for that music timing

[@SaiKisaragi]

I was more excited to watch the rest of this video than I was to be in college for these last 5 years. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not creatively dead inside too.

[@IanOMega99]

Youuu yes youuuuuuu have to do the work. All the beginners: NO!!!!!!! Thanks doodles I already new all this stuff cause I do animated but it's always fun to watch.

[@fellgeri720]

Definitely going to try both excercises. Thank you for taking the time to make this!

[@EnderBlake-vp5dp]

*GASP * LIKE WALKING 9:04

[@OozoTheClown]

Not that I've done a lot of 3D animation, but every time I've ever had to use those easing curve spliney things, I've always just sort of used a "mess with it until it works" method. It was good to watch this video to be able to internalize the actual cause-and-effect.

[@Idk._.anymorrr]

Ive never considered pursuing 3d animation, but your videos are so compelling and just makes it seem so interesting i might try to

[@isakohman5105]

My brain never put together that Maya and autoCad/fusion were made by the same company, but it makes sense

[@mera450]

I just started my forst year of Architecture college and ive gotten hooked on your channel. I may not use Maya in the future but its really cool to see Autodesk being talked about too.

[@MationsDam]

Thank you for making this video, this is literally how simple animation can be and its very informative, i'll send this video to anybody who asks me about animating, as always hope you are doing well 🙏

[@404-UserNotFound]

I thought I was missing out by finding the bouncing ball difficult, then I discover I've been animating tails like this this whole time! Makes me actually feel proud of myself cause that was something I figured out myself

[@user-le2zv6go3v]

so happy to have found you .. I know a lot about animation now I didn't know a few hours ago, love your avatar too :D

[@chayadol]

Amazing video as always Doodley! As 2D animator, who really want to know more about 3D animation, you really open my eyes and ears for this brand new world of 3D anime!!

[@evankam28]

The other example of Pendulum Exercise we did in my Intro 3D Animation class was Ball with tail. Move a ball across the screen with acceleration and deceleration. Only this time, there was a tail we had to animate as well. The ball's movements could easily be auto-tweened and adjusted with curves, but we had to animate various key poses for the tail's movements to nail the follow-through in a 3D Space. Was tricky since it was animating two sets of objects with slightly different timings. (Made me realize what I preferred doing in 3D overall)

[@ArtistChemist]

This looks like esactly what i need. Tried to animate a bouncing cube yesterday and got precisely that problem. Thanks!

[@sajjadabouei6721]

I really get how much effort and energy you put in this video makings Thank you man

[@MINECRAFTIANGEL]

I've been messing around with 3d animations for a bit and the pendulum was the first thing I dealt with even if it was at a more advanced level with a walk cycle. Now seeing this video, I'm happy to know some tricks to make it less JANK when dealing with it!

[@SharowbladyeGaymerPorate]

Legit this made me understand why we start with the bouncing ball in 2D Thank you for making my 2D learning easier

[@JNSStudios2]

I actually remember the first ever animation I made was through an online course, and one of the things they had us animate was a character on a swing. Sorta like a pendulum, I suppose.

[@JoyceW-Art]

I have done 2d animation in my free time, but never 3d. It's really interesting to learn the difference in what you need to know for the basics!

[@susancubello1340]

Who needs a degree in animation when doodley exists?

[@daybetato]

I'm actually in my 3D animation course this semester and currently doing a walk cycle. Your videos really helped me a lot! ❤

[@tedioustotoro4885]

This is just reminding me how lacklustre the animation course I did was. We didn’t do the pendulum, we just went straight into bouncing ball and then a character throwing an object. Not to mention that it was mostly writing what we were going to and had animated and less actual animation, especially in the second year of that two year course (in which we were literally next door to the first years after us who did way more animation than we did). I think only like two or three of the fifteen or so people who did that course with me actually continued doing animation afterwards. I mean, I went onto a movie prop and set course (which was its own can of worms) and now I wanna be a writer/director instead.

[@kaboomproduct]

i think the reason that ppl think whats basic really isn't is bc its just things you don't think about anymore, like ain't no way your thinking of movement as a bouncing ball, your just - kinda just moving it

[@izzyhope58]

I've been playing around with animation and 3D software for a long time, but I'm still going to try this exercise in the next few days to try and refresh my skills and get more serious about learning the actual animation principles. I will reply once I have done it to say how it went.

[@TheRidiculousR]

I am personally self taught and figured out these principles by trial and error instead of guides and exercises, but this was a very interesting watch none the less

[@SchraderSpark]

there are keyframes, rigging, and interpolation/tweening in adobe animate!

[@Bobby-boy0]

I like the part where doodly’s hand turned real 5:45

[@soncdbk]

5:55 this part is very good ❤❤❤❤

[@thepuzzlemaster64]

ngl, the keyframe-shifting kinda melted my brain a little as someone who mainly works with 2D animation. I kept expecting the segments to become out of sync, break-apart, or just flash in that keyframe. Then I realized that it wasn't breaking itself because it was parented to the other shape above it, and all the shape does it rotate itself, and not move to a specific location. Kinda felt dumb after I figured that out. Got a lot more to learn with 3D than I expected, but it's pretty cool I'll admit that.

[@Danominator]

I dont know about you guys but watching this line swinging is making me verrrry sleeeepyyyy....

[@MrYellowAndYacello]

Adding inertia just makes animations look so lively, and I like it.

[@Mr.Munter]

Your videos have been extremely helpful with my animation learning. I really appreciate it.

[@khal9865]

I think this information helps a lot with 2d animation as well!

[@themug9205]

I've somehow never seen a pendulum used for an animation exercise (let alone even know what a pendulum is) but I think this is really cool for new and learning animators such as myself, I don't use Maya or Blender, I use Roblox Studio to animate but you said that this works in pretty much any 3D program, and you're right. I really learned a few things from this video, thanks a lot.

[@alatuberal-amin]

Thank You Doodley, this is WAY more *basic-er* than my animation/art classes

[@Justanotherdude-i3s]

Thanks for helping us out now I’m able to animate face expressions cuz of you

[@AWandaMain]

6:51 In the age where people are praising AI so much, it's comforting to hear those words.

[@coldReactive]

This helps me with wing idles to be honest. Especially multi-layered ones where several wing... "fins" I guess I would call them, have to undulate. I do agree that pendulums are really good for a starting point.

[@kilojuliet4]

Returning to this video 2 months later to say that I did, in fact, get into animations as a hobby. I made my first model (a robot that was honestly way too ambitious for my first project but it worked) and I just did my pendulum animation in preparation for starting to animate my awesome guy. Bouncing ball, here I come! Edit to add: What are some other kinds of exercises to hone my skills? I heard that walk cycles are hard, so I may need intermediary practice, and I'd like to learn more about the other principles of animation in a hands-on way.

[@doodley3d]

The exercise usually recommended after a bouncing ball is to animate a sack of flour with personality. It's a good way to learn a little character acting alongside squash & stretch and communicating weight. After that, you could tackle characters, but I'd maybe start with animating a character picking up and throwing something heavy -- the sack of flour teaches you a lot of what's needed for that. *Then* you can tackle walk cycles.

[@jacsonf1341]

*I love learning animation 😊*

[@ZornA.Mations]

I always knew Doodley was the cool teacher that tells you that math is not important but teaches it to you anyway.

[@kadavre]

I'm in college for animation and I JUST had a class about this! You're on point!

[@Johnnyb167]

There has always been two things I've really wanted to do and it's make a game and do 3d animation, I always kept thinking about what I could make, but for a long while I've always had a hard time figuring out where to start or how to get to understand it. This video helps a lot when it comes to 3d animation thanks for the advice. :)

[@BABYBORDOM]

“WE LOVE YOU DOODLEY” we all say in unison

[@zaidx2_1]

CONRGATS 600K!

[@griffy7715]

Omg thank you so mutch i wanted to see a video like this from you but i never expected you to talk about something so basic ❤❤❤

[@Sammysapphira]

Thanks doodly, now i can easily animate floppy noodles which is very relevant to my career

[@ruuse542]

I am actually finishing my blender donut tutorial. This exercise will probably be my next thing

[@Ber-tinbol]

Thanks for the tips! Now i remember more of the basics of animation :] I really need to animate more so i dont forget the important stuff..

[@AtomicBezerk]

I’m probably never going to do Animation but these videos are still so fun to watch

[@katyasmakingstuff]

i was wondering why i didn't like animating in splines, it was cause i didn't have a basic understanding of it! thank you for making this video :))