Blizzard animator took him 4 days for animating 4 second Overwatch HighlightIs animating really that hard?
>>636705forgot to post linkhttps://vimeo.com/204601876
well, this is a front and center animation, you do want it to look good.In here its not really about it being hard (it is but taking 4 days isnt a symptom of that), it just takes time, especially considering what is actually supposed to happen.The animation you posted needed a lot of details and attention so yeah, it took time.
>>636705It's probably not a function of difficulty, but all the tweaking that was done under the oversight and requests of higher-ups.The animator isn't the one who decides whether something is good enough or not in the end.
>>636705He took 4 days because he was given 4 days. It's his job to make it look as good as possible within the allotted time frame. When you want to make something look good, you invest the effort.
>>636705good animations are not easy to achieve, but they are definitely more time consuming, than hard.
>>636705You act like you know what you're talking about
You can shit out the rough big Stokes in a day or so. But he spent the rest of the time tweakin everything in the frame for "maximum appeal"
>>636705Depends on your standards.
>>636831Daily reminder that you can earn money even at this level. What are you waiting for, (Anon)?
>>636705was this made with maya?
>>636847thanks im new to 3d and I am enjoying learning so much
>>636836>Hi, this is a recording of my animation process for animating Mei's "Frosty :)" Highlight Intro from Overwatch in Autodesk Maya.>>636850keep it up
yes, it can take that long. you have to factor in a lot of different things....quality of animation, whether or not you're given feedback that requires you to tweak things along the way, quality of the rig, etc.i mean, you've got a video which perfectly documents the whole process. do you see any places where massive shortcuts could have been taken? seems like a reasonable amount of time to complete the final animation you see and that the animator did a good job with his time.in feature film animation it can take even longer, because you're also animating to dialog, the scenes can be very complex with many characters interacting, etc. there are single shots in a lot of feature animated films that took multiple people multiple months to animate.you might wonder how anything gets done...but when you're able to toss hundreds of animators at a project, you'd be surprised how much animation gets pumped out in a short amount of time. a lot of big visual effects films you see (transformers, star wars, marvel films, etc)...have only 6 months to complete every single visual effect shot from start to finish. that's about 3000 shots on average. but when you've got multiple studios working on the film, each with hundreds of artists....suddenly 3000 shots turns into a few shots per person. now getting everything done in 6 months seems a lot more feasible. tl;dr: yea animating is slow and takes a lot of time. but that's ok when you have a lot of animators.t. professional animator
>>636831Wtf is this supposed to be? Is that a TV channel logo or is this one of those retarded youtube animations
>all these Blizzdrones and apologists ITTI've watched a few of Blizzard employee interviews, looked at their works, portfolios and seen their workflows. I came to the conclusion that these people are no better than your standard artstation freelancer, or in fact even worse. Honestly Blizzard people (at least the ones I've seen) are far from the top artists. It appears to be a conglomerate of mediocre guys who just happen to have a lot of time/money to produce things.This isn't such a far off assumption when you consider that most Hollywood productions are made by Indians or Russian outsourcing. People just assume it's some magical place where the top artists of the world gather to make millions, when in reality it's just a few rich af investors paying kids to slap together something they can sell for billions.
>>636897>no one in the thread "defending blizzard">everyone just agreeing that animation is a tedious processHuh?Also, glad to see you've figured out the industry! That's pretty much how it's always worked and it's not just Blizzard. What, did you really think these big names only employ severe autists that can put everyone else to shame? Uh, no, because then they wouldn't have the workforce to even put out anything. >>636859 says it quite nicely in his fourth paragraph.
>>636856This has been the nicest interaction I had on this site,also who made the animation?
>>636906Just don't expect all interactions on this board to be so nice, the name is right there in the OP, it's also in the title of the video, it is the name of the uploader and it's right there at the bottom throughout the video.Now I feel like I got baited because that name is everywhere, but if that's not the case, I hope I helped.
making it is not even the hard partadressing feedback and do what your faggot ass client wants is what actually consumes your precious time
>>636705God I want to facefuck Mei.
>>636931woah hello left field
Get an AI to do it for you instantaneously
>>636933Look at that face in top right and tell me you don't know what I mean.
>Mei>forearm size > hand size > head size0/10, would only let her fuck my enemies.
>>636951There was even a "bug" in one of her costumes that made her thinner, and chubby chasers and fatties went crazy over it.
>>636951B-but its just are the thicc clothing against the arcthics cold.
>>636831Name?
Drop that model into SFM and I can do that animation in 4 minutes, maybe less.Activision-Blizzard is full of talentless people nowadays, just random interns that don't know how to program or make graphics, it's a shadow of it's former self.If real companies were that incompetent then animations and movies would never get finished.
>>636975It's not a bug, Mei was never supposed to be a fatty, but an hourglass under a thicc coat. Fatfuckers are retarded.
>>637002
>>636977Miraculous ladybug and something something
>>637002>animating in sfm over mayaLMAO WHAT
>>637067>Mei was never supposed to be a fattyTry and tell them that, especially as a blizzard employee. Shit wouldn't fly because "fatty shaming"
>>637002Please do, and add a pickle squirting wallpaper paste on her while you're at it
>>637067>>637114>It's not a bugI'm not defending anything here, her original concept art was for a skinny girl, but that particular costume had a weird animation thing going on (looked bone related) that got fixed by making her skinny lunar model more closely conform to her fat model
Who would want to play that tub of fat anyway, what's wrong with people?>When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse.Those fuckers chose the weak fat horse, the world is gone to hell.
>>637140The promotion of overweightness in media should be forbidden, as happens with the promotion of tobacco in many countries.
>>637135such a qt
>>636705rig was overly complicated would have been much easier in 3ds max
>>637245It's a double edged swordOn the wone hand, it's vile as fuck and needs to stop. On the other, it'd get rid of all the idiots who buy into it by suffering heart attacks and collapsing from lack of oxygen.
>>637325>On the other, it'd get rid of all the idiots who buy into it by suffering heart attacks and collapsing from lack of oxygen.In some countries, our taxes go to pay for their health care. So, no, thank you. Outlaw obesity promotion now!
>>637327Can't tell, you agreeing with me, or not?
>>637348I think that promoting the acceptance of obesity is harmful to society. Letting people fall for it, get fat, and then become sick costs money, which we all pay as a society. So I agree that obesity promotion should be forbidden, because I believe that it's better to attack the root of the problem rather than to let it somehow be solved by itself (the Darwin solution) at the expense of the rest of us.
>>637353That's all I needed to know, thanks for the calcification.
"The advancement and automation of motionapture technologies and state-machines have made animators useless waste of space, time and money. Underline time.You don't have to deal with those slow ass primadonnas and their mumbo jumbo anymore, ever.All you need for a realistic movement and motion is a director and an actor. As it should be.Good fucking riddance."
while animation takes time and there's no refuting that but good god no that should take about 6 hours lolhe probably fucked it up more times than to admit.>>637402
>>637402"Motion capturing this stylized squash and stretching fox didn't go as planned boss"
>>637084Yea It seems so.I've seen parts of the episodes when my siblings watch it on tv.>>636877>>636977
>>636705>Why does good quality work takes time?
>>637847Real world doesn't have that nonsense.
>>636831So many tv shows for kids do this. I get its a money saving thing but i think kids prefer it because of attention span and all
>>637325They'll die off en-mass in the next civil war when just-in-time logistics breaks down and food stops being stocked on the shelves within their cities.
>>636831Man i wish more cartoon girls got artstyle like this, instead we got calarts bullshits
>>637002Anon, even SelfDrillingSMS (hes a pro SFM animator) cant animate his porn in less than a month.Animating is hard, anon. Its literally physically exhausting.
>>636705Not so much hard as it is very time consuming. Getting all the small and subtle details down can be a pain in the ass and if you're more of a perfectionist then you'll always find things you can improve.
>>637002Post some of your work, anon.
>>637949Disney animators figured out in the 40s that aping the real world wasn't enough for animation. Squash and stretch is in fact needed to reproduce the way we perceive weight and momentum. Time and again people forget it and mocap shitty anims, then have to hire a bunch of squash'n'stretchers to touch it up, and "rediscover" the basic ideas of animation.Like, heck, the GDC presentation on Overwatch character animation from two years ago is considered cutting edge for game animators and there's no a single thing they talked about that isn't in Disney's 12 principles. It's just that game animators thought they could avoid that shit with the power of tech and so didn't learn it, and it turns out they can't.
>>640589No, it looks dumb and unrealistic.The only ones who want it are squash and stretch animators, no one else gives a shit.
>>640590yes, your post is a good example of the kind of dumb stuff project leads who end up needing to hire more animators to touch up their mocap always say in the beginning.
>>640590well that's an unpopular opinion
>>640590pls give examples of successful non-squash-and-strech animated productions so we can have an informed discussion
>>640598Dark Souls, Uncharted, 99% of AAA.
>>640599As noted before games have been decades behind in terms of animation techniques (in fact the guilty gear devs had to mod UE3 to get squash and stretch support, although UE4 does it natively), except for select developers which pushed animations early.That being said, since you mention Uncharted, it does feature squash'n'stretch (which is not surprising given the cartoony pre-uncharted naughty dog games which required animators that'd know about that), in fact their making-of videos show some very advanced skeletons for their time, even allowing noodly limbs (ie basically uncharted and last of us characters regularly break their bones if it'll make the animation look better). It's just so good that you don't notice it (just like people didn't notice it in Overwatch until the devs pointed it out).Naughty dog used to be an exception but in the last few years (especially post-overwatch) all AAA companies have taken steps to level up to that kind of animation.
>>636705keep it up and eventually this will be a minimum wage job like McDonalds.
>>640624All art is separated from the grills by a very fine line.
>>636877It's télé-québec. A tv channel for french canadians. They usually have their own shows for french canadians only so they're usually pretty low budget.
>>640629>All art is separated from the grills by a very fine line.This is such a good quote. Screenshoted.
>>640599uncharted uses a mix of mocap and hand keying. you still need animators for that.
for a cinematic yes, you put in as much detail as you can
>>636705https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIiLz_z1_Loye
>>636705God those lips...
>>636908Blizzard does not have any external animations done. You can see their animation department animating every cinematic they make in the collectors edition blurays included in all their game releases. The only thing theyve ever farmed out is previz during SC2 development.
>>641300You should tell that to the people who wrote the Overwatch credits because external animation companies are credited.
>>638886>Pixar style bullshit isn't Cal ArtsNearly spit my coffee
>>636705Not animating models as 2007-esque as these.
>>637002Do it fag
>>641375...?Assuming you mean the model quality is "2007-esque", do you not know that it's very typical to have animation-quality models and then production-quality models? The former's a lightweight model so the process of animation is more streamlined and animators don't have to deal with a billion polygons (viewport performance, especially when playing back animations), while the latter is the model that you see in final productions.
>>641304What companies?Asking 'cause I'm lazy.
>>636705animating by hand (and having it stylized as opposed to dry and "realistic") is extremely hard.don't believe retards like these: >>641375
>bawww realism bad!Aww, does de Iil' baba vvant his jingly sparkleh key-keys?
>>636975>>637114baka
>>637002yeah, i don't think you know what you're talking about
>>640599Wow, you're a moron.
>>644000You are a manchild.
>>636705>>636705Hey, animator here. Yes, if you want to do actual good animation about a second a day or even slower is a good pace. Especially because it's not just finishing the animation, you have to address feedback and show it again over and over. Games in general have absolute garbage animation because of how fast they work. Since they go slower on Overwatch it actually looks good. Of course it depends on what you accept as good enough animation.>>637002You think you know what you're talking about but in reality it's often the same people who go between feature animation, film, movies, and game companies.You have former pixar guys at blizzard for example iirc.>>641375This is a screenshot of an anim rig which is meant to play at faster fps in the viewport while working.>>640590Squash and stretch isn't literally just cartoony stretching limbs. It's the general concept of compression and extension which affects how we perceive actions and force. It has to be applied in realistic animation as well, just with a different eye.>>641304All their actual game animation is internal. What they tend to outsource is stuff like skins, as evidenced by artstation
>>644240>Hey, animator here. Yes, if you want to do actual good animation about a second a day or even slower is a good pace. Especially because it's not just finishing the animation, you have to address feedback and show it again over and over. Games in general have absolute garbage animation because of how fast they work. Since they go slower on Overwatch it actually looks good. Of course it depends on what you accept as good enough animation.Maybe for films, but even then they can probably get more than a second of footage done in a day, depending on shot requirements and who's animating of course. But spending 4 days on something like in the OP just feels really time wasting.
>>637136>>636975I remember they made her chubby in purpose. Mei's first concept design is thin, which makes her looks too much like tracer when in far distance
>>644414>But spending 4 days on something like in the OP just feels really time wasting.It's the power of autism that keeps them motivated.
>>637084Can confirm this. I binge watched all of season 1 because I was bored and needed something to do while dog sitting for a few days.It was so fucking bad.
>>644414Well yeah if you cut out all feedback cycles a decent animator can definitely finish a shot faster, but considering dailies and reviews 4 days seems normal to me
>>644414>But spending 4 days on something like in the OP just feels really time wasting.They mentioned it at GDC two years ago: those end of fight vignettes are going to be the thing players will be seeing the most of each character outside of the first-person hands, so they're worth spending extra time on.
>>644704Yeah, dailies are one thing though. It came across as the animation process itself (without any dailies or feedback) took 4 days.
It depends of the person. Surprisingly many people working are really mediocre at best.Bigger vfx houses seem to actively seek for quiet, mild mannered people who barely speak, don't have any opinion of their own and never say no. These are the people who do the grunt work and press buttons and then there are the core group of select few in each company who actually make the setups etc...So depending on who's doing what they probably would have finished a one version on the first day but then the minute details and feedback cycle keeps prolonging the final version. Sometimes the supervisors concentrate on stupid detail which is not even visible to normal people but this depends on luck. I have worked on so many hours on some stupid shit and wwhen it ended up in the movie it was not even fucking visible...
>>644988dailies and feedback are part of the animation process, duh
