 today's friday and that means fna friday but today it's not going to be about tips and tricks today i'm going to answer the questions that you asked last week all right so let me get closer to my monitor and i'm going to scoot over this way so i'm going to display the questions full screen and then leave them here ish so that um you know as i'm rattling on that you can still kind of cross-reference with the questions for anybody that kind of scrubs through the clips so some of the questions i'm going to answer completely some of them i'm going to keep for future fna's and other uploads or video type of things and if you have other questions after all this feel free to comment and i might do another q&a in the future maybe once a month maybe every two months i think there were a lot of really good questions and a ton a ton of material for me to do so that was great so let's start all right and it's going to be the the time the big butchering of names so i apologize in advance um i'm already scared i'm going to try so bear with me so dian tianara banania banania banania um asks hi jean by the way uh it's uh is jean dunny or jd like jean danis the hyphen combines both jean and danis so it's jean dunny or jd but it's not jean just throwing it out there and this is not for everybody it's i can be with someone on the phone and ask me what's your first name and i go jean dunny and they say oh hi jean okay well let's do this do you have any tips regarding shooting references do you shoot it before or after planning how do you personally utilize references and how have you seen other animators utilize it um oh let's see so regarding the tips for shooting reference uh i did a clip about reference preparation but the main thing will be definitely create your space so that it resembles as closely as you can uh to the shot that you want to do if you shoot reference and the angle is different and the props that are using or no props or whatever the costumes or or like where you look the island if all of that is different then at the end it doesn't quite help you can still use it you can use it for body movement just in general observation of how does my body move might not be from this angle might not be for you know specifically replicating it for the shot but it might still be something that you can think about okay this is how i turn my head this is how i move my shoulder so general body observation um that can still work but in general tips wise i would say just make it as close as you can um just because it kind of eliminates steps in the middle you can not that you want to copy it unless you have to depending on the medium or the style um but it just kind of helps and especially for me is eye lines of again camera angles uh do you shoot it before or after planning i shoot it all the time um so i shoot the general reference at the beginning and then as i continue with the shot i might have a different idea i need to change something and then i feel that well i need to do something new and i haven't quite captured that yet and then i shoot new reference or i shoot reference once i'm done with whatever the shot would look like i would do a mouth pass or eye pass or you know a specific gesture on the arm or finger stuff i can shoot separate pieces of reference for different angles different body parts um and that that will be till the very end so i'm not really it doesn't have to be very beginning and then you're done so you can do whatever you want um how do you personally utilize references and how have you seen other animals utilize it um so yeah so that's how i use it and the range is you know it just it's a huge range where people use it loosely and then embellish on that and then a really good at tweaking the pose and making it fit for that style other people um are really good at shooting reference and it's energetic and stylized and this timing is already great and there's some minimal tweaking there's always a little you shoot couple takes either shoot 10 20 20 30 takes and then you just copy paste and make one master take um but within that it might already be really really far along that it needs minimal tweaking uh for me and this is going to be for future thing but i might as well mention now like one of the super time saving ways of using reference and i know i'm saying rotoscoping and it's also only for visual effects i i use it kind of for cartoony stuff when i do stuff at home as well but it's basically i shoot reference and then i take that reference you know you take multiple takes do the copy paste and your master take but i take that whole thing into my as a background and then every four frames i copy my reference so if it's live action and it needs to be a stunt double then that's fine because it's gonna look real and you're gonna still have to tweak it because you can't quite copy one to one it still needs some tweaks here and there and timing pushing and stuff like that um but even for cartoony stuff not that i use it i end up using you know like a head turn or a certain moment so like 80 probably goes out but what i like about that approach is that i can shoot reference put it into Maya and then within a couple minutes you just copy copy copy copy paste rotoscope basically like loosely on every four frames for me for at least at work i also see does my acting in my movement my gestures maybe if i take a couple steps does that work with the camera move if you're shooting with a plate um is there any plate interaction am i shooting opposite of the creature or a human in a plate um so i can see if my ideas will actually work within that scene in that environment and the timing of it and also the scale a lot of times you shoot reference and then your rig is is different like it's a i don't say it's a creature but it could just be a different design it doesn't have to be super human um so then you can see well maybe my proportions are not right or it's a good beginning but now i need to embellish and change that and so on and so on so to me it's a really really fast way to block things out very roughly take the essence of it tweak it see if it's gonna work in terms of timing when things happen the plate the camera and so on and then i can tweak it and then i can shoot more reference do different takes then you can shoot a lot of different takes very quickly block this out very quickly for a very rough presentation of ideas it's basically for ideas for your lead or soup and then they can say i like this this and then maybe go with this one and then you can always embellish and continue and and tweak and finalize that or reshoot reference because you know what you really want and then be more specific about certain things so that's that's kind of my approach so uh henry soren that was forgiving that name how do you record reference for things that are physically impossible or hard to replicate good question too so when they're physically impossible hard to replicate i can't um i might take the essence of it if it's a specific thing but if it's a specific creature and i need to do like something you know it's not gonna work if i if i shoot reference for being a gorilla it's not gonna quite right you know it's whatever whatever you think you can do is the the anatomy is different right the way is different there's so much that's going to be different so then i look online i check footage nature footage go new to or ask someone else if they have footage that there's a lot of stuff you can find online and then i start picking things um that will work better and sometimes if it's a fantasy creature that has zero reference but this looks totally different i try to base the movement on something that exists in this world you know if it's a flying creature what kind of flying bird or whatever could i use or just elements of it and put that into the shot into the creature sort of in the audience watches that shot they go maybe some conscious that they might not go out loud but it's maybe some conscious that they go yeah i i've seen this before i'm familiar with this move i don't know what it is but i buy it and now i buy the performance if it's completely alien and every move is totally weird there's a bigger disconnect unless that's the complete point of it and they'll make it really super weird um but yeah so for things that are physically impossible uh i just have to look elsewhere and if all that fails you just got to make it up a lot of times i just make it up i don't shoot reference for everything sometimes you already have a clear idea to me reference is very helpful but if you have reference and you have zero idea what you want to do you only get so far you start copying the reference and then it's going to be kind of stiff and lifeless and and there's no i don't know there's something maybe missing and then you're stuck so i like to start any shot with a great i had a great idea it's there's there's not always that great but with a clear that's what i meant with a clear image so i visualize because i can't draw thumbnails i'm horrible at drawing i love drawing but i can't so i try to see it in my head uh clearly as clear as i can and i go okay well that's what i want to do let's go and then i can um collect material that will support me in getting to that vision but without a plan without knowing exactly what you want i'm just going to waste time so before i do any of this i want to know what i want to what i want to do right um artur artur van van sorry again this is one of those i don't know um hey jd it would be cool if you could talk about hiring animators from abroad is it a difficult process to go through the us what company can provide to animators from abroad etc and always thanks for the uh positive feedback there uh that's the tricky one because i am not part of hr i'm not familiar with the process and when i got hired that was 15 years ago that was different my h1b was for four years then i needed to apply for another h1b and um it's just different different things that that were needed um so i don't know so my honest answers i don't know all i would say is look at the visa requirements of the country you're applying to to is that english um so for me coming from switzerland to the states to get an h1b i needed a bachelor degree so that's why i went to the academy of art so i needed a degree either masters or bachelor it just to qualify for that h1b so that was my plan um you know and back then mentor and i animate and you know item school all that didn't exist so it was kind of a brick and mortar thing to learn animation and online was not really the thing yet um so that was my plan so difficult process to go to us also probably given the today's politics um depends where you're from um issuing a visa might be a problem um but technically what company can provide i mean every company is going to go through a process of applying for the the work visa and then it costs money so i don't know it is really tricky so if they're in a time crunch they might take someone that already has all the you know they're they're um they don't need all that paperwork and the work permits so even though both enemies might be equally good in terms of this the show reel maybe you know they need someone right now so they can't go through the process of the visa process and then it takes someone else so i don't know there's a lot of different factors you might be greatest in the world but if there is no visa and there's no money for it and there's a time crunch um that's kind of a it's kind of a problem so i don't know i don't know if this is helpful um you can always if there's a way if the company has contact information ask the company um you know i'm from this in this place what can i do well what what can you do how can you help me and how can i help you to facilitate that process um and then reach out you know like some companies have hr people on twitter um probably also facebook but i follow a couple of them on twitter and you can always ask there you know they're always kind of their ways and maybe if you know someone at that specific company you can ask that animator whoever you know person you know there if you're talking about animation um and then they can potentially ask hr internally and then they might give them information they give it back to you so a couple ways but i'm not sure if that was helpful uh bj pande pande sorry bj bj sorry um another question if you don't mind not at all is there any hope for aspiring animators like me who don't want to work on sequels and or pg films more violence in unity maybe and deeper darker stories and characters um there's always hope yes simply anti disney if i may do you think films are going to be mainstream anytime soon so you mean darker films but they're pretty mainstream already uh the 3d feature films or is the future still going to give us more films that look um cute and half family friendly stories so you're you're you're answering that there um no hate for the films out there right now they have my respect and mention not rude at all no this is totally valid and i'm in the same camp the thing is i i love movies i love the stories and i love different type of things i can go watch pretty woman and i have a great time and then i can watch The Road and it's depressing and horrible and i also have a great time um and then i can watch The Incredibles 2 and still have a good time you know what i mean like there's there i think there is hope for sure the problem is that they cost a lot of money those movies so you gotta produce something i'm actually unfortunately quotation marks but you need to get your money back so if you're doing an animated feature that costs a ton of money that uh it's just really dark and you know has this very small audience i'm thinking for instance like Dark City i love that movie that movie as an animated feature release it now i'm not sure how much movie will make uh much money it will make but it would still cost a lot to do um so i don't know you know it's just it's a tricky thing you can do those films but you gotta get the money back if you don't get the money back who's gonna invest in that money unless you have the money right um and there are some that come out like next gen it's gonna come out soon on Netflix actually in a week i think that i'm not sure the budget i think online they said something about 30 million that's pretty cheap that's on the low side i think maybe the lowest i don't know i'm not super familiar but that seems to be kind of the lower side but you know um like sausage party was low but then i think the reported budget was different uh or yeah different than what they actually cost shenanigans with financials um so i totally understand and there there are some movies uh that would be great in cg it doesn't have to be i'm not in the camp that is if you can shoot it real then make it a live action movie uh no um for me it's if it's a cool story and you just want to show it animated and why not it doesn't have to be something that you can't do live action i understand why why you would um i don't know i'm not in that camp so i'm you can look at anime they they have a ton of great movies where you know it's not the cutesy type of thing so so long long answer i say yes there's hope it's just tricky the tricky thing is the financials who's going to mess in this and how are they gonna get the money back that's always kind of it's always a business right uh lee cook hi gene it's not gene thank you so much for uploading these videos you're very very welcome um i think i answered this already because you only have a few weeks left but i'm gonna read it because i might actually take this whole thing and just copy it rip it for the podcast instead of rerecording something and i'm still fixing the podcast issues but that's gonna relaunch um so let me just reading it uh thank you so much for uploading these videos they're helping me out quite a bit i have seven months left of animation school and my question is when you're preparing a character animation demo reel would you suggest medium shots or full shots just so you can get a better read on how well the animator can use body dynamics or just put a body dynamic shot in the reel alongside with medium shots are you going to do any videos regarding curve cleanup two questions there uh so yes yes and yes so basically for your reel um medium shots are totally fine the thing is you have to look at your reel in terms of each shot is gonna display another skill set so let's pretend you're really good at facial stuff and all you have um on your real close-ups then i watch this reel and i go that's cool you're really good at this and if you need someone for this product that does exactly that that's great but i don't know i don't see the body can you do weights walks you know weight shifts and just interactional this there's more stuff with the body you can do so to me it would be you want to hit the full body mechanics for sure in your reel you got to show that i can do a full body and the weight is there and the mechanics are there everything's great uh weight and you can combine that you know not to have to weight lift but you know whatever i show with how to take your shot you know and expand on this so you can you definitely want to show the whole body then you can show pantomime medium most of pantomime full body full body acting mr bean style is also important and then you can go into medium shots if you do acting and facial performance stuff and then i would do multiples where you you cover a range of emotions from whatever you want to do right super sad super happy but you want to you want to do multiple things so to me a reel shows variety um be mindful of this style so maybe a variety in style might not be super helpful if the company applying for or to uh has a very specific style so if you do something that's super snappy but the company doesn't do that uh you know you have one shot that matches their style that might be a problem so a research what the company is in their style and then look at what you can do for that but in terms of dynamics body dynamics and uh medium shots and everything yes in terms of yes medium shots but yes full shots i would show everything right because you want to cover all that and then don't forget also in terms of the humans you want to do uh female male creatures younglings kids right but creature young and human young and big and small and skinny like there's just there's so much variety in rigs and i know it's tricky to find the right rig that will work you know for whatever you want to do but try to have not just variety in cameras and then body actions how much you can see but the content and the type of character and the scale and the creatures um that perform that action and just because i say creature doesn't have to be for real you know i mean you could think of how to train a dragon or whatever creaturey thing real or the zootopia whatever you have nowadays even the pig in wanna there's so many things you can do with creatures that that don't have to be for real right so you can still do something cartoony like i love ratatouille where this in general love it but uh but you have to creature movement and get up and then they act and then go back to creature movement so you can go back and forth so i think that's pretty cool are you going to do any videos regarding curve cleanup um i was not going to as of yet but uh yes i can definitely touch upon it um but i'm not yes to me is the curve cleanup is a process that is for me in the blocking stage in terms of keeping things simple and clean so you can do changes you make changes in the shot quickly for feedback you know from millets and soups to present to the client faster um i'm not hugely into cleaning up curves once you're done or even towards the end it was towards the end like i might do post-depose when about our layer and at the end it's just every controller and messy in every frame and constraints and there's all kind of stuff so it looks good hopefully and then when it's approved like i don't touch this anymore like i don't care i don't i'm i'm never touching anything once it's done the only time i touch things is if i'm going to be off the show um or off the shot and i know someone else is going to come in then i save out a separate scene if i have time it doesn't always happen like that uh where i bake out curves um constraints right and i name everything correctly so whoever picks this up goes oh yeah i can start from scratch and i can i can do my own thing but if you get a scene from someone else and you got constraints and weighted tangents i'm not a fan of weighted tangents or animation layers it's just it gets it takes time to get into the that workflow and that's a that's a waste of time but i like to be efficient so it's i'm not a massive fan of getting these type of scenes um so cleanup is more at the beginning and towards it i don't really care um so i'm not sure if i want to do a separate long fna just about cleanup but i'm definitely going to incorporate it into something else that makes sense hope that helps all right joseph bs awesome uh yeah thank you thank you can't wait to see you share your next ten thousand thousand we'll see about that one if that rate continues i might hit five thousand in a year it'd be awesome to hit ten thousand in a year why not to cover the 10k i don't know i don't have that much questions since you covered most of them and i'm sure other will ask the best questions possible but i would like to ask a few non-related questions maybe for future videos one you you talk your top three favorite chocolates and snacks that's a good question root of sport love that um i should have researched that one uh there's some other ones i'm not gonna say nestly but there's some swiss chocolate that was really really good snacks i like chips um we have those uh crepes and crepes with the chocolate in there sometimes some christy nuts in there that you can reheat put in the pan or whatever microwave that my six-year-old loves and i like those actually a lot just recently i love chocolate covered macadamia's um those are great uh i don't know like there's so many chocolates i need to research that and maybe i'll do a food related thing uh snacks yeah that's kind of really sport it's kind of my default i just always like that if you're out there i mean i like sneakers like m&ms all that crap that you shouldn't eat it's not good for you but really sport still like that too what do you like to do while not animating um well i do a lot that's related to animation for sure right so i watch a ton of movies and i love it i'll watch a ton of tv shows i would love to play more video games uh it's hard to find the time because i want to spend the time on the movies and tv shows because hey i like it it also helps me with work and i can put this up online as well it helps for my classes um but anything that evolves around that i used to read a lot of comic books and that also kind of stopped um heavily into video games until until work and kids so it's a bit tricky but now i'm playing a ton of mario kart and kirby and ten the labo um what else are we playing it's even my six-year-old like every night we play like 10 20 50 minutes whatever uh time we have so i play stuff that he plays but uh someone just um i borrowed got a war the new one never started for sorry andi i borrowed uh alien isolation for three four years and jair i really apologize i think i have order 1886 and that's the one i think it's been three years four years never even put it in it's horrible i have classic xbox or playstation one game still wrapped like prince of persia the old one but anyway so i used to play a ton um but anyway uh apart from that um whatever free time i have i'd like to spend time with my family um you know snuggling with my wife going places disney lands uh go out outside you know stroll in the city here in pediluma um one and a half time i like to exercise um i started again more heavy except i'm getting i'm just kidding a bit too much weight and i sit all the time so but i like physical activities i like to play tennis a lot i like to play basketball get a hoop outside um since a lot of sports family and entertainment i think that's probably the biggest thing i do play probably more vr than um than console tv games um what else i think that's kind of it and whatever comes around i got a ton of books you know if i have time to read um what else would i be i'm looking around i mean that's it's pretty much it's uh i don't have that much time with work you know the stuff that i do it so whenever time i have it's usually just family really time um and that could be anything right you can go out to like the train park or something my little one or um you know go to movies with my older one so like he's you know he's older so he has his own interests there um so that's kind of it i tried to i swim a lot too the summer is i would say sports like being fit not die too soon uh i eat a lot actually when i know i don't eat a lot it's also a problem uh family time and just stuff you know movies and games and stuff like that uh i don't play any instruments i used to play piano uh whenever practice them horrible at it um i don't even know anything about that anymore um so yeah i should probably say something else just to pretend that i'm doing more varied stuff but you know like i don't paint uh i don't i don't know i don't know that's that's kind of it uh what's your advice for someone who is about to start learning 3d render modeling animate whatever uh that's it for now what's your for someone who's about to start learning 3d good question well depends i mean render modeling animate whatever you have to look at it's hard i mean if you're just starting i don't know if you have a long term plan i would look at well if you're doing rendering what's the modeling well what's what do you want to do in five years what do you want to do in 10 years is that something you want to do on your own as a hobby uh is it something you have business you want to start or something where you want to work for company and any of these where is good is that going to mean a city where you're at is there any other city you have to move out and then go to a different country that would look long term in terms of well if i want to do this what does that mean what's that that trajectory and and looking to the future where would i end up and then you can look at well if i want to go there in five years in city and company and all that that comes with that um what do i need you to get there so you know maybe learning the language and then other things and there's just a lot of stuff that's involved uh in terms of software again if it's a hobby you can i guess whatever use whatever you have at your disposal for you're not free depending on your financial situation but if it's for company look at well you know if you want to do bigger companies a lot of companies use Maya for animation so i will probably look at Maya to practice that to then you know be a good asset for a company because you don't have to retrain you you know what i mean so i will kind of look in that area if that's helpful um and for learning 3d the other thing i would do is obviously not stick to that specific area if that makes sense so if you know like for me like animation i don't i don't just look at animation movies anime you know like animated tv shows or animated movies i look at acting in general or creatures in general look at nature movies or reference um books for how to how they're like anatomy or um you know anything where you can go to the zoo like and you try to involve the outside part of that field of interest if that makes sense so i i'm not stuck just purely with animation i look at well what goes around that and then for me it's also sound design like i love sound design if i wouldn't do animation would be sound design so when i animate i also think in terms of well i can do all the creature or whatever movement you have for me at work um but then you have to look at well how does that work within the sequence are there any actors around it or actors talking maybe if you have a creature in the background or is that you know there's a lot of sound if you have a rough cut um within the sequence does your do your actions basically is there too much if you if your creature always goes rar rar rar and someone has to put in that roar is that gonna overshadow um no over sound if that's the term uh the other creature the other human or whatever is that's in that scene you know what i mean the creature the actions that you have someone's gonna add sound to that so you want a good rhythm to it but you also don't want the sounds to take up too much real estate uh in an audio sense if that makes sense right so if i remember animating a creature way way back in episode three um i feel just drag anything that obi one writes but then obi one is talking to one of those right guys and um i don't remember their names i should it's that silo planet thing where they go down actually animated that chip too but anyway um so i can't have the creature constantly going rar rar rar in the back because i mean they could also just not put in the sound but it would just be very distracting and cut this is the end of part one because i'm an idiot and i forgot that this camera has a 30 minute maximum recording time i've recorded at a timer one hour 47 and it stopped after 29 minutes i'm so sad but i'm an idiot that's how i should have researched it so this is now part one and i will continue next week with part two maybe i can figure it out how to make this work i can just record it on the computer not through the camera so it's one longer thing so maybe just two parts but this is it for now if you watched the whole thing as always thank you so much i appreciate it if there was anything in there that was not clear or you got more questions about it let me know more questions can come i can combine them and add them and do another one another q and a so any comments let me know uh as always subscribe if you haven't yet i would love it if you do it helps me and uh i said the whole thing at the end of the previous one i didn't record so i'll leave it at that thanks for watching and i will see you next week for part two if you want to see part two of this q and a other than that we'll see you monday thank you