 Welcome back to another Q&A. This is part seven. I got more questions that I want to answer. And there's going to be a part eight and a part nine for sure. So many questions I want to get to. So let's start. And as always, you see here, I got my little screen here that tells me the room I can blend with. You know the drill, right? And as always, I want to read out the questions out loud for those who are just listening to this. First question by Philip Puff. Philip Puff? I hope I can. As always, I apologize for any butchering of names. I'm going to do my best to pronounce these as best as I can. Hi, Jean-Denis. First, I would like to thank you for the great videos you are creating. You're very welcome. I have learned a lot from them. That's awesome. My question might have been asked before, but I haven't seen it answered. I decided to make a career change at the age of 37. Is it too late to go into the industry at that age? And does that puts me does that put me at a huge disadvantage when looking for my first job? Looking forward to the next video. Well, that's always an interesting question. I would say my answers, I hope not. I don't think so. To be honest, I don't think so. But at the same time, there are some things that come with it, right? So if you're young, let's say you're young and single, that means that you can potentially stay up late. You can work late. You can also switch companies. You can switch countries. There's a lot more freedom that comes with it if you're young and you have less responsibilities. Now, if you're older, potentially you might have family. Maybe maybe not. You might have. So you might want to spend more time, not more time, but a good balance time at home versus work. You're also not able to travel and change. I mean, the thing is, if a company requires someone to be very flexible, maybe they have to go places, maybe for your job, you know, they're going to be on set if you later on the animation supervisor, like, I don't like, I think there might be some complications as you get older, but also for yourself. You might not want to, you might not want to do the same as a younger animator. Let's put it this way. But generally, is it too late to start? I would say no. I mean, you can start at 37 and just kick ASS and be fantastic. And then your career is going to take off. I mean, it really all depends on how good you are. I think the limitations, but the potential problems are going to be for you, like in terms of at that age, you might have certain constraints or expectations or just you have a certain, you know, rhythm and lifestyle that you don't want to change too much or can change. So I think it's more that that could be a potential problem, but it's not really that they won't hire you just because, you know, you're 37 or 40, or by the time you're done with your schooling, I don't know. I don't, I don't think so. But, you know, there are always some potential problems depending on the person and their country or whatever it is, right? So I can't give you a definite yes or no. Wow, that's a long one here. ED Ventures. I have an important question. There are various people like me who enter into the animation industry lately as they realize that life is about following their passion. They enter late into the industry so they can afford a four-year bachelor's program in arts or related designing fields. A very similar question. There are various people out there who say that a strong base is required for this field, which comes from a strong degree in the designing field that makes people like me upset and demotivated. That sucks. Can you make a video on what is really required to get into the field of animation and what extra education can a person get to reach the top most studios and get the most out of their brain along with their creative abilities? I always end up searching on Google whether I need a bachelor's degree or not, and it's damn depressing and irritating because I feel that the studio won't treat me equally if I lack a great educational background. I can write, that's not true. I highly, highly don't think so, but it would be horrible if they do, but I have thoughts about all of this, right? I know most of the people feel exactly like me because I can see various questions on Quora about the same, but they always end up in two groups where some people will say that no, it's all about the experience and some will say that you need to have a degree in a strong educational background. So I want an unbiased, I'm totally biased, real answer for this question from a professional like you with an amazing experience in industry. You're way too gushing. I mean, I'm just, I'm following along in this industry, you know, the best I can. So my answer is going to be from that very limited perspective of my experience. That being said, you can have a fantastic degree, right? Best schools, multiple degrees, but if you're real is horrible, no one's going to hire you. And if they do, then I don't know, then I don't know what kind of company that is. I mean, if they hire you as an animator and you just can't animate, when you've got top degrees that I'm not sure what you use, I don't know, I don't know why they would. So my again, subjective thought of that is that about that is that ultimately it is, and it's not even your experience. I mean, yes, if you work a couple of companies and you want to switch companies, of course, the experience comes into play, but so you, you've gone through a project from beginning to the end, you have dealt with deadlines and people and production and potentially clients, all of that is extremely helpful. That's why they sometimes on job postings, they say, you know, one, two, three experience years of experience needed. So you can't discount that. But in terms of do you need a degree? My answer is always if you're a foreigner, at least for me, again, this is my perspective, coming from Switzerland to the States, I needed a degree either bachelor's or a master's to apply for my, my work visa. That was just a requirement. Maybe in the country that you want to work at, they don't have the requirements. I don't know. So again, this is very subjective. So for me, I needed that degree. That's why I went to a school here also back then mentor and I animate and Adams will none of those schools existed. So it was just kind of the only thing I could do. But the degree was important to me because of that requirement because of the work visa. But ultimately, I got hired because of the real it wasn't so where did you go to school? It was more like, Oh, you were a foreigner. Oh, you need a visa. Yeah, we can do this. We can do something potentially. I mean, thanks, Allen for doing that. So for me, it's no, my answer is no, you don't need a great educational background. If you're really awesome, obviously, the more educational background you have will only be beneficial to you. If that's something that you know, it's the thing is people, some people need school, they just need a curriculum, they need a general education, it can only help them expand their field of, you know, just the appreciation of the arts and all that good stuff. And some people might just not need that at all. They just want a very specific, I want to learn animation. That's it. I want to be awesome at that. And they can go through that, you know, path and then have a great really get hired. So again, it's very subjective. I don't see why a studio would not hire you because of the lack of education. When it comes to to animation specifically, again, I can't speak about elder disciplines or other companies or other jobs, you know, for some jobs, I'm sure education is a requirement for something. In terms of animation, it really is your real like you're really all that's cool. I want to hire this person. And then it's your interview and then it's about you as a person from a, you know, like a social point of view and a personal point of view, will you mesh with this team? But that's kind of it. So that's kind of my long, somewhat answer. I hope it's helpful. But again, to me, education is because of potential visa issues or requirements. And then ultimately, it's your real. Now, if you if you want to go to school for more experience and more training, then that's something that you can afford and you can do. Why not? And if you can't or don't want to, then you don't have to there are a ton of ways to learn animation outside of a break in order school. Paco Elson, Paco Elson, Paco Elson, it seems like one thing, which workflow do you usually follow for your animations? Well, my answer now is that it's the shock that dictates my workflow. My general workflow is that I key the whole character. This is very rough, right? But the whole character every four frames, and then kind of move my keys in a timeline for general timing, right? And I set keys with poses that kind of tell the stories where you have a very big anticipation pose, a contraction, maybe a full extension of the jump, like all the clear poses. And then I move around the text in the timeline in Maya to adjust the posing so that it's clear. And the timing is right. And then I go layer. So I use the root and then the chest and then head and arms and legs, depending on what the shot needs. That's kind of my general approach. That being said, if I do something at home, you know, like that pigeon, I'm walking at a pigeon shot, that was all straight ahead, which I never really do. But that was the shot, the first shot especially was all straight ahead. It's almost improvised. So that's because that was the type of shot where I thought I could explore this and try this. Now at work, we have live action plays. We have a very set length of like the shot length. So with something like this, I go more pose to pose, where I go, I need this pose here, this pose here, this pose at the end. These are the storytelling poses I need to, I need to tell or show. How do I arrange my timing now to make this fit within that shot length and that limitation? And that's just, you know, potentially with one character. So if you have two characters fighting, then it depends. Well, how long do they fight? Do I do one character first, punch the other character? Or are they wrestling and tumbling? Well, then I might have to constrain them and look at that setup. Maybe it's too complex. And I'm going to start with just spheres and kind of move around and simplify the scene to give me a better overview. So to me, at this point, it's again, that general workflow that I just mentioned, but ultimately it's kind of the shot that dictates like a mocap shot is different than a keyframe shot versus a keyframe creature versus a keyframe human. Again, the type of shot is going to dictate my workflow. Lenin Garcia. I'm saying these in a specific accent. Again, I apologize. What kind of practice you do in your free time? Do you animate or analyze a movie? I don't animate in my free time, but I want to and I should. It all comes down to time. I spend a lot of time at work and I still really, really love teaching. Now, if I would not teach, I would probably animate more at home because also, you know, I love work, but it's always a specific type of work. And I would like to do something else at home just to kind of practice different things and keep my animation muscles, you know, practice on train that stuff. But it then comes just down to time. So do I practice animation free time? No. But I'm trying to, there are many things I need to figure out with my computer and the specs, it's old and the schedule, but that's one of the reasons why I like my YouTube uploads because it's a self-imposed deadline. So one of the things I want to do, which I haven't done yet for many reasons, but it's coming hopefully very, very soon for my animation be faced to do walk cycles of rigs. So I can test the rigs, but it gives me a deadline. So it's maybe maybe once a month, maybe less, maybe more. And that's kind of like that self-imposed deadline of animating constantly. So I want to do this with cycles, I want to do this with quick tests, but I want to fold that into animation before I can upload on my site. So I'm trying to figure out some ways to force myself to animate at home and practice. But again, there's work, there's family or family and work, just don't have too much time. Now, when it comes to analyzing a movie, I do that a lot. Clearly, I got my animation or acting analysis that I posted, TV shows or movies, because I love movies and it's also something I can do with my wife and kid or friends, I go to a theater. I mean, it's easier for me to watch a movie and sit down and relax and watch a movie than to sit down and animate because then it's kind of isolated. I can also watch out. You know, I'm getting older, so my fingers, elbows next and my back, like I got to watch out physically. I'm not constantly in front of the screen. So many reasons to favor right now analyzing movies versus animating. But again, I want to find a good balance. And that's kind of what kind of practice. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of in terms of practicing, yeah, analyze movies. I mean, the thing is I am online a lot. If you follow me on Twitter, you can see all my retweets. I just really like seeing other people's work, reading what other people's workflow or seeing people's demos or, you know, like looking at other animation channels. I just like ingesting all that information that gives me a different kind of education. And I just like to be exposed to that. I don't know if that's called practice, but I'm going to use the kind of the things that I do that are animation related. Elina Felici. Felici Felici. Amazing. Thanks you for this acting analysis. You're very welcome. I don't remember what this was for, which one it was. It must be Chernobyl. I love the show. And the second I saw on YouTube that you uploaded an essay on Chernobyl, there you go. I went straight to watching it. I have a question. It's not really about the show or this video in particular. It's more about polishing and using references when polishing. Do you do that? Yes, I do. Because until now I have been taught to use the references just at the beginning stage when blocking the shot and then putting them aside, not to get too caught up into rotoscoping or making your animation too realistic and not believable. Watching your acting analysis, I realized though that to add some small details, like the protagonist talking at the phone, you might actually need to look at a very well acted reference. It's not something that, for example, I would do when shooting references being animated myself. I don't really have those acting skills. So how do you deal with adding those small details? Do you feel as an animator where to put them or do you use a specific reference? Serve a long question. Don't be sorry. I'm a bit struggling with this at the moment. I'm currently polishing an acting shot and I feel like to step up the level there is something that I still need to understand. Those are great questions and my answer to all of that is yes. Meaning. I shoot reference at the beginning. Again, not always, but I shoot reference for sure at the beginning. Just because even if I don't use it, it gives me, like it forces me to try new things. I kind of feel out how the body moves. It gives me a bit of a reference point of weight shifts and just, this is a general what the character could do. But it also helps me if I do shoot and look at it. The mechanics, how does my body move? I also do multiple takes so that I don't get used to one or I'm too stiff. I like to just loosen up and a lot of times I use the takes are in between the loop or if I listen to lip sync before the new loop starts and kind of just dry gestures, a bit more natural. I do use that. That being said, I have used reference and shot reference where it's just the body and then it's just the face, just eyes specifically or just fingers. Or sometimes you're halfway into a shot or you're, again, you're polishing like, I really need those finer details on fingers or eyes or just head moves and I would absolutely go back to reference. So I'm not in the school of thought of shoot reference at the beginning and that's it. To me, reference is not, it's not something I want to copy. Unless you have to, unless it's like some creature moment in the client or whoever wants to do exactly what's in that clip and you might end up just rotoscoping the whole thing. Even then, it's not like a magic button. Rotoscoping is not easy. It's a lot of work, but usually you still have to put an extra layer on top of that thing. Seeing things in real life is one way, but you copy that into CG sometimes just doesn't work. You got to still add that extra thing, still exaggerate despite being photoreal. Body comes with cartoony stuff. You definitely don't want a rotoscope. It's a totally different style. But that being said, I'm not, again, I'm not in the school thought of using it once and then that's it. It's for me, it's reference and it's help throughout the things where if I don't understand a move or I need more, you know, inspiration for an acting moment or whatever it is, I use this continuously until the very end. Or I'm just asking, do you feel as an anime where to put them, speak of the details? Again, I don't always use reference. So sometimes you just have to kind of feel your way through a shot. You have to kind of make it up and pretend things and just, you know, come up in your head with this could be a move and somehow based all of that on either reference you shot or reference you find online so that the basis is, you know, based on some reality or some creature that exists in real life if you're doing something, you know, fantasy like. So it's not always referenced. So yes, sometimes you just kind of have to feel your way through those details and just kind of pretend. But I definitely use reference throughout the whole process. It doesn't have to be just at the very beginning or it's the opposite where I just I just think about it and the thumbnail but kind of plan it in my head, animate it and at the very end like, hmm, I really need some really detail, you know, reference for my polish and then I only shoot reference at the very end for very specific a grab or a look or I darts. So I don't my usage of reference it really all over the place, whatever helps the shop. Mary Quintero Quintero Quintero. Do you think it's necessary a private school to begin in the animation world? No, I'm a graphic designer pretty old actually 26. That's not all how dare you, but I want to take the risk to study animation. It costs a lot and I've been saving for a while, but I really want your opinion. So again, it's one of those questions where my opinion is very subjective and I'm not going to tell you what to do because I don't know you. I don't know where you live. You know, I don't know your financial situation. I know nothing about you besides a name which might even be made up. So my answer is always A, you're not old at 26 and no, you don't have to go to private school. You can do any kind of education. Again, I went to the Academy of Art because I knew nothing about anything like animation, the effects are nothing. So I wanted that general education just for myself. But again, I needed a bachelor's to apply for my work visa to work here in the States. So I have many reasons for that. At the same time, you might not need any of this, right? So you could do private school, maybe, but it's not needed. You can also just do animation mentor or any of the other animation schools or you take my workshops or you want to do something where it's not a full school curriculum but you want feedback over a specific, you know, amount of time with gaps and it's cheaper. So you can do that. I mean, you can do all kinds of things. I know I don't think it's necessary. You might even not be what you want at all. Maybe the the rigidity of a school setup and curriculum is maybe just you hate that. It could also be really expensive. And at 26, I mean, you got options. I mean, I started pretty late too, if that's considered late. So no, that is my opinion. And there's a ton of stuff for free online. I mean, my channel is free and many, many animation people online who do a ton of lectures and demos. I mean, there's a lot of stuff you can get for free. So yeah, to me, no, and you got many options to to to train and practice without spending a lot of money. Good dream. As an animator, what would you consider a successful career? It's interesting. If you ask me that 15 years ago, the ends would be different. I think now, because I'm older, to me, what is successful? That's such a subjective question. It's going to be very cliche, but for me, a successful career is being happy is very broad. It might just be very cliche answer. But like when I started out, I wanted to work like I want to work at specific companies, right? That was one of the goals. So that for me was success. Oh, I made it into a bigger company, which again, is very subjective and is not needed. You might not like it at the big company. You might be for smaller companies. You have a lot more freedom at smaller companies, right? So already that is very subjective. But that was one of the things that I wanted to work at a bigger company and want to work on those big movies. And that to me was like for me, it was success. Oh, I made it. But once you're in it, like, well, I want to work on specific projects. So then that was the goal. But then as you worked on those projects, you work with specific people. So then my success was, oh, I want to work with those people. I want to be with them. I want to learn from them. I want to be around them. Was there fun? So that to me was a different aspect of success. Then once you have that, like, well, now I want to expand my skills and my knowledge. I want to do something new. I want to, I would like to be elite. And now I'd like to be a supervisor. I have different stages of career goals. And, you know, you may or may not achieve them. And then may or may not be successful. But the older I get in terms of family, you know, like you got your family life, you got work life and projects, it comes more like in my, not to say content as in you just kind of give it up and just kind of happy with whatever you have. It just has a certain feeling of happiness in terms of I have this job and I'm very aware that I'm lucky to have this job and it's a difficult landscape out there nowadays. So to me, that is already success. I have a job. I do what I love. I'm happy with my family. I got way too many toys, as you can see, I'm massively spoiled. I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't see how you cannot consider this a success. I mean, to me, this is successful. I'm happy. Now within that bubble, that very subjective bubble, yes, of course, I have different aspirations that sometimes I'm frustrated that I didn't get yet. Or I feel like, man, I don't have time to do this and I need to learn more to get there. And as you know, there's always a goal. And to me, at least that's important to have always a five, 10 year plan. You have, you know, long term goals and you're gonna try to reach them. But I know I have already achieved my success, which is again my subjective thing. I loved Star Wars. I wanted to work on a Star Wars movie, which I've done. And then now everything else is just kind of a, it's a gravy train. You mean like, I don't know, again, it's very subjective. But that's, that's kind of how I see it. I go through phase where, oh man, I wish I could do this. I wish I could be on this movie. And then a phase where like, man, I've, I've achieved what I wanted. I mean, I could quit right now. And I will be, and I will be happy. Like I've done, I've done it. I mean, I'm very happy. But again, this fluctuates depending on, on, you know, your some of the dreams and goals you have and stuff that happen. So what would you consider a successful career? It really depends on, on, on your own definition of success. This is a really non-answer. But that's my, that's my honest answer to that. My, my thought of success and career is going to be totally different. Ultimately, I think whatever makes you happy, again, this is very general, but it doesn't matter what job you have. If you do something that where you're excited to get up and do your job, like that to me is a success. And it doesn't have to be animation. Obviously, it could be whatever job you have. So to me, I mean, I wake up and I'm pumped to go to work and, and, and to animate an x-wing. I mean, spoiler, there's an x-wing in this movie. I mean, I open Maya and I have Star Wars vehicles there. And then, you know, I'm happy. What can I say? But that is my subjective view. It's a very long answer to a very short question there. And I hope I answered it somehow. Three questions. Abdul Fahim. Hi. I have three questions. First, after blocking stage, when you hit spline, your animation, sometimes I read this in a very weird way. After blocking stage, when you hit spline, your animation, sometimes there is wobbling in shots and ULA filter is not helping and you don't know which control is causing that. How do you find that cause and how do you solve it? That's a great question. Actually, I went through that with a student last semester. This couldn't figure out where that stuff comes from. Well, save your scene. So you can, you can futz around with it and you don't break anything. But usually I just start deleting animation from controllers. It's like, hmm, it could be this, delete. Oh wait, that bump is still there. Delete this. The bump is still there. And I just try to delete everything until I find that moment. If you can't visually identify the bump or the wiggles, right? You look at your control in the graph editor. If you see your curves, I mean, that's one way to see it. If you don't find it, I start just deleting animation from all kinds of controls until I hit this thing. And if, you know, it's kind of, we were back to just seeing you save, then you know where to fix things. It's a good question though. And that's why I'd be very careful in terms of like animation layers or multiple nodes or constraints or whatever your extra setup on top of a rig is. You might get lost into things like this where you got wobble and weird stuff happening. You don't know where that come from or came from. Second, so in most of your videos, you have talked about two things. The most one is taking and finding the reference and another one is animation should not be references. So why is that? What if you want something specific like a cartoon takes or something you cannot do in real life or you like that choice in animation or something you want to add into your animation you like is that wrong? Why animation should not be a reference for animation? Okay, I think I understand what you mean. So what I'm taking out of this is that you should use reference, but it should not use live action reference, but you should not use animation reference. Now, I mean, subjective and this is something that I've been told, but as I've gone through things, I kind of agree. The thing is, if you're looking at animation for reference, that specific move or performance has gone through the whole process of looking at reference, analyzing it, distilling the essence, doing a caricature on top of that and stylizing it like that's that's that animators take on this. So if you do this, it's just to me a replica as a copy of a copy, where I prefer to look at something that's real, but then take the essence of that right? Oh, I did something real, but this would never work in the cartoony world. But I like the idea behind is the intent behind that move. Let me take this and exaggerate and emphasize that moment. So if you just look at animation, all the things you're going to look at and learn and potentially copy, it's just going to be more of the same. So then you the performance is going to be the same, it's nothing new. And that's why I would say look at reference, real life reference for something new that you create your own reference, you act it out, or you have your body that does that for you, just to find something new and original. I hope that answers that question. Third, so what should we look for in reference mechanics, timing or everything? When I try to copy a reference, it looks stiff. When I add something to reference in my animation does not match. Well, thanks for your awesome content. You're very welcome. Your animation does not have to match reference. I want to immediately throw that out there. Again, I use reference. It's very subjective. I use reference as reference. I want to refer to that. I don't want to copy it unless I really have to, depending on the style. But you might start with something. And usually my reference, every time I use reference, it's really very rare that I end up like the end animation is exactly what I shot reference wise. Again, unless it's very specifically needed. But so many times like 80% goes out the window. I just take a certain moment, a head turn, a look, a blink. And then I work on top of that. And then the end result is totally different. Again, depending on the style. So right off the bat, your animation does not match and probably should not match depending on the style. And what do I look for timing or everything? Everything. I mean, I shoot reference with timing in mind or I shoot references posing in mind or mechanics of mind. If you hold something or props. So I look at everything depending on what that's not saying. I look at what I need to look at and I shoot reference in terms of what I what I need to see as a reference. So if you're very comfortable with a head turn, then you might not need to shoot reference. I mean, like you don't have to shoot reference all the time. And if you're okay with blinks and eye darts, then you need no reference. But if you need that for help, then I would shoot reference specifically for the things you need. Not just, well, people tell me I need to shoot reference. I'm going to shoot reference and now I look at everything that you shoot. You shoot the things that you need to study. That makes sense. Right. And again, your animation does not have to match it. James, James 3D, James 3D, Jamie 3D could also be the info. Do you think, do you think, do you think that the age of a candidate trying to be an animator after spending half life as an engineer can be a problem? I'm talking about 40. So that's a third age related question. Again, no, I don't think, I don't think it should be a problem. But it could be a problem. It's just hard to answer. It could be a problem for you. I mean, you might have problems with what the company expects of people. I don't know what way, I don't know, maybe the schedule is too, it's too harsh. There's too much to do. There's too much crunch and you just can't do that at your age. You get tired and you have family obligations. So I think it's possible you can switch. You can do something else. You can be an animator at 40, which is all depends if that lifestyle at that company in that country, whatever works with you is very subjective. I think it can work. And of course, I'm not going to say there are zero problems. I'm sure there's a problem somewhere with someone. But generally, I would say it really depends on you. And generally, I would hope that the company would not judge you based on your age. And technically, in some places it's illegal to deny someone a job based on age. Again, again, it depends on where you live and what the standards are there. Elfire, Elfir Elfire. Hey, what is the best way to develop a good instinct for creating fluid motion in an animation? This is specifically for the movement of a character. I've seen plenty of animated work where the characters movements look incredibly artificial, which makes it difficult to really get into the story behind the animations. Good question. The best way to develop a good instinct for creating well, I mean, with good instinct, I mean, experience being exposed to that type of movement and just having seeing that a lot and doing that type of work over and over and over will help you in developing instinct. I mean, you have to develop experience. You have to have experience by also doing that work and making your animation fluid. And the fluidity could be through reference copying things, checking your curves, whatever fluid is. I mean, there are different ways of doing it to be super clean movement or like, I don't know, it depends on the style. But for specifically for a character, you've seen animated work where the characters movements look incredibly artificial. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's tough to say too. You might have a character that's artificial in nature. It could be a fantasy creature, robot or something. And there's no real app counterpart where the artist can go, Oh, yeah, I know what this is. I can make I can compare this to something. And oh, I get this. It makes sense. You might have something that just looks weird to begin with. And then you might also get notes from someone where the notes are weird. And maybe, you know, someone is being driven, not driven, but you get kind of the feedback to make it look that way. So when you say that sometimes movements look incredibly artificial, there are many reasons for that. And sometimes you might be animating something, and you have found no reference, you don't know what to do. The people behind the project don't know what to do. And you just kind of make it up and hope it works. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. I mean, it's not it's not easy. So after answers anything, but the best way to develop a good instinct, be exposed to the type of movement you want to do work on the things that, that, you know, that will necessitate that look at the end. It all comes from exposure and experience and practice and doing things over and over. If that makes sense. Timothy Henning. What are the best animation exercises to master to go from good to great? That's a great question. Because usually I focus on how do you just get started? Bouncing ball, there's a box lift, and there's all that good stuff. But what do you do to go from good to great? That's a good question. I think it would be something where you, you choose piece of exercises that will challenge you in terms of thinking outside the box. You have to kind of also be honest with yourself in terms of, if I do this, have I done this before? Am I comfortable? And, you know, it's not going to be a big deal. But maybe once you have that thought, then push yourself. So maybe from good to great would be, you know, maybe shorten your shot so you can really spend time on this, but then really, really focus on the polish on extra contact points on fingers or weight of squash on the feet or just that you want to focus on those types of details that give you the extra detail in terms of the mechanics and the weight and the properties of something with something is hard or squishy. And then also forcing yourself to kind of rethink acting choices. It's beyond mechanics. You're going to do the performance where you just don't go with your first five ideas, but you just keep practicing and keep shooting takes and keep looking at the things where how can I go beyond that? And in terms of animation exercise, it's a hard one because you are you're past the exercise of mechanics where you have to practice pops and arcs and all that stuff. So for me, good to great. Then it becomes, to me, that's more an idea stage, right? Where it's, you can be good and you can, I mean, you can still be, you know, great in terms of polish, but then the shot is only good. I think there comes a point where once you're done with your mechanical learning, again, spacing arcs and pops and all that good stuff to be great. To me, the greatness comes from the idea behind it, the acting choice is the different, you know, the little texture of timing that makes it just extra special. It's a hard thing to answer. So I guess my honest answer is I don't know the best animation. I don't have a very specific exercise except studying actors around you, if that's what you're going for, for performances. And if you're looking just at animation exercise in terms of mechanics stuff, it would just, hey, look, finding things where you go, this is great. And then studying that great material, be it animation or performance or whatever it is that you want to emulate or, you know, that you aspire to. Hey, I would look at that. Like, what makes, what do you consider to be great? And then look at that and study that frame through it. Look at frame by frame. What are you doing in terms of mechanics? What are the acting choices there? But then you can always extrapolate that and make your own exercises based on that. Other than that, generally I would find exercises where they push you again, think outside the box. So if you do, if you've done a ton of people standing, well, then we do your same shot, but now the character gets up and walks and then stops, right? You can, you can add, you can add complexity so it's not, it doesn't mean that complexity makes it great, but that complexity will force you to, to practice more and dive more into difficult mechanics. So for me, again, the different types of great would be that because of those more complicated exercises, you have more practice in training and figuring out mechanics and problem solving and just the polished aspect. But this might be the more, I would say the hidden great aspect. It's more just, it's just better animation from a technical point of view. And then the second part would be the great thing is that look at, again, inspiration in terms of performance or just good animation that you see online, online or wherever you can, where it's more about the idea, the concept of the work, but I don't have specific exercises for that in terms of like what are good ideas. Again, you would have to look at outside work and escape feedback, you know, like you can, you can't really do any of that in the bubble. So to me, getting great ideas, like if I had great ideas on my own, like I would write a book on this and, you know, make millions. But to me, the ideas that end up being great to me, as in my experience, they're always part of a feedback loop. So you show something, be it in dailies or your friends, and then you get feedback, iterate on that more feedback. It's a constant back and forth. So to me, I don't know if this is helpful at all, but these are kind of my jumble thoughts on that. I wish I had exercises, like specific exercises to go from good to great, but I don't. My, my off the cuff answer after half an hour of me rambling would be take, take whatever exercise you've done, if they're mechanical, and just add an extra layer of character to it, where it's just, there might just be an extra emotion or a physical state to something where someone's tired or angry or, you know, like something put that on top of things. And then, and then redo your animation with that. And if you, you know, and if you can, it's very hard to do, but just get into the head of your character and think about what would this character do? What would be an honest acting choice? Well, how would this character honestly react within that environment to what's going on out there? But again, if I had a list of exercises to begin, this is, this would have to be great. I don't. I'm somewhat stumped. That's a great question. And now I'm going to, how about this? I'm going to think about this for a long time. And I want to, that would be a great thing to record and really research and have a great list of, if you do this, this and this, it might help you become great. I'm sure there's no surefire list there, but it's a good question. I would love to open this up to the comments, given my non-answer. But I like this. So Timothy, I'm going to keep thinking about this. This is going to be ruminating my brain. And I want to come up with some good exercise that are beyond, you know, the beginner to good, but from good to great. Anyway, it's like a 10 minute bramble, nothing. Thanks, Timothy. Oh, is that the last one? Ah, that is the last one for now. Well, what a way to end this Q&A, a Q&A with a non-answer. We should just be silent for 10 minutes and think about this. What should we do? But I love this. I love this question. Because it would be very helpful to have a good list of, well, if you do this, this is going to push you and, you know, at least push you in terms of the mechanics, push you in terms of the acting choices. So yeah, I'm going to ruminate that. Maybe what I said was helpful. Maybe, I don't know. I mean, if you're seeing this, respond. You can reply. Let me know in the comments. Yeah, that was poop for thought. Or no, useless answer. How dare you waste my time with this? But that is it, right? Yes. So there are at least two more parts coming, got lots more questions. But for now, that's it. What is this? 10 minutes is probably going to be like a 40 minutes, maybe a bit more clip. So yeah, that's it from me, another round of Q&As. As always, any questions? This is the clip with the comments to ask those questions. I will compile them and save them. And I will keep answering those questions. If you have questions, maybe go back through the older Q&As. Maybe I've answered your question there already. But even if you haven't looked through these, I mean, I will post these up. Some questions are always worth asking multiple times because not everybody watches everything. This might be the first time they hear this question. So I'm always kind of re-grab some older questions if someone asks the same question before, because it's always worth answering some very bigger question that everybody has. I'm still, as I'm saying all this, I'm still thinking about this last question. It's like, this would be so good to have a really definite list. So Timothy, you're a champ for putting this into my brain. I'm not going to sleep all night. I need to figure this out. But anyway, that is it. I will see you in my next Q&A. If you're the usual, like and subscribe. If you want to subscribe, hit that bell button. All that good stuff. You know the whole thing, the YouTube thing. But you know how it is. Of course, you don't have to like, you don't have to subscribe. You have to do nothing. But if you have any questions though, I do would like comments so that I can help you with something that hasn't been answered yet. But that's it. Enough of Ramble. It's a long clip. I will see you in my next Q&A. Or if you're watching any other clips, I will see you there. Thanks.