6bddb431331fb3217d6c6e6e22d96081

LightWave 3D 8
Character Animation
Timothy Albee
Wordware Publishing, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Albee, Timothy.
LightWave 3D 8 character animation / by Timothy Albee.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-55622-099-5 (pbk., companion cd-rom)
1. Computer animation. 2. Computer graphics. 3. LightWave 3D. I. Title.
TR897.7.A425 2004
006.6'96--dc22 2004023270
© 2005, Wordware Publishing, Inc.

All Rights Reserved
2320 Los Rios Boulevard

Plano, Texas 75074
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means

without permission in writing from Wordware Publishing, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 1-55622-099-5
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0410
LightWave 3D is a registered trademark of NewTek, Inc.

All brand names and product names mentioned in this book are trademarks or service marks of their
respective companies. Any omission or misuse (of any kind) of service marks or trademarks should not
be regarded as intent to infringe on the property of others. The publisher recognizes and respects all
marks used by companies, manufacturers, and developers as a means to distinguish their products.
This book is sold as is, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, respecting the contents
of this book and any disks or programs that may accompany it, including but not limited to implied
warranties for the book’s quality, performance, merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose.
Neither Wordware Publishing, Inc. nor its dealers or distributors shall be liable to the purchaser or any
other person or entity with respect to any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to have been
caused directly or indirectly by this book.
All inquiries for volume purchases of this book should be addressed to Wordware
Publishing, Inc., at the above address. Telephone inquiries may be made by calling:
(972) 423-0090
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vIii
Chapter 1 About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Who Is This Book For? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 How to Use This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 The Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 The Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Chapter 2 Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics,

and IK Booster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 FK (Forward Kinematics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 IK (Inverse Kinematics). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
What Is IK? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
“Standard” IK Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
“Standard” IK Hazards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
“Standard” IK Rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3 IK Booster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Applying IK Booster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Long Chain Dependability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
IK Booster and Movement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
IK Booster and Keyframes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Pose and Motion Saving and Loading . . . . . . . . . 35
Quaternion Rotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Keyframe Move Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4 Newbie Sensory Overload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 3 Prepping Your Character for Setup . . . . . . . . . . . 41

3.1 Where Is He Going to Bend? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2 Pre-bending to Help IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter 4 Boning Your Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

4.1 Adding Bones to Your Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.2 Spinal Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3 Hand Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.4 Foot Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.5 Fingers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.6 IK System Skelegons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
iii
Contents
Chapter 5 Converting, Organizing, and Aligning . . . . . . . . . 85

5.1 Converting Skelegons to Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.2 Organizing the Schematic into Something Helpful . . . . 89
5.3 Aligning the Spine, Pelvis, and Feet . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.4 Bone Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.5 Recording Pivot Rotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.6 Recording Bone Rest Information . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter 6 Putting IK and IKB to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

6.1 Terminating IK Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.2 Creating Goal Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.3 Activating IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
6.4 Activating Individual Controllers. . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.5 Deactivating Individual Manual Controls . . . . . . . . 122
6.6 Applying IK Booster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Chapter 7 Point Weighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

7.1 Point Weighting Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
7.2 Beginning the Point Weighting Process . . . . . . . . . 135
7.3 Swapping Models and Testing Weight Mappings . . . . 148
7.4 The Use Weight Map Only Option . . . . . . . . . . . 156
7.5 Finding Stray Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
7.6 Straightening the Feet for Animation . . . . . . . . . . 161
7.7 Putting Him Through the Motions . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
7.8 Tidying Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Chapter 8 Using the Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

8.1 The Model Itself. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
8.2 Root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
8.3 Pelvis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
8.4 Spinal Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
8.5 Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
8.6 Hand Translation Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
8.7 Hand Rotation Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
8.8 Shoulder Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
8.9 Elbow Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
8.10 Foot Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
8.11 Toe Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
8.12 Knee Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
8.13 The Fingers and Thumb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
8.14 Notes on Modifying the Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
8.15 IK Booster Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Fingers/Toes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
iv
Contents
Knees/Elbows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Shoulders/Hips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Spine/Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Hands/Feet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Control Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Chapter 9 Life Drawing — The Next Logical Step . . . . . . . . 211

9.1 The Standing Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
9.2 The Seated Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
9.3 The Reclining Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
9.4 The Character and Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
9.5 The Timed Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
9.6 The “Cool Walk” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
9.7 Clickin’ Them Heels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
9.8 Batter Up! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
9.9 Life Drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Chapter 10 Reviewing Animation Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

10.1 Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
10.2 Squash and Stretch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
10.3 Gesture and Line of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
10.4 Anticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
10.5 Drag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
10.6 Follow-Through . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
10.7 Easing In/Easing Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
10.8 Moving Holds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Chapter 11 Advanced Animation Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . 265

11.1 Silhouette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
11.2 Exaggeration (“Bad” Poses) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
11.3 Snappy Animation (Modified Timings) . . . . . . . . . 281
11.4 Circular Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
11.5 Successive Breaking of the Joints. . . . . . . . . . . . 285
11.6 Overlapping Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
11.7 Entertainment Value (Presentation) . . . . . . . . . . . 288
11.8 Acting, Not Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
11.9 The Importance of Thumbnails (Planning Your Scene) . 292
11.10 Pacing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Chapter 12 Taking a Scene from Start to Finish . . . . . . . . . . 297

12.1 Do Your Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
12.2 Talk with the Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
12.3 Scene Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
v
Contents
12.4 Visualize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

12.5 Thumbnail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
12.6 Exposure Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
12.7 Animate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
12.8 Examine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
12.9 Critique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
12.10 Revise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Chapter 13 Important Points for Every Scene . . . . . . . . . . . 309

13.1 Composition/Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
13.2 Appealing Poses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
13.3 Anticipation, Drag, Follow-Through . . . . . . . . . . 312
13.4 Weight/Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
13.5 Entertainment Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
13.6 Characterization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
13.7 Character Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
13.8 Storytelling/The Distillation of One Main Idea . . . . . 314
13.9 What’s Best for the Production (Don’t Grandstand) . . . 315
Chapter 14 Additional Practice Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

14.1 The Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
14.2 Life Drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
14.3 Scenes to Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
14.4 Scenes to Create . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Walk Cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
14.5 Where to Go Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Chapter 15 Digitigrade Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

15.1 Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
15.2 Plantigrade Modifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Chapter 16 On the Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

16.1 Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
16.2 Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
16.3 Watching Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
16.4 Other Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Chapter 17 Finding the Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

17.1 Radiating Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Exercise 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Exercise 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Exercise 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
vi
Contents
17.2 The Psychological Gesture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Exercise 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Exercise 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Exercise 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Exercise 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Exercise 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Exercise 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
17.3 Characterization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
17.4 Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
17.5 The Animator’s Trust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Chapter 18 Advanced Animation Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

18.1 Dope Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
18.2 Dope Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
18.3 Motion Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Chapter 19 Facial Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

19.1 Two Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
Facial Riggings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
Morph Targets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
19.2 Endomorphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
19.3 Expression Morphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
19.4 Asymmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
19.5 Re-Symmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
19.6 Dialogue Morphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
19.7 “Plussing” Morphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
19.8 Morph Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
19.9 Sample Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
19.10 Recycling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Chapter 20 Timothy Albee’s Facial Animation . . . . . . . . . . 459

20.1 Remember Yoda? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
20.2 A Separate Program? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
20.3 FA’s Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
20.4 Morph Targets and FA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
20.5 Integration with LightWave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
Chapter 21 In Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
vii
Foreword
Perhaps you’re one of those people who, as a kid, sat in a darkened
movie theater watching a great animated movie and said to yourself,
“I want to do that.”
I know I was. At the time, all I could do was draw my own
“flipbooks,” as there was very little written about the technique of
animation. The big breakthrough for me came when I discovered
something called an “Animation Kit” at Disneyland some 45 years
ago. It consisted of a simple light board, some model sheets of Dis-
ney characters, a booklet on “How to Animate,” and some punched
paper.
With this animation kit, I could finally create my own animation!
After seeing my first pencil tests, I was hooked. My fate was sealed.
I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life.
Of course, my first work was quite crude; so my next task was
to find a way to learn the skills it took to become a real animator.
A generation or two ago, there were no schools teaching anima-
tion. About the only way to learn “the craft” was to serve an often
lengthy apprenticeship with a journeyman animator. Slowly, under
this apprenticeship, the secrets of animation would be revealed at a
rate designed (no doubt for job security) by those who held the few
positions there were for animators.
I was lucky in that I was able to study under the great master
animator Art Babbit, who animated the queen in Snow White and
Geppetto in Pinocchio. Art maintained that an animator should be
something of a Renaissance man. He should be well-read and be
well versed in the arts, including painting, drawing, music, dance,
and films. In other words, in order to portray life, you needed to
understand life. In 1980, Art disliked intensely the idea that comput-
ers might someday “take over” the animation business. He said if
they did, the operator would have to be an animator. He was cer-
tainly right about that.
viii
Foreword
The art of animation was brought to one of its high points dur-
ing the 1940s at the Disney studios by a group of animators known
as “the nine old men.” They were revered by their underlings as
almost “god-like” and have since been accorded the greatest of
respect by everyone in the industry. The performances they leave
us today are among our greatest cultural treasures. Their work has
served as an inspiration to countless young students of the craft.
Any serious study of animation must include the works of these
masters.
Animation has changed much in recent years. A great deal of
this change is due to a resurgence of interest in it as a medium, and
the introduction of the computer as an animator’s tool. Although the
work of the early computer animation pioneers was revolutionary
and impressive, I believe it was not until experienced traditional and
stop-motion animators learned to use computers that the CG indus-
try as we know it today was born. The responsibilities of the
animator did not change when animators exchanged their pencils for
mice and keyboards. Now they simply had a very powerful assistant
that relieved them of the burden of drawing and could quickly gen-
erate perfect inbetweens. But it will always require someone with
the skills of an animator to bring a character to life, no matter what
the medium.
With all this activity, there is now a great demand for the knowl-
edge that created the big CG hits of today. There are a few good
schools that teach animation, but of course, the quality of instruc-
tion is only as good as the instructors themselves. And not all of
them have hands-on experience in the field. There is nothing like
learning from someone who has been in the trenches as the author
of this book has been for many years. Until recently, there has been
relatively little written about the actual hands-on, nuts-and-bolts
process of creating an animated performance. The problem I find
with most animation books today is they give you only part of the
picture. Some books on animation have emphasized only the techni-
cal side. Other books talk only about acting. Still others concentrate
on action analysis. This book represents one-stop shopping for the
aspiring computer animator. Not only does it deal with all the tech-
nical mysteries of such things as Inverse Kinematics, but it also
reveals all of the time-honored principles of classical character
animation.
ix
Foreword
In my career, I have met only a very small handful of individuals

whose knowledge encompasses both the technical and the artistic
aspects of animation. Such a person is a rare bird indeed, and Timo-
thy Albee is one of these. Tim takes you step by step through all the
stages you will need to bring your characters to life. You have here,
distilled into one book, all the skills and knowledge you need to
begin to create your own performances.
Now the rest is up to you.
Tom Roth
Animator, Hercules (Hades), Dinosaur (Yar), Stuart Little,
Shrek, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Scooby Doo
x
Chapter 1
About This Book
1.1 Who Is This Book For?

This book is for anyone who has ever had a character in their heart
that they’ve wanted to bring to life with as much fluidity, power, and
grace as can be seen in the best animated feature films. This is a
book for anyone who has wanted to become an animator but hasn’t
gone to Sheridan College in Toronto or CalArts in Valencia. This is a
book for animators who have progressed as far as they can on their
own and want to hone their skills to the level of feature-quality ani-
mation. This is a book for feature-quality animators skilled on other
software platforms who have a project that requires them to use
LightWave.
This is the book I wish had been available when I was starting
out as a LightWave animator.
This is not just a book on how to set up and point weight charac-
ters. It is not yet another book that covers the same basics that
nearly every other book on animation presents as “all-there-is-to-
know.” This book covers the complex animation mechanics that are
locked inside every beautifully animated scene but that are difficult to
understand until someone shows you how. It took many gifted people
with careers in animation going back over 30 years to show me what
I hadn’t learned in school or in the books I’d read. I’ve taught many
people who’ve worked for me on projects ranging from films to video
games how to see, understand, and internalize these techniques and
subtleties. It is my goal in this book to pass this information on to a
1
Chapter 1: About This Book
much larger audience, and by doing so, raise the level of animators
and the way others perceive animators all across the board.
Animation is an incredible art. It encompasses so much techni-
cal and artistic skill that in my experience, nothing else comes close
to the impact it has on the artist or the viewer. We’re moved by
good animation in a way we can’t explain. And there are those of us
who are so touched by it that it consumes us and we have to make it
a part of ourselves. We give our lives to it. And once we finally
understand how to breathe life into these ideas and archetypes we
have had deep within our own mind’s eye, there is no better place to
be than in the space that is created when you’re animating.
When you’re working on a piece, time drops away. And it’s not
like working on a painting where the characters never move. You’re
working on a “drawing” that lasts through time; you’re drawing in
four dimensions. Your characters evolve ever so slightly from the
beginning to the end of your scene, and they begin to breathe life of
their own. This only happens, however, when you know the simple
and complex mechanics of animation so well that they become a
part of you; you don’t have to think about them and you can just let
the scene flow out through you.
We, as computer animators, have a much bigger challenge than
traditional animators. Sure, the computer takes care of perspective
for us, and we don’t need an army of inbetweeners and digital ink
and painters to see our work in the smoothness of animating on
“ones” (a new image on every frame) and the beauty of brilliant
color. But we do have issues and problems that traditional artists
have never had to think about. I don’t think it’s ever been on record
that a pencil has frozen or crashed and erased a stack of drawings
— a day’s work — because the animator forgot to save. Traditional
animators don’t also have to be “technical directors” and understand
how to build setups that let them be creative, rather than fighting
the computer every step of the way. They don’t have to figure out
why even though their character’s hand is still flat on the table, his
arm is now sticking straight out behind him. More often than not,
we as computer animators have had to learn how to cope with all of
this on our own, even if we did go to school for it.
This book is here to give you the tools you need to stop fighting
the computer. It is here to let you learn and internalize the things
that make animation come to life so your evolution as an animator
can really begin. This is only the first step, but it is a first step from
2
the point of view of feature-quality animation, and that is what will

make all the difference in the world.
Yes, this book focuses on LightWave, and the sections on char-
acter setup show step by step how to use LightWave’s Inverse
Kinematics (IK) to build strong, dependable setups you can use for
any character you envision. But even if you are using another pack-
age, if it supports a strong, dependable IK engine, the information
will help you all the same. The buttons may be different between
packages, but IK is still IK. What separates 3D packages in terms of
those that are good for character animation and those that aren’t is
the solidity of the package’s IK engine. LightWave has one of the
best — quietly and without hype. (If you are using another software
package, I’d suggest trying LightWave; you might just be pleasantly
surprised. I’ve used all the major packages on projects from feature
films to video games, and I keep coming back to LightWave. I’ve
amazed motion technical directors with how much more powerful
the setups on LightWave can be than on packages costing many
times more.)
Everything else in this book will be directly useful to you
regardless of what 3D software you’re using (even if you’re animat-
ing on paper)! Whether you are a traditional animator or computer
animator, you must first and foremost be a good animator. Under-
standing the mechanics of animation, both the simple and complex,
should be your primary goal. The computer provides the tools; you
provide the force that drives them.
1.2 How to Use This Book

This book is broken down into sections. Each section deals with a
different aspect of the character setup and animation process. If
you’re like most folks out there, you want to learn as much as you
can about all parts of this gig. That’s great! This book will cover
everything you need to know to take your model, set him up for ani-
mation, learn the controls that make him move, and get him moving
like a character that should be on the big screen.
If you’re only interested in one aspect of this process, that’s
okay too! In today’s high-end studios people are highly specialized
and oftentimes an animator won’t know anything about modeling
and is happy to keep it that way. If your focus is on learning to
3
become a better animator, and that’s it, the latter sections will give
you all you need to know. There are scenes you can load that have
all your setups and props made for you so you can jump right
into bettering your skills as an animator.
If you want to be a better technical director and you don’t really
see yourself as having to ever animate a scene, the sections you’ll
be most interested in are the ones close to the front of the book.
Pre-bending, boning, IK, and point weighting are all covered there.
Then there are those who are already masters at one aspect but
want to get a handle on the others. This is a really good idea
because then you’ll understand the issues those on the “other side”
have to deal with, and if you’re a hot-shot animator, you’re much
more likely to treat a TD with understanding if you know what it
takes to get that character set up the way it is, and vice versa. For
you folks (and the people new to LightWave from another package),
there are two things you’ll want to keep your eyes open for: Newbie
Notes and Newbie Blocks.
Newbie Note:
Newbie notes are short little blips that give bits of information
that you might not be familiar with, things to watch out for,
and the like.
Newbie Blocks
These are longer sections that will help you to get up to speed if you
know Modeler but not Layout, or the other way around, or if you’re
new to LightWave from another package. Those of you who know how
to get around inside these modules can most likely skip right over
these blocks. Newbie Blocks are here so you don’t have to break your
flow of concentration by turning to the LightWave manuals. There’s no
way for me to cover everything in these blocks, just the basics. It’s my
attempt to eliminate a bit of the frustration I remember trying to make
an origami model when the book left out some important step because
“everyone” was supposed to know it already.
4
Note:
Notes, on the other hand, are things that everyone should watch
for. Notes are things that might help you right away, or they may
be things that you’ll keep in the back of your mind for a time later
on down the road. They’re bits of information that I’ve picked up
along the way that will probably help you too.
Advanced Note:
Advanced notes are for the hard-core group. These are for people
who like to pull things apart to find out how they work. These are
for the folks who aren’t satisfied with just using something that
works; they want to know how it works and how they can modify it
to suit their needs. You know who you are and these notes are for
you.
1.3 The Models

This book ships with a CD that has models and test scenes on it.
You’re welcome to use the models for your own work; that’s why
they’re there! (Not everyone is a modeler, right?) But if you do use
one or some of the models, please give credit to the guy who built
them for ya. Doesn’t have to be much, just a passing nod — that’s
all I ask.
So, there are a couple of human characters on the CD for you to
start creating character interaction. There are also some cartoony
characters for you to squash and stretch to your heart’s content.
(There’s also a realistic animal, if you’re feeling daring. I have to tell
you, though, quadrupedal animation is enough for a book unto
itself.) Use these and have fun! Create some wonderful animations
that’ll look fantastic on that demo reel of yours! The exercises in
the book will show you how!
5
1.4 The Exercises

This book is full of exercises, from life drawing in 3D to analyzing
animation. Please take the time to do every one. There may be
things you’ve already encountered, especially in the chapter on the
basics of animation, but treat each exercise as though it were a
scene you’ve been assigned that will eventually be reviewed by a
director (and his entourage). Never knowingly leave anything wrong
with your scene. Even if it is something rudimentary, like having
your character getting up out of a chair or swinging a baseball bat,
give that scene feeling, let your character have a reason for being in
that chair at that moment, and let that reason show through in the
action. Like Degas, show a moment in time. Let it seem that your
character existed before the scene began and will go on after the
scene ends. In treating each scene like this, your animation skills
will grow further and faster than you ever thought possible.
It is my greatest wish that you’ll use this information to become
the animator you’ve always wished you could be. Though I cannot
promise to respond to every e-mail, if you have a movie of a scene
that you’re particularly proud of, pack it up as small as possible
(and still have it readable) and send it my way (TimothyA@
ptiAlaska.net); I’d love to see it. If I can, I’ll make comments on it
and get them back to you. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future,
I’ll be watching for your name in the credits of a cool animated
piece!
6
Chapter 2
Inverse Kinematics,
Forward Kinematics,
and IK Booster
What the heck is a “kinematic”? Why would anyone care whether it’s
“forward,” “backward,” or somewhere in between?
Kinematics refers to the study of mechanics concerned with
motion. Where 3D animation is concerned, kinematics defines the
way in which you manipulate a system of hierarchical (parent/child)
items.
2.1 FK (Forward Kinematics)

Forward Kinematics (most often referred to simply as FK) is the “old
reliable” way of animating. It is labor-intensive, but there are no sur-
prises — everything that’s in an animation must be put there, on
purpose, by the animator.
Figure 2.1. Forward Kinematics. Here, you see a hierarchical set of bones that could easily be
a character’s bicep, forearm, and hand.
With FK, if you wanted to make the tip of the character’s

“forearm” reach the null object (represented as the “+” in Figure
7
Chapter 2: Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics, and IK Booster
2.1), you’d have to first rotate the bicep and then the forearm, evalu-
ate how close you got to your objective, and then refine.
As you can see in Figure 2.1, the tip of the forearm overshoots
the null. I’d have to go back and tweak the rotations of the bicep and
forearm again and again (and probably again).
As you can see, there are no surprises in this kind of animation
— everything that’s done must be done on purpose by the animator,
and as such, it is a painfully slow way to work all the myriad of
bones that make up a character’s rigging (skeleton).
2.2 IK (Inverse Kinematics)

Inverse Kinematics (IK) uses an exacting set of calculations to figure
precisely the rotations that need to be applied to each item within a
hierarchical system in order to have the system strive to have its
puller remain in constant contact with its goal.
What Is IK?
Figure 2.2. Inverse Kinematics.
With IK, you set the hand as the puller for the chain of bones and
the null as the puller’s goal, and the bicep and forearm automatically
figure the perfect set of rotations that will keep the puller’s base at
the exact location as the goal’s base.
IK lets an animator focus on the broad strokes of a pose or ges-
ture while the IK solver handles many of the small but important
details. Using IK, you simply pose a character’s hand control, and
the character’s arm bones do what they need to do to remain in con-
tact with the hand’s base.
8
Figure 2.3. IK in action, driving the positioning for a character’s arm.
Note:
Not all IK is created equal! IK requires very precise calculations in
order for it to work dependably. In this, LightWave’s precision
floating-point mathematics engine, which keeps its calculations
accurate to many places to the right of the decimal point, makes
it one of the best packages for character animation.
Other software may have great salesmen, but LightWave has
it where it counts, “where the rubber meets the road.” Thanks to
LightWave’s robust IK, which is dependable and predictable in
every situation, I was able to do nearly ten times the feature-
quality animation per day as is expected from feature animators
using other packages.
“Standard” IK Basics
I’m saying “standard” IK basics here because LightWave’s IK
Booster is as much an advancement on IK as IK itself was on char-
acter animation back in the early ’90s. It’s important to know how
standard IK works and is set up because I’ve found IK Booster to be
put to its best use when it supplements standard IK, giving you the
best of both ways of working.
9
Note:
You may want to change your viewport layout to allow for multiple
views on your project at once (as opposed to the single viewport that is
LightWave Layout’s default). I find this helps me get a better handle on
items’ true positions and rotations in 3D space.
Figure 2.4
Under Edit|Display Options, you’ll find the Viewport Layout set-
ting. I’ve experimented with a lot of options and have settled on 2 Top,
1 Bottom as my current favorite.
Make sure you have one of your viewports set to right by selecting
Right (ZY) from the view’s View Type list. (This will let us more easily
work with the bones in this simple example.)
We’ll be driving our character’s motion with bones eventually,

so let’s use them to explore a standard IK setup. Bones in Light-
Wave need to belong to an object, so we’ll need to first create a null
object to which they’ll belong.
1. Click on Items|Add|Null, and a requester window opens up,
asking what you’d like to name your new null object. Press
Enter (or click OK) to leave the null object’s name “Null.”
(See Figure 2.5.)
10
Note:
Null objects are one of the handiest little things in 3D CGI. They are
“placeholders,” treated by LightWave with all the respect of a “real”
object that has geometry, without taking up any memory or hard
drive space. Null objects don’t show up in a render or cast shadows
(and like vampires, don’t show up in reflective objects either).
Nulls are super-handy when you want to have a “handle” to
move a bunch of different objects, lights, and/or cameras at the
same time, and they’re perfectly suited for the job of being a goal
object in an Inverse Kinematic system.
Figure 2.5
2. Click on Setup|Add|Bone, and a requester window opens,

asking for the name you’d like for your new bone. Accept the
default name of “Bone.”
Figure 2.6
11
3. You can add a second bone that is automatically set to be the

child of the first, automatically positioned at the exact tip of
the first bone, by clicking Setup|Add|Child Bone (or by
pressing the <=> key). Again, a requester window opens,
asking for a name for this new bone. And again, accept the
default name of “Bone.” This new bone will be our puller for
the IK chain.
Figure 2.7
Note:
You’ll notice that
even though you
accepted the
name “Bone” as
the name for the
second bone, it
shows up as
“Bone (2)” in the
Current Item list
(and in Sche-
matic views and
Scene Editor
windows).
Figure 2.8
When there
are two similar items with the same name in a scene, LightWave auto-
matically adds temporary, sequential numbers to the similarly named
items. These numbers go away if/when you choose to rename the item
(which you can do by choosing Rename from the menu that opens
when right-clicking on the item in a Schematic view or Classic Scene
Editor window, or by choosing Items|Replace|Rename).
12
4. Use Items|Add|Null to create another null object, but this

time, name the null Goal. This will become the goal object
(target) of our simple IK chain.
Figure 2.9
Note:
If you’re not yet familiar with animating in LightWave, a hint to make
your life a lot easier is to have Layout automatically create keyframes
for you whenever you move, scale, or rotate an item (as opposed to
having to press Enter or click Create Key every time you want Layout to
remember an item’s scaling, rotation, or translation on a particular
frame — keyframe).
Figure 2.10
13
You activate Auto Key Create by first telling LightWave that you
want Auto Key active by making sure its button is activated at the bot-
tom of the screen.
Then you need to tell LightWave whether you want keys created for
all channels (scaling, rotation, and translation), even when you have
modified only one of those channels, or if you want LightWave to
remember changes only for the specific channel type that has been
modified.
You make this choice under Edit|General Options|Auto Key Create.
Both settings need to be active in order for LightWave’s Auto Key
Create function to be active.
5. Working in a Right viewport, move the null object you’ve just

created and named Goal up and to the left a bit as seen here.
Select Bone (2) by clicking on it (you’ll find it easiest to select
items by clicking on the item’s node in a viewport set to Sche-
matic). Pressing <m> (Window|Motion Options…) opens
the Motion Options window for the selected item. Select Goal
as the goal object for this bone, and check Full-time IK.
Figure 2.11
14
Note:
If you have Display Options|Show IK Chains active, then the moment
you set an IK chain’s goal object, a teal line appears along the length
of the chain in Layout’s windows. Even viewports set to Schematic show
a line connecting the puller with its goal.
Note:
What’s the difference between full-time IK and IK that isn’t “full-time”?
Way back when IK was new, its calculations not yet streamlined,
and 40 MHz was mind-bogglingly fast, the friendly folks at NewTek
thought it’d be a help for animators to have the option of only solving
for IK when the chain’s goal object was moved, requiring keyframes to
be set by hand for the items in the chain. This saved the computer’s
CPU from constantly having to think about IK calculations, and in turn,
sped up the process of animation significantly.
Nowadays, CPUs are so fast, and the calculations for IK so opti-
mized, there’s almost no reason to not have all IK chains full-time. I say
“almost,” because who knows… maybe you may find a need for
part-time IK you can’t live without that nobody else has thought of.
It’s for those instances that NewTek still gives you these and similar
options.
Setting the chain’s goal

object is just the first step in set-
ting up IK. The chain will be
pulled toward the goal, but only
when the parent items in the
chain are told that they can use
IK to solve for their rotations.
6. Selecting Bone (1), click on
the Controllers and Limits
tab in the Motion Options
window. Choose Inverse
Kinematics for its Pitch
Controller. The moment you
do this, LightWave begins
using IK to solve for the
pitch axis for that item and
the bone swings upward,
Figure 2.12
bringing the base of the
puller item as close as it can
get to the goal item.
15
Note:
Figure 2.13
The best way to remember LightWave’s conventions for its axes of rotation is
to think of your hand like an airplane. Heading changes where the “plane” is
heading (represented by a red circle in Layout). Pitch changes its altitude
(green). And bank would be the amount of “roll” (blue).
That’s a quick and easy explanation of standard IK and how to

set it up. The same basics hold true as you add more parts to the
chain, but the math grows ever more complicated for the computer
to figure out.
For IK chains of more than one item, if you want to be able to
depend on IK to behave predictably in complex situations, you’ve
got to help the IK solver as much as possible. This means putting
some restrictions on what you ask IK to do.
“Standard” IK Hazards
Good, old-fashioned IK is a nifty and time-saving tool, but it’s not
perfect. So, here are some things to bear in mind when working
with IK.
Pre-bending
Figure 2.14
16
An IK chain that has two (or more) joints laid out in a straight line is
as apt to swing the child item in the chain up as it is down. While
this is good for things like whips and chains, it’s not so pleasant for
things like elbows and knees.
Figure 2.15
If you need a child item to favor bending in one direction over

another, it is best to set up the IK chain so that it is “pre-bent” in
the direction you want the item to favor.
Note:
Figure 2.16
Some have had great success with using limits to restrict how far a bone will
bend in a given angular direction. However, without the ability to “cushion”
these limits, the resulting motion when an item reaches its limit is often sharp
and inorganic. So I tend to shy away from using limits whenever possible, opting
instead for well-planned models and cleanly executed animation.
17
Number of Axes Solved

When you have two or more joints in an IK chain within a three-
dimensional space, the level of complexity of the calculations that
IK must figure out rises dramatically. If you’re going to want things
to work dependably, you’re going to have to limit what you ask of
the IK solver.
Figure 2.17
If you take a look at your own arm or leg, you’ll find that it’s
built much the same way as the above illustration. Your bicep and
thigh can swing back and forth, and up and down (two axes: heading
and pitch), while your forearm and calf move only around one axis of
the elbow and knee, respectively.
I’ve found that referencing real life in building riggings helps
more than nearly anything else in making character setups that do
what you’d expect them to do.
Figure 2.18
18
While it may be tempting to want to have the shoulder or hip

joints use IK to solve for all three axes (heading, pitch, and bank), I
find that often (though not always) this makes for a loose, “swively,”
hard-to-control arm or leg. Most often, character riggers will leave
the bank axis to be controlled manually by the animator with FK.
This lets you precisely control the position of the elbow or knee
joint just by rotating the bicep or thigh!
So, the rule of thumb for good, solid IK chains in character
riggings is: The topmost item can use IK to solve for a maximum of
two rotation axes, and the child item in a character IK chain should
use IK for only one axis.
Note:
I don’t recommend asking IK to solve for any more than two
joints. Using IK on a chain of more than two joints creates too
many opportunities for the complex math to give you some-
thing you neither expect nor want. IK Booster is the tool for the
job if you have something like a tail, tentacle, whip, or rope
you need to animate.
Rotation Order
Character riggings are complex things. Riggings use a lot of
heavy-duty math we animators take for granted when we’re doing
our jobs. Usually, we don’t care how something works, so long as it
does.
But, if you’re curious about the more complex details that make
for a good, dependable character rigging, these next two sections
will fill you in on a lot of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes.
Note:
These next two sections are mainly for the technical directors
and the heavy-duty math-oriented folks who really want to
understand why things happen and why certain decisions are
made in the crafting of my riggings. If this isn’t your cup of tea,
don’t worry (there won’t be a quiz on this later); just skip this
and the next section, moving on to the section called
“Flipping.”
19
LightWave has a fixed order in which it calculates the rotation of

an item:
1) Heading
2) Pitch
3) Bank
You can think of this rotation order as

if your object (“Arrow” in this illustration)
were parented to a hierarchical series of
null objects, each null handling one rota-
tion axis. Rotate one null, and all its
children rotate right along with it.
Figure 2.19
Using this logic, I’ve set up a scene in which we’ve got two
arrows as children of a hierarchical series of nulls.
Figure 2.20
Figure 2.21
20
In Figure 2.21, notice I’ve selected both arrow objects and

rotated them H=20, P=40, B=60.
If an object is rotated H=20, it would make sense that to reset
its applicable rotation to H=0, its parent object would need to be
rotated H=–20 (0 = n + [–1 • n]).
When you want to “unwind” an object, reset its applicable rota-
tion to 0, 0, 0. When its rotation is being controlled by a system that
solves heading first, then pitch, then bank, the order in which the
rotations were applied must be reversed. (LightWave does this auto-
matically when you simply reset an item’s rotation to 0, 0, 0 — but
if you have a hierarchical system creating Steadycam®-like “floating
head” movement, then rotation order becomes very important.)
Figure 2.22
I’ve left the arrow objects at H=20, P=40, B=60, and I’ve
rotated the parent nulls labeled Heading by –20, Pitch by –40, and
Bank by –60. The only difference between the two hierarchies is
the order in which the rotations are applied: The arrow on the right
applies bank first, then pitch, then heading, essentially reversing the
rotation order applied by LightWave.
Among other things, rotation order is responsible for the
phenomenon known as “gimbal lock.”
21
In each viewport, the left-hand arrow is rotated 0, 0, 0. The

right-hand arrow is rotated 0, –90, 0. The bank axis is a child of the
pitch axis, and so when pitch is rotated +/– 90°, the bank axis
swings into the same plane as the heading axis. In the top viewports
of Figure 2.23, you see two concentric circles representing the
heading (larger) and the bank (smaller) around the right-hand arrow.
The right-hand arrow is in a condition where rotating in heading and
bank produce the same applicable results. This is gimbal lock.
Figure 2.23
If you feel you’ve had a hard time wrapping your mind around
this problem, don’t feel bad; you’re not alone. Even the best IK solv-
ing engines have a difficult time with this.
When the rotation axis that is recorded second (pitch)
nears/exceeds +/– 90°, IK can start to have problems. As the pitch
angle nears/exceeds +/– 90°, the item can instantly “spin” around
to face the opposite direction. Often, this will happen suddenly, over
the course of a single frame. This is called flipping.
22
Note:
There are as many ways of setting up a character rig as there are peo-
ple to do the setups. Everyone will find his own sets of rules that work
for him.
Later on in this book, when we’re actually setting up a rigging in
Layout, I’ll ask you to record pivot rotation for your bones as they exist
in their “rest” (“zero” or “base”) pose. The reason for this is that this
gives me the widest array of motion before a bone nears +/– 90° in
any axis, and so gives me a much broader range of control.
Over the course of your career, you will hear many opinions about
the “best” way of doing things. In my experience, there is no “best
way.” There are only ways that work more easily for the ways in which
your mind solves problems. Try what sounds interesting, keep it if it
works for you, and always keep your mind open to finding new and
better ways of working!
Joint Compensation and Muscle Flexing
Note:
This section on joint compensation and muscle flexing also
gets into some pretty heavy-duty LightWave and mathemati-
cal concepts. If you’re just starting out, or if you have little
desire to get into the “hard-core” aspects of character rig-
ging, please feel free to skip this section, moving on to the
next section, called “Flipping.”
At the bottom of the Bone|Properties window, LightWave has a set

of Muscle Flexing and Joint Compensation options for each bone.
These help LightWave preserve the volume of the character’s joints
as bones bend and the skin flexes.
Figure 2.24
23
Here, you see the differ-

ence between the character’s
hand when Muscle Flexing
and Joint Compensation are
active for the bones of the fin-
gers, and when they are not.
The thing with Muscle
Flexing and Joint Compensa-
tion is that these functions
only work with the bones’ pitch
axis!
Figure 2.25
Okay, so what if you want

to use Muscle Flexing and
Joint Compensation with a
bone that is only supposed to
rotate in heading, as with the
forearm?
Figure 2.26
Under Modify|Rotate|Rotate Pivot, you can manually change

the angle that LightWave Layout thinks of as that particular item’s
H=0, P=0, B=0. If you change the bank setting of an item’s pivot
rotation to +/– 90°, you essentially “swap” that item’s heading and
pitch axes.
24
Figure 2.27
Note:
LightWave allows you to set/record the pivot rotation for an item as a
way of helping to combat gimbal lock.
A character’s thigh points more or less straight downward, meaning
that by default its rotation is nearly P=–90 right from the start.
By using Setup|Modify|Orientation|Record Pivot Rotation (the hot
key is <P>), you can tell LightWave to store that item’s current rotation
as the rotation setting for that item’s pivot.
The result is that the value of the item’s previous rotation is stored
as the pivot’s rotation. Because the item’s pivot now assumes the previ-
ous rotation information, the item itself now lies along that particular
set of angles when it is set to H=0, P=0, B=0. So, the item’s rotation is
then set to 0, 0, 0, and a keyframe is created to hold the change in
rotation data.
In short, using Record Pivot Rotation means that a bone can still
look like it’s pointing straight up or straight down (P=+/– 90°), but it
will animate from the perception that that direction is H=0, P=0, B=0.
Note:
In changing the rotation of an item’s pivot, you must do so
on that item’s rest pose, the frame where your character
exists without any changes to his default rigging position
whatsoever.
25
Note:
You can also use this technique of altering the bank setting of an item’s
pivot rotation to help control IK instabilities, which happen most often
when an item using IK to solve for both heading and pitch approaches
or exceeds +/– 90° in its pitch axis.
If you notice that your character requires greater range of move-
ment in the pitch axis of an item that uses IK for both heading and
pitch, and that’s causing you headaches with IK misbehaving, you can
set the item’s pivot rotation for its bank axis to +/– 90°, so then the
greater range of movement occurs on the heading axis, which now
falls in the same plane that used to be pitch!
Flipping
IK relies on a heavy-duty set of calculations. Even the best IK solv-
ers still have issues when things get really complicated.
Figure 2.28
The biggest problem with even the best IK is flipping, where a

joint will spin 180° over the course of one frame.
Foresight and planning in both your rigging and animation, cou-
pled with a strong IK solver such as LightWave’s, will usually keep
flipping to a minimum.
I find that I can avoid most flipping by:
4 Keeping the goal object at a distance of at least one-third the

length of the bicep or thigh away from the bicep or thigh’s
point of rotation (the shoulder or hip, respectively).
26
Figure 2.29
4 Keeping the bicep or thigh from nearing/exceeding +/– 90° in

the pitch axis.
4 Keeping the goal object well away from the area behind the
bicep or thigh as that bone would lie in its rest pose.
Figure 2.30
4 Trying to avoid having my character assume a pose that would

be painful to do in real life.
Note:
I find that if I’m having problems with flipping, I’m usually trying to
put the character into a pose that my own joints would complain
about. If you find you absolutely, positively have to have a particular
“painful” pose, you can save a lot of time by making a “special-
purpose” rigging that can more easily move through that pose.
27
“Standard” IK Rules
These rules are more like guidelines; they can be bent and broken as
you see fit to suit the needs of your particular IK setup.
However, that being said, these rules have kept my characters
moving smoothly and predictably through many productions — it’s
always best to learn the rules and learn them well before you start
seeing what happens by breaking them.
4 IK is only dependable for solving rotations for a maximum of

two items within an IK chain.
4 On any item controlled by IK, let IK solve for a maximum of

two axes.
4 In a chain of two items, the child item should only use IK to

solve for one of its axes.
4 Always give your two-item IK chain a little “suggestion” in

knowing which direction it should bend by pre-bending those
items.
2.3 IK Booster
IK Booster is as much an advancement to the art of character ani-
mation as IK itself was back in the early ’90s.
What is IK Booster? It’s a whole lot of things all wrapped up in a
nice, neat little package — but with respect to character rigging, it’s
best to think of it as something that can be used to add even more
ease, power, functionality, and stability to the IK systems we’ve
been talking about already.
Applying IK Booster
IK Booster can be applied to any object that has bones set up hierar-
chically. It can be applied to an existing IK character rigging, a
model with bones handcrafted in Layout, or bones converted from
skelegons created in Modeler (see Chapters 4 and 5).
1. Start with a fresh scene, and add a null (as described earlier in
this chapter). Add a chain of five bones to your null (also as
described earlier in this chapter).
28
Figure 2.31
Note:
To add these bones, once you have created your null, you can just
press <=> and click OK to accept the default name of “Bone” five
times in a row if you want to do things the quick and easy way.
2. Activate the IK Booster tool by clicking on Modify|Tools|IK

BoostTool ^B. Then, right-click on the null that is the root
object for the bones we just created.
Figure 2.32
29
3. Once you click on Apply IK_Booster, as shown in Figure

2.32, you’ll notice a few changes to the appearance of your
object. So long as you have the IK BoostTool active, you’ll see
a control icon for your currently selected item within your IK
Booster-enabled object(s). You’ll also see handles that default
to the tips of all the bones within the IK-boosted object.
Figure 2.33
Note:
IK Booster is a custom object function applied to the object
itself. To remove it from an object, you’ll need to open the
Object Properties for that particular object, and remove the
IK_Booster custom object under the Geometry tab.
That’s it! That’s all you need to do to apply IK Booster and start
animating this chain of five bones far more reliably than IK alone
would let you. (Read on!)
30
Long Chain Dependability

With IK Booster, you don’t have to assign any goal objects and you
don’t have to tell LightWave to use IK for any rotation axes; you just
grab any of the handles and move them around!
Figure 2.34
IK Booster handles “long chains” of hundreds of bones with

speed and reliability. If you’ve got a whip, tentacle, or tail you need
to animate, IK Booster lets you confidently use as many bones as
you need to get the smoothest deformations possible.
You probably noticed that when you dragged your IK-boosted
chain around, you dragged the whole thing around, root and all. If
you want to have the root stay in place, make sure you have the root
bone (or the object itself) selected, right-click on the item’s control,
and check ikstop. This causes the IK movements of all child bones
to have no effect on any items higher up the IK-boosted chain.
Figure 2.35
31
IK Booster and Movement

IK Booster is a mode of movement unto itself. Selecting Modify|
Translate|Move or Modify|Rotate|Rotate or Modify|Trans-
form|Size (or Stretch — or any other tool) will deactivate the IK
BoostTool.
Movement within the IK Booster system isn’t the same as you
may have gotten used to thus far in LightWave; the handles are dif-
ferent, and you can essentially move and rotate without having to
change tools.
You’ve already seen how you can click and drag a handle to
move the IK-boosted chain. If you need to rotate an item, select it,
then click and drag on the numbers that appear beside its control.
The top is heading (green), then pitch (red), then bank (blue).
Figure 2.36
IK Booster and Keyframes

IK Booster creates its own keyframes whenever you move or rotate
an item in its chain (regardless of your Auto Key Create settings).
And because IK Booster pushes beyond LightWave’s normal way of
working, the usual ways of creating and deleting keyframes (by
pressing Enter and Delete) don’t apply when you have IK BoostTool
active.
32
Figure 2.37
When you have IK Booster active (and the Dope Track is

inactive — see the section called “Dope Track” in Chapter 18,
“Advanced Animation Tools”), a darkened area appears above the
timeline at the bottom of Layout’s screen. This is the IK Booster
Track. There’s a lot of power packed within that little track.
The display at the left of the IK Booster Track tells you which
items within the IK-boosted chain will be affected by what you’re
doing with the chain. In this case, all the parents and children of the
selected item will have keyframes created whenever I move a han-
dle. (Clicking on this display cycles you through the different modes
— you can choose to affect only the current item, only the selected
item’s children, only its parents, both that item’s parents and chil-
dren, or all items within the IKB chain.)
Right-clicking on the IK Booster Track opens up the right-click
menu for that particular frame. It is from this right-click menu that
you can choose to delete a keyframe or create one arbitrarily (with-
out having to move or rotate an item). (Remember that the action
you choose is applied to the Items Affected choice at the left of the
IKB Track!)
Now, what if you had a whole lot of frames you wanted to delete
at once?
33
Right-click drag-select an area within the IK Booster Track to

select a range of frames. You can then choose Delete from the
right-click menu that opens when you release the right mouse
button.
Figure 2.38
Note:
Most who’ve used LightWave for any length of time have grown fond of
LightWave’s Display Options|Show Motion Paths setting that lets you
see a visual representation of an item’s motion, frames, and keyframes
within the 3D space of its viewports.
Figure 2.39
When you have IK Booster active, if you turn off LightWave’s Show
Motion Paths, you’ll more clearly see IK Booster’s “onionskin” dots that
represent the selected handle’s position on surrounding frames that
fade out the farther a frame is from the current one.
34
Pose and Motion Saving and Loading

When you have IK Booster applied to a character rigging (even if
you are using none of the other IK Booster features), you can save
and load poses and motions for some or all of your rigging!
Clicking on the IKB Menu on the right side of the IK Booster
Track (which, as mentioned earlier, is visible when the Dope Track
is inactive) brings up a menu from which you can choose to save and
load the motion of your entire rigging.
From the IKB Menu|Motions menu, you can also choose to
copy the motion of your entire rigging, storing it to be swapped with
the current motion by choosing IKB Menu|Motions|Motion Roll-
back. This is very handy when you want to quickly compare two
motions without having to bother with going through the extra
steps of saving and loading the different motions.
Figure 2.40
35
Right-clicking on the control for an item in an IKB chain also

brings up a menu that you can use to save and load motions and/or
poses for that item and its children in the chain. (Be sure to right-
click on the control, not the numbers. Right-clicking on the num-
bers will open a different set of menus that allow you to lock and/or
limit motion on the clicked-upon number’s axis.)
Figure 2.41
Note:
Using this item-based way of saving/loading poses and motions,
you can quickly load complex shapes onto, say, your character’s
hands (clenched fists, martial-arts hand shapes, etc.). Being able
to load complex poses onto parts of your characters means you
can really take your time to get those complex poses perfect,
knowing that you’ll only have to create those poses once!
It’s a good idea, though, to put the name of the item you had
selected when you created that pose in the name of the pose
and/or motion file you create. IK Booster will let you load a pose
or motion onto a different item in your hierarchy than the one
you had selected to save its motion and the motion of its chil-
dren, which can create some unpredictable results.
36
Quaternion Rotations
If you followed the information in the section on rotation order in
the first part of this chapter on Inverse Kinematics and the prob-
lems with flipping that can occur because of gimbal lock, you may
find it interesting to know that LightWave [8]’s IK Booster now
allows for a new kind of angular mathematics that can help with the
problem of gimbal lock: quaternion rotations.
You activate quaternion rotation for an item within an IK
Booster chain by selecting Options|Quaternion from its controller’s
right-click menu.
Figure 2.42
To you, the animator, you won’t notice much more than a little
“Q” appearing inside the controller icon, and that certain problem
poses for your rigging may not be such a problem anymore.
(Quaternion rotation only helps in dealing with the issues of gimbal
lock — it is not a “magic bullet.”)
Keyframe Move Mode

IK Booster also gives you the ability to quickly move your key-
frames about without ever having to leave Layout’s main window.
Note:
General Options|Show Keys in Slider turns on and off
LightWave’s representation of keyframes for the current
item as light, vertical lines in the background of the
Time Slider at the bottom of Layout’s window.
37
In Figure 2.43, I’m starting off with keyframes on frames 0, 10,

20, and 30 for all the items in the IKB chain. Left-clicking on the
IKB Track on frame 15 sets the center mark of the Move mode.
Dragging in the IKB Track on the right-hand side of this center
mark moves all the keyframes to the right of the center mark (for
the currently selected Affected Items choice) by the distance
dragged. (The little triangles in the IKB Track to the right of frame
15 show the start and end positions of my drag.)
Figure 2.43
In the above illustration, because Child is the currently selected

Affected Items choice (displayed on the left-hand side of the IKB
Track), only the selected item and its child item(s) will have their
keyframes moved.
When you’re done moving keyframes in relation to that particu-
lar center mark, simply click on the center mark and it will
disappear.
Note:
Using IK Booster’s Move mode with the parent or child
Affected Items choice is a great way to quickly add the
“whip-like” action known in character animation as the
“successive breaking of joints” after you have made
sure your character hits the key poses you want.
38
2.4 Newbie Sensory Overload

I can imagine that if you’re new to IK and/or IK Booster, all the
information in this chapter may seem a bit overwhelming. Don’t
worry. There is a lot to learn here.
The good thing is that as you follow the steps in Chapters 3 and
onward of this book, you’ll be building a character’s rigging and set-
ting it in motion by following the steps clearly laid out. You may not
at first completely understand the whys of the reasons things are
done a certain way, but you will find that once you’ve gone through
the process, a lot more of it will make sense in retrospect.
And once you start actually using a rigging you’ve made, you’ll
experience a whole lot of “Ah, now I see why we did that.”
So, remember not to worry. None of us came into this world
already knowing how to pontificate on the intricacies of Inverse
Kinematics — we all had to pick up this information somewhere on
our journeys.
Your greatest asset, throughout your entire life, will be your
ability to find the solutions you seek yourself.
Every question or problem can be broken down into ever more
simple bits that you can more easily master.
If you find yourself feeling stuck, take a step back to where you
do feel confident about what you know. Seek out the resources that
can help you understand the smaller component parts of what you
are seeking to learn (books, online resources, and exploring func-
tional examples where these elements are used well).
Knowing you can find the way to get yourself to where you
want to be is one of the most powerful realizations you can come to
in a lifetime.
39
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Chapter 3
Prepping Your
Character for Setup
You’ve got your character all ready to go, and you want to get started
right away in making him (or her) move, act, emote; in general, you
want to get him into that performance you’ve always known he (or
she) could do. Before you can animate him, you’ve got to set him up.
And before you can set him up, you’ve got to prep him for setup, and
that means planning.
Planning your setup is probably the most crucial phase of CG ani-
mation (no, really). The setup you’re going to create will dictate how
easy it is to move your character into and out of poses. It will either
follow your commands or frustrate the living daylights out of you by
misbehaving just when you need the most precise control of your
character.
If you build your characters with the same proportions, joints in
the same places and whatnot, you’ll be able to just plug this setup
into your new character once you have him point weighted. Doing the
proper planning and prep work makes not only this character work
well, but any other character you’ll use this setup for in the future.
Note:
There are very few rules of thumb when dealing with computers.
If it isn’t already, one of those rules should be: “The things you
expect to take a long time on a computer often are the things
that get done the quickest, while the things that you expect to
breeze through often are the things that take all afternoon.” I
think one possible reason this is so is because we’re paying
more attention to the things we do when we think they’re com-
plicated. When we think something is easy, our mind isn’t
always fully there working on it. Keep focused, plan your attack,
and know the result you want before you start.
41
Chapter 3: Prepping Your Character for Setup
3.1 Where Is He Going to Bend?

Most people build their characters in a kind of “da Vinci-esque”
spread-eagle pose. This is great for making sure all the proportions
are correct, as you can tell at a glance if something is out of whack.
All joints and appendages are out in the open, so to speak, for us to
see and figure out where our skeleton’s bones should be.
Note:
The exercises in this book are tailored to using the
Thinguy.lwo model, available on the companion CD. If
you’ve got a character you’re just dying to use, you may,
but be aware that you might have to make nip-and-tuck
alterations to the information to get it to fit your character.
(This is especially so if your character has non-human
proportions!)
I’ve made the character Thinguy.lwo especially for train-
ing with this book. His poly/patch count is 1506
polygons/patches. With him, even if you’re running
LightWave on a 366 MHz laptop, you’ll still be able to get a
good, workable real-time frame rate while you’re animat-
ing. Though his lines are broad and caricaturistic, he is
proportioned realistically so you’ll be able to get a good
range of action from him and not have either exaggerated
or realistic action look odd on him.
Advanced Note:
To all those modelers out there: The frame rate an animator
gets while he’s animating your character plays a large role
in how well he can animate him. If you absolutely must
have a character with an incredibly high pre-NURBed
poly/patch count, also make a “stand-in” character for your
animator to work with. This stand-in should have all the
joints and bends in the same places, but at a fraction of the
poly/patch count, allowing the animator to animate with
ease, then swap the stand-in with your work of art at the
time of rendering. (This also allows animation and modeling
to go on side by side. As soon as the animator gets the
weighted, setup scene with the stand-in model, he can start
working, letting modeling continue almost up to the time of
the final render.)
42
1. Copy the 3D directory from the companion CD to a place on

your hard drive you’ll be able to work from.
2. Start Modeler and set your content directory to the 3D direc-
tory you just copied to your hard drive.
Newbie Note:
LightWave Modeler has two separate Options panels. One is
for display options (discussed later) and the other is for
general options and can be found here: Modeler|Options
|General Options (or by pressing <o>). General Options has
important things like the Content Directory (where LightWave
looks for images, objects, scenes, and the like), how many
levels of Undo you have, whether polygons will default to
quadrangles (for NURBial patches) or triangles, and how
smooth your NURBed models will look as you’re working on
them. (This smoothness is the result of patch division, where
the higher the number, the smoother the model will look but
the more computationally intensive it will be to draw in real
time. I usually use a level of 4.)
3. Load in Thinguy.lwo from Objects\BaseChar\Thinguy.

4. Find the places in the model where the joints will be, and turn
the model around in the Perspective view. Press Tab to con-
vert patches into polygons. Set the view for your perspective
window to Wireframe Shade. Try to get an idea of what
points will need to pull with what bones in order to bend his
body in ways that’ll look right. (Printing a screen capture of
Modeler and sketching rough bone layout or pivot points can
be helpful at this point.) Things to note here are the actual
points from which the different parts of the body rotate. They
aren’t always where you might think they are, so move your
own arm, fingers, neck, knees, and back and see where these
movements correlate to your model.
43
Figure 3.1, Figure 3.2, Figure 3.3. Front, side, and top views of our
character. A good knowledge of anatomy is important whether you are
doing cartoonish or hyper-realistic characters. Things like scale,
relationship, and rotation are stored deep in all our minds, though it isn’t
something that most of us are consciously aware of. Most people can’t tell
you exactly why something looks “right” or “wrong,” but it is usually
because of something being incorrectly proportioned or rotating from
somewhere it shouldn’t.
44
3.2 Pre-bending to Help IK

Since IK can only safely solve for a maximum of two parts, we need
to look at our model and figure out what parts are going to be con-
trolled with IK and which parts will be FK. Looking at Figures 3.1
through 3.3, the bicep and forearm will be one chain, and the thigh
and calf will be another chain. I like having the neck as another
chain so I can precisely control the position of the head at all times.
That gives us five IK chains; the rest of the model will be FK.
IK needs all the help it can get, so we’re going to modify our
model a bit to give IK a hand. We’re going to put in a much steeper
bend at the knees so IK is more likely to bend correctly when our
character is in an extreme pose. We’re going to do the same for the
arms, but with a bit of a twist.
Bones pull points along with them when they are moved or
rotated. This is more like a magnet’s pull than the way our skin
slides over our muscles. This can cause problems in places like
elbows and knees, and especially shoulders and under the arms.
Things can pinch, bunch, and generally look wrong because it is so
hard to get the points that control the model’s skin to move like our
skin does. A common but cumbersome solution is to build morph
targets that are controlled either manually or by expressions driven
by the rotation of the offending bones. I prefer a much simpler strat-
egy: Figure the range of normal movement for that part or set of
parts, and have your base pose somewhere in the middle of that
range.
Most people are more apt to move their arms forward than
back. Most elbows don’t like being bent beyond the point where
they’re straight out from the bicep. So the base pose for the arms
should have the bicep angled forward somewhere around 45
degrees, and the forearm angled about 45 degrees from that. This
gives us our pre-bend so IK knows that elbows don’t bend back-
ward, and it also helps preserve the volumes of the elbow and
shoulder when bones pull points around.
45
Note:
The way I like to do pre-bending is to select groupings of points
(say, of the forearm and hand, for instance), and then using Modify
|Rotate|Rotate, “swing” those selected points around into their new
place while the rest of the model stays locked in place. By adding
and removing points from your selection, you can specifically con-
trol the “bending” of your model as you rotate these groups.
1. Pre-bend your model’s arms so they match those in Figure

3.4. Pay close attention to the points in the underarm area.
Make sure your model looks as if there is a body there under
the shirt and that the shirt hangs naturally from this frame.
Figure 3.4. Pre-bend the arms, preserving the volume of the bent elbow.
Note:
When rotating selections of points for the arms, legs, or
whatever, try to bear in mind where the joints would be in
an actual skeleton (Figures 3.1 to 3.3). If you rotate your
point selection from these joints, you’ll have a much quicker
time of point pulling to make your model look correct.
46
Newbie Note:
Creating point selection sets (Dis-
play|Grouping|Point Selection
Sets…) not only helps you know
what points are what when you’re
pre-bending your model, it also
makes things much easier when
you’re point weighting. (You add
points to your selection from a
selection set you’ve created by
bringing up the Point Statistics win-
dow by pressing <w> with Points
^G active. You choose the point
selection set you’ve created from Figure 3.5. Add points from a
the list, and click on the “+” sym- selection set to your current
bol to its left.) selection.
Newbie Note:
Make use of all the tools at your disposal when doing delicate point
work. Press 0 (on the numeric keypad) to make windows go full-screen
to get better views of tight areas. Hide and unhide parts of your model
to get a clear shot at what you’re trying to manipulate. Switch between
polygons and meta-NURBS to see how smoothly rings of points are
lying. Alternate between Smooth Shade and Wireframe Shade in your
Perspective window to see which points are causing bumps in your
model. Activate and deactivate showing point selections, polygon
selections, cages, guides, and whatnot in your Perspective window to
eliminate clutter when you really need to see detail. (Press <d> to
bring up the Display Options window. Choose the Viewports tab.
Viewport 2 controls the upper-right window, the Perspective window by
default. Click on Independent Visibility and you can enable and dis-
able settings to make your modeling life easier.)
Caution:
Using Symmetry (Modes|Symmetry On/Off) can be a great help, but
only if your model is exactly symmetrical before you start pulling points
around. A point that is close but not exactly mirrored across the X-axis
of your model won’t be automatically selected when you select the
point on the +x side of your model. If forget about this you can have
half of your model correct and the other half misshapen. Correct this
by cutting your model down the center and mirroring. Mirroring, how-
ever, copies over all point weight information, so if you mirror your
character’s right side to become its left, both thighs (for example) will
have exactly the same weight maps targeted at the RightThigh bone.
47
There are several free plug-ins available that will help you fix
the symmetry of your model if you need to (search the archives of
www.flay.com), but the best solution is to make sure you always
operate with Symmetry active if you are working with a symmetri-
cal model.
2. Pre-bend your character’s legs to match those in Figure 3.6.
Preserve the volume of the knee (see Figure 3.7) when bend-
ing points to make it look like there actually is a knee inside
that tube of virtual fabric. Pay special attention to the pelvic
area; you’ll often see deep folds in the front of the pants when
you swing the legs forward. You’ll also have to watch the
gluteal area; it tends to get flat when legs are swung forward.
Pull points to make this base pose look believable.
Figure 3.6. Pay attention to the pelvic and

gluteal areas as the legs are swung
forward to pre-bend for IK.
48
Figure 3.7. Preserve the volume of the knees.
3. Lower the body and head to account for the height that was
lost when we bent the knees. When you’re doing this, tweak
the points of the pant cuff to fall properly over the shoe. You’ll
also need to pull the top part of the shoe to be bent by the calf
section angling toward the knee.
Figure 3.8. Pull the points of the pant cuff and

shoe to make the bend of this area look
believable.
49
4. Check the alignment and position the hands. Make sure they
look natural within the shirt cuffs and the fingers point
straight forward.
Figure 3.9. Make sure the hands look right.
Note:
You may have noticed that “ThinGuy” only has four fingers. There’s
a convention in character design that says human characters have
five fingers, animal characters have four. I break this convention in
CG when I’m working with a cartoon human. This is just my per-
sonal preference, but it saves a lot of cumulative time in animation,
and the clients I’ve dealt with would rather have better overall ani-
mation than an extra finger.
If you examine the new model for this book, “Mr. Cool,” you’ll
notice that he has four fingers, but he still works perfectly with the
“ThinGuy” riggings. This is a common “cheat” where I’ve got both
Mr. Cool’s ring and middle fingers following the movements of the
bones of ThinGuy’s middle finger.
50
Figure 3.10. The model, ready for skelegons!
51
Chapter 4
Boning Your
Character
Note:
As you continue to work in CG, you’ll notice that you “hit the groove.”
This is when things just flow. Whether you’re animating or modeling,
everything just falls right into place, time seems to drop away, and you
achieve a close to Zen-like state. The problem is that this is usually the
time when the computer crashes, the network freezes, or any number of
other problems trash what you did since your last save.
When you’re in that Zen-like state, saving your work seems to be last
on the list of important things to do. If you’ve lost your best work of the
day in a crash of some sort, producers seem to think that since you did it
once, it would be easier the second time. This is not the case. The only
remedy to this is to save often, and make a habit of it! Not just save, but
save revisions. Crashes have happened in the middle of a save, and that
corrupts what might be days or weeks worth of work (if that happens to
your only version of the model or scene)!
LightWave [8]’s Save Incremental features for both objects in Modeler
and scenes in Layout is perfect for this task. With the press of a capital
“S” you automatically save your object or scene with “_v001” tacked onto
the end, and every time you do this, the number increases by one! (So,
in an effort to keep my directories uncluttered, if I’m working on
Blah_v003.lwo, I’ll Ctrl+s (Save As) and choose Blah_v002.lwo; just in
case the power goes out during a save, I’ve still got *03.lwo). Then, with
that save completed successfully, I’ll press <S> to automatically save
and update my current revision to *v003. The result is that I’m saving
over something I don’t have a more recent version of, and yet I’m also
not racking up a huge number of files in the object’s directory.)
Always move on to a new set of revision numbers anytime you make
a major change! This frees you to safely experiment, knowing you can
always go back to the way things were before (regardless of whether the
decision is yours or your director’s).
53
Chapter 4: Boning Your Character
4.1 Adding Bones to Your Character

We’re ready to start adding bones to our character. Some of the
bones will be used to pull the points of our character around. Others
will be used to control the movements of these bones. We’ll be
using the skelegon tools in Modeler to put these bones in place. I
find this saves time, lets you save the bone setup with the character,
and gives you access to a whole slew of free Modeler plug-ins that
make point weighting much easier.
1. Load the character you pre-bent for IK in the last chapter into
Modeler. (If all you want to do is animate and you never see
yourself modeling and you skipped the pre-bending, I’ve got a
pre-bent model already made, which you can find in
Objects\chapters\ch_03.lwo.)
2. Maximize the Right viewport and press a to Fit All.
3. Set your Foreground (Active) Layer to Layer 2 and your
Background Layer to Layer 1.
LightWave Modeler Layers

Clicking in the upper triangle makes that layer the
foreground layer. You can view and modify items in
this layer. Clicking in the lower triangle makes that
layer the background layer. Items in this layer can
be seen but not modified. (Holding down Shift while
clicking adds or removes layers from your selected
foreground or background layers.)
Figure 4.1
54
Note:
The order in which you create the skelegons in Modeler is the
order in which they will become bones in Layout. I like to use
the Up and Down Arrow keys when animating to select the
next and previous bones, and have memorized how many
presses it takes to get from one specific control to another.
(For instance, with Spine1 selected, pressing the Down Arrow
three times will select the Head control, and one more press
selects the RightHand_Trans control.) This lets me keep my
eyes glued to my scene without breaking my concentration to
go to a Schematic view or to scroll visually through a list. This
is why we’ll be creating skelegons in a seemingly haphazard
way; it actually makes animation much easier, for some, in
the long run.
4.2 Spinal Controls

Spinal controls are the FK bones that will control the bending of
your character’s torso. These are the bones you will use first in
posing your character to get a strong line of motion.
1. Create the skelegon that will be the root bone of your skele-
ton. Draw this bone as close to horizontal as you can and have
its tip be where the spine connects with the pelvis. Remember
that your spine is closer to your back than your front!
2. Create the skelegon that will be our character’s pelvis as
shown in Figure 4.2.
55
Note:
Many people create skele-
tons with the buttocks as the
base. I create mine with the
lumbar area as the skele-
ton’s base. This allows you to
swing the hips without hav-
ing to counteranimate the
spine. This makes animating
everything from walks to
slouches much faster and
easier.
Figure 4.2. Angle the pelvis back,

following the line of the tailbone.
3. Deactivate the Create Skelegons tool by clicking on the Poly-

gons ^H button.
4. Select the first skelegon we created.
5. Reactivate the Create Skelegons tool.
56
Creating Skelegons
To create a skelegon,
click on Setup|
Skelegons|Create
Skelegons. Then, click
and drag to create a
skelegon. While Create
Skelegons is active,
clicking and dragging
within either of the two
circles at the base or
head of the skelegon will
drag that end to a new
location. Clicking out-
side of those two circles
will create another
skelegon that is a child
of the one you just
created.
Note:
The viewport in which
you create a skelegon
will determine its bank Figure 4.3. This bone will be the root of your
rotation of that bone in skeleton.
Layout. Generally, if a
skelegon is created in
a Top or Back view- Note:
port, it will have a Skelegons are considered polygons. You can
bank rotation of 0°, select them with Polygons ^H active. Even
and a skelegon created though they look like they’ve got several
in a Right viewport will polygons to them, LightWave treats each
result in a bone with a skelegon as a single polygon. Under the
bank rotation of –90°. Polygon Statistics window (press <w> with
Polygons ^H active) each skelegon is listed
under its name in the Part drop-down list
(the bottom line in the Polygon Statistics
window).
57
Figure 4.4. You can

manually adjust the bank
rotation of the bone that
will be created from a
skelegon by using the bank
rotation handle. (In my
experience fussing with this
control, trial-and-error is
the only way to know what
rotation handle position will
yield what bone bank
rotation in Layout.) Setup|
Skelegons|Edit Skelegons
allows you to adjust the
settings of any pre-made,
selected skelegons.
Note: Note:
If you’re ever unsure as Grid Snap can help or hinder you,
to whether to create a depending on what you’re trying to do at
skelegon in a Right, that moment in Modeler. Activate Grid
Back, or Top viewport, Snap by choosing Edit|Display Options|
just look at the accom- Units|Grid Snap when you need to make
panying illustration for things snap to an invisible grid (good for
that step to see which aligning items), and deactivate it when
viewport I’m using. you need to make fine, delicate changes.
58
6. Draw the skelegons that will be the first, second, and third
spine bones. (Because we had our root skelegon selected, the
new skelegons are created as its children instead of children of
the Pelvis, the last bone we created.)
Figure 4.5. Be sure to follow the curvature and placement of the spine
in these skelegons. (I’ve turned off points, cages, and guides so I can
more easily see what I’m doing.)
7. Deactivate the Create Skelegons tool and select our root

skelegon again.
8. Name this skelegon Root.
59
Naming Skelegons
Name skelegons by selecting them individually and choosing
Setup|Skelegons|Rename Skelgns. Naming a skelegon helps
us not only tell skelegons apart but also the bones and weight
maps that will be generated automatically from these
skelegons.
Figure 4.6. Making it easier to know which skelegon is which.
9. Rename the other skelegons Pelvis, Spine1, Spine2, and

Spine3 respectively (Spine1 being the most immediate child
of Root).
10. Press Ctrl+t to activate Drag mode, and click-and-drag on the
base (the stubby end, not the pointy end) of our Root skelegon.
Drag this end close to where it meets the Pelvis and Spine1
skelegons.
60
Figure 4.7. Root will

rotate from its base, and
though it won’t directly
control any points in our
model, it will control the
bones that do. Having its
rotation centered inside
the body helps us much
more than being able to
see the bone from a
distance.
11. Create another skelegon inside the character’s head, making

sure no other skelegons are selected before doing so. Name
this bone Head.
Note:
Sometimes,
even with no
skelegon select-
ed, LightWave
will draw new
skelegons as
children of a
previously cre-
ated skelegon.
You can solve
this problem by
hiding all skele-
gons before
drawing new
ones.
Figure 4.8. The base of this bone is at the

juncture where the skull sits on the spinal
column.
61
4.3 Hand Controls

Hand controls are used to move and rotate the hands. We’ll also be
building controls that will let us shrug the shoulders, expand or cave
the chest, and rotate the elbow up or down.
1. Create and place another skelegon that reaches from the cen-
ter of the wrist to the center of the middle finger’s root
knuckle. Name this bone RightHand_Trans.
Figure 4.9. This bone will control the translation of the hand and its heading
and bank.
2. Copy RightHand_Trans, then drag its tip (the pointy end) to

somewhere around the middle of the palm.
3. Paste to create a new skelegon. Name this one
RightHand_Rot.
62
Note:
Now that LightWave has the ability to rotate objects in Lay-
out based upon world and quaternion coordinates, nesting
controls as we are doing for the hand isn’t as necessary to
control gimbal lock as it once was. Yes, it does mean that
there is yet another control to consider during animation,
but I find that I can more precisely control hand animation
this way. So much acting comes from subtleties of the
hands, and for me to be able to dictate exactly which way a
wrist will unfold in a scene with complex acting is more
important than eliminating a control.
Figure 4.10. This bone will control the hand’s pitch. Having these bones a
different length makes them easier to select without using the Polygon Statistics
window.
4. Create a skelegon that follows the placement of the scapula.

Place its tip where the shoulder joint will be. Name this
skelegon RightShoulder.
63
5. With RightShoulder selected, create a tiny bone that points

along the bicep toward the elbow. Name this skelegon
RightElbow.
Figure 4.11. RightShoulder and RightElbow.
6. Select RightShoulder, RightElbow, RightHand_Trans, and

RightHand_Rot.
7. Multiply|Duplicate|Mirror these skelegons along the
X-axis without merging points. Rename the new skelegons
LeftShoulder, LeftElbow, LeftHand_Trans, and
LeftHand_Rot, respectively. (See the following Newbie Block
on Mirroring.)
64
Mirroring
1. With your skelegons selected, press <V> (LightWave’s hot
keys are case sensitive) or select Multiply|Duplicate|
Mirror.
2. Press <n> to open the Numeric input window.
3. Press <n> a second time to activate the controls. Make sure
the X-axis is selected, and that the center is set to 0 m along
the X-, Y-, and Z-axes.
4. Deselect Merge Points. (The Merge Points option automati-
cally performs a Merge Points|Automatic function after
mirroring. This is handy in a lot of cases, but we want to know
that any points on these skelegons that we don’t merge on
purpose stay that way; it can affect hierarchy.)
5. Close the Numeric window and press the Spacebar to drop
the Mirror tool.
Figure 4.12. Mirroring the hand controls.
65
4.4 Foot Controls

Foot controls manage the placement of the foot and the bend of the
toes. We’ll also be creating the control for swinging the knee in and
out.
1. Create a skelegon for the Note:
right foot. Position its base in If your character is digiti-
the center of the ankle and grade, meaning he walks on
his toes, you’ll need to use a
its tip in the center of the ball different setup for his feet.
of the foot. You’ll find this setup in Chap-
ter 15, along with important
2. Create a second skelegon (a notes on how to handle
child of the previous one) digitigrade and animal
that stretches to the tip of motion. (The digitigrade rig-
ging I used on the characters
the shoe. Name these two of Kaze, Ghost Warrior is
skelegons RightFoot and included on the Kaze, Ghost
RightToes, respectively. Warrior DVD available at
www.KazeGhostWarrior.com.)
Figure 4.13. Positioning the foot and toe skelegons.
66
3. Make a small skelegon that has its tip at the center of the hip
joint. (Use Figures 3.1 and 3.2 to help you.) Angle this bone so
it lies along a path that points toward the knee. Name this
skelegon RightKnee.
Figure 4.14. Positioning the RightKnee skelegon.
4. Mirror RightKnee, RightFoot, and RightToes along the

X-axis. Rename the new bones accordingly.
67
Figure 4.15. Mirroring the foot and knee controls. All extraneous things are
kept hidden to help preserve sanity.
Figure 4.16. The major controls for our character.
68
4.5 Fingers
Now that we’ve got the major controls that will drive the IK for our
character, we’ll put in the FK bones that will control the fingers.
Because of my tendency to like to scroll up and down through things
in Layout with the Up and Down Arrow keys, I like to build the fin-
gers in a specific pattern. I like to start sculpting the hand position
from the index finger, working my way to the middle finger, ring fin-
ger (if it’s there), pinky finger, and finally the thumb. If you would
rather start with the thumb or another finger, please feel free to
modify this hand setup to suit your needs.
1. Create a chain of three skelegons along the right index finger.
Name these RightIndex_Base, RightIndex_Mid, and
RightIndex_Tip accordingly.
Figure 4.17. I tend to place finger bones a bit higher than the center of the
finger. This gives me the most realistic finger action in bends. Notice that
while the connections between RightIndex_Tip and RightIndex_Mid and their
parents fall on the isoparm (isoparametric line, the lines that define NURBial
patches) of their respective knuckle, the base of RightIndex_Base does not.
The rotation point of this base knuckle is deeper inside the hand than what
you might think. Bend your own fingers from this first knuckle, and see that
the bend takes place not at the webbing but deeper into your hand!
69
2. Create a chain of skelegons for the right middle finger. Name

these RightMiddle_Base, RightMiddle_Mid, and
RightMiddle_Tip accordingly.
3. Create a chain of skelegons for the right pinky finger. Name
these RightPinky_Base, RightPinky_Mid, and Right-
Pinky_Tip accordingly.
Figure 4.18. The skelegons for the middle and pinky fingers. I’ve marked the
knuckles with thick lines in this figure. I generally like to have a bend fall
directly on an isoparm, and surround it with an isoparm on either side. It
helps keep bulges in the right places while animating.
4. Create a chain of skelegons for the right thumb. Name these

RightThumb_Base, RightThumb_Mid, and RightThumb_
Tip accordingly.
70
Figure 4.19. The skelegons of the thumb. Thumbs do have three parts of
articulation, just like fingers! It’s just that the base of our thumb is buried deep
in our hand close to our wrist! Move your own thumb about, feeling for this
base joint with the fingers of your other hand.
Advanced Note:
There is actually another point of articulation in the hand that
lets us fold our pinky and ring fingers over somewhat toward
our thumb. So far, I haven’t needed to build a setup that has
this, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be faced with a
scene one day where you’ll have to put this in. Just make a
mental note that this rotation swings from the base of the
palm, just on the other side of its center from where
*Thumb_Base attaches.
71
5. Select and mirror the bones you have just created for the fin-
gers (and thumb) across the X-axis (without merging points),
and rename the new bones to reflect the fact that they’re on
the left.
Figure 4.20. All the IK and FK controllers have been created. All that remains
for this part of the setup is to create the skelegons for the IK systems.
4.6 IK System Skelegons

IK system skelegons are the skelegons/bones that will be controlled
by IK. Accuracy is a very big factor here, so we’ll be using a few
tricks that speed up precision placement. Some of the steps may
seem a little odd, but they really are the fastest, most reliable ways
I’ve found to do things.
1. Hide all the skelegons except for Spine3 (the top spinal
skelegon) and Head.
2. With Spine3 selected, create a skelegon. Name this skelegon
Neck.
72
Figure 4.21. It isn’t important where Neck is

pointed. We’ll position it in a moment.
3. Change your selection mode to Points ^G, and select first

the point at the tip of Neck, then the point at the root of Head.
Figure 4.22. Selecting the points in order.
73
4. Press Ctrl+w to weld these two points together.
Figure 4.23. The two points are welded together, forcing

the tip of Neck to the exact position of Head. This also
makes Head a child of Neck as seen in the Skelegon Tree
window (Setup|Skelegons|Skelegon Tree).
Newbie Note:
The order in which the points to be welded are
selected is important. All selected points will be
welded to the last point selected.
5. Select the single point that is now the tip of Neck and the base
of Head. Press Ctrl+u to “unweld” this point into two points
(a point for each skelegon it belonged to).
74
Figure 4.24. Head is now no longer a child of Neck.
6. With Neck selected, create a small skelegon at its tip. Name

this skelegon Neck_Puller.
Figure 4.25. With the addition of Neck_Puller, the

hierarchy of the neck is now complete.
75
7. With RightElbow selected, create two more skelegons that

lie along the arm. Name these two skelegons RightBicep and
RightForearm, respectively.
Figure 4.26. RightBicep and RightForearm, newly created and ready to be

positioned within the arm.
8. Position the right elbow joint, the meeting of RightBicep and

RightForearm. It should be in the center of the arm along the
Y-axis, but closer to the back of the arm on the X- and Z-axes.
76
9. Select the point at the tip of RightForearm. Then add to your

selection the points that are at the base of RightHand_Trans
and RightHand_Rot (they should be right on top of one
another).
Figure 4.27. Selecting the points that will position the tip of RightForearm after
having positioned the elbow joint.
10. Press Ctrl+w to weld these points, moving the tip of

RightForearm to the exact position of the base of the hand
controls.
11. Select this newly welded point and press Ctrl+u to unweld it
from the original three points, unparenting the hand controls
from RightForearm.
77
12. With the RightForearm skelegon selected, create a small

skelegon at its tip. Name this new skelegon
RightArm_Puller.
Figure 4.28. The hierarchy of the right arm is complete!
13. Select RightArm_Puller, RightForearm, and RightBicep.

Mirror these skelegons across the X-axis (without merging
points). Rename the new skelegons appropriately.
78
14. Select the points that are the base of LeftBicep and the tip of
LeftElbow (they should be right on top of one another). Press
Ctrl+w to weld them together, making LeftBicep a child of
LeftElbow.
Figure 4.29. Welding the mirrored skelegon chain of LeftBicep, LeftForearm, and
LeftArm_Puller to the tip of LeftElbow.
15. Hide all skelegons except for RightKnee and RightFoot.
79
16. With RightKnee selected, create two skelegons that follow

the line of the leg. Name them RightThigh and RightCalf,
accordingly.
Figure 4.30. Position the knee joint slightly forward of the center of the model’s
knee.
17. Weld the point at the tip of RightCalf to the point at the base of
RightFoot (just like we did before).
18. Select this newly welded point and unweld it.
80
Figure 4.31. Welding and unwelding to position the tip of RightCalf.
19. With RightCalf selected, add a tiny skelegon and name it

RightLeg_Puller.
Figure 4.32. With the addition of RightLeg_Puller, the hierarchy of the right leg
is complete!
81
20. Mirror RightLeg_Puller, RightCalf, and RightThigh across

the X-axis, again making sure to not automatically merge
points. Rename these bones accordingly.
21. Unhide everything and weld the point at the tip of LeftKnee to
the point at the base of LeftThigh.
Figure 4.33. Your completed skeleton!
22. Select all your skelegons and cut them, leaving Layer2 empty.
23. Set Layer1 as your active layer and paste the skelegons into
the same layer as your mesh.
24. Select Map|Weight|Bone Weights.
82
25. Enter 0 m for Threshold Value, and set Use Threshold to

Clip. Click OK.
Figure 4.34. Using these settings creates weight maps for

every skelegon with the values on every point being 0%.
26. Save a backup revision of your model, and then save the model
itself. When you’re ready, go on to Chapter 5.
83
Chapter 5
Converting,
Organizing, and
Aligning
The skelegons you created in Modeler are placeholders for the bones
that Layout will use to deform the mesh. So now, for the moment, we
can leave Modeler behind and open up Layout.
5.1 Converting Skelegons to Bones
Newbie Note:
If you just couldn’t bring yourself to make the skelegons in the last
chapter, there is a model that already has them created for you.
As always, I strongly encourage you to go through all the steps so
you have an understanding of how each part was created and
how to modify them should you ever need to. If you need the
pre-skelegoned model, you will find it on the companion CD as
Objects\chapters\ch_04.lwo.
1. Load your model from Chapter 4 into Layout.
85
Chapter 5: Converting, Organizing, and Aligning
Figure 5.1. I find it helpful to use multiple views in Layout. You have a better feel for
where something is in 3D space, and the Schematic window can be invaluable for
finding a specific character control at a glance (more on this in a bit). You activate
multiple views under Edit|Display Options|Viewport Layout.
2. In the Object Properties win-

dow (with Objects O active,
choose Item Properties p)
on the Geometry tab, set the
Subdivision Order of your
model to Last (or After
Motion if you will be using
Worley Labs’ FPrime for
real-time previsualization of
your scenes) and the Display
SubPatch Level to 2. (This
will allow for the fastest
real-time updates as you ani-
mate your character.)
Figure 5.2. The Object Properties

window.
86
Newbie Note: Note:

Because “ch_04” is a meta- It is important to have the Subdivision
NURB (subdivision surface) Order set to, at the very least, After
mesh, it will come in with a Motion with characters. (This is espe-
default Display SubPatch Level cially important if you are planning on
of 3. If you have a fast com- having more than one character in a
puter and a GL-accelerated scene.) Bone influences are calculated
graphics card, this level of detail for every point in a mesh, and when
will be fine. If you are on a you have a mesh subdivided, that point
slower computer or don’t have count goes up exponentially. Updates
the real-time rendering power can slow to a point where a scene
of a full GL graphics card, you becomes almost unworkable. Edit|Dis-
can reduce this level of detail play Options|Bounding Box Threshold
and dramatically increase per- is a way of increasing screen-update
formance. These settings let you speeds by telling Layout to display an
animate at a level of detail object with a certain number of poly-
where you can get the quickest gons or higher as a “bounding box”
response possible, and yet ren- until it actually has the time to calculate
der at a complex level. its true shape.
3. With your model selected, choose Setup|Add|Convert

Skelegons into Bones. (Depending upon your version and/or
setup, Convert Skelegons into Bones may be under More in
the Add menu.)
Figure 5.3. This converts the skelegons that

Modeler understands into bones that Layout
understands.
87
4. With your model still selected, under Scene Editor|Classic

Scene Editor...|Visibility, choose Hide Selected Items.
This will make the model invisible when it isn’t selected
(when a hidden item is selected, it will be visible as a
wireframe) so it won’t get in the way visually while we’re set-
ting up bones.
Figure 5.4. The model hidden (the camera selected). These

are the bones you’ve just created from skelegons.
88
5.2 Organizing the Schematic into

Something Helpful
Everything you can do in the preparation stage that keeps you from
having to break concentration while animating is a good thing. A
schematic laid out in a way that makes sense to you can be one of
the greatest tools you’ll encounter in 3D animation!
1. Open the Scene Editor and select the following bones: Neck,
Neck_Puller, RightArm_Puller, LeftArm_Puller,
RightLeg_Puller, LeftLeg_Puller. We’ll be hiding these
bones; they are used only in IK calculations and we won’t need
to affect them directly.
2. From within a Classic Scene Editor, select Visibility|Hide
Selected Items. With these bones hidden, they can’t be acci-
dentally selected by clicking on them in a non-Schematic
viewport when you’re trying to select another control. (Layout
isn’t quite as good as Modeler for knowing what you’re click-
ing on.)
Figure 5.5. In addition to hiding the bones that are driven by IK, I like
to color code all the bones to help in at-a-glance identification of them
when animating gets intense. My own preference is to have red for
bones on the right, green for bones on the left, and cyan for centered
bones such as the spine and head. I use darker colors for the bones
only IK needs to know about once we start animating.
89
3. Maximize a Schematic view (by pressing the numeric keypad’s

0 key, which toggles the “maximized view” mode on and off,
just as in Modeler) and organize your character into an iconic
representation of a human. As in Figure 5.6, I lean toward a
classic da Vinci layout, giving the rough impression of the
character standing spread eagle, palms up.
Figure 5.6. Animation can be pretty hectic. Every bit of organization you can do
beforehand helps. With the controls for your character laid out like this, you can
quickly choose the control you need without having to scroll through a list. (This
illustration is only a suggestion; it is what works best for me. Feel free to innovate
and find what works best for you!)
90
5.3 Aligning the Spine, Pelvis, and Feet

Because the skelegon “bank rotation handle” is a little cryptic to
understand, sometimes you’ll find that you’ll need to adjust the rota-
tion axes of the bones as Layout has created them from Modeler’s
skelegons.
1. Select the Root bone.
Figure 5.7. Pitch is what we would normally think of in LightWave as the axis to
rotate an item forward and backward (around its X-axis). With the way Root is
currently oriented, in order to bend the character forward and backward we would
have to use heading (represented by the red circle on your screen).
Depending on the viewport in which skelegons were created,

bones created from these skelegons can have a +/–90º bank rota-
tion to them (even if the bank rotation handle was never touched).
This flip-flops what we would think of as heading and bank for the
bone, its children, or both! This isn’t a huge problem, and we could
easily work around it. But when we’re deeply engrossed in a scene,
and the familiar left-right mouse movement that usually means “I’m
rotating in heading” instead rotates these few bones in pitch, it can
feel like an unnecessary speed bump in the roadway of production.
So, here’s how we’re going to fix it.
91
2. Select your character’s

mesh (object). Note:
I’ve found the Clone command to
3. Choose Items|Add| work more reliably than the Clone
Clone ^C and enter 1 Hierarchy command.
for the number of clones.
(See Figure 5.8.)
Note:
4. In a Schematic window, Under Display Options|Schematic
move this new object to View, you'll find a check box
a place where it won’t labeled “Drag Descendants.” When
this box is unchecked, each “node”
interfere visually with within a Schematic view can be
the original model and moved independently of all the oth-
its hierarchy. ers. When this is checked, moving
something in a Schematic view also
moves all of its children — this is
what you’ll want for Step 4.
Figure 5.8. Your model will be cloned, along with all its bone structure.
92
5. With the clone of your model still selected, open the Classic
Scene Editor and choose Select|Select All Bones of Cur-
rent Object.
Figure 5.9. All the bones of the cloned model will be

selected.
6. With all the bones of the cloned model selected, within the
Scene Editor select Colors|Color Selected Items|Orange.
Note:
The bones you just colored orange will be guides for us to
match as we rotate our model back into alignment. If you
notice in the Current Item field that you’ve got an orange
bone selected, stop! LightWave only has one level of undo
in Layout. Make sure you have the right bone selected
before making changes.
93
Figure 5.10. All the bones you have selected will be colored orange.
7. Select the Root bone of your original mesh. (It should be cyan,
not orange.)
Figure 5.11. Just making sure that the correct bone is selected.
94
8. Change your tool (what LightWave does when you move the
mouse) to Rotate (Modify|Rotate|Rotate y).
9. In the numeric input field, change the entry for bank to 0.
Figure 5.12. The value for bank in my scene was –90. Changing the pivot’s
bank to 0 swings my character’s spine and pelvis onto its side.
10. Select the Pelvis bone of your original mesh.

11. Make sure you are at Frame 0.
12. Enter 0, 0, 0 for its rotation (heading, pitch, and bank), and
then manually rotate it until it lines up with the orange pelvis
bone of the cloned mesh.
Newbie Note:
After getting each of these bones lined up, press Enter
twice to create a keyframe for that bone. Even if you have
Auto Key Create active, this is a good habit to get into; it
reduces the chances of losing precious minutes or hours
of work.
95
Figure 5.13. After you change the rotation values for the pelvis to 0, you
should only need to rotate it along its pitch axis to line it up with the
orange reference bone. Almost always, copying the old value for heading
into pitch aligns the pelvis and spine bones perfectly.
13. Repeat step 12 for Spine1, Spine2, and Spine3.
Figure 5.14. The spine bones, back in alignment with our orange
reference bones.
96
14. Select RightFoot in your original mesh.

15. Set its bank rotation to 0.
Figure 5.15. Changing RightFoot’s bank should leave it aligned with its
orange reference bone (even though RightToes is now misaligned). Tweak
RightFoot’s heading and bank if you need to.
16. Select RightToes (in your original mesh).
97
17. Swap the values for heading and pitch, and zero-out the value
for bank; RightToes should line up with its orange reference
bone. Tweak as needed.
Figure 5.16. RightToes is back on track. (Nothing is parented to the toes, so

they don’t have to be exact.)
18. Repeat steps 14 to 17 for LeftFoot and LeftToes.

19. Check to see that the Head, *Hand_Trans, and *Hand_Rot
bones also have a bank rotation of 0. Adjust them as needed.
20. Save a revision of your scene.
21. Select the cloned object you’ve been using as reference and
press - (or click Items|Delete|Clear Selected) to clear it
from the scene.
22. Save another revision of your scene.
98
Figure 5.17. Your character is done with its virtual chiropractic session; be
sure to clear the right object!
5.4 Bone Hierarchy

We did a lot of hierarchy work in Modeler with skelegons, but there
are some hierarchical things that can’t be done with skelegons.
Modeler forces child skelegons to be attached to the tip of their par-
ent skelegon. Child bones in Layout don’t have to be right at their
parent’s tip. We’ll need this kind of relationship for our character’s
fingers as they attach to the hand.
Newbie Note:
With Parent in Place active, LightWave calculates the SRT
offset required to keep the selected object in the same
“worldspace” (an item’s relationship to the LW world vs. its
relationship to another item; more on this in Chapter 8), even
though it inherits SRT data from its parent item. LightWave
does a good job of this, but it can be fooled by complex hier-
archies where items have had changes made to their pivot’s
rotation (see Section 5.5). So save revisions and always be
watchful for errors in these calculations!
99
1. Check to make sure you have

Parent in Place active
(Edit|General Options|
Parent in Place).
2. In a full-screen Schematic
window, click on Right-
Thumb_Base.
3. While holding down Ctrl, click
on RightHand_Rot. This is a
quick way to make Right-
Thumb_Base a child of
Figure 5.18. Parent in Place
RightHand_Rot.
Figure 5.19. Notice how the line that once connected RightThumb_Base
to ch_04 now is connected to RightHand_Rot.
100
4. Make RightIndex_Base, RightMiddle_Base, and

RightPinky_Base children of RightHand_Rot.
5. Make RightHand_Rot a child of RightHand_Trans.
6. Repeat steps 2 to 5 for the bones of the
left hand.
Note:
7. Make RightHand_Trans and
RightFoot and
LeftHand_Trans children of Root. LeftFoot remain
children of ch_04.
8. Make RightShoulder and
LeftShoulder children of Spine3.
9. Make RightKnee and LeftKnee children of Pelvis.
10. Make Pelvis a child of Spine1 (Spine1 being a child of Root).
11. Make Head a child of Spine1.
Note:
These are options you’ll want to keep in the back of your mind for
future reference. I’ll go through them in Chapter 8 in the section on
how to modify the setup for your personal preference, but this will get
your wheels turning as to how to apply changes in setup to the needs
of different scenes.
With the way the hands, feet, and head are children of different
items (when IK has been fully activated at the end of Chapter 6), when
you move the mesh object itself, your entire model will move, statue-
like, to its new position. When you move the Root bone, your charac-
ter’s feet will remain where they are, and his entire upper carriage will
move, frozen and statue-like. When you move Spine1, your character’s
torso will move, statue-like, but his head, hands, and feet will stay put.
You’ll find some scenes to be much easier when the hands move
with the momentum of the upper carriage (some martial arts katas),
and some scenes much more difficult (grappling). Sometimes you’ll
want the head to be independent of the torso (dancing), and some-
times you’ll want it to follow (walking). As you begin work on a scene,
think about what kind of hierarchy of head, hands, and feet will make
your work easier, and experiment. You’ll find your own personal
101
preferences for certain kinds of work. Your solution is likely to involve

reparenting these items. (The head may be a child of Root, Spine1, or
Spine3; each will have a different effect on how the head inherits the
motion of the body.) Nothing is wrong if it works; creativity is rewarded
with a better looking scene with much less effort. Just remember that
changes in parenting work best early on in the animation end of things,
and that Parent in Place only works when both items’ pivots are free of
rotation. So save revisions of your scene before making changes in your
character’s hierarchy.
Figure 5.20. The schematic of the character’s hierarchy up to this

point.
5.5 Recording Pivot Rotations

Now we’re going to tell LightWave to perceive many of the bones’
current directions as if they were 0H, 0P, 0B. This is a big help
where gimbal lock may be an issue, especially in the fingers, spine,
and IK calculations.
1. Under Edit|General Options|AutoKeyCreate, make sure
you have either Modified Channels or All Motion Channels
selected.
2. In the main Layout window, make sure you have the Auto
Key button active.
102
Newbie Note:
Remember that when you have Auto
Key Create active, LightWave auto-
matically records keyframes for items
you move. With All Motion Channels
selected, a key is created on all axes
of scaling, rotation, and translation
when you move the item. With Mod-
ified Channels selected, a key is only
created on the axes of the channels
you are modifying. Without Auto Key
Create active, all changes in SRT are
lost when you leave that frame unless
you manually create one for each
channel of each item modified. (This
functionality was great when Layout
didn’t have Undo.)
Figure 5.21. Both settings

need to be active in order for
Auto Key to record changes in
SRT.
3. Make sure you are on Frame 0.

4. Select the bone named Root.
5. Choose Setup|Modify|Orientation|Record Piv Rot to
record the Root’s pivot rotation.
103
Note:
In recording pivot rotation,
LightWave (in essence) sets the
pivot point’s rotation of the cur-
rent item to its current rotation.
Then it “zeros” its current rota-
tion by setting it to 0H, 0P, 0B.
With Auto Key active, a
keyframe is recorded at the cur-
rent frame (preferably the first
frame of your scene, usually 0)
and LightWave perceives the
item as now having a rotation
of 0H, 0P, 0B. Without Auto Key
active, no keyframe is created
(unless you do so manually)
and when you refresh the
viewport (go forward a frame,
then back a frame; save, then
load, etc....), the item reverts to
its old rotation data, but now
this data is added to the new
rotation of its pivot.
Figure 5.22. Recording pivot
rotation.
6. Select Pelvis and record its pivot rotation.

7. Repeat this to record pivot rotation for all bones.
Note: Note:
The hot key for recording pivot rotation is <P>. For my rea-
soning behind
recording
pivot informa-
Note: tion, see
A good way to check to make sure that the Chapter 2’s
pivot’s rotation was actually recorded is to look section called
at the rotation numerical input fields. If they’re “Rotation
all zeros, rotation has been recorded! This is Order.”
how I check to see if I’ve missed anything after
doing this step. I just quickly scroll down the
bones using the Down Arrow and watch the
numeric input fields to see if there are any
bones that still have values other than zero.
104
5.6 Recording Bone Rest Information
Newbie Note:
A bone’s rest position isn’t the same as its pivot rotation.
Pivot rotation figures in rotational calculations (heading,
pitch, and bearing). Rest position (which actually also
includes a bone’s rest rotation) keeps track of how much the
bone has deviated from its initial (rest) position, rotation,
and scale. The points of the object the bone is affecting are
pulled along accordingly.
Newbie Note:
A bone should always have a scale of 1, 1, 1 when it is at
rest. LightWave uses this scale of 1, 1, 1 as its point of refer-
ence to figure the deforming of the object when the bone is
scaled.
If you need to make a bone’s rest length longer or
shorter while in Layout, (i.e., the Root bone is much shorter
than the Pelvis bone), you need to make this adjustment
under the Bone|Properties|Rest Length setting. (Click and
drag on the double-triangle button to the right of the input
field.)
1. With Root once again selected, record its rest position, length,
and direction by pressing r (or choosing Setup|Modify|Ori-
entation|Record Bone Rest Position). (See Figure 5.23.)
2. Record the rest position for every bone in your model.
Note:
I just start at the top of the character with the Root
bone, and get a nice rhythm going, alternately
pressing <r> and the Down Arrow key. It won’t
matter if you lose yourself in the rhythm and record
rest position for a bone more than once if you
“wrap-around” from LeftLeg_Puller to Root.
105
3. Save a revision of your scene!
Figure 5.23. Record rest position.
Give yourself a healthy pat on the back! You’ve just completed the
first half of character setup! In the next chapter, you’ll finally begin
to see the power of the setup you’ve been creating as we start to
activate IK.
106
Chapter 6
Putting IK and IKB to

Work
Everything is all set to bring the “big guns” of computer animation to
bear. We’re ready to activate the power (and limitations) of Inverse
Kinematics, augmented with the additional power of LightWave’s IK
Booster! In this chapter, you’ll begin to see the result of all your hard
work in the previous five chapters. And after this chapter, there is
only one more step until you can begin to see your character come to
life by pulling, pushing, rotating, and scaling the controls you’ve so
carefully crafted!
Newbie Note:
As always, if you feel you need a “leg up” from the last
chapter, you can find the scene that has the work of
Chapter 5 all done for you in Scenes\chapters\
ch_05.lws.
6.1 Terminating IK Chains

LightWave must be told where to stop using IK to calculate the rota-
tions of the items in the chain. This is called “terminating” the IK
chain (like tying off a rope that holds a string of buoys). We’re going
to use IK to figure rotations for the neck, arms, and legs only. This
means we terminate IK at the bones that are the parents of the neck
bone, the bicep bones, and the thigh bones.
1. With a freshly incremented revision of the scene you created in
Chapter 5 loaded into Layout, select the Spine3 bone (which is
the parent of Neck).
107
Chapter 6: Putting IK and IKB to Work
2. Open the Motion Options window for Spine3 by pressing

<m> (Window|Motion Options…) and under the IK and
Modifiers tab, check Unaffected by IK of Descendants.
This causes the IK calculations of the child bone, in this case
Neck, to stop and go no further.
Figure 6.1. The hierarchical view of the Scene Editor is the quickest way
of selecting the bones we’ll be terminating. (While working at this stage,
I find it helpful to hide the mesh.)
3. Repeat step 2 for RightElbow (the parent of RightBicep),

LeftElbow (parent of LeftBicep), RightKnee (parent of
RightThigh), and LeftKnee (parent of LeftThigh).
108
6.2 Creating Goal Objects

Because LightWave’s standard IK doesn’t let you use bones as goals
for IK, we have to add a few null objects (which can be used as IK
goals) and make them children of the bones we’re using as controls
so that LightWave’s IK can track these bones’ positions. (Yes, it’s
rather backward, but bear in mind, most everything cool in 3D is a
“hack” of some kind or other. “Hacking” in this sense is just work-
ing within limitations — inane as they may be — to get the result
we need. Remember, creativity is your greatest asset in doing any-
thing with 3D. A problem or a stumbling block is simply a gateway
to untold possibilities for cleverly wrenching the systems into doing
what you think they should do by default.)
1. Click Items|Add|Null ^N.
2. Name this null object NeckGoal.
Figure 6.2. Adding the null object called NeckGoal.
109
3. Under Edit|General Options, make sure that Parent in Place

is not checked. (See the following Newbie Note.)
4. Press <m> to bring up the Motion Options window for
NeckGoal.
5. Select the Head bone to be the parent item for this null.
Figure 6.3. Setting NeckGoal to be the child of Head (with Parent in Place inactive)
makes the null instantly “jump” to Head’s base.
Newbie Note:
Because we deactivated Parent in Place, the moment we set Head to be
the parent item for NeckGoal, it seems to instantly reposition itself to
the base of the Head bone. As a child of Head, NeckGoal’s world now
revolves (quite literally) around Head’s pivot, and wherever Head is,
that is where NeckGoal perceives 0X, 0Y, 0Z, and 0H, 0P, 0B to be.
From NeckGoal’s point of view, it is still at 0, 0, 0. If we had had Parent
in Place active when we did step 5, to our perception, NeckGoal
wouldn’t have moved, but if we had looked at its position in the numeric
input fields, we’d have found that it now reads something like 0.1215
µm, –1.875 m, 50 mm. With Parent in Place active, LightWave calcu-
lates the offset (taking into account the parent item’s rotation as well as
its position) needed to have the selected object stay where it was in
world coordinates, which simply means with respect to the world’s 0X,
0Y, 0Z, 0H, 0P, and 0B. (More on coordinate systems in a bit!)
110
6. Create four more null objects, naming them RightArmGoal,

LeftArmGoal, RightLegGoal, and LeftLegGoal.
Newbie Note:
Parent in Place is to remain off
for steps 7 to 10 in this section.
7. Make RightArmGoal a child of RightHand_Rot.

8. Make LeftArmGoal a child of LeftHand_Rot.
9. Make RightLegGoal a child of RightFoot.
10. Make LeftLegGoal a child of LeftFoot.
11. Hide these objects; they are only used for IK calculations, and
we won’t need to touch them during animation. Color code
them if you are using colors to distinguish items as to which
side they belong, and in your schematic, arrange them in a way
that makes sense to you. (It may seem like wasted time to
have a neat, clean schematic, but its worth pays off tenfold
when you’re down-and-dirty in a scene and you don’t have
time to go hunting for something.)
Figure 6.4. The goal objects.
111
6.3 Activating IK
Now, we’ve got to activate IK. We’ll be telling LightWave which
item will be pulling which chain toward which goal object. We won’t
see the chains move yet; we’ll still have to tell Layout which axes
IK should take over on each item to be controlled by IK.
1. Select the RightArm_Puller bone.
2. Press <m> to bring up the Motion Options panel for this
item. (See Figure 6.5.)
3. Select RightArmGoal as the goal object.
4. Check the box next to Full-time IK.
5. Set Goal Strength to 80.
Newbie Note:
Remember that without Full-time IK
checked, LightWave only calculates
IK for this chain when you’re moving
the goal object, and you have to
manually set keyframes for each item
in this chain that uses IK to figure its
rotations. “Part-time” IK is a holdover
from when IK was too much for most
computers to continually keep on top
of, but it can still come in handy if
you need to lighten the load on your
CPU as you work on a complex
scene.
Figure 6.5. The motion options for

RightArm_Puller.
Note:
Goal Strength is a level of how much this chain will try to keep
the puller touching the goal object as you animate. A low value
will let the arm separate from the wrist too easily, and a high
value can cause jitters. The number 80 is just an arbitrary value
I’ve come up with that seems to keep things together, while
keeping jitters to a minimum.
112
6. Repeat steps 2 to 5 for LeftArm_Puller, RightLeg_Puller,

and LeftLeg_Puller, setting their goal objects to the respec-
tive nulls we created in the previous section.
7. Set the goal object for Neck_Puller to be NeckGoal, enable
Full-time IK, and set its Goal Strength to 40. (With only one
bone in the chain, a goal strength of 40 seems to do just fine.)
Figure 6.6. The blue lines on your screen show the active IK chains from the base
of the puller item to the base of the child of the Unaffected by IK of Descendants
(terminated) item. (These are the IK chains, which can be shown or hidden under
Edit|Display Options|Show IK Chains.)
113
6.4 Activating Individual Controllers

Next up, we’ve got to tell LightWave which axes will be using IK to
generate rotation information for each item in our chains. This takes
manual control away from whatever axes we select, handing it over
to the computer. With respect to the information in Chapter 2 about
IK’s strengths and weaknesses, this has to be a very discriminating
process.
1. Select the Neck bone.
Figure 6.7. We’ll want this joint to pivot along both the heading and pitch axes.
114
Newbie Note:
With LightWave in rotation mode (Modify|Rotate|Rotate y), you can see
colored circles, handles, representing the axes of rotation — red for
heading, green for pitch, and blue for bank. Under Modify|General|
Coord System, you can change the axes from World to Parent to Local
(you can do this for translation (Move) axes too — X,Y,Z). When you do
this, LightWave assumes a new method for calculating rotation and
translation. With World selected, LightWave rotates (or moves) the
object in alignment with the worldspace coordinates such that Y is
always straight up, heading always rotates with respect to the world’s
Y-axis, etc. With the coordinates set to Parent, LightWave figures move-
ment and rotation with respect to the item’s parent. With the coordi-
nates set to Local, LightWave figures rotation and movement as based
solely on its own orientation (this is how LW used to figure rotation and
movement before Version 6). This may seem confusing. Playing with,
moving, and rotating items in different coordinate systems is the only
way to really get a feel for what to expect.
Note:
LightWave’s ability to switch between world, parent, and local coordi-
nate systems (see preceding Newbie Note) comes in handy, getting you
out of jams or helping to speed up precise placement. But there is a
caveat about the systems: LightWave stores rotation and translation data
relative to the parent coordinate system. You can see this by watching
the numerical data update (lower-left corner of the default LW layout)
as you rotate or move an item along one of its axes while using the dif-
ferent coordinate systems. Only the parent coordinate system always
exactly matches what you’re doing when you rotate or move a single
axis (when rotating along pitch, only the pitch numerical input field
updates; under world and local, often two or three fields can be seen to
update while rotating a single controller in Layout). What this means
for us at the moment is that in order for us to visually judge which axes
we want IK to calculate for, we must be viewing rotations in Coordinate
System: Parent.
115
2. Press <m> to again bring up the Motion Options panel, but

this time, click on the Controllers and Limits tab.
3. Select Inverse Kinematics for both heading and pitch
controllers.
Figure 6.8. IK has been
activated for controlling the
heading and pitch axes of
the Neck bone.
Note:
If you’re like most people, you want to move the Head bone to see that the Neck
bone does indeed track to it. (Neck will have to be temporarily unhidden in
order to see it while it is not selected — just be sure to hide it again after you’re
done.) Whenever you do something like this to test a control or a setting, be sure
to move the Time Slider away from Frame 0 (you can easily delete all keys from
a frame other than 0, and get back to your character’s “rest pose”). This is
important even if you’re almost entirely sure you don’t have Auto Key Create
active. It’s always a good idea to cover your behind and give the computer as lit-
tle opportunity to frustrate you as possible (an ounce of prevention and all that).
This is just one small habit to get into to save you from having to utter the
phrase, “What do you mean I can’t Undo?” along with some choice expletives.
(You need your character in this rest pose — where all bones are exactly where
they were created as skelegons — in order to properly set skinning attrib-
utes/weight maps. And it is always best to have your character load in the same,
balanced pose. If you make a modification to the key at Frame 0, you won’t be
able to get back to this exact pose. And if you delete the key at Frame 0, and
that happens to be the only key in the scene for that item, that item has a high
probability of being grossly misplaced when you reload the scene.)
116
Advanced Note:
If you’re moving the Head bone and are thinking to yourself, “Hey, I can move
the head a mile away from the neck! What gives?” Don’t worry. Under moderate
control, it just gives the feeling of good old-fashioned squash and stretch in
action. It has been my experience that viewers don’t notice if a neck, wrist, or
ankle elongates a little during animation. This kind of setup is the only way I
know that will allow you to lock a character’s hands (which will function the
same way as the head) to a surface like a tabletop and still have full range of
motion for the rest of the body. You don’t have to fret that the wrong twist of the
body will pull the hands away from the table. As for the head, yes, it is possible
to make an IK setup where the control for the head/neck simply moves the joint
between the head and neck, with the head staying attached while pointing in the
same direction as the control. However, if you also use IK to have the eyes point
toward targets in the scene, having them in a hierarchy that is already controlled
by IK (the head/neck) seems to give the solver fits. I’ve experienced solving
errors for the eyes from missing their goal objects by a few degrees to rotating in
the exact opposite direction from what you’d expect. (The way to be sure of this is
to attach a wireframe two-point poly that is invisible to the camera and not cast-
ing shadows to the eyeball, extending in its exact “line of sight”).
4. Select RightThigh, then bring up the Motion Options panel.

5. Set both the heading and pitch controllers to Inverse
Kinematics.
Figure 6.9. The RightThigh, set to use IK for heading and pitch.
117
6. Select RightCalf.
7. Set only Heading Controller to Inverse Kinematics.
Figure 6.10. The RightCalf, set to use IK for heading.
Advanced Note:
For those of you who are wondering, “Why heading? Shouldn’t pitch be the
axis that the calf would rotate to swing in a normal, ‘calf-like’ motion?”
You’re absolutely right; this would be the normal way of things, except that
we used skelegons to create it and its parents (the reason we tweaked the
spine, pelvis, and feet in Section 5.3). Could we do what we talked about in
Chapter 2, “swapping” heading and pitch? Yes, we could, but should we?
Only if you want to use that bone’s joint compensation and/or muscle flexing.
Note:
Your character’s leg should now follow his foot when you
move RightFoot. Just make sure you’re on some frame other
than 0 when you test it, and delete the keyframe if one is
automatically created!
118
8. Set the heading and pitch controllers for LeftThigh to

Inverse Kinematics.
9. Set the heading controller for LeftCalf to Inverse
Kinematics.
Now for the arms: We’re going to have to break a rule for the
arms. The rule we’re going to break is that rule of never having IK
solve for more than two of an item’s axes. It’s a good rule, one that
does indeed have a lot of merit. But remember, in this business, the
most creative solutions are often the ones most strongly rewarded.
I have found, over the course of many evolutions of setups, that
arms, because of their extensive and complex range of motion, need
special handling. The skin can bunch or tear, and the IK that drives
them is prone to flipping and solving errors. The zones that cause
flipping change locations with each different base position you have
for your skeleton’s arms (how your skeleton’s arms are in their ini-
tial pose, whether they are straight out in front, or to the sides, or a
combination of the two as we have for our character). The relation-
ship of forearm to bicep to the bicep’s parent all factor heavily in
how easily IK can figure rotations of these items. The setup we’ve
created here has the bicep and forearm and their rotation points in a
relationship to each other such that IK can reliably solve for all three
axes of the bicep. With the arm bones positioned as they are, the
usual problems of having a joint solve for three axes actually work
for us, and the resulting movement more realistically mimics life
than with any other setup I’ve used.
119
Note:
I have to mention this just to help illustrate that all-important point that
you have to push beyond the bounds of being “safe” (when you have
the time to fully R&D, that is), that creativity in how you solve problems
is a virtue in this work. When I was R&D-ing this setup for a project
some time ago, I figured that the arms of the character should be in
the position we currently have them because it puts them within the
average range of motion; skin would need to stretch and compress less
than if the character were spread eagle. All the preliminary math also
suggested that this should be an extremely stable IK setup. In reality,
when I first put this together and was using IK only for the bicep’s
heading and pitch (as I had been taught), the setup was one of the
most jittery, flippiest IKs I’ve ever seen in LightWave. I beat my head
against the math for weeks, trying every solution I could think of to
force it to work; everything I knew about IK said it should work, and yet
it didn’t. I was just about to scrap the whole thing. After about two
weeks of fighting with the arm’s IK, going through every clever varia-
tion I could think of, on a whim I turned on IK for the bicep’s bank. The
deadline for having the characters working was looming, and I had
tried everything else; I should have just gone back to an old setup I
knew would work relatively well. Much to my surprise, with IK solving
for H, P, and B, the arm instantly began functioning just as all the pre-
liminary math said it should! The result is the setup you’re building
right now, one of the strongest, most realistic, and reliable IKs I’ve used
in any package. Never be afraid to try something weird. Flying in the
face of convention is often rewarded, just so long as you’ve got the
time to backtrack to something you know will work.
10. Select RightBicep.

11. Set IK to control RightBicep’s heading, pitch, and bank (see
Figure 6.11).
12. Select RightForearm.
13. Set IK to control RightForearm’s heading (see Figure 6.12).
14. Repeat steps 10 to 13 for your character’s LeftBicep and
LeftForearm.
120
Figure 6.11. Using IK for all three of RightBicep’s axes.
Figure 6.12. Using IK for controlling only the heading of the RightForearm.
121
Advanced Note:
There are some setup artists who use rotation limits (“constraints” in other pack-
ages) to keep a forearm or a calf from bending beyond its normal range of
motion. I don’t find there to be much need for this if there is enough of a helping
“pre-bend” between the forearm and bicep, or the calf and thigh. I’ve actually
found that it can increase the possibility of jitters or flipping because it gives IK
yet one more thing to think about. Jitter or no, LightWave’s rotation limits (cur-
rently) cause an item to stop like it hit a brick wall when it reaches the end of its
range of movement. This is enough reason for me to strongly advise against
using rotation limits in character animation.
6.5 Deactivating Individual Manual

Controls
Here, we’re going to deactivate the manual controls for items that
shouldn’t be moved, rotated, or scaled. This keeps you from acci-
dentally sliding a control out of alignment while you’re in that
animation Zen zone (quite an easy thing to do, really). If a control
does get moved, scaled, or rotated by accident and you don’t notice
it quickly enough to undo, sometimes you can delete the offending
keys on the offending axes. You can sometimes go to Frame 0 and
create a key on the offending frame for the offending axes with the
SRT data of Frame 0 (by pressing Enter and typing in a different
frame number on which to create the keyframe). Often, your scene
is just FUBAR. This step, though slightly tedious, helps to keep
these problems at bay.
Note:
When you are working in a coordinate system other than Parent,
LightWave lets you manipulate an item on an axis by clicking on its
handle in the Layout viewports, even when that axis has been disabled.
Figure 6.13. To deactivate a

control, click on the button
next to its numeric input
field. Controls must be
deactivated individually for
each axis for Move <t>,
Rotate <y>, and Stretch
<h>.
122
Note:
In the case of *Hand_Trans and *Hand_Rot, I find it to be much easier
to get the exact arcs of motion I’m looking for if I use *Hand_Trans for
heading and bank, and *Hand_Rot for pitch and bank. You can use all
three axes for a single hand control if you wish (and sometimes you
may have to in order to get the exact placement you need), but this
greatly limits your control of how the hand rotates between keyframes.
The following is a list of all the items in our scene that pertain
to our character. Axes with an “X” in that column are axes that are
to be active. Axes marked with an “o” are optional; I generally don’t
use them, but feel free to if you want. Those left blank indicate con-
trols to remain inactive.
Item Move Move Move Rotate Rotate Rotate Stretch Stretch Stretch
X Y Z H P B X Y Z
Ch_04 (Character Mesh) X X X X o o X X X
NeckGoal
RightArmGoal
LeftArmGoal
RightLegGoal
LeftLegGoal
Root X X X X X X X X X
Pelvis X X X X X X
Spine1 X X X X X X X X X
Spine2 X X X o o o
Spine3 X X X o o o
Head X X X X X X X X X
RightHand_Trans X X X X o X X X X
RightHand_Rot o X X
RightShoulder X X
RightElbow X
LeftHand_Trans X X X X o X X X X
LeftHand_Rot o X X
LeftShoulder X X
LeftElbow X
RightFoot X X X X X X X X X
RightToes o X X o o o
RightKnee X
LeftFoot X X X X X X X X X
LeftToes o X X o o o
LeftKnee X
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Item Move Move Move Rotate Rotate Rotate Stretch Stretch Stretch
X Y Z H P B X Y Z
RightIndex_Base X X o o o
RightIndex_Mid X o o o
RightIndex_Tip X o o o
RightMiddle_Base X X o o o
RightMiddle_Mid X o o o
RightMiddle_Tip X o o o
RightPinky_Base X X o o o
RightPinky_Mid X o o o
RightPinky_Tip X o o o
RightThumb_Base X X X o o o
RightThumb_Mid X o o o
RightThumb_Tip X o o o
LeftIndex_Base X X o o o
LeftIndex_Mid X o o o
LeftIndex_Tip X o o o
LeftMiddle_Base X X o o o
LeftMiddle_Mid X o o o
LeftMiddle_Tip X o o o
LeftPinky_Base X X o o o
LeftPinky_Mid X o o o
LeftPinky_Tip X o o o
LeftThumb_Base X X X o o o
LeftThumb_Mid X o o o
LeftThumb_Tip X o o o
Neck
Neck_Puller
RightBicep
RightForearm
RightArm_Puller
LeftBicep
LeftForearm
LeftArm_Puller
RightThigh
RightCalf
RightLeg_Puller
LeftThigh
LeftCalf
LeftLeg_Puller
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Note:
The bones in the previous list are laid out in the order in which they
were (or should have been) created as skelegons in Chapter 4. You can
move down to the next one by pressing the Down Arrow and up to the
previous one by pressing the Up Arrow.
Advanced Note:
As always, rules are made to be broken. If you feel that you can get the
exact silhouette you need only by moving, rotating, or scaling an item
that I’ve said shouldn’t be moved, rotated, or scaled, by all means, go
for it! But be sure and save a revision before doing so, just in case you
find it’s a blind alley. Play, have fun, be creative … and always cover
your ASCII!
6.6 Applying IK Booster

You could leave off at this point and have a perfectly, wonderfully
functional rigging. You’d have the same quality of riggings I used in
getting out an average of 35 to 40 seconds of completed footage (not
just “ruff animation,” but clean-up, lighting, rendering, editing, and
archiving) per day in the last months of production on Kaze, Ghost
Warrior.
In applying IK Booster, however, you gain access to all those
nifty functions we talked about in the IK Booster section of
Chapter 2.
Note: Note:
Just FYI, the current industry standard Always remember to give
for how much footage is expected to yourself the time you need
come out of “ruff animation” is around to attain the level of quality
four seconds per animator per week. I you want out of your work.
mention this because it’s a very freeing As you practice, the time
feeling to know that if you spent 40 required to hit that level of
hours on four seconds of ruff anima- quality will decrease, but
tion, it would probably turn out looking you must be able to attain
pretty darn good too! that level of quality first!
125
1. Select your character object. Activate Modify|Tools|IK

BoostTool ^B.
2. Right-click on the object, and choose Apply IK Booster.
Figure 6.14. Applying IK Booster.
3. Next, in order to see the nifty little icons and handles IK

Booster gives us, we’ve got to “unhide” our model. Since I
don’t want all the model’s geometry to get in the way visually,
in a Classic Scene Editor, set the visibility of your model to
Bounding Box.
4. Click on the Locked column to lock (which hides the IKB con-
trols for those items and makes it so they can’t be selected in
a non-Schematic viewport) Root, *Puller, and *Goal (all other
items should be unlocked). See Figure 6.15.
5. Hide *Puller, *Goal, and Neck. (All other items should be
made visible.)
126
Figure 6.15. Modifying what we can see

and select in a 3D viewport.
In order to keep our character from being dragged all over the
place when we use IK Booster to move different parts of him, we
now need to tell IK Booster where to stop IK calculations, and to fix
other bones in place.
Newbie Note:
Remember that you need to have the IK BoostTool active in
order to perform any operations on or with IK Booster.
6. Select Spine1. Right-click on its control icon and choose

(ikstop). This still lets this bone be rotated using IK Booster,
but it will no longer allow itself to be moved about the scene
when we’re using IK Booster to manipulate its child bones.
127
Figure 6.16. Stopping the IK of the spine at the base of Spine1. When
a bone is set to IK Stop, a diamond appears inside its control icon.
Newbie Note:
Remember to right-click on the control icon (not the numbers)
when setting IK Stop.
7. Repeat step 6 for Root, RightKnee, LeftKnee, RightFoot,

LeftFoot, RightHand_Trans, LeftHand_Trans, Right-
Elbow, RightShoulder, LeftElbow, LeftShoulder, and
Head.
Now, we need to tell IK Booster that we want certain bones to
default to being moved when we drag the mouse (as opposed to
being “swung about” on its IK chain).
8. Select RightFoot. Right-click on its control icon and choose
Options|(move/rotate).
Figure 6.17. When a bone is set to Move, its control icon changes yet again.
128
9. Repeat step 8 for LeftFoot, RightHand_Trans,

LeftHand_Trans, and Head.
Next, for an extra, added measure of protection against gimbal
lock while animating, I like to set quaternion rotation for the biceps
and thighs. (As mentioned in Chapter 2, this isn’t a “magic bullet”;
all it does is add an extra layer of protection.)
10. Select the RightThigh and right-click on its control icon. In
the menu that opens, choose Options|(Quaternion).
Figure 6.18. Assigning quaternion rotation to the RightThigh. A little “Q” appears
inside the item’s control icon, letting you know that quaternion rotation has been
activated.
11. Repeat step 10 for LeftThigh, RightBicep, and LeftBicep.

Now I’d like to shrink the size of the unselected IKB handles so
they’re not overlapping one another in areas like the fingers. This
will make it easier to select the control we want.
12. In the lower-right corner of the main window, with the IK
Booster Track active, click on IKB Menu. From the menu
that opens, choose Options … . In the Options… window, set
the controller size to 15 mm.
129
Figure 6.19. Reducing the size of the control icons from

50 mm to 15 mm.
Next, since the control icons for Spine1 and Pelvis are right on
top of one another (those bones have the same base point), I’d like
to separate their controllers to make them a little more accessible.
Newbie Note:
I find it easier to do this step in a viewport set to Right.
13. Select Spine1. Right-click on its control icon and choose

Options|Controller edit.
Figure 6.20. Entering Controller Edit mode.
130
While in Controller Edit mode, when you click-drag on a control

icon, you move the icon’s position relative to the bone it controls.
14. Drag the control icons for Spine1 and Pelvis away from their
shared base point, making it easier to choose each one when
you’re animating.
Figure 6.21. Repositioning the control icons for

Spine1 and Pelvis.
15. To exit Controller Edit

mode, right-click on a con-
trol icon and choose edit
end.
Lastly, I’d like to tell the
Pelvis that it isn’t to follow IK
Booster’s Inverse Kinematics
solving, controlling its rotation
with Forward Kinematics
instead. (Click-dragging on an
FK control rotates that item
normally, without having to
trade the IK BoostTool for the
Rotate tool.) Figure 6.22. Exiting Controller Edit
mode.
131
16. With the Pelvis selected, right-click on its control icon, choos-
ing (Fk control).
Figure 6.23. Setting Pelvis to be controlled by

Forward Kinematics while in IK Booster. A
little “F” appears inside the control icon of a
control set to FK.
Now your character’s rigging is set up to use standard IK and/or IK

Booster, whichever you find you prefer. You’ll find in Chapter 8,
“Using the Controls,” that standard IK is better for some things,
just as IK Booster is better for others. The important thing is that
you have a choice.
Find out which tools work best in which ways for your manner
of problem solving, and then use the proper tool for the job.
132
Chapter 7
Point Weighting
For this chapter, we’ll be going back into Modeler to assign the points
in our character’s mesh to move with the different bones we’ve cre-
ated. There is an art to this. And to be honest, there are people out
there who are much better than I am. I’ll be giving you a foundation
to build on. Creativity is rewarded. Use your imagination. Observa-
tion and extrapolation are the only true keys to point weighting.
(Move your own arm and see just how much of your shoulder moves
when your bicep swings forward and back.) Through close observa-
tion of the “real world,” you will see where the subtleties lie that will
get the points of your model moving in the most believable way
possible.
Note:
The most believable way is not necessarily the most realistic.
The art of animation is the art of creating a visual represen-
tation of how it feels to do a thing, not recreating exactly
how it looks to do a thing.
You can see this in comparing animation that has been
rotoscoped (traced from live reference) and animation that is
just simply good animation.
This is why good animation will always radiate its own
inner life, far outshining even the best motion capture.
133
Chapter 7: Point Weighting
7.1 Point Weighting Basics

Point weighting is something that has to be done whenever you are
using a continuous mesh model (rather than using a set of separate
objects to comprise your character). Point weighting is done in
many programs, including Softimage, Maya, MH3D, 3ds max, and
LightWave. External programs, plug-ins, and scripts can help, but
only to a degree. Point weighting always, always needs an obser-
vant, artful human touch.
In short, point weighting is telling which point to move with
which bone. It is telling each point how much to move with one
bone vs. another. (How much does a point 1 cm from your elbow
move with your bicep? How much does it move with your forearm?)
Figure 7.1. The basic theory I go by is that the points that lie on the meridian
where the tip of Bone 1 meets the root of Bone 2 are affected 50% by Bone 1
and 50% by Bone 2. Move a little way into Bone 1, and Bone 1 has 75%
influence over the points while Bone 2 has 25%. A little more into Bone 1, and
it has complete (100%) influence over these points.
134
This basic theory has to be adapted on a case-by-case basis. It

is only through applying point weighting, bringing the model into
Layout, and moving it through key poses that you can tell if the
weighting is correct. In the case of a production environment, the
lead or directing animator will usually put together a quick set of
movements that take the character through some extreme poses or
antics. The animator works only with the IK’d skeleton while the
artist in charge of skinning works on the first pass of point weight-
ing. The artist doing the weighting then puts his weighted model
onto the animation, scrutinizing how the skin pulls, twists, and
bunches. The point weighting artist refines problem areas, confers
with the animator, and makes any notes of tight spots in this gen-
eral-purpose setup that may need to be replaced with a
special-purpose setup.
Note:
Often, special-case models and/or weightings have to be made
for close-up shots where the model is in a pose that can’t be
handled correctly by the general-purpose point weighting.
7.2 Beginning the Point Weighting

Process
We’re going to start off with something simple — the leg from the
thigh down. This is an area that doesn’t have more than two bones
exerting influence over any given point.
1. Load the model you used for Chapters 5 and 6 into Modeler.
(For me, this is Objects\chapters\ch_04.lwo.)
2. Save this model to a directory where having lots of versions of
it won’t cause clutter. Name it in a way that will make sense to
you if you stumble across it years later. (Objects\Work\ch07\
ch_07_v001.lwo, where “v???” is my current revision number,
is what I’ll be using. It can be auto-incremented by pressing
<S>; be sure to use a capital letter.)
3. Center in on your character’s right knee.
135
4. Set the rendering style for the Perspective window to Weight

Shade.
Figure 7.2. Having zoomed in on the character’s right knee, set the Perspective
window’s rendering style to Weight Shade.
Newbie Note:
Weight Shade is a rendering style you can set for any window. Points
that have values closer to +100% (for the currently active weight
map) color their adjoining polygons and patches deeper and deeper
red. As points approach –100%, the adjoining polygons and patches
will become deeper and deeper blue. I often activate Weight Shade
for a particular viewport just to get a quick “second opinion” on how
the weighting has been applied, comparing that isometric view to the
Perspective window. (Sometimes, you’ll find it handy to examine your
model with multiple views set to Perspective and Weight Shade.)
136
Note:
In the way I point weight, I never set a point to have a cumulative
value below 0% or above 100%. Values below 0% can make the
point move in the opposite direction of the bone. A value of 200%
can make that point move twice as far as the bone has moved. This
can be corrected by using the weight normalization setting found in
both Layout and Modeler (see Section 7.5), but I find that it is much
easier in the long run to simply keep my values precise.
It is easiest to plan point weight groupings with the skelegons

in the background layer to serve as a guide.
5. With the Polygons ^H selection mode active and nothing
selected, press <w> to bring up the Polygon Statistics
window.
6. Click on the + next to the Skelegons field to add them to our
current selection (our current selection should be empty
before we add the skelegons).
Figure 7.3. Selecting the skelegons.
137
7. Press ^x to cut the

skelegons from the cur-
rent layer.
8. Paste (^v) the skelegons
into Layer 2, then select
Layer 1 to be your fore-
ground layer, and Layer 2
to be your background
layer. (See Figure 7.4.)
9. Hide everything in the
foreground layer except
the polygons of the right
leg and foot. (This will
make it harder to acci-
dentally select the points
of the left leg while
assigning weight map val-
ues to the right.)
Figure 7.4. With the skelegons in a

background layer, we can more easily
see where the skelegons/bones will
need to exert their influences.
Note:
If you don’t have any maps listed under the weight map list selector
(i.e., you’re using a character of your own or the maps were
cleared), you’ll need to (re)create them (see Chapter 4, Section 4.6,
Step 24). With both the Mesh and Skelegon layers in the fore-
ground, select Map|Weight|Bone Weights. Enter 0 m for Threshold
Value, and set Use Threshold to Clip. Click OK. (You’ll also need to
pay special attention to the notes in Section 7.3. If we’ve only just
created the character’s weight maps, they weren’t around when
skelegons were converted to bones in Chapter 5 and weren’t auto-
matically assigned to your character’s bones at that time. We will
need to do this manually; see Figure 7.25.)
138
10. With the W button active in the lower-right corner (for Weight
Map mode), click on the selector bar and choose RightThigh.
Figure 7.5. With all but the right leg hidden, select the RightThigh weight map as the active
weight map. (Windows|Vertex Maps Panel… F8 is a great way of quickly navigating all your
character’s vertex maps. Click on a map name to make it your active map.)
11. Select the points that lie on the junction of the thigh and calf.
12. Click on Map|General|Set Map Value. See Figure 7.6. (I’ve
assigned the Shift+F10 key to this command. Because this
command is used a lot in point weighting, I’d suggest that you
also assign a keyboard shortcut to it.)
13. Because we have RightThigh already selected as our active
weight map, RightThigh appears as the default map in the Ver-
tex Map selector (you could change this selector to any other
map, should you wish).
139
14. Enter 50 for Value 1. (We only need to worry about Value 1 for
point weighting; LightWave automatically assumes the value
to be a percent.)
Figure 7.6. After pressing Enter in step 14, the surface surrounding the isoparm
defined by the points we have selected turns the shade of red corresponding to the
value of +50%.
15. Select RightCalf as the active weight map. (The red coloring
will disappear from the Weight Shade window because only
RightThigh has values assigned to its points right now;
RightCalf does not.)
140
16. Activate Set Map Value again, and enter 50 for Value 1.
Figure 7.7. These points will now move with 50% of

their influence coming from RightThigh and 50%
coming from RightCalf.
17. Select the points that influence the isoparm directly above the
knee joint.
Figure 7.8. These will be influenced 25% by

RightCalf and 75% by RightThigh.
141
18. With the RightCalf map still as the active weight map, activate
Set Map Value and enter 25 for Value 1.
Figure 7.9. RightCalf now has 25% influence over these points.
19. Select RightThigh as the active weight map, and set Value 1
for these points to be 75.
Figure 7.10. RightThigh now has 75% influence over these points.
142
20. Select the points that influence the next higher isoparm.
Figure 7.11. These points will be set to follow

RightThigh 100%.
143
21. Bring up Set Map Value again and enter 100 for these points.
Figure 7.12. These points will now follow 100% of RightThigh’s motion.
22. Set the points of the next highest isoparm to a value of 75 for
RightThigh.
Figure 7.13. These points will move 75% with RightThigh and 25% with Pelvis.
144
23. Select the Pelvis weight map (in the lower-right corner), and
set Value 1 for these points to 25.
Figure 7.14. These points will now move 25% with Pelvis.
Figure 7.15. Set the points of the isoparm just below the knee to move 25% with
RightThigh and 75% with RightCalf. (Two images are shown together for illustrative
purposes.)
145
Figure 7.16. Set the points of the next two lower isoparms and the points that make
up the top of the foot to move 100% with RightCalf.
24. Hide the foot so we can be sure to only select the points of the
pant leg.
Figure 7.17. Using this illustration as a guide, assign RightCalf weight maps for
these points.
Figure 7.18. Using this illustration as a guide, assign RightFoot weight maps for
these points.
146
25. Press \ to unhide everything in the model.

26. Rehide everything except the right foot.
Figure 7.19. Using this illustration as a guide, assign RightFoot weight maps for
these points.
Figure 7.20. Using this illustration as a guide, assign RightToes weight maps for
these points.
This method is the basis for all point weighting. As you gain famil-
iarity with this process, you will develop your own ways of working,
your own tricks and shortcuts. Where multiple bones exert multiple
influences, such as in the shoulder where a point may be affected by
Spine3, RightShoulder, and RightBicep, you simply visualize how
much influence each bone should have on the point and assign the
values accordingly.
147
The values on each point must add up to 100%. If the combined

values on a point add up to less than 100%, it will get “left behind”
as you move the model. (The closer to 100% this cumulative value
is, the less noticeable the lag, until the character is moved signifi-
cantly from its starting position. Be very watchful of these values.)
If you have the combined values on a given point add up to more
than 100%, that point may “leap ahead” of the motion described by
its controlling bone. (LightWave has a bit of a fix for values over
100%: activating Weight Normalization under the Bone Properties
panel of Layout. It is far better to be precise with your point weight-
ing than to depend on software to fix it though.)
7.3 Swapping Models and Testing Weight

Mappings
The only way to really know if your point weighting is working is to
take it for a test spin in Layout. In this section, we’ll check out the
weighting we just did for the right leg. To do that, we’ve got to swap
out an old model for a new one. Using this technique, and having
common bone and weight map names, you’ll be able to use almost
every animation you do with almost every character you make!
Note:
Figure 7.21. LW[8] has a new Setup|Skelegons|Rotate Skelegons tool that lets
you test your weight mapping right in Modeler. This is exceptionally handy for
tweaking problem areas. However, putting your character onto his fully
functional rigging is the only way to truly know how his “skin” will behave
under animation conditions.
148
1. In Layout, load up the scene you created in the last chapter.
Note:
If you need to use mine, it can be found in Scenes\chapters\
ch_06.lws.
2. In a working directory set aside for Chapter 7, save a version

of this scene with a name that will make sense to you if you
come back to it years later. Something like “Scenes\Work\
ch07\ch_07_MappingTest_01_v001.lws” will do nicely.
3. In the Classic Scene Editor, make sure that your character
model’s visibility is set to at least Shaded Solid.
4. Press <f>, and type 10 to jump to Frame 10. (We’re going to
be playing with the controls on Frame 10, so we can check that
our character comes in properly on its “rest pose,” Frame 0.)
Note:
If, while you’re working, bending your model around, you
accidentally hit <r> (an easy thing to do), LW will record the
selected bone’s current position and rotation as its rest posi-
tion. If this happens, your model’s skin will be fouled for that
bone. To fix it, you need to go to the frame where the skeleton
is at rest and press <r> for the offending bone. So, once
again, just to drive a point well into the ground: You always
need to have a frame in your scene where your skeleton is at
rest. This can be at 0, –20, –100, or whatever. Just don’t get
caught putting the final touches on your masterwork scene
(which, because of being “in the groove,” wasn’t saved for
several hours) and accidentally tap the <r> key; otherwise
you’ll likely wind up exploring new and more creative combi-
nations of expletives than you ever thought possible.
149
5. Select the RightFoot bone, and move it up and forward.
Figure 7.22. Moving the RightFoot up and forward. This scene is from the last
chapter, and in it we were using the model from Chapter 4. No points are
weighted, so nothing moves, yet.
6. With the mesh (object) selected,

choose Items|Replace|
Replace With Object….
7. Select the latest revision of the
model you’ve been working on
in this chapter.
Figure 7.23. Replacing the old

mesh with something newer.
150
Figure 7.24. If everything is as it should be, your replacement mesh loads in with
the newly assigned weight maps for the right thigh, calf, foot, and toes. The
points of the right leg are now controlled by the bones of the right leg. (If not,
look to the following notes for troubleshooting information.)
Note:
If your new mesh isn’t doing quite what you think it
should be doing, double-check your mappings in
Modeler to make sure that no points are mapped that
shouldn’t be, and that all points that should have
mapping have correct values.
151
Note:
If your mapping values are correct, and you’re still not getting the results you
expect, or if the model isn’t moving at all, you might need to check that bone
weight maps are properly assigned for each bone. When you convert
skelegons into bones, and you have already created weight maps (which we
did in Chapter 4, Section 4.6, Step 24), bone weight maps are automatically
assigned to the bone (skelegon) of the same name. If no weight maps exist on
the skelegons at the time you convert them into bones, no weight maps are
assigned. If this is the case, you have to assign each weight map to each bone
manually.
1. Select the root bone.
2. Press <p> to bring up the Bone
Properties window for Root.
3. Under Bone Weight Map, make
sure that the map Root is selected.
4. Press the Down Arrow to scroll
through all the bones and make sure
that Bone Weight Map matches Cur-
rent Bone for each bone.
Figure 7.25. The bone weight map

should match the current bone for
every bone in your model.
152
Advanced Note:
Another way to apply motion from one model to another is to use the Use Bones From
Object setting in the Bone Properties window. (This is a fantastic way of comparing two
ideas you might have for weighting a problem area, like the hips.)
Figure 7.26. A version of the character named Thinguy_F was loaded into the scene.
Under the Bone Properties window for Thinguy_F, I chose Ch_07_v006, the model I am
currently using to test point weighting. All SRT from all bones of Ch_07_v006 is applied
to Thinguy_F.
All motion from the bones of ch_07_w03:Layer1 is applied to Thinguy_F. (This is an

excellent technique for rudimentary crowd scenes.)
153
8. Using the RightFoot control (bone), stretch the character’s leg

out and rotate the foot in ways a foot would rotate.
Note:
It isn’t necessary to cover all
possible ranges of movement,
just things that may be com-
mon positions for this
character. If you need specific
poses that are distant from the
character’s normal range of
movement, you’ll need to
build special-case mod-
els/point weightings to handle
unique instances where the
general-purpose setup breaks.
Figure 7.27. Rotating the RightToes as well,

watching the areas of the knee, ankle, and toes to
see if the point weighting looks believable for this
character. (Remember, we haven’t really blended
the weighting up into the hips, so we’re not
looking at that area yet.)
Note:
Here is where your own sense of artistry comes into
play. You have to judge. A balance of your own (or
your director’s) stylistic sensibilities and what you think
you’ll eventually need this character to do determines
how much the weighting needs finessing.
And that’s all there is to point weighting! All the points in the model
are handled in the same way. Use your best judgment when assign-
ing weights in Modeler, toggling between subpatches and polys,
then test your decisions in Layout, making changes where
necessary.
154
Point weighting is a logician’s dream. It is a process that follows

the pathways of reason and empiricism. There are no magic wands
or silver bullet solutions to point weighting. Thus far, I’ve yet to
find an “automatic” plug-in that can even give you a good base from
which to start. I find it much easier and quicker to just start from
scratch and proceed as we have done with the right leg. (Yoichiro’s
Mirror Weights plug-in — a free plug-in available online at
http://www.flay.com — is something I do, however, recommend. It
can copy weights from one side of your model to the other and is a
real time-saver.)
The following is a list of the weight maps that need to be
assigned to the points of your model. All other weight maps (for
control bones that shouldn’t have any direct influence on the
model’s points) need to be left with their default influence of 0% on
the model’s points:
Pelvis, Spine1, Spine2, Spine3, Head, RightHand_Rot, Right-
Shoulder, LeftHand_Rot, LeftShoulder, RightFoot, RightToes,
LeftFoot, LeftToes, RightIndex_Base, RightIndex_Mid, Right-
Index_Tip, RightMiddle_Base, RightMiddle_Mid, RightMiddle_Tip,
RightPinky_Base, RightPinky_Mid, RightPinky_Tip, RightThumb_
Base, RightThumb_Mid, RightThumb_Tip, LeftIndex_Base, Left-
Index_Mid, LeftIndex_Tip, LeftMiddle_Base, LeftMiddle_Mid,
LeftMiddle_Tip, LeftPinky_Base, LeftPinky_Mid, LeftPinky_Tip,
LeftThumb_Base, LeftThumb_Mid, LeftThumb_Tip, RightBicep,
RightForearm, LeftBicep, LeftForearm, RightThigh, RightCalf,
LeftThigh, LeftCalf, Neck
Note:
Don’t use Map|General|Clear Map or Map|General|Delete Map to
remove a map’s influence from the vertices in the mesh. If you do, that
map will be removed entirely from the character. It will no longer be
there for Layout to associate with the bone of the same name. (Even
bones that have no direct influence on the character (like *Elbow) need
to still be associated with a map.) Having a bone associated with a “0%
influence” map (for this manner of setup) is the most efficient way to
keep it from exerting unwanted influence on the model’s points.
155
7.4 The Use Weight Map Only Option

There are many and differing views on whether or not to let
LightWave’s mathematical falloff for bones play a part in skinning.
Letting LightWave use its falloff to influence the points affected by
bones can indeed help quickly smooth problem areas, and can some-
times give a point that doesn’t have its values add up to 100% that
extra oomph it needs to stay on track. My issue with using falloff is
that it is very difficult to control details where bones are close
together, as in the fingers. It can also make it very difficult to trou-
bleshoot problem points with values less than 100%. Most
importantly, depending on falloff to clean up after you can make for
sloppy weighting habits. If you can make something work without
computer assistance, you really understand what you’re doing.
My general MO is that when given a choice to do something
right by hand or to depend on a computer system that might fall
short when you need it most, I always opt for the more controllable
of the two. (If the system needs adjusting under a deadline, you can
spend more time trying to find and fix a problem in which the com-
puter intervenes heavily than it would have taken to do it correctly
by hand to begin with.) You will have to decide for yourself which
works best for you. (If you are building animations for a video game,
chances are the game engine
won’t have the spare clock cycles
to calculate falloff, so you must
use the Use Weight Map Only
option.)
If this is your first time point
weighting, I’d strongly suggest
using the Use Weight Map Only
setting. With this option, there’s
nowhere to hide errors. When
you have a weighting that works,
you know you did it right.
Figure 7.28. Use Weight Map Only

and Weight Normalization.
156
Note:
When you activate Use Weight Map Only, Weight Normalization is
automatically checked as well. As much as I am against using a subrou-
tine to cover for untidy weighting, I’d suggest leaving this active (unless,
of course, you are working on a video game, in which case you’ll have
to ask your core programmer how he has the game engine deal with
cumulative values greater than 100%).
Under Item Properties for all bones in your character, activate Use
Weight Map Only (if this is how you will be working).
7.5 Finding Stray Points

So now you’ve got all your points weighted, or at least you’re pretty
sure you do. You swap the model into Layout and, using the Sche-
matic window to select Root, RightFoot, and LeftFoot, you drag
your model a couple of meters –Z. You notice, as in Figure 7.29, that
some parts of the skin aren’t looking quite right.
Figure 7.29. The points that are “left behind” have

cumulative weighting values that don’t add up to
100%.
157
This is a technique for letting the model itself tell you where
the problem points are:
1. Switch to Modeler. (If you’re not running LightWave with the
Hub active so that Modeler and Layout can pass information
between each other, you’ll have to manually save and reload
the model where appropriate.)
2. From the Current Object pop-up button (to the left of the layer
buttons), make sure you have the mesh you are currently
working on in Layout selected. (For me, this would be
ch_07_w07.lwo.) See Figure 7.30.
3. With the mesh layer active, press Tab to convert subpatches
into polygons.
Figure 7.30. The character’s mesh, in polygons.
4. Switch back to Layout. With the Hub active, you should now
be looking at your scene with your character as a polygonal
mesh instead of subpatches. If this doesn’t happen, you may
have to save the object in Modeler, then reload in Layout to
update the changes.
158
Note:
If Layout and Modeler seem
to not be passing information
back and forth properly
through the Hub, I’d suggest
saving a revision of your
scene, closing both Layout
and Modeler, and forcing the
Hub to quit as well. When
the Hub becomes unreliable,
Layout and/or Modeler are
often not far behind. Closing
everything, the Hub includ-
ing, and reopening Layout
and Modeler is often the best
preventative against a nasty
crash.
Figure 7.31. The polygon version of our character

now in Layout.
5. Choose File|Save|Save Trans Object…. A dialog box will

come up, warning you to “Select a different filename for the
transformed object if you want to keep your original object
geometry.”
Figure 7.32. Saving transformed geometry.
159
6. Name the transformed object BadPointFinder.lwo.

7. Switch back to Modeler and load BadPointFinder.lwo.
8. Copy the mesh and paste it into Layer 3 of your current work-
ing model. (See Figure 7.33.)
Figure 7.33. With Layer 1 visible in the background, the mesh of BadPointFinder.lwo
points directly to the points that need weighting adjustments!
160
7.6 Straightening the Feet for Animation

I saved this part for last because while point weighting, I like to see
bones stretching from where their real-life socket would be to
where their real-life tip would be. The feet have a notable “L” shape
to them where the ankle is and where the toes connect. Because of
this, when we built the foot control bones, we built them at a bit of a
downward angle. This works great for getting a visual bearing on
point weighting, but in order to animate well, the foot control bones
have to be realigned to 0H, 0P, 0B.
Note:
Were we to leave the feet at this angle, it would be hard to
keep them flat on the floor when we rotated them in
worldspace H. Even using world coordinates, the feet dip a bit
as they rotate in H because LightWave uses parent coordi-
nates to store animation data, regardless of what coordinate
system we use to manipulate the controls.
1. In Layout, make sure you are on Frame 0, that all parts of

Auto Key Create are active, and that Parent in Place is active.
2. Change one of your viewports to Right, and set its Rendering
Level to Bounding Box (so we can easily see through our
model to our bones).
3. Select RightToes.
161
4. In a Schematic view, Ctrl-click on the node representing the

object to (temporarily) reparent this bone to the model itself.
Figure 7.34. The RightToes are now a child of the model itself. Because we have
Parent in Place active, they stay in place. (In addition to setting one view to Bounding
Box, I’ve also set one to Bone X-Ray to see the bones that would normally be hidden
by opaque geometry.)
5. Select RightFoot, and activate Modify|Rotate|Rotate

Pivot.
162
6. Set the pivot rotation for RightFoot to 0H, 0P, 0B.
Figure 7.35. When you change the RightFoot’s

pivot rotation to 0, 0, 0, LightWave automatically
compensates by adjusting its rotation settings —
its orientation appears unchanged.
163
7. Press <y> to switch to Rotation mode, and set the rotation

for RightFoot to 0H, 0P, 0B.
Figure 7.36. Now, when the rotation of RightFoot

is set to 0, 0, 0, we see it “line-out” along the
Z-axis of the world.
164
8. Select RightToes and, in a Schematic view, Ctrl-click on

RightFoot to reparent the toes to the foot.
Figure 7.37. RightToes are once again a child of RightFoot. And of course, with
Parent in Place active, they are still in the same worldspace place they were when we
started this section.
9. Repeat steps 3 to 8 for LeftToes and LeftFoot.
165
7.7 Putting Him Through the Motions

All the points are weighted, and nothing lags behind. But is the
weighting going to work for the animations the character will be
performing? Does he form the silhouettes you want as he’s put
through a series of poses? Ankles, armpits, buttocks, elbows, knees,
shoulders, toes, and wrists have to be critically evaluated, tweaked,
and reevaluated.
In a production environment, you would normally have the lead
animator for the character or the animation director do a little ani-
mation for the character so the motion technical directors (the guys
in charge of skinning and a great deal of other things as well) can
scrub through the animation frame by frame to see if and where
their point weighting could be improved. To this effect, there are
two scenes that you can load and swap your model into:
4 Scenes\chapters\ch_07_PoseTest.lws is a series of poses to

see how your character’s skin stretches when in common and
extreme poses.
4 Scenes\chapters\ch_07_MotionTest.lws is a short animation

for you to see how your character’s skin stretches as it moves
through a quick bit of action.
Note:
In the following chapters, I’ll go over the animation controls,
and you’ll be putting your character through a series of
poses. If, as you work, you notice something that doesn’t
quite seem to be working in the point weighting department,
you can always go back into Modeler and finesse the
weightings, updating your “final” model at any point of the
production process.
166
7.8 Tidying Up
Just a few more “housekeeping” kinds of things remain before we
move on to animation training itself. Don’t worry: They’re quick and
easy, and they’ll be over before you know it.
1. In Modeler, cut and paste the skelegons back into Layer 1 of
your character. Clear away any unused data in subsequent lay-
ers so you’ve got everything all neat and tidy on Layer 1.
2. Save a version of your model in a “finals” directory, naming it
so that you know it is the final version of your character.
(Objects\Final\Thinguy_F.lwo works for me.)
3. If you’re working on an OS that lets you set “protection bits”
(read-only properties) for a file, activate this bit so you don’t
accidentally delete or write over it. (A backup copy in a sepa-
rate archival folder is always a good thing, too.)
4. In Layout, swap out the model on which you’ve been working
with your final model.
5. Delete all extraneous keyframes from the scene that you may
have been using to test your rigging and weighting. I like to
set a keyframe for my object and all its descendants (which
LightWave takes to mean all of its bones as well) at frame
–100, just so I can always go back to this rest pose if I need to
reset a bone’s rest information for any reason.
6. Save this scene in a Final directory, designating that this is
your setup scene for this character. (Scenes\CharacterSetups\
Thinguy_Setup.lws is what I use.)
7. Set the protection bit (and/or make a backup copy) for your
setup scene so you will always have something clean and
familiar to start all your animations.
167
And that’s it! These are the secrets to character setup (or at least
some of them). Everyone has their own way of doing things; every-
one finds ways that work best for them. You can use this informa-
tion as is, or you can blend and mold it to fit your specific needs.
Hopefully, even if you’re new to LightWave and/or character setup,
this section has given you the tools and the understanding to be
able to take the mystery out of this all-important foundation of
computer animation.
Computer animation is in a constant state of evolution. New
riggings are constantly being devised, revised, and abandoned,
evolved upon, and stripped down. If you happen to stumble upon (or
forge through sheer effort) something great, share it with others.
You’ll be helping the world of animation as a whole, and bettering
the impression of animators and technical directors in general!
168
Chapter 8
Using the Controls

You’ve done a seriously respectable amount of work on this character
setup stuff, from pre-bending to point weighting. (It almost makes
modeling seem easy in comparison, doesn’t it?) You rolled up your
sleeves and got “down-and-dirty” with a lot of technical stuff over the
last couple chapters, but what does it all do?
If you’re like most creative people I know, your motto is similar
to Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’s, “Run and find out!” You’ve probably played with
the controls already and put our guy through some poses. But I’m
sure some questions arose, like, “Why do things this way?” or “How
do I get it to do this?” or “What’s the best way to do that?” In this
chapter, I’ll show you how to work the controls we’ve created. And
this is simply my favored way of working, nothing more. Now,
granted, it works smashingly for me, but remember, you are not lim-
ited to this way of working. After going through this chapter, play
with what you’ve learned and see what works well for you. Based on
what you’ve learned about how setups work, you can modify anything
and everything to create the controls that work exactly the way you
wish to work!
The first fourteen (yes, fourteen) sections of this chapter will get
you acquainted with driving this character with standard IK. The last
section will show you how to use the IK Booster settings we brought
to bear in Chapter 6.
Newbie Note:
If you would like to work from my setup, it can be found in
Scenes\CharacterSetups\Thinguy_Setup.lws on the companion
CD.
169
Chapter 8: Using the Controls
Note:
If things do not work as described, there may be problems with the charac-
ter’s hierarchy or IK settings (i.e., chains not terminated or IK set to solve
for the wrong axis). If you are finding errors, and you wish to understand
what went wrong, you may have to backtrack as far as Chapter 4 to find
where the errors are. Double-check your scenes and hierarchies with the
final scenes for each chapter provided on the companion CD. Usually,
when something is behaving screwy, it’s the result of something extremely
simple that was just overlooked and is therefore easily fixed (once it is
found).
8.1 The Model Itself

When I first started building setups, I would build in a special con-
trol for moving the character to where he was going to start his
scene. I gave this up because it is just one more thing to build, one
more thing to keep track of. I now just use the model itself for the
gross positioning control.
Figure 8.1. Using the model itself (Objects\Final\Thinguy_F.lwo in my case) to

orient and position the character to where he will start his scene.
170
4 The model may be moved and rotated on all axes.

Note:
For translations, it is usually best to have the coordinate system set to
World. For rotations, I generally work in the parent coordinate system,
but switch to World or Local when gimbal lock makes things tedious.
8.2 Root
The Root bone will move everything but your character’s feet. (See
Figure 8.2.) You can use this bone to get general upper carriage
movements while your character’s feet stay rooted firmly to the
“floor.”
Figure 8.2. Moving Root in –Y, you get the character’s upper carriage to move
downward. The character’s feet stay locked in place.
4 Root is designed to move and rotate in all axes.
171
8.3 Pelvis
The Pelvis bone is what you will use to swing the character’s hips
about.
Note:
Even if you’re not planning on having him do Middle Eastern dancing,
this is an important control. Most people stand with more weight on
one leg than the other, “popping” one hip up; the shoulder on the
same side swings down. The technical term for this is contra-posto. The
ancient Greeks were the first to use contra-posto in their sculpture.
Having the hips and shoulders rotated in opposite directions is an easy
way to add life to any pose.
Figure 8.3. Rotating the Pelvis bone along its heading axis.
4 Pelvis
axes.
is designed only to be rotated. It may be rotated in all
172
8.4 Spinal Bones

The bones of the spine do pretty much what you’d expect; they
rotate to curve the spine of the character into the shapes you need.
Spine1 does double-duty, however, in that it also is used to posi-
tion the character, leaving the hands and feet rooted in place. (This
is useful in a scene where you’ve got his hands planted on a tabletop
and he is getting up from a chair; his hands and feet won’t move
until you move them with their separate controls.)
Figure 8.4. Moving Spine1 in –Y lowers the character, but his hands and feet stay
where they are.
173
Figure 8.5. Rotating Spine1, Spine2, and Spine3 in heading.
4 Spine1 may be rotated and moved on all axes.

4 Spine2 and Spine3 may be rotated on all axes.
Note:
Head is a child of Spine1; it will move when you rotate Spine1 but
will remain in place when you rotate Spine2 and Spine3. I’ve made
the setup this way so that the head can follow the larger movements
of the character’s center of gravity, but remain unaffected by the finer
detail movements of the upper two spinal bones. This holds the head
more steady when you’ve got a lot of expression in the shoulders for
a walk or antic. I’ve found it easier to move the head to keep it on
top of the neck than to try to counterrotate it to keep it from wob-
bling as the shoulders swing about. (Often, I’ll have Head as the
child of Root or of the model itself so I have absolute control over it
in a powerful scene.) Feel free to experiment with having Head as a
child of different controls to find what is most intuitive for you.
174
Note: Newbie Note:

Use Spine1 and Spine2 for the I like to have only either heading and
larger curves of the spine. We bank or pitch and bank active when
have a lot more flexibility in the rotating controls (or using the “han-
lower part of our backs than we do dles”). I find it easier to switch back
in the center of our rib cage area. and forth between activating and
Spine3 is best used for small bits deactivating heading and pitch than
of rotation to add a little bit of to try to move the mouse exactly in a
visual “final touch” to a pose. straight line for precise positioning.
8.5 Head
The head is pretty straightforward. You can translate and rotate it to
your heart’s content. You can pull it away from the body for a frame
or two to give the quick-and-easy impression of old-fashioned
squash and stretch.
Figure 8.6. Moving and rotating the head control.
4 The Head may be moved and rotated on all axes.
175
8.6 Hand Translation Controls

RightHand_Trans and LeftHand_Trans take care of moving the
hands, and they control the hands’ heading and bank rotations. It is
better to have a completely separate control for pitch (*Hand_Rot)
than to fight with the gimbal lock that is possible when you have H,
P, and B all on one control. Even with LightWave now implementing
world, parent, and local space coordinate systems, I still recommend
a “nested” setup like this. Sometimes when using world or local
coordinate systems, odd values get fed onto an item (where some-
thing was 0H, and by rotating it just barely in worldspace, it
suddenly has –360.5H). With nested controls, you can more pre-
cisely control what axis gets rotated, when it rotates, and how
much. With so much expression carried by the hands, I feel this
small inconvenience of dealing with two controls to rotate the hands
is well worth it.
Figure 8.7. Moving and rotating the hand translation controls.
4 RightHand_Trans and LeftHand_Trans may be moved in all

axes, but they should only be rotated in heading and bank. (In
a pinch, you can rotate in pitch, but only sparingly, and get
pitch back to 0P as soon as you can.)
176
8.7 Hand Rotation Controls

RightHand_Rot and LeftHand_Rot rotate the hands in pitch and
bank. They fine-tune the hand rotations.
Figure 8.8. Rotating the hand rotation controls in pitch and bank.
4 RightHand_Rot
pitch and bank.
and LeftHand_Rot should only be rotated in
177
8.8 Shoulder Controls

RightShoulder and LeftShoulder allow you to shrug your character’s
shoulders and cave or expand his chest. Rotating these controls in
heading will raise and lower the shoulders. Rotating these controls
in pitch will swing the shoulders forward and back.
Figure 8.9. Rotating RightShoulder in +P and rotating LeftShoulder in +H. The

character’s right shoulder swings back while the left shoulder drops down.
4 RightShoulder and LeftShoulder should only be rotated in

heading and pitch.
178
8.9 Elbow Controls

RightElbow and LeftElbow raise and lower the character’s elbows.
It is equivalent to the rotator cuff within our own shoulders. This
control is limited in how much it can do. Try not to rotate these con-
trols too far; it can be easy to accidentally get a value of +/–360 or
more and not realize it. If the elbow rotates from 0 to +/–360 over
the course of an animation, it will flip.
Figure 8.10. Rotating RightElbow and LeftElbow in +B swings the right elbow up
and the left elbow down. They are mirrors of each other, so you have to watch
this when animation gets fast and furious.
4 RightElbow and LeftElbow should only be rotated in bank.

Note:
I find that if I’m having problems getting the elbow into the exact posi-
tion I’m trying for, I’m probably trying for a pose that would break a
real-life arm. There’s usually a way to work through a problem pose by
taking a look at how my own arms would most naturally strike that
particular pose.
179
8.10 Foot Controls

RightFoot and LeftFoot take care of all rotations and translations on
the feet. Because foot motion is usually much less complex and
demanding than hand motion, it usually isn’t necessary to nest con-
trols as we have for the hands.
Figure 8.11. Moving and rotating RightFoot and LeftFoot.
4 RightFoot and LeftFoot may be moved and rotated on all axes.
180
8.11 Toe Controls

RightToes and LeftToes rotate the toe section of the foot. Don’t just
use these controls to keep the traction section of the foot in contact
with the ground; play with them to give some added expression to
otherwise stiff poses!
Figure 8.12. Just using the feet and the toes.
4 RightToes and LeftToes may be rotated in all axes (though

usually pitch and bank will get most jobs done).
181
8.12 Knee Controls

The knee controls work almost identically to the elbow controls.
The same considerations should be taken into account not to rotate
them too far.
Figure 8.13. Swinging the knees wide.
4 RightKnee and LeftKnee should only be rotated in bank.
182
8.13 The Fingers and Thumb

The base of all the fingers can be rotated in both heading and pitch.
The other two bones of each finger, mid and tip, should only be
rotated in pitch.
Figure 8.14. Rotating Index_Base and Pinky_Base in H to spread the fingers wide.
Note:
Because LightWave now allows you to select multiple items at once, you can
grab all the finger bones and quickly bend them around an object. Be careful,
however, because if you have one of the base bones selected too, the base
bones can and will rotate in H, even though the mid and tip bones will not.
You have to keep an eye on this so you don’t make more work for yourself.
(Watching the rotation from multiple views as you bend the fingers can help
keep everything as it should be.)
183
Figure 8.15. Rotating the mid and tip bones for the index, mid, and pinky fingers.
The thumb’s base can rotate on all three axes. This is to mimic
the somewhat complex action of our real-life thumb’s base joint
close to the wrist. You will almost always need to use a combination
of pitch and bank to properly simulate the way our opposable
thumbs work.
4 The base bones of the fingers may rotate in heading and pitch.
4 The base bone of the thumbs may rotate in all axes.
4 The mid and tip bones of all digits only rotate in pitch.
184
Figure 8.16. Swinging the thumb down and around with pitch and bank to get
that good ol’ opposable thumb action.
Figure 8.17. The other two bones of the thumb work just the same as the mid
and tip of the fingers.
185
8.14 Notes on Modifying the Setup

Those are all the controls you’ll need to make your character walk,
dance, act, emote, and pretty much everything else you can imag-
ine. After playing with them a little, you will probably take to them
like a natural — most people do. However, some bits of the setup
may seem foreign no matter how much you use it, always expecting
a control to do something other than what it does. That’s okay, too!
This setup is simply my way of working. It has evolved over
many years, since my first feeble setups on an Amiga, long before
LightWave implemented IK. It has been streamlined to balance con-
trol, speed, and intuition. Still, this is only what I consider to be
intuitive. You are all individuals out there, and if something seems
redundant or overly complex for how you want to work, modify it!
With what you’ve learned over the last seven chapters, you now
have the ability to craft the setup you’ve always wanted.
Some people don’t like the nested controls for the hands; I can’t
live without them. (I actually prefer to nest the feet as well.) Some
like the spinal controls to have their pivot rotations aligned differ-
ently. You’ve got the tools now to do almost anything you want.
Experiment! Play! Learn!
This is your show now. Above all, this animation stuff is sup-
posed to be fun!
Note:
Some possible setup modifications include:
4 Making Pelvis a child of Root so it does not rotate with Spine1.
4 very steady during martial arts or sensual walks.

Making Head a child of Root or of the mesh itself to have it hold
4 Making Head a child of Spine3 so it never pulls away from the

torso when posing the spine.
4 Making *Hand_Trans a child of one of the spinal bones so the

hands inherit the torso’s movement.
4 Removing *Hand_Trans, so *Hand_Rot is the sole control for all

movement and rotational axes of the hands.
4 Making one of the hands a child of the other’s rotation control

(useful when swinging a bat or a broadsword).
4 Realigning Pelvis, Spine1, Spine2, and Spine3, just as was done

with the *Foot bones at the end of the last chapter. This makes
the spine more intuitive by letting the bones of the spine, head,
hands, and feet all lie along the same worldspace axes.
186
8.15 IK Booster Controls

In my exploration and experimentation with IK Booster, I’ve found
that it works best as a “supplement” to the standard IK way of
working. IKB is insanely fast for some things, yet it can still behave
strangely or be extremely sluggish if asked to do things that are
beyond the realm of what it can handle with easy power (just like IK
itself).
The great thing is that the things that IKB has a hard time with
are the things at which the standard controls we’ve just explored
excel! Flipping quickly between the now four modes of manipulation
open to LightWave users (t Translation mode, y Rotation mode, h/H
Stretch/Scale mode, and now ^b IK Booster mode), you’ll find that
posing your character has become almost like working directly with
an artist’s wooden mannequin!
I use IK Booster to tweak my pose after I’ve gotten the “broad
strokes” laid in using the standard IK controls.
Note:
Remember, even if you don’t connect with the IKB way of work-
ing your character, you can sill take advantage of all IKB’s
motion and pose saving and loading, and its keyframe manipu-
lation. IK Booster is a phenomenal tool, but it’s also new —
even IK itself took about six years for professional animators to
trust/know it well enough to feel comfortable using it.
187
Fingers/Toes
Just grab a fingertip and start pulling it around in 3D space. You’ll
find the fingers bend and flex just as you’d expect if you were work-
ing with an artist’s mannequin.
Figure 8.18
188
The same thing holds true for the *Toes.
Figure 8.19
Note:
Back in Chapter 6, I had us set the IKB control icon for the *Foot
bones to Move/Rotate so you could move them about when you
clicked on them, without having to hit the <t> key, exiting IK
Booster, to do so. However, if you don’t mind doing this, you
may want disable (uncheck) Move/Rotate for the *Foot control
icons so when you’re dragging the *Toes into new angles, the
foot also follows.
189
Knees/Elbows
Using IK Booster, you no longer need to rotate an *Elbow or *Knee
control to position the elbows and knees of your character. You can
simply grab the calf or forearm and physically move the knee or
elbow joint where you want it to be. (Doing this actually rotates the
*Knee and *Elbow bones to the applicable bank setting.)
Figure 8.20
Note:
You’ll want to be very watchful when you’re manipulating knee and elbow
joints in this manner. Just as a little twist of the bank heading on the *Knee
and *Elbow controls themselves can swing that character’s knee or elbow
joint all over the place, so can the slightest twitch of your mouse here. It is
best to work in very small moves on only one axis at a time. And if you see
the knee or elbow joint swinging at a funky angle, it’s best to undo your
action and start again — until you click on *Knee or *Elbow in Rotate mode,
there’s no way of knowing if bank has just exceeded +/– 360°.
190
Note:
Undoing in IK Booster seems to be a bit odd at the time of publication. When
I hit ^z to undo my last move in IKB, not only is that move undone, but also
the last move done using standard controls is also undone. I’ve found, how-
ever, that by redoing (by pressing <z>) and then undoing again, the
standard control’s position is restored, and then only the IKB move is undone.
Shoulders/Hips
To shrug the character’s shoulders, or cave or expand his chest, just
grab the tip of a shoulder bone and drag it around.
Figure 8.21
191
By grabbing and moving the base of a shoulder bone, you can tilt
the entire carriage this way and that. (Just remember that when you
do so, if you have chosen to have the Head a child of Spine1, the
Head will stay mostly in place since Spine3 does most of the moving
when manipulating the model in this fashion — it’s a minor tweak to
move the head back squarely on top of the shoulders.)
Figure 8.22
192
You can swing the hips and the entire carriage about by drag-
ging one of the *Knee bones in 3D space.
Figure 8.23
193
Spine/Head
You can click and drag on any of the *Spine bones, moving the char-
acter’s carriage with ease. (I’ve also repositioned the head in this
illustration.)
Figure 8.24
194
The Head has its control icon set to Move/Rotate so within IK

Booster it is only able to be moved. (It is recommended that you
control the head through the standard IK way of doing things, but if
you really need to position the head quickly without exiting IKB,
you can use its IKB control to do so.)
Figure 8.25
195
Hands/Feet
You can click and drag on the *Hand_Trans controls and move them
about in 3D space (just like the Head).
Figure 8.26
196
You can also click and drag on the handle at the tip of *Hand_
Rot to swing the hand up or down.
Figure 8.27
197
And, if you pull hard enough on a finger control, you can also get
the hand to swing up or down, following the direction of your pull.
Figure 8.28
Note:
The IKB controls discussed in Section 8.15 are the only ones I regularly use
under IK Booster. I use standard IK to manipulate all other controls.
198
Control Order
I’ve had a lot of people ask me which controls to move first when
I’m posing a character. To tell the truth, I don’t think most anima-
tors think about it that much — we just move whatever needs
moving.
I believe strongly that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to do
anything, so long as it works for the person doing the doing, and
respects those who are affected by the doing.
But I can completely relate to someone who’s never seen this
plethora of controls and ways of working feeling overwhelmed with
the vast spread of choices, so I’ll walk you through how I’d strike a
simple pose.
Figure 8.29. As with all the other life drawing exercises, I’ll be working from a
pose created with the same controls I’ll be using to do the work myself — I know
I can strike this pose if I give myself enough time to do so.
“Start at the beginning, go on until you get to the end, then stop!”
— The Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland
199
Figure 8.30. The first thing I do, of course, is load the setup I’ve just completed,
then save it as a file prepped for revisions (*_v001.lws) into a working directory
so I can fiddle with things to my heart’s content.
200
Figure 8.31. Then, I swap out Thinguy_F for MrCool_Facial_F, the model used in
the pose I’ll be copying.
201
Figure 8.32. Next, I load in the life drawing model from Extras\Life_Drawing\
Objects\ICanFly.lwo. (And make sure I’ve got OpenGL Transparency enabled in
my Display Options.)
202
Figure 8.33. The first thing I’ll do is move the object itself to get my own
character close to the position of the life drawing model.
Note:
When I’m animating, I usually leave the object alone once I’ve got it in its
starting position — using only the controls to move the character around the
environment.
203
Figure 8.34. Then, moving and rotating Spine1 under standard IK, I line up the
waistline, using the belt as my point of reference.
204
Figure 8.35. Next, using Back and Top views, I position the hands with the
*Hand_Trans controls, rotating the hands only on their heading axis at the
moment.
205
Figure 8.36. Now, I get the feet into position the same way. (At the moment, I’m
not concerned with perfection, I’m just getting things “in the ballpark.”)
206
Figure 8.37. Next, I move and rotate the Head so it comes close to matching the
model.
Figure 8.38. Then, I start getting more precise with the hands and feet (using
heading and bank on *Hand_Trans and pitch on *Hand_Rotate).
207
Note:
I’ll often use the Center Selected Item button to help me quickly jump to an
item I want to manipulate in a Perspective viewport, sometimes just quickly
clicking the button on, then off, to “bull’s-eye” it and yet still let me adjust my
view to suit my needs.
Figure 8.39. Now I start using IK Booster and drag the fingers into their proper
positions.
208
Figure 8.40. Working on the spine comes next. Switching back and forth between
using IKB and standard IK controls (sometimes even actually moving the bones of
the spine if I feel it’s necessary to sculpt the pose I want), I begin to get more and
more precise with the accuracy.
209
Figure 8.41. Then, it’s just a matter of settling in for the long haul, continuing to
refine your “noodling,” working back and forth between standard IK and IK
Booster controls until the pose is what you want.
There are no “right” or “wrong” ways of doing this … so long as

what you see is what you want. This is the way I usually work.
The real knack for this will come when you’ve done all the prac-
tice exercises in this book, and you know on a gut level what each
control will do and when it is best to use it.
Like my mentor told me when I was working to get a more pol-
ished, cleaned-up line to my drawings, your line quality will get
better when you know enough to not worry about your line.
210
Chapter 9
Life Drawing — The

Next Logical Step
Life drawing? In 3D? You betchya! Life drawing is the best way to
learn how to break down shapes and to understand what is actually
going on to create those wonderfully complex and deceptively simple
poses. As you work with life drawing in 3D, you’ll begin to see
exactly what makes a pose look and feel the way it does.
Why does a good animation drawing have the emotional impact it
does? It has that kind of impact solely because of the poses the char-
acters are in. Animators are often considered draftsmen; there is no
more precise art form than animation. (In a standard-sized animation
drawing, the deviation of a line by even 1/32" can completely change
the emotional read of the drawing.) Yet, at the same time, everything
must appear effortless and inevitable. You achieve this level of profi-
ciency by mastering the sets of skills required. You master these
skills to the point that they become so much a part of you, you can’t
do anything but execute them perfectly, precisely, and without think-
ing. All it takes to get to this level of proficiency in anything
(animation being no exception) is simply to practice at least a little
each and every day, to know where to start and how to proceed —
how to get to the “next logical step.”
211
Chapter 9: Life Drawing — The Next Logical Step
Finding the next logical step is all getting anywhere with any-
thing is. All of us can move steadily from one step to the next. We
all start this path the same way. The troublesome thing with these
next logical steps is that it is only when you begin to achieve mas-
tery that you begin to understand what they are. Looking back from
the plateaus of mastery, you can see where all the steps were and
where you got lost along the way. From the plateaus of mastery, you
can also see the next logical steps that will carry you to where you
would like to be. (No matter how good others may think you are,
you must always, always be looking for that next logical step. There
is always something more.) This is why it is so vitally important for
teachers of anything to not only care about what they’re teaching
and be able to communicate it, but to have achieved a level of mas-
tery to be able to see these steps. Mastering animation takes
humility, dedication, passion, and time. But with these steps, mas-
tery should not be painful; you should always be able to see your
path before you. Moving from one simple signpost to another, study-
ing and understanding, learning how to see motion, how to
understand the conveyance of feeling. Each step builds on the suc-
cessful completion of the last. Each next logical step has an “Aha!”
factor that is often so simple that it could all too easily hide forever
in plain sight.
And so the next logical step from where you are right now is to
get to know those controls you labored long to create. You need to
know them so well that they become second nature to you. (And if
there is something in the setup you simply cannot work with, go
back and change it until it feels right to your way of working.)
If, after going through the life drawing models in this chapter,
you still feel you need more life drawing experience before moving
on, flip to Chapter 14 where you’ll be directed to many more models
to “draw” from. (Don’t be afraid to go back and revisit these old
models. It’s always good, throughout your career, to go back and
reaffirm the things you know.) Move forward only when you feel
comfortable. Doing so will make the whole process of learning ani-
mation that much more enjoyable and rewarding.
212
9.1 The Standing Model

Posing a character is the art of translating what you have in your
mind into the 3D coordinates that will make your character fit that
vision.
Figure 9.1. We’ll be

starting with a standing
model. The pose is
interesting enough to
keep us from getting
bored, but still easy
enough to be recreated
with relative ease.
Now, you might be asking, “How do I know where in 3D space

to put these things that I’m seeing on this flat, 2D page?” In very
short order, you’ll get the hang of being able to translate the subtle-
ties of slight differences in angle and size on a page into 3D
coordinates. (LW’s grid lines are very helpful; I wish all life drawing
classes had their plinths marked with grid lines.) We’ll be starting
with a technique that will have you well on your way before you
know it.
On one project I was given hi-res scans of models I would even-
tually have to animate. The project didn’t have the budget for
Paraform (a program designed to make animatable NURBS models
from hi-res scan data) and we knew the client was going to be a
stickler for having the models perfect. After reducing the poly count
somewhat with qemLOSS2, just to make the scans manageable on a
500 MHz PII, we changed the surface of the scanned model to be
213
partially transparent. We then built our subpatch model around that

framework. We could see exactly when our subpatch was passing
through the scanned model’s surface, and it turned out to be a
rather quick way of not only getting an animatable subpatch model,
but also in getting a whole lot better at modeling very quickly. (Run-
ning my own studio, I’ve had to learn to wear a lot of hats to get jobs
out on time. I’ll always be a better animator and director than I’ll
ever hope to be a modeler, but every new thing you can add to your
set of skills is an asset.)
We’ll be using that same technique to get you started in life
drawing here. You’ll know when you have enough angle here,
enough distance there to support the character’s weight. You’ll
know when your character carries the essence of the pose, and
you’ll know when your character is spot-on. You’ll be able to turn
the view and explore from every angle. You’ll see, right there in
front of you, whether your model covers the drawing model or not!
1. Load in your setup scene and then save the scene as some-
thing that will let you know this is life drawing model 01.
(Scenes\Work\ch09\LifeDrawing_01_w01.lws works for me.)
2. Load in Objects\chapters\Ch_09\LifeDrawingModel_01.lwo.
Figure 9.2. Your model and the pose you’ll put him into.
214
3. Using Chapter 8 as a reference if you need to, start moving

controls!
If you find yourself in a bind, don’t be afraid to scrap your work and
start over (with a saved revision, of course, just in case you really
were on the right track). As they say, “Animation is the art of revi-
sion.” Also, don’t hesitate to come back to this pose at some time in
the future, using what you’ve learned to see if there are better,
faster, more elegant ways of getting him to assume this pose.
There are a few things I’d like to point out about the pose itself
before moving on. If you look at it from any angle — back, front,
side, or top — the character looks balanced. Even though he’s got
his weight shifted back and to the right, his legs support him in a
way that he could hold indefinitely without falling over. Weight dis-
tribution is a very important thing. Every stationary pose must read
as balanced from all angles, not just the camera angle. The charac-
ter’s center of gravity must appear properly supported; he can’t look
like he’s about to fall over.
Note:
Another thing to watch on the whole weight issue is that when
you have a character moving he has to have the proper weight
distribution for the speed and direction of his movement. Walking
is just falling forward and catching ourselves every time we step.
Running means that we’re leaning forward farther to get more
offset for the forward thrust. Every pose, whether moving or sta-
tionary, must be balanced or the character must be about to fall
over.
The best way to assess the balance of a pose is to turn your

head away from the monitor, close your eyes, and turn your head
back to the monitor. Open your eyes for no more than 1/4 second.
The afterimage you have in your mind will have a feeling to it; it’ll
either feel comfortable (“Yeah, I’d buy that”) or awkward (“Man …
there’s just something not quite right about that”). Do this from
every angle, even if your final output will be to film or another 2D
medium. Human minds work better than we might sometimes
guess, and though your audience might not know exactly why
something doesn’t look quite right, they’ll feel the difference
between a pose that carries its weight properly and a pose that is
off balance even slightly.
215
Note:
A properly animated scene should look good from all angles. (This
is especially true if you’re doing work for a 3D video game and
you can’t control the camera.) True, there will be angles that look
better than others, but no angle should look unbelievable.
Watching your scene from the worst angle you can find is a trick
you can use to make it read all the better from the intended
angle. It is like flipping a drawing over and looking at it on a light
table from the other side. You disassociate yourself from what
you’ve been thinking for the past hours or days and are able to
look at it from a more objective point of view. From that unflatter-
ing angle, make the tweaks you see that need tweaking, then
look at the scene from the camera angle; you’ll be surprised at
how much more believably it reads.
We’ve also got contra-posto, the reversal of angles between the

hips and shoulders, going on in this scene. The character’s hips are
swung down and back on the right side. The character’s shoulders
are swung down and back on the left side (though in relationship to
the shoulders’ initial pose their new angle doesn’t appear that differ-
ent). This makes the pose read with more life than if the hips and
shoulders were parallel.
Hands are important with every pose. Much of the emotional
read of a pose is carried in the character’s hands. This is as impor-
tant with wild action as with subtle acting. When working with a run
or other vigorous activity, don’t forget the importance of the hands.
If you were ever on a track team, do you remember your coach tell-
ing you that the way to run faster is to pump your arms harder and
faster? This balance and counterbalance works throughout our
entire bodies. Our subconscious minds have ways of picking up on
these non-verbals — cues given by the way someone stands, the
timing with which they do something, and many other subtle cues
that have nothing to do with spoken words. Non-verbals have ways
of translating themselves directly into an emotional read within the
viewer. Understanding everything you can about what it is your
character is doing, putting yourself into that situation, and letting all
of that wealth of information flood through you as you work is the
key to believable animation.
216
Another thing to pay attention to in this pose is the handling of

the finger groupings. Rhythm plays a very important role in anima-
tion. Having the fingers equidistant, either close together or spread
apart, is monotonous and boring. A common technique to break this
up is to pop the pinky or index finger out from the other two by
rotating its base in heading. It is a simple thing that adds a lot of life
to a pose. Making sure the fingers aren’t all bent the same amount
is another important thing to remember. Often, you’ll see a pinky
bent slightly when all the rest of the fingers are straight. Watch for
opportunities to add these techniques to your own poses, but make
sure that the emotional read it adds goes along with the read of the
pose you’re trying to create.
4. Look over your scene closely. Are all areas of the life drawing
model covered by your model? If so, congratulate yourself!
You’ve just taken a huge next logical step on the path that
leads toward being a fantastic animator!
217
9.2 The Seated Model

This exercise is just the same as in Section 9.1. We’ll be loading a
life drawing model into a fresh scene and moving our character until
he “assumes the position” (as it were).
Figure 9.3. This is the pose we’ll be working with for this exercise. It looks like
there is a lot more going on, but it is actually just as easy to manage as the
previous pose. Do watch the fingers and thumbs; there’s a little more action
going on there.
1. Load a copy of your setup scene, then save the scene in your
Chapter 9 working directory as something that’ll remind you
that this is life drawing model 02.
3. Load in Objects\Props\Chair.lwo.
4. Start pulling controls until your model fits the pose held by the
life drawing model.
218
Note:
Twinning is an industry term for anything that mirrors something in
the scene, either in motion or in pose. Hands and arms can twin.
Feet and legs can twin. Fingers can twin, and entire characters can
twin each other in a scene. Watch out for this! Twinning is some-
thing that almost never happens in real life. It is easy to fall into,
and it makes your pose read flat and unbelievable. Luckily, twin-
ning is something that is easily caught and fixed if you have a
watchful eye out for it, both during the creating of the scene and in
watching it when you think it might be finished.
Some notes on the pose itself: The character’s feet are both at dif-
ferent angles and positions with respect to the center of the pose.
Even so, both feet are braced against the chair legs, giving a feeling
of tension and readiness to bolt. Not only is the character perched
on the edge of the chair, he is off center to the chair’s right, adding
to the feeling that something more is going on than what the audi-
ence knows. His knees are together in a way that reads of fear and
protection. The focus of his torso and hands is away from where his
head is turned, giving a reading that there may be separate things
making him uneasy. The hands form two distinctly separate shapes
that don’t twin regardless of what angle they are viewed from, yet
they both read of surprise and trepidation within this pose.
Everything comes together in this pose to give a reading that
this guy isn’t happy about being where he is. As you work, try to
understand and internalize what subtleties build these feelings
within you. Animation is a lot like jazz in that you build riffs that you
know work well to produce certain feelings within certain contexts.
You put them all together in a piece, transposing, modifying, and
working on the fly. Always be on the lookout for new riffs that you
can add to your repertoire. Real life, film, television, and comic
books all abound with different takes on experience and response.
When a scene comes along where you can use one of these new
riffs, you’ll feel like a kid in a candy store: “Oh man! I’ve been want-
ing to give this a try!”
219
Note:
Animation is supposed to be fun. The surest way to take the fun
out of it is to not have the time you need to get the job done right.
Whatever the situation, always strive to give yourself the time to
feel good about the end result. Don’t rush things. When you walk
away from your desk, it is important to want to walk back.
9.3 The Reclining Model

Now we’re going to do a couple of models lying on the ground, one
face-up, the other face-down. It is best to get familiar with doing
things as many different ways as possible. This is called “filling the
well.” When a situation arises and you need to do something differ-
ently from your normal way of doing things, it won’t catch you by
surprise.
I’m going to recommend using the model itself to lay the char-
acter onto his back for the first pose and using Spine1 to get him
there for the second pose. You not only get a feeling for different
controls, you get used to seeing the model all out of joint — hands,
feet, and head dragging behind — but knowing that there’s a
method to the madness.
1. Load a fresh copy of your setup scene, then save a revision as
we’ve been doing.
3. Using the mesh itself to lay the character onto his back, start
pulling controls; see how you do!
As you work with the hand controls in this pose, pay attention
to what happens when you rotate the *_Rot control first or the
*_Trans first. Certain poses are easier to get when you move one
first instead of the other. Also, don’t be afraid to break some rules. If
you see what you want, and all you need is to rotate *_Trans in
pitch, go ahead and rotate it in pitch. In making this pose, I found it
much easier to rotate the RightShoulder control in world H than to
fight with parent H and P.
220
Figure 9.4. This is a pretty straightforward pose;

you should have very little problem with it. It is also
a bit of a standard life drawing pose; it’s the pose
the model usually assumes when he knows he’s
going to be there a while.
Note:
Something that will help you as you work is being aware that
LightWave has a solving order, the order in which it calculates
heading, pitch, and bank. LightWave figures heading first, then
pitch, and lastly bank. This makes sense when you think of bank
as being the child of pitch, and pitch being the child of heading.
Rotating bank doesn’t affect any of the other two axes. Rotating
pitch affects the angle of bank (hence the wonders of gimbal
lock). Rotating heading affects both pitch and bank. When rotat-
ing something into what may be a bit of a complex space, try
working backward — bank first, then pitch, and finally heading.
221
Advanced Note:
If any of you techno-wizards out there find yourselves working
on an expression that will “cancel out” the rotation of a previous
item, say to have a platform always be level no matter how its
support arm rotates, the solving order info will help. What you’ve
got to do is to have a hierarchy similar to: SupportArm =>
Cancel_B => Cancel_P => platform. With either the LWFollower
plug-in or by using an expression, have Cancel_B rotate at the
bank rotation of SupportArm multiplied by –1. Have Cancel_P do
the same for SupportArm pitch, and have the platform itself do
the same for SupportArm heading. (I know this may seem like
something out of left field, but believe it or not, this has saved
my behind in a character setup.)
Something else that will help you as you go: Before you start,
actually lay down in this position and see how it feels to lay like
that. Doing this will help you more than just about anything else you
can do. Animation is a kinesthetic art, an art based on movement and
feel. If, while you’re working, you can remember how it felt to be in
that pose, it will make your work go much more easily, and you’ll
get a much stronger, more readable, believable pose. Animation is
getting the viewer to feel what it feels like to do or to be something.
When you believe in that feeling as you do the work, it will show
through your art. And don’t worry about appearing weird by stand-
ing up at your desk, going through a motion, or striking a pose — all
animators do it! The halls of any place I’ve worked have at least one
or two animators acting out their scenes at any given time. And
because animation is all about feeling, watching yourself on video-
tape only goes so far. If you are using videotaped reference, try to
put yourself there in that action as you watch; feel what’s going on,
both kinesthetically and emotionally.
4. Take a close look at your pose from all angles. Did you get
everything covered?
When you feel comfortable with the work you’ve done, we’ll
move on to the next reclining pose.
222
5. Save your scene and load in your setup scene again.

7. Save a working revision of this fourth life drawing scene.
8. Avoiding the use of the mesh itself and the Root control, start
posing!
Figure 9.5. This pose has a lot going on. There is heavy curvature of the
spine, twisting the pelvis and the shoulders onto very different lines. The
right side of the pelvis is raised to accommodate the right knee’s angle at
the side of the body; the right shoulder is pulling forward, reaching for the
hand’s position. The fingers aren’t just flat on the ground; they spread and
reach, reading of support and intent. All in all, it is a very cat-like pose, and
the curves read strongly from every angle. (Poses where the curves read
well from every angle are what to strive for in video game work where you
don’t know where the viewer’s camera will be.)
223
9. Take a step back and look at how you did! (Hide and unhide
the life drawing model. Move it off to the side so you can com-
pare the two at once. Do they both give you the same gut-level
feeling?)
Does your pose need more work? Do you need to scrap it all and
start over? (Remember, you can save yourself a lot of time in the
long run by doing this.) Were you able to get your pose to match the
model’s? Try to remember the order in which you rotate the con-
trols. If you’re having problems, zero-out those controls and try
rotating them in a different order.
Note:
Oftentimes, when something isn’t quite coming together, I find
that there are usually just one or two things that keep the pose
from reading the way I want it to. Taking a quick break to get a
cup of tea, take a quick run around the building, or do some-
thing else that gets my mind off the ways I was thinking usually
does wonders. When you come back to the scene, almost
always there’s an, “Oh, duh! Of course!” and you make a few
quick changes and wham — everything has fallen into place!
When everything is reading well, and your character covers the life
drawing model perfectly, congratulate yourself! This is one of the
harder poses I could think of for you to try. Animation consists of
two things: timing and posing. You’re well on your way to having
posing down pat!
224
9.4 The Character and Weight

How do you get a character to read as if he is carrying something
heavy when all we’ve got are the tools of pose and timing? We have
to show the audience by how the character responds to and inter-
acts with the weight. (You never want the character saying, “Boy,
Phil, this 500-pound weight is heavy.” That’s bad directing.)
Note:
Actually, everything in
filmmaking (storytelling) is
about showing how char-
acters respond to things in
their environments. The
characters’ responses will
tell an audience how
heavy, happy, or scary a
thing is. The audience will
empathize with what they
see, pulling from their own
experience. An excellent
example of this is in the
2001 version of Lord of the
Rings: When the ring
wraiths enter the Inn of the
Prancing Pony, we see a
big man who looks to be a
cook. His response of utter,
childlike fear, hiding as the
wraiths enter, lets us know
beyond the shadow of a
doubt that this is a very Figure 9.6. Based entirely on the memory of how it
bad situation. feels to carry a heavy household appliance, we
read everything from how heavy this weight is to
the character’s outlook on carrying it.
225
1. Load in a fresh copy of your setup, saving it back out as the

revision with which you will be working for this sitting.
3. Animators, start your engines!
Notice with this one how the model really feels like he’s working
with this weight? It’s all about posture, silhouette, and how we our-
selves have experienced similar things and empathize with how he
looks. An interesting thing is that you can get a totally different read
on this pose by swinging the knees inward to touch. Try it. The
model goes from this hefty dude to someone looking like he’s about
to lose it. Different angles of the head give the impression of catch-
ing this guy at different points of lifting this weight. With his head
tilted down, as it is, he gives the impression of someone concentrat-
ing on the task at hand. If you tilt his head up, he looks like
someone just picking up this weight and trying to get it settled for
the long haul.
Another interesting thing to note is (and I’ll go over this again
in the section on silhouette) that with good, strong poses, you’ve
usually got one side of the character smooth, like this guy’s back.
The other side is all full of interesting jutting shapes to catch and
hold the eye. Again, this is rhythm. This visual sense of rhythm —
smooth vs. bumpy, straight vs. curved — is the key to making a
pose read of highest quality.
Also note that the character’s hands are beyond the reach of his
forearm bones. This stretches the wrists out of the shirtsleeves and
adds to the visual feeling of the hands being “pulled” by the weight.
In an animation, the moment the hands were to come back in touch
with the ArmPullers, the arms would pop a bit, making a quick
motion that is noncontiguous with the surrounding motion. This
happens any time you pull a goal away from its puller and then let it
come back in contact. It’s a good idea to try your hardest to make
sure the goals always stay within reach of the pullers assigned to
them. If, in a pose like this, it really needs to be that way, you can
cover that pop by having a bit of quick action surrounding the
motion or by making several, precisely controlled keyframes of the
control that moves the goal so that when the joint does start moving
again, it isn’t so abrupt.
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Note:
Strong poses are poses “drawn” with verbs, not nouns. Pose an
arm stretching, a back reaching, a leg compressing, or a neck
craning. Always pose with verbs, even when a character is doing
nothing.
How did you do? It’s a relatively simple pose when it comes right
down to it, but there are a lot of subtle points to make sure you’ve
covered. Take a step back, brew a cup of really good tea, and
analyze.
9.5 The Timed Pose

Whenever you take life drawing, you usually start with a series of
quick :30 (thirty-second) poses. You then move on to 1:00 poses,
then 3:00, 5:00, 10:00 poses, and then to long poses of 30:00 to
2:00:00. The idea behind this is to loosen up not only your drawing
arm but your mind (and heart) as well. During the quick poses, you
remember to not get all mired in the minutia; you focus on the big
picture, the things that get the pose to read at a glance.
Figure 9.7. This pose is simple but still interesting for this timed pose set.
There’s enough going on here to keep your attention for 30:00, and broad
enough to get good, strong gestures in :30.
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1. Load in a fresh setup; save it as a working scene revision as

usual.
2. Working only from Figure 9.7, give yourself 3:00 (three min-
utes) and see how you do.
Note:
Working solely from the figure is the next logical step in what
we’re doing. You’ve already become familiar with the controls,
what they do, and how to use them to pose your character from
a model directly in the scene with him. Now, you’ve got to be
able to take an image (real or imagined) and turn that visual into
the 3D coordinates that delineate a character’s pose.
3. Take a step back from your work. How did you do? Did you
work any differently from when you had the life drawing model
right there in the scene with you? Did you approach the scene
any differently than when you knew you had an unlimited
amount of time?
4. Save a revision of this scene, load up a fresh setup, and get
ready to tackle this pose again.
5. Try this pose again, just from the figure, and this time give
yourself 10:00 (ten minutes). See how you do.
Try to start the scene the same way you did when you had 3:00.
Rough in the broad gestural lines first, then work on fine-tuning the
details.
6. Again, take a step back and compare the work with the figure.
How do you feel about it? Did you start this pose the same
way you did the 3:00 one? (If you had saved a revision as the
3:00 mark passed, would it look similar to what you had done
in the last sitting?)
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Note:
There will almost never be enough time for you to be completely,
100% happy with a scene while working in production. Some pro-
ductions will give you more time than others, but you will always
have something more you want to do with the scene. Like a paint-
ing, an animation is never finished; it simply stops in interesting
places. Being able to rough in the important details first, being
happy with silhouette, weight, and emotional read, and then
being able to noodle the details is what will make you content
with your work and yourself as an animator when you see your
scene in the final product.
8. Move (only in X and Z) and rotate (only in heading) the life
drawing model until he comes as close to being in the same
position as your character as possible.
Compare and contrast. Your character, after 10:00, should match
the life drawing model fairly well. There will, of course, be details
not quite there yet, and exact positioning will probably be off. But
the overall feel of the pose should be the same.
9. Save this scene as a revision.
10. Load in a fresh setup, saving it out again as a working scene.
11. Using what you’ve learned, give yourself 30:00 (thirty min-
utes) working just from the figure. While still starting the
same way you would if you only had 3:00, try to get things to
totally match the model.
You’ve become very familiar with this pose. You know which
controls to move now and how much to rotate them. You know what
it takes to put this guy into this pose you now feel deep in your own
bones. You don’t just see the pose in your head, you expect to move
him into it and you plan on moving specific controls to achieve this
pose. This is the Zen zone of animation. You’ve achieved it already.
All it will take is a little more practice with posing to get that same
knowing feeling about any pose you visualize.
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12. Take a step back again. Get up and shake it off. When you
come back to your desk, load in Objects\chapters\Ch_09\
LifeDrawingModel_06.lwo and see how you did.
Your pose should be very close to the life drawing model’s.
Based on where you know you deviated from the model in the 10:00
sitting, you were able to correct those parts in this sitting. You’ve
had the time to get the fingers and all the other little details posed
just right. Things are pretty darn close. If you had another chance at
this pose, you know what you’d do to speed up the process and
make it even more effortless.
Here’s your chance.
13. Save this scene as a revision, reload a fresh setup, and save it
once more as a working scene.
14. Giving yourself only 3:00 (three minutes) this time, pose this
guy from the figure alone, using all you’ve learned from the
previous three sittings.
Note:
Animation being the “art of revision” as it were, you will more
than likely run into a scenario where you will have to go over and
over a scene that was perfectly good the first time you did it. More
and more often, directors of animation succumb to the notion of,
“I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it, and that
ain’t it.” It’s really too bad. It can be disheartening to an animator,
and it really only reflects the director’s own lack of vision and con-
fidence. Sure, the scene may not be exactly what the director had
in mind, but does it move the scene forward? Are the characters
true to themselves? Is there good acting going on? Do you believe
in and feel for the characters? These are the things that once mat-
tered under the great directors of animated works. These are the
things that let animators fall in love with their characters and their
scenes. These are the things that let that love read fresh and
bright through the screen and move the audience to tears and joy.
These are things that hopefully will matter again. “Making an ani-
mated film is like workshopping a play”? Hardly! Not unless you
want to dishearten your crew and blow a whole lot of dough.
Revise to improve, not simply to make different!
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15. Take a step back. How did you do?

16. Select File|Load|Load Items From Scene, and choose the
scene you saved after your first 3:00 sitting.
17. Using the mesh itself, move the characters side by side.
18. Compare and contrast.
Your more recent scene should radiate a lot more confidence that
you as an animator had in posing out the character. You should be
able to see your knowledge of the things that will catch the viewer’s
eye in an instant — the broad strokes, leaving the finer detail work
for later (or for an assistant).
Note:
When you first get issued a scene, a good idea is to spend no
more than three to five minutes on each pose as you’re roughing
in the action. You’ll be thinking in broad strokes, seeing if the sil-
houette is giving you the reading you wish it to. And if you don’t
like what you see, you won’t have that much time invested in the
scene. You won’t feel compelled to stick with something that
could be better if tackled from scratch from a different angle.
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9.6 The “Cool Walk”

Everyone has got to have a “cool walk,” right? Well, this is our
character’s. Even though this pose is a bit more complex than the
last, it’s still very straightforward. You should be able to take what
you’ve learned in the previous sittings and nail this pose pretty
quickly. Pay special attention to the shifts in weight and the
multi-axis contra-posto going on. The character is walking, so he
would indeed fall over if he tried to hold this pose indefinitely, but
the amount he is off-balance is congruent with the perceived speed
of his assumed forward momentum.
Figure 9.8. This pose has a good, clear line of motion (the line or arc that
clearly defines the pose or action) running right down the character’s
head/neck/spine/right leg — a very prominent “S” when seen from the
back view. Look for this line (or arc) of motion in all your future poses and
scenes.
1. Load up a fresh setup, and save it as a working scene as usual.

2. Using only Figure 9.8, put your character into this pose, giving
yourself all the time you need to do so.
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You may want to stop after the first three or ten minutes, save a
revision of what you’ve done, and start over from scratch. As I’ve
said, it isn’t uncommon for an animator to throw away his first draw-
ings until he gets into the groove of the scene. More often than not,
it’ll get you a better quality finished pose than you would have had,
had you kept right on going from the start.
3. How did you do?
4. Take a step back, take a bit of a break, and then compare and
contrast your work with the figure.
Do you get the same emotional read from your pose as the fig-
ure? Do you have the same feeling of a jaunty, rakish lilt to his step?
Compare and contrast.
How closely did you match the curvatures of his spine, the place-
ments of his appendages? In the sections on animation, we’ll get
into improvisation, but right here, we’re trying to build your ability
to see and to interpret that information into as precise 3D coordi-
nates as possible. Make notes and do the pose again, if you feel the
need!
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9.7 Clickin’ Them Heels

This is another relatively simple pose with a strong arc of motion.
Work with this the same way you worked with the previous life
drawing model. When you’re ready to compare and contrast, the
model can be found in Objects\chapters\Ch_09\LifeDrawing-
Model_08.lwo.
Figure 9.9. Notice how the model’s left side is all about stretching. You can
almost feel the pull along your own back muscles. The model’s right side is
all about compression. You can almost feel the pressure along your own rib
cage. This gives us a strong, definite arc of motion. We also have one side
that is relatively smooth, the model’s left, and the other side that is quite
interesting. Rhythm and arc of motion make this pose one that reads in an
instant.
Pay close attention to the lines of the shoulders and feet. A lot
of the strength of this pose is carried in the ways these angles bal-
ance straight lines against curved lines.
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9.8 Batter Up!

This is the hardest pose we’ll get into right now. It has a lot of com-
plex weight balancing going on: Some compound curves and a very
tight angle for the right shoulder require a lot more attention to get
him into place. The positioning and angle of the pelvis can make the
knees a bit vexatious as well.
Figure 9.10. I want you to work with just this one

perspective angle first. See how far you can get
before using Figure 9.11, which has the other two
angles you have become accustomed to using.
Turn this model around in your mind first before jumping right
in. Try to visualize where the different body parts are in relationship
to the others. Do this for a good three minutes before starting to
move controls. Look at the figure, close your eyes, and see if you
can turn the model over in your mind. Based on what you know of
the pose and your experience with the controls, where do they have
to be to get the character into that position?
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After you’ve gone as far as you can go just looking at Figure

9.10, compare what you’ve done with Figure 9.11. Keep working a
bit if you need to. Try to get that same moment-before-he-swings
kind of feeling to your pose. Break down the angles in your mind,
and dissect what combinations of angles and curves, stretches and
compressions, arcs and balance make this pose read the way it does.
Figure 9.11. The right and front views of the pose.
When you feel you’ve got this guy as close as you can by just
looking at the illustrations, load in Objects\chapters\Ch_09\
LifeDrawingModel_09.lwo. Compare and contrast how closely you
were able to hit the pose. Make mental notes, hide LifeDrawing-
Model_09, and make changes. Unhide the life drawing model and
see how close your changes brought him to the model’s pose.
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9.9 Life Drawing

Animation truly is only two things: posing and timing. Working with
posing the character in this way (life drawing in 3D) is integral to
becoming a quick and intuitive animator. It is the only way to get the
guesswork of figuring how to get the pose you’re looking for behind
you. The more life drawing you do, the sooner you will find this
stuff internalized, ready for use without even thinking about it.
When all of this has been internalized (and when timing has been
internalized, too) is when animation can become this wonderful
foray into imaginary worlds where you and the character are one for
as long as you’re working on the scene. This is when animation is
pure magic.
Always keep on top of your life drawing. When you have
downtime, flip to Chapter 14, where you’ll be directed to other
poses to work from. Go through magazines and books, and “draw”
from both photographs and animation drawings. Take a course on
life drawing and bring your laptop! Pose your characters from the
people you see around you every day. Movies, television, real life —
there is a wealth of knowledge waiting in experiences that don’t
stand still.
No matter how good you get, always keep up on your basics.
Life drawing is a plinth from which the masterworks of animation
rise up.
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Chapter 10
Reviewing Animation
Basics
Every animator, no matter how accomplished, always goes back to
studying the basics at different times throughout his career. These
are the foundations that support all the techniques of advanced ani-
mation mechanics. Actually, you could probably get through an entire
career just on these basic principles alone, and you could do quite
well. Having them at your fingertips, ready to use at a moment’s
notice without the burden of thinking about them, is what to work for
in your studies.
10.1 Timing
As I have mentioned before, animation is really only two things: pos-
ing and timing. Timing is the placement through time in a scene of
when events occur. Understanding timing is simply understanding
how things appear to happen as actions play out over time.
As an animator, you will need a stopwatch. Go out and get your-
self a good one (if you haven’t already got one). Keep it with you
always and just start timing everything around you. Find out exactly
how long it takes to do everything you see. Time different people
doing the same thing. Time someone getting up from a chair. Time
people looking at their watches. Time someone giving you a mean
look for being so intrusive. (Time how fast you can run away.) You get
the idea.
The only way to understand timing is to take notice of it as it
exists all around you. When you get up from a chair, you don’t just
stand straight up; you lean forward, putting your center of gravity
over your feet, and then you straighten. Each of these motions
requires some amount of time to complete. There is a pause between
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Chapter 10: Reviewing Animation Basics
the lean forward and the rise. That takes time, too. Explore and
understand real-life timings. Once you get a feel for them, start to
modify and play with them.
Animé, Japanese animation, makes great symbolic use of modi-
fied timings to convey different feelings. Characters hang in the air
much longer than they “should” before crashing back down to the
ground with an impact that belies their apparent mass. This obvious
departure from reality crafts feelings of great power and other-
worldliness. Animé uses timing to sculpt how you, the viewer, feel
about what you’re seeing. Something just barely perceptibly outside
of reality makes a viewer feel uncomfortable. Slowed timing appears
dreamlike. Often, when timing is artfully used to sculpt feelings, the
audience only gets the impact of the feelings, and is unaware of the
reasons why.
Timing is also a rhythmic device. Just like music, animation has
beats, rhythms, and tempos. You want to keep things interesting for
the viewer and not have everything fall on the same timings. This
makes a scene read dull and flat. If your scene has keyframes every
eight frames, it will read like mush. You have to break up the keys,
stagger them, and syncopate them. Get the audience to expect
something by setting up a pattern, and then break that pattern
(ONE, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, TWO, three,
four. ..). Keep them on their toes, when their toes need to be kept
on. Slow, languid scenes need this special attention to timing even
more than frenetic scenes to keep the audience from losing interest,
yet maintaining their dreamy flow.
Timing is also important to get across the relationships between
objects and mass. Massive objects don’t get moving as quickly as
slight ones do, but when they do, they’re quite a challenge to stop.
A light object or character can leap up from the ground more quickly
than a heavy one. Lighter items can seem to float a bit more before
gravity begins to exert its effect. Heavier items can seem to be
pulled greedily back down to Earth.
Everything you do with timing helps the audience to differenti-
ate between the shapes they see on screen.
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Note:
Animation is experience. If you don’t live it in your heart, it
won’t come out of your scene.
Note:
Since stopwatches are such physical objects, and you may leave
for work and forget it, I’ve included a small animation timer on
the CD under Extras\AnimationTimer\. There are two files that
are, in essence, the same thing. One is just the bare .swf
(Flash4 file), and the other is an .exe (executable program)
exported as a stand-alone from Flash to run on Windows
machines. If you’re on a Mac, open up your Internet browser
(with the Flash4 plug-in installed from http://flash.com ) and
drag the .swf file into the open Internet browser window. You
can also choose File|Open and browse to the .swf file. You can
e-mail this tiny .swf (only 68K) to yourself so you’ll never be
without a way to time animations! It does frames, feet/frames,
SMPTE, and seconds. It converts between these formats, and
you can use it to do some rudimentary frame-offset calcula-
tions. (Click on the “Help?” icon to find out more!)
10.2 Squash and Stretch

Squash and stretch is one of the keystones of good animation. Even
the most realistic of animations needs to have some element of
squash and stretch in it. Animation is all about the emotional impact
of experience; you alter the outline of a thing (not the volume) to
give the audience a visual interpretation of the forces impacting it.
1. Load Objects\Props\Ball.lwo into Layout.
2. Make a 21-frame sequence (from 0-20) where the ball bounces
similar to Figure 10.1.
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Figure 10.1. This bouncing ball has good timing to it: It accelerates
toward the ground, springs back up, then decelerates as it nears
the top of its rebound. The timing may be good, but it has no
squash and stretch to it. (You can find the scene to study in
Scenes\chapters\ch10\Figure_10-01.lws.)
In order for the ball to really give the impression that the force
of gravity is pulling it down to the ground where it impacts and
springs back up again, we have to push reality a bit.
Figure 10.2. Just using stretch and rotate to put rudimentary

squash and stretch on the ball gives a visual read to the forces
acting upon it. (See Scenes\chapters\ch10\Figure_10-02.lws.)
242
Note:
A more believable take on this would be to use bones to flatten
the ball around the area of impact where it hits the ground. I also
like to stretch objects into wedge-like shapes with the point of the
wedge leading the eye into the coming motion.
3. Now, using whatever techniques you’d like, add some squash

and stretch to your bouncing ball scene.
Note:
LightWave, having introduced Bezier interpolation for splines, has
made it a whole lot easier to get nice, smooth motion curves.
Don’t be afraid to drop the old TCB splines in favor of these more
controllable curves. However, because you have more ability to
noodle with the Bezier handles, you can more easily throw things
out of whack. I’ve also noticed that Bezier splines almost always
need some kind of adjustment and are rarely interpolated cor-
rectly (for my tastes) by default.
Compare what you’ve got with Scenes\chapters\ch10\Figure_

10-02.lws if you need to. Always remember to preserve the volume of
the object. When you squash in Y, the object has to expand in X and Z
in order to preserve the mass we perceive it to have. We’re not get-
ting rid of mass, we’re displacing it. (Think of a water balloon. When
you squeeze or stretch it, there’s still the same amount of water in
it — until it pops, that is.)
243
Note:
Something to be said about working with spline curves is that they should have
the absolute minimum number of keyframes needed to keep the item moving,
and they should be as elegant as possible. “Elegant” is a relative term and does
not necessarily mean “smooth.” The curves should be a linear interpretation of
the action. I like to think that the curves should be pretty if the motion is to be
flowing and beautiful, or harsh if the motion is to be percussive and violent.
Figure 10.3. Here are the scale curves for my bouncing ball.
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Newbie Note:
Squash and stretch doesn’t just happen with entire objects; it
happens with parts of objects separately, too. It happens with
legs, hands, arms, torsos, fingers, heads — any part of the
character that can visibly have a force acting upon it. Drop a
weight into our character’s arms and his legs should squash to
show the impact the sudden introduction of the weight has on
his body as a system. As our character’s hand whips up to catch
a fly ball, his hand and fingers elongate over the course of the
frames. The hand travels the greatest distance to accentuate
the feeling of speed. (You can think of this like handcrafting
motion blur.)
The way our character is set up, stretching the neck, arms, and
legs is easy. We pull the controls for the head, hands, and feet away
from where the IK chain can reach and things stretch. You can
squash individual parts of his body by scaling that individual control;
all children of that control will be equally affected (squash the hand
and the fingers will also squash). You can even squash and stretch
the bones controlled by IK, like the thighs, calves, biceps, and fore-
arms, but be careful when doing so. IK calculations are complex, and
adding stretching into the mix can make normally dependable IK
chains unpredictable.
As always, when you’re done squashing and stretching and your
character is at rest, make sure you return him to his original, at rest
proportions. Multiple instances of squashing and stretching can be
going on simultaneously in a complex and explosive scene, but you
always need to return the parts that aren’t being acted upon by
extreme forces to the proportions the audience has come to expect.
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10.3 Gesture and Line of Motion

Gesture is the most important part of an animation drawing (or
pose). Gesture is what makes a silhouette read with purpose and
intent and helps the viewer understand the motives behind the
character. Gesture is the ultimate distillation of an idea into form
(2D or 3D). Line of motion is the path that flows through and defines
the gesture.
Figure 10.4. Some poses we’ve visited before, and the thumbnail drawings
(quick, loose drawings to get the gesture, idea, and feel of a pose — not the
anatomy of a pose) that inspired them. Notice how clearly the line of motion
(represented by the thick line running through the center of each thumbnail
drawing) reads through both the thumbnail and the finished pose.
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The line of motion is the “big picture” read we get from a pose.
It tells us what is going on and where we should look. It gives us an
idea of what has happened a moment before and what to expect to
happen next. This line of motion should be clear and readable in all
your poses. The more simple and readable it is, the stronger it will
be. You can think of it like a graphic design element with arms and
legs. It has to telegraph as powerfully as any sales pitch you’ve ever
had. The line of motion has to read clearly, even on the break downs
(the main poses you have to put between the key poses that keep a
character’s motion true to the vision you have in your mind) and
inbetweens (all the frames that come between keys and break
downs).
Lines of motion should be clearly readable and have at least
some curve to them, unless you are using that straight, rigid graphic
concept for effect (like using the character as an arrow). Lines of
motion should also be no more complex than an “S” shape. Our
minds generally don’t bother to figure out the complexities of a
super squiggly line; it just reads as chaos. Unless you’re using that
chaos for effect, it will have much less power than a strong, simple
shape.
Reversing the line of motion keeps it interesting and builds
strength in the pose. You can also have parts of your pose reverse
their arcs, too, like an arm that reverses the direction of its curve as
the hand rises from rest. Reversing a curve is a powerful graphic
element; the audience’s eye will be drawn to it. Because of this, you
should carefully orchestrate these reversals, like a symphonic con-
ductor. Too many reversals in a short span of time will exhaust the
viewer. Too many reversals happening all at once over different
parts of the character will splay the audience’s focus and lose their
interest. Through an animation, line of motion is like the bass beat
that drives the scene.
Advanced Note:
The concept of curves and reversals can be extended
throughout multiple characters in a scene, paying attention to
how each interacts with another to create an overall line of
motion that moves over the visual plane of the screen.
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10.4 Anticipation
Anticipation is leading the eye with motion. You are using a preced-
ing action to lead the audience’s eye to what is going to happen next
or to an important area that they will need to be focusing on. The
concept of anticipation really comes from stage magicians who need
you to look at their right hand while their left puts a pigeon into a
wineglass.
Filmmaking has always been about leading the audience’s eye.
(When we take the 3D information and squeeze it onto a 2D plane,
the audience needs help so they don’t miss what’s important.) Lots
of motifs have been developed to help catch the audience’s eye,
from carefully planned editing, to a splash of color in an otherwise
dull set, to a breeze that ruffles the curtains right before the hero
enters.
Note:
Motion leads our eye. In the wild, a fox can seem to disap-
pear in a field not three feet away if he stands still. When he
moves, our eyes lock onto that movement. Anticipation is
moving an important part of the character’s body to draw our
eye to that spot so we don’t miss the action that follows.
Before some fast action happens with the character’s hand,
flex his fingers just a little while the rest of his body remains
still or in a moving hold (see Section 10.8). You can use
“leading the eye with motion” (anticipation) as any other
rhythmic device at your disposal. You can tease the audience
with it, building patterns and getting them to look in a certain
direction expecting more of the same, then wait until their
expectations have died down before hitting them with that big
knockout punch! (This is classic horror movie timing.)
1. Load your setup scene.

2. Save it as a revision for Section 10.4 in your working directory
for Chapter 10.
248
Note:
The exercises in this book are about to get a lot more subjective. For
the exercises that follow, there is no “right” way and there is no
“wrong” way. There is only what looks good for the scene. It isn’t my
goal to turn you into a clone of me. I’m going to do my best to give
you the tools and let you decide what you do with them. What it will
take to let the exercises truly do their best for you is for you to honestly
and humbly appraise what you see in your finished scenes. You have
to ask yourself, “Is this something that would fit flawlessly into the best
animated feature I’ve ever seen?” You have to be honest with yourself
about the answer. If the answer is “no,” then you have to go through
both the animation basics and the advanced animation mechanics as
checklists to see if your scene has everything in it that it needs. Evalu-
ate your animation from as many different viewable angles as you
have time. When all angles read convincingly for your character’s
intent (and being), your scene should give you a bit of a shudder and
an innate knowledge that if you saw this on the big screen, sand-
wiched by the best animation you’ve ever seen, it would fit right in.
Figure 10.5. This composite image shows my take on our character

anticipating, jumping, and landing. (He “jumps down” before he jumps up.)
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Figure 10.6. This is an image sequence of the same animation. (Shown on twos, a new
drawing for every other frame, running at 24 fps.)
Pose Copying
I’d like to make a concerted effort to not leave anyone behind, even if
you’ve never animated before. There are a few scenes included on the
companion CD where you’ll be able to do a kind of “moving life draw-
ing in 3D,” which will get you further ahead in understanding
animation than any amount of reading ever will. Remember, though,
this is simply copying animation. In order to get the full impact of that
particular section, once you’ve done a spot-on copy of the animation,
take a short break and go back and (referencing only your imagination)
do the animation from scratch. Make it your animation. Take what
you’ve learned by copying and push it farther; explore and experiment.
You will be building confidence by going through the motions (building
“muscle memory”) and then using the experience to make your own
decisions. Do this with as many of the exercises as you need; you can
cover a lot of ground this way.
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To do this exercise as an exploration of moving life drawing:
1. From your working revision (created in step 2 of this section),

select File|Load|Load Items From Scene … .
2. Choose Scenes\chapters\ch10\Figure_10-05.lws. (In response
to the request to load lights as well as objects, choose No.)
3. Select the Thinguy_F (2) object.
4. Choose Items|Replace|Replace With Object File … .
5. Select Objects\Final\Thinguy_LifeDrawing_F.lwo and click
Open.
6. Under Display|Display Options|Schematic View, make sure
Drag Descendants is checked.
7. In a Schematic view, with Thinguy_LifeDrawing_F still selected,
drag it and its hierarchy away from Thinguy_F’s hierarchy so it
doesn’t get in the way as you work.
8. Change the end frame to 29 (assuming you’re working in 24 fps,
as both my setup and animation are) and you’re ready to start
matching my animation, pose for pose, frame for frame.
9. Scrub through the animation. See where the extremes are and
copy those poses first.
10. Scrub back through the animation and reposition him to the
model where he drifts farthest from the model’s animation. (This
is in essence what a break down is.)
11. Repeat this process until your character matches the model’s
animation perfectly.
As you copy the poses, look for the other animation principles going on
in the scene as well. There’s squash and stretch, drag, follow-through,
circular motion, overlapping action, and there’s even altering realistic
timing to get him to snap up from the ground as he leaps. As you go
over these points in this and the next chapter, think back on what
you did here. Think not only of how things in my scene worked
but how you can make them better!
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3. Animate the character anticipating, jumping, and landing.
Note: Note:
If you choose to have your character’s Before I animate anything, regard-
fingers clench into fists as I have done, less of whether it is for money or
you’ll run into that lovely issue of just practice, I try to come up with a
gimbal lock. I had to switch to local reason for the character to be doing
coordinates in order to get the *Base the action. It helps to get personality
bone of the two outer fingers to not into the scene so it doesn’t read as
leave a gap between themselves and a flat and boring (even if it is a
the character’s middle finger. The well-animated) bit of purposeless
problem is that when you go back to action. Before getting into this
parent coordinates, you find yourself scene, ask yourself, “Why would this
presented with a problem: There are guy be jumping?” Is he startled? Did
some huge numbers (+/– 90 or more) he win a lottery? Is he avoiding a
in heading and bank. If you have sweep kick, and why is someone
already created other keys for these throwing a sweep kick at him (how
bones where heading and bank are does he feel about having someone
more reasonable (+/– 80 or less), throw said sweep kick at him)?
those fingers will look wrong when When you’re comfortable with the
they inbetween from one keyframe to answers to these questions, those
the other. My solution was to click in answers will read through the scene
the numeric input box for heading, and as the character’s intent and pur-
leaving the value intact, type in pose. Even if this little snippet is all
“180 – ” to the left of the current value the world ever sees of this guy
(say 117.00). When you press Enter, jumping, there will be a feeling that
LightWave figures what 180 – 117 is this guy has a life, a soul, an opin-
and leaves “63.00” as the value for ion about and a reason for jumping.
heading. I repeated this for bank, and (Think Degas — a slice out of time.
got something that was a pretty darn You want the audience to feel that
close approximation of what I had got- the character came from some
ten using local coordinates. The only moment before, and that he’s gone
difference between the rotations is that somewhere a moment after the
this set inbetweens just fine with a scene ends.) Doing this will leave
keyframe of 0H, 0P, 0B. your audience wanting more.
“ … which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit, as an

entrance … someplace else.”
— The Player, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
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10.5 Drag
Drag is a pretty simple concept. Hold up a (clean) shirt. Move your
hand moderately fast to the right. The bottom of the shirt lags
behind your hand. This is drag.
Figure 10.7. As the wrist moves up, the fingers and palm drag behind.
Drag happens on nearly everything in animation. You can make

a scene look multitudes better by making sure drag is appropriately
applied to hands, fingers, toes, elbows, and heads. It’s like squash
and stretch in that it may not happen in real life quite as much as we
show it in animation, but it gives a visual representation of how an
action feels.
If you were to see someone next to you in the café acting with
the amount of drag that feels natural on a cartoon character, you’d
probably seriously think about changing tables (or restaurants).
Drag isn’t about what looks real, it’s about what looks good.
Sensuous villains tend to let drag and follow-through unroll
their every action. (“Oozing charm from every pore, he oiled his
way around the floor. . . ” — Professor Higgins, My Fair Lady)
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Cartoon items can show their mass with respect to other car-
toon items by how much drag (and follow-through) they have as
they animate.
Almost every animated action, even the most realistic acting,
needs to have some element of drag in order to make it read well to
an audience.
Figure 10.8. We’ll be using this scene to practice drag.
1. Load in Scenes\chapters\ch10\Section_10-05_Setup.lws.
Note: Newbie Note:

All of the scenes I’ll be handing you Newbies, my take on the scene is:
to work with are at 24 fps. If you Scenes\chapters\ch10\Section_
need to practice at another frame 10-05_F.lws. Load items from the
rate, feel free to make adjustments scene and copy if you need to!
accordingly.
2. Paying special attention to drag on the fingers and palm, ani-

mate ThinGuy reaching up with his left hand and grabbing that
floating handle.
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As you work, here are some suggestions to bear in mind: Raise

the character’s hand above the handle first, then let it settle down
upon it (don’t just go straight for the handle; that’s boring). Take a
quick read ahead in the next section on follow-through to help you
refresh your mind as to what happens when the hand reaches the
top of its arc and begins to settle onto the handle. Let the fingers
unfold with their own follow-through, but make sure they don’t do it
all at the same time; try to keep at least a one- to two-frame differ-
ence between each digit.
Give your scene as much screen time as you need to have your
character’s intent play out. Is he scared of the handle? Does the
handle represent some kind of long-sought-after goal? Is he going to
save the world with this handle (if it were part of a switch assembly)
or destroy it?
Note:
You’ll notice that this scene starts on Frame 0. The character’s
rest pose is on frame –100. With the rest pose at –100, I can
still go back to it in case I need to straighten anything out, but it
is far enough away from Frame 0 that it won’t have too much
of an adverse effect on the motion curves (causing the character
to inbetween in an unwanted way from 0 to the first keyframe).
If you do notice the motion paths going off their intended
course between 0 and the first keyframe, you can always set the
frame counter at 0, and make a keyframe for all items at –1.
(This works best if you’re using TCB splines. It doesn’t work
quite as well for hermite or Bezier splines.) Remember, though,
to rekey –1 if you make adjustments to the pose on Frame 0!
3. When you’re satisfied with your work, load in Scenes\chap-

ters\ch10\Section_10-05_F.lws and compare your solutions
with mine.
Are there any ideas that come to mind as you’re watching and
comparing the scenes? Can the solutions I came up with for drag,
anticipation, or timing help you in making your scene better?
4. Take another pass through your scene. See if there are ways in
which it can be plussed (pushed beyond where it is) to make it
more entertaining or read better.
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10.6 Follow-Through
Follow-through is the counterpoint to drag. When you hold up that
(clean) shirt, and move your hand to the right, then stop, the shirt
flows beyond the stopping point of your hand. This is follow-
through. (The shirt then settles gently back to where your hand
stopped. This is settling.)
Figure 10.9. The wrist moves upward, beyond its settling point, then comes back down to
rest. The palm and fingers continue to flow upward (they follow-through), even as the wrist
begins to settle back down. (The palm and fingers then drag behind the wrist to settle
slightly after it does.)
Note:
Some of the subtlety of the animation is lost in the above figure. (There
are many things about animation that can be best understood when
seen as animation.) Load in Scenes\chapters\ch10\Figure_10-09.lws.
As you watch it as a preview or scrub through the frames, watch the
graceful, fluid nature of the hand. See how the motion almost unfurls
but still has some snap to it as the fingers follow-through. Notice also
that the pinky settles first, then the middle finger, and finally the index
finger and thumb. (This variation in timing keeps the fingers from
twinning and is almost unnoticeable unless you go looking for it, but
adds a wealth of life to the motion.)
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Figure 10.10. Here’s the scene we’ll be working with for this exercise. The
character’s initial pose is almost identical to the previous exercise, but his intent
is entirely different.
1. Load in Scenes\chapters\ch10\Section_10-06_Setup.lws.
Newbie Note:
Newbies, between the last couple of exercises, you’ve learned a
lot. I want you to work this scene from scratch with the rest of us. If
you’re really unhappy with how you do on it, you can always go
back and work with posing to my scene. But I think you’ll surprise
yourself with how well you actually do on your own here.
2. Giving yourself three seconds of screen time to complete the

action, I want you to have our character place both his hands
on the crystal ball.
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We’re going to be working with some acting here. The scene is

still very much open to interpretation, but I want you to make his
movements very fluid and mystical. He is moved by an irritable
power he doesn’t quite understand but doesn’t fear; the blood of his
gypsy ancestors runs deep in his veins. He raises both his hands
over the scrying sphere and lays them gently, reverently, almost
sensuously along its sides to gaze deep into the mists of time.
Note:
An animator is an actor with a pencil, stylus, or mouse.
In this sense, being an animator is the best job in the
world.
As you work, focus on all that you know, all that we’ve gone
over so far. Make sure there’s appropriate anticipation, drag, and
follow-through. With the exception of the scene length of three sec-
onds, you have carte blanche as to how much action to put in there.
Make sure that whatever action you do put in reads clearly; that
there is enough action to keep the scene interesting (by the end of
the scene, the audience will want to see what happens next), but
that there isn’t too much going on and we overwhelm the audience.
(You don’t want total sensory overload; people lose interest very
fast when they’re overwhelmed.)
After you’ve finished the scene and you’re watching it play out
before you, ask yourself if your character reads with the same per-
sonality you envisioned him to have before starting the scene. Has
he remained true to your vision? If not, has he improved? Did you
find new ways of making his characteristics show through even
more?
This is a scene that should have a lot of fluidity to it. It should
really play up the drag and follow-through, not just on the fingers
and hands but on the elbows, back, and head, too. You’re allowed to
go over the top with the whole “mystical” thing on this scene. Ham
it up!
258
Note:
It’s a lot easier to pull something back from the edge of over-
acting and tone it down than it is to try to get something that is
dry and straight to read with more warmth and richness. When
in doubt of what the director wants with a scene, I usually err
on the side of subtle intensity. I can always pull it back if the
director thinks it’s too much.
3. Before you go on, jot down on paper some notes about your
scene and where you feel things could be improved (there
should always be at least some areas you feel can be
improved). Take note of the good things going on, too, the
things that read well and touch on what we’ve gone over so far.
4. Save a revision of your scene.
5. Take a look at what answers I came up with for this scene in
Scenes\chapters\ch10\Section_10-06_F.lws.
As you watch what I did, keep in mind that there are no “rights”
and no “wrongs.” There is simply my take on things and yours.
Since there is no overall story arc to which we are adhering, we
don’t have to worry about our guy being in character; all we have to
concern ourselves with is: Does the action look believable? Does
the action look good? Are there any areas in which things can be
improved?
Note:
Scenes\chapters\ch10\Section_10-06_F.lws is just to give you
ideas and another viewpoint on how things can be done. The
greatest thing you can do for yourself as an animator is to
explore as many ways to do a thing as possible. Find as many
different solutions to problems as you can. Talk with other ani-
mators, get their ideas on things, find new angles and insights,
and share what you have learned. The broader the range of
experience you can bring to your work, the more deep, rich,
and fulfilling it will become, not just to do, but to watch as well.
259
In watching my take on the scene, are there any ideas you get
about things you can do to your scene? Are there bits of the ways
I’ve used drag and follow-through that give you ideas on how you
can plus your scene?
Newbie Note:
Newbies, if you feel you could benefit from posing through my
animation, take time to do that now. Then retry this scene from
scratch.
6. Take another look at your scene. Work from the notes you’ve
made about your scene to bring this animation to a level you
feel would fit seamlessly in a collection of the best animation
you’ve seen. Take as much time as you need before moving
on.
Note:
As far as quality goes in animation, you only get as good as you
let yourself. By that I mean you have to give yourself the time it
takes for you to do feature-quality work before you can pare
that amount of time down to that which might be given on a TV
series. If two weeks is what it takes to bring a certain complexity
of scene up to feature-level quality, do your best to make sure
you have that time given to you. Eventually, after working and
streamlining your processes, you may be able to get a scene of
similar complexity done in one week. But being given only one
week to do scenes of that complexity time and time again, you
can work forever and never reach that level of feature-quality
animation. Our brains give to us what we ask of them. We have
to ask for that level of quality, and give the amount of time it
takes for feature-quality habits to be formed.
260
10.7 Easing In/Easing Out

We’ve already been doing this in our practice scenes. Easing in or
easing out is simply slowly bringing our character into or out of a
motion. We saw easing in in the gentle settling of the fingers in
Figure 10.9 and its corresponding animation. The wrist, palm, and
fingers eased in to their resting point. In Scenes\chapters\ch10\
Section_10-06_F.lws, the character’s hands eased out of their initial
pose at the beginning of the animation.
Easing in and easing out are ways of taking the sharp “edges”
off of an animation. Care must be taken so that the “edges” aren’t
smoothed so much that the animation becomes “mush.” Use vary-
ing amounts of easing in and easing out to build rhythm in a scene.
You can allow one part of the character to take more time to slowly
enter or exit a motion than another to prevent your character from
twinning.
Note: Note:
The best kind of spline curve You can get a pretty good ease in and
for easing in and easing out ease out effect with TCB splines, too,
is a Bezier curve. Working by moving the Time Slider one or two
with Bezier curves means frames before the keyframe into which
that you often spend as you want to ease. You create a key for
much time working in the that item one or two frames before the
curve editor (motion graph) frame the slider is currently on. The
as you do actually animat- drawback to this method is that you
ing. The hard work pays off can end up cluttering your keys. Unless
with a scene that has the you remember which keyframes are
barest minimum of the poses and which are the ones
keyframes needed to keep you’ve created to ease in or out, you
the animation on track; you can accidentally delete the wrong one
have absolute, precise con- while making changes to the anima-
trol of how the curves enter tion. (Save revisions of your scene to
and exit a keyframe. CYA!)
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Easing in and out isn’t just used for keeping an item from
“slamming” to a dead stop; use it to add texture, rhythm, and flavor
to a scene. As you act out a scene before settling into animation,
note how you enter and exit moves. Bring that kind of characteriza-
tion into the easing your 3D actor performs in the scene!
10.8 Moving Holds

A moving hold is where the character is stationary and one or two
parts of him are moving (like an ear or an eye), or when the charac-
ter moves almost imperceptibly to another pose after settling into
his key pose. These are ways in which a character can be kept alive
while he isn’t performing a storytelling action (an action which fur-
thers the story or scene).
To do a moving hold in traditional animation, you had to either
animate the parts that did move on a separate layer (the ear or eye
that continues to move) or trace back (redraw from the first drawing
of the hold) the parts that didn’t move. In traditional animation, this
can be time consuming. In 3D animation, it is simply a matter of
adding a little offset to a control on a future keyframe so the charac-
ter appears to continue to live while he’s “stationary.”
One of the biggest criticisms of computer animation, however,
is that the characters never stop moving. It is so easy with the
splines we have to work with, and the computers to (relatively)
quickly handle the inbetweens, that knowing when to lock down a
character has now become an issue.
Note:
“Splineyness” refers to the problem of a 3D character always
being in constant motion or to the problem of the motion not
having enough “crispness” to it. (“I dunno. The motion looks a
little spliney.”) Don’t just accept the computer’s interpretation
for the spline curves; make sure they are exactly the way you
want them to be. Make sure that there is a good balance of
“texture” to your animations: soft, sharp, quick, slow, tiny, and
broad. Make sure that the storytelling actions read clearly and
don’t get lost in the moving holds.
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Pay close attention to the style of animation you’re doing. It

may look stylistically best to have your character visibly freeze for a
bit or to have most of him freeze while an ear and his whiskers
droop as smoke rises from his head. Remember that animation is all
about the conveyance of feeling. Stylistic symbolism is a powerful
tool for doing so. Make an effort to understand what kinds of sym-
bolism have been used before. Understand the “language” of
symbols that audiences have come to accept. This is a language that
has been explored and refined since before the 1920s!
Note:
You may even try setting all your splines to interpret as
stepped, so your character stays frozen until you put in a
keyframe, break down, or inbetween. This gives your motion
the same feel as traditional animation; it’s handled in exactly
the same way!
If you are working on a more realistic piece, take a look at how

real life handles its moving holds. Sure, when we stand, we’re not
perfectly still, but how much do we actually move? How visible is
the motion on screen? If a particular motion is visible, where and
how does it affect the form? Remember that movement attracts the
eye. You want to make sure that the audience’s focus is where you
want it at all times. Don’t let an overactive moving hold distract
your viewer from important action (or lack thereof)!
Study all the great actors you can. Watch how things are done
on stage, and compare this with how the best film actors of today
use their motion or lack thereof to sculpt an emotional performance.
Compare this with the greats of the Silent Age of filmmaking. Mas-
ters like Chaplin (who at times did more than 50 takes of a scene to
get it exactly the way he envisioned it) made sure that every char-
acter on the screen was moving exactly as they intended.
263
Note:
Watch films with the sound off. This helps you focus on the
action and really see what is going on and how the scenes
were crafted. As you watch, ask yourself what these actors
were doing to evoke the feelings they do. What were they
doing with timing and pacing? How is their delivery of
thoughts and ideas? How do they use anticipation, drag,
and follow-through?
Use all the resources at your disposal to gain an understanding of

how to best use the tools before you. Always make sure that every
aspect of your final scene adds to the feeling you want your audi-
ence to read, that nothing detracts from it, and that everything that
needs to be read, reads clearly.
“Music is the silence between the notes.” — Unknown
264
Chapter 11
Advanced Animation
Mechanics
11.1 Silhouette
Silhouette is the first thing our minds read when we look at anything.
This is why it is so vital to pay very close attention to our character’s
silhouette as we work and as we evaluate. Not only must it read
strong and true to every feeling and opinion of our character, it must
also clearly carry the intent of his action. (You have to be careful, too,
that parts of the silhouette can’t be misconstrued for things they
aren’t.) From the silhouette alone, you should be able to tell what’s
going on and how the character feels about it.
In terms of reading the character’s intent with the silhouette, if
the character is evil, every line of his silhouette should radiate with
villainy. If the character is a lovable goof, every line should read with
pleasant silliness. If the character is sweet and inculpable, every line
of the silhouette should emanate innocence.
The silhouette should have appeal. Audiences have to identify
with a part of what they read in the silhouette and like what they see.
Even if your character is distilled badness, he still has to appeal to
the audience; otherwise, they’re not going to relate to him or care
about what he’s doing. This does not mean toning things down, not in
the least. This means making sure whatever you do looks cool. The
audience has to read the silhouette and think, “I want to be that” or
“I want to have one just like that!” Granted, appeal can be pretty
amorphous, and what has appeal for one person may not for another.
As ethereal as appeal can be, you know when you’ve nailed it when
you see your scene and think, “I gotta get one of those!” (Or at the
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Chapter 11: Advanced Animation Mechanics
very least, you feel as if there’s a part of you that can connect with
what you’re seeing on screen.)
Note:
Milt Kahl said it best about appeal: “If you’re working on a
scene and you either want to be that character, or be with
that character, you’re doing it right.” The magical thing about
this is that if you’re true to yourself, and you do feel this way
while doing a scene, the audience will too.
Newbie Note:
Appeal is a tough quality to nail down. What makes something
look appealing and something else look like a “transporter”
accident? You could have an entire book on this quality alone.
Yet, one thing is certain: When you try your hardest to make
something appeal to everyone is when you most often fail. To
start off in gaining an understanding of appeal, watch high-
quality animation and take note of when something strikes you
close to your heart. Try to exactly copy what you see with your
own work. The more you do this, the more you will build “mus-
cle memories” for how to achieve certain specific results. This is
important because when you’re working, you need to turn off
the “thinking” part of your brain, and just go by feel. (My men-
tor, Tom Roth, said that to get a good quality line, you had to
stop trying.) As you’re working, you have to watch for the
moment your control passes a part of your character through a
pose that feels right (maybe you’ve seen something like it
before and it worked in that context). You’ll quickly build “riffs”
you know will work for certain situations and you’ll be able to
put your brain on “autopilot” and just enjoy the work. Remem-
ber, the key is to understand what makes things great by
consciously understanding great things!
266
The strength of the pose still has to ring, crystal-clear, through

the silhouette. There has to be enough visual information — land-
marks (internalized cues all mammals seem to use to identify based
on shape, perceived relative distance, and angle) — that the viewer
will be able to identify what is going on and relate to his own experi-
ence. Landmarks are the shorthand we use to identify a situation at
a glance. In a silhouette, they are all we have.
Figure 11.1. Three views of the same pose in silhouette; each has varying
degrees of success and drama.
The image at the upper left is a straight-on shot. You can’t really
tell what is going on. Things are just a mass of rounded shapes. If
you didn’t know this was a human character, you might not know
what you’re looking at.
The image at the lower left reads better, though there is still a
bit of confusion about what is going on with the character’s hands.
We get the idea that this is an up-shot (a shot from a low angle point-
ing upward, also known as a worm’s eye view). (I’m guessing that it
isn’t a down-shot (over the (left) shoulder) because of the size dif-
ferences in what I can make out to be the hand masses. Also, his
shoulders appear straight; in order to get the extension of what
267
would be the right arm, he would need to rotate his right shoulder
in.) We get a feel of the angle of the character’s head from the out-
line of the character’s left ear, what we can discern to be the
character’s right ear, and what we know of the kind of hat it looks
like he’s wearing. From there, we’re able to pretty quickly guess
that the character’s left hand is outstretched with the palm upward.
We get this because of what we assume to be the thumb, the bump
above the plateau of the hand, which would most comfortably be
created by the thumb being to the left of the hand mass. (We can
guess that this is the left hand because for it to be the right hand
(palm down to have the thumb on that side) we would need to see
indications of fingers along the bottom line of that hand.) The left
index finger appears to be outstretched, and the other fingers
appear to be curled slightly because of how the angles meet on the
underside of that hand. What’s going on with the right hand is a bit
of a mystery. We can’t really tell its placement in relationship to the
other hand; its silhouette doesn’t give us enough information to
accurately guage its size. The right fingers don’t give us much
either; their definition is hidden in the mass of the hand.
The image on the right has the most information of the three.
We see exactly what is going on. The only question we have by
looking at the silhouette is which hand is right and which hand is
left (something that’s fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.)
We can all relate (we’ve all probably done something similar in our
lives). So even though we don’t know quite what he’s got between
his fingers, we can see that it must hold some interest because all
his attention is focused on it. Because of the landmarks, we can
identify in an instant what is going on, and we get immediate ideas
as to how this character feels about what he is doing.
Rhythm plays a huge part in how good a silhouette looks. It has
to be interesting. It has to hold your attention. There have to be
engaging little nooks and crannies, and strong expanses of gently
curving lines. (We are referential beings; smooth is only smooth
because we have something to compare it with.) And there has to be
variance in how big these interesting details are. You need details
big enough to grasp the very instant you look at the silhouette, and
little particulars that you begin to notice only after several
moments.
These rhythmic details will determine how successful your sil-
houette (and your pose and animation) will be. The idea is that you
268
want to have the viewer want to explore the piece. There have to be
large, smooth areas to balance the tiny details. There have to be
curves balancing the straight lines. Balance, rhythm, straights,
curves, big, small — there’s a lot that goes into just this one aspect
of silhouette. Remember that the best thing you can do is to find
what works (you can hold up a frame from an animated feature and
clearly see the difference between that and the average bang-it-out
Saturday morning cartoon) and look for what you know should be
there making it work.
Note:
In painting and drawing, the different levels of detail are called
the different reads of the piece. The big details catch your eye
from across the room. The medium-sized details are noticed as
you move across the room toward the piece, and there should
also be wonderful little details like brush strokes that you only
see when you have your nose almost touching the canvas. None
of these sets of details should interfere with the others. Your ability
to integrate elements like these into your own work comes not
only from looking at other pieces with successful levels of detail,
but looking for them.
As far as rhythm goes, there’s not much to mention about the

image at the upper left in Figure 11.1. It’s all about semi-definable
curves, with only a few straight lines thrown in here and there.
There’s nothing to catch and hold our attention; as silhouettes go,
it’s quite forgettable.
The silhouette in the lower left has some great areas of bumpy
details, balanced and offset with large smooth areas. The negative
space (the area surrounding the character which is interpreted to be
contiguous even if broken up by background) is carved into interest-
ing shapes by the jutting hands and head. There’s a great balancing
of the straight line of the (character’s) right forearm where it meets
the gentle, broken curve of his right upper arm/shoulder at an
almost right angle. That strong, pronounced angle is balanced by the
wide, powerful curve on the underside of the elbow. (Notice also
that the large shape of the bottom of the elbow is actually a curve
that becomes a straight line.) There are many smaller, interesting
details as well — fingers, ears, curves of the hat. The balance of
large details and small, curved and straight lines, angles and arcs
makes for interesting and enjoyable rhythm.
269
The image at the right of Figure 11.1 again has large, languid
curves and flats balanced against the quick little curves of the fin-
gers and mouth. There are lots of great little points where curves
and straights meet or blend. And the line of the back reads as a pow-
erful straight against the equally powerful curve of the tummy
(made up of two lines that themselves could be considered straight).
The rhythm of this angle is more complex than the previous two. It
is interesting; it has many areas to explore and large, smooth shapes
to balance and carry the finer details. But even so, it doesn’t quite
have the drama that the silhouette in the lower left does. We read
what’s going on, do a quick exploration of the details, and stop. Our
eye doesn’t want to re-explore the details, traveling through the
composition again and again as it does with the silhouette in the
lower left. This is because of the way wedge shapes are used in
both compositions.
Wedge shapes are powerful design tools. They lead the eye
from their widest part to their tip. In the image in the lower left, the
large mass of the torso and arms is a wedge and shoots our eyes
over to the detail work of the hands and fingers (especially that
pinky). From there, we’re caught by the brim of the hat and wedged
back into the torso, and our eyes start taking that journey all over
again. It is a triangular composition, made up of smaller, directional
wedges.
Figure 11.2. The triangular composition, made up of smaller,

directional wedges, accelerates our eye around the composition.
270
The image on the right has wedge shapes as well, but they’re
less pronounced. The large wedge of the torso mass has its narrow-
est part down toward the bottom of the screen, leading our eye out
of the picture. The head is triangular shaped, but equilateral; we
don’t perceive a direction in which to be led. The space between the
arms is the strongest wedge shape (created from the negative space
outside the character); this leads us from the eye-like silhouette of
the hand back into the torso, but there is nothing in the torso to
hold us there.
Note:
The concept of triangular
compositions and using
directional elements to lead
the eye was brought front
and center by the Renais-
sance masters. Look to the
works of Rembrandt,
Gentileschi, da Vinci,
Caravaggio, and Peter Paul
Rubens. See what you notice
first; turn away, close your
eyes, and when you turn
back to the painting, what
do you see first? Where
does your eye move next?
Why? Is it a hand pointing?
An arm leading toward
another area of interest?
The way light cuts a silhou-
ette through the darkness or
light? Heads that are
turned, leading us toward
Figure 11.3. This composition just doesn’t work as well other characters, and pools
as the previous one. We read what is going on with the of light and shadow are
character, but after a cursory exploration of the parts, subtle, brilliant ways of
our eye “just sits there.” drawing the audience in and
keeping them moving
around the two-dimensional
plane of the screen. Look for
what you know to be there!
Understand because you
begin to see what was so
elegantly hiding in plain
sight!
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There’s a lot more to silhouette than just making the action

read clearly. Every scene should be staged and animated so that the
silhouettes are instantly readable, dramatic, rhythmic, and executed
with attention given to how their design elements impact the
viewer.
Newbie Note:
All this information on silhouette may seem like esoteric,
artsy-fartsy stuff, but understanding, internalizing, and applying
it is what will make your work stand worlds above the rest.
Note:
The view I’d stage the scene from is the one on the lower left.
Aside from the strong design and compositional elements, the
silhouette doesn’t give away everything about the scene at
once. It gives enough information that it captures the audi-
ence’s interest the moment it comes on screen, and the playing
out of the scene (through character motion and/or camera
motion) will reveal the rest. I like there to be a little mystery in
what I do; it draws the audience in, makes them wonder — and
in that wondering (if they already care about what’s going on),
they are in essence participating in the scene. This is the name
of the game in any kind of storytelling; get the audience to
want to know what happens next!
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11.2 Exaggeration (“Bad” Poses)

How far can you push a silhouette and still have it work in a scene?
It depends on how “realistic” the animation, but it is always more
than you first think.
Good animation often has many so-called “bad drawings.”
These are drawings where the character is exaggerated so much
that were you to see just that one frame, it would look seriously
wrong. Even the tightly rendered classics have characters moving
through poses that are pushed so far that they look weird out of
context.
With most of us, it is harder for us to really push something into
exaggeration than it is to take something that is a little too broad
and pull it back. (And when we first start out in animation, most of
us are so self-conscious of doing something “wrong” that a lot of our
Figure 11.4. Extreme poses.
273
scenes look stiff and boring.) It’s okay to push things; we’re show-
ing the impression of experience, not the photographic representa-
tion of an action.
There are two basic kinds of exaggeration: extreme poses and
“super-mega-ultra-extreme” poses. (We’ll just call these “ultra-
extreme” poses.) With both, you need to get your character back to
his original proportions and expected silhouette as soon as possible.
(The audience will buy into a lot, if there’s a bit of relative normalcy
for them to cling to as madcap action plays out.)
Extreme poses can be moved through for two to three frames.
(Anything on screen for four frames or longer tends to cement in
the audience’s mind.) They heighten the visual impact of the force
acting on the character. (This force doesn’t have to be physical —
remember the Avery cartoons!)
Figure 11.5. Ultra-extreme poses.
274
Ultra-extreme poses should only be left on screen for one frame

(one frame at 24 fps — you may be able to push an ultra-extreme to
two frames at 30 fps, but use caution). Ultra-extremes are meant to
be felt, not seen! They are meant to run right by, without the audi-
ence even being aware that they were ever there, with only the
elusive sense of bright, snappy animation in their wake. They can
almost be thought of as subliminals. Their power is in the emotional
impact, not in their cognitive retention.
Extremes and ultra-extremes show the intense impact that
really gets your character moving. You can have crazy shapes and
proportions, insane squash, incredulous stretch; you can have your
character stupendously off balance. You can break all the rules for
the sole purpose of driving a point home (and have fun doing it).
Extremes and ultra-extremes can also be used as smeared frames
(exaggerated motion blur) as a character turns his head ultra-quick.
Use them to add sharp, percussive rhythm and snap to your actions;
they are the breve of the animated world.
Figure 11.6. This is the scene we’ll be working with for this
section; we’ll be animating him doing a wild take as something
spooks him from off-screen left.
1. Load up Scenes\chapters\ch11\Section_11-02.lws, and save a

working revision.
275
2. Animate our character doing a take, but keep him from going
into any extreme poses; keep all his poses strictly believable.
The direction for this scene is: Our character is in a haunted
house. He can barely see in the gloom and has lost his companions
along the way. He’s just paused to better hear something behind
him when, without warning, a loud crash explodes from off-screen
left. The character needs to end the scene facing screen left.
Figure 11.7. The X-sheet (exposure sheet) for scene 11.2.
276
Note:
X-sheets are mostly used in traditional animation where draw-
ings may be repeated or reordered, and different characters (or
parts of characters) may be on different levels (or layers) of
paper. I still use them for 3D animation because the action line
is a great way to get a visual feel for how the rhythms of the
action will play out over time.
Reading X-sheets
Reading an X-sheet becomes second nature pretty quickly. Every com-
pany you’ll work for will more than likely have a different variation on
the X-sheet’s layout, but the information you need is always there.
Project, character(s), act, and scene are self-explanatory. (I’ve changed
“act” to “chapter” and “scene” to “section” to make these headings
apply to the exercises we’re doing right now. Some animation compa-
nies use “sequence” in place of “act.”) Every new camera setup
(different angle, cutaway, etc.) is a new scene (scene 1, scene 2, scene
1B, or scene 1B-1, if you need to add a scene between scene 1 and 2).
Plan your animation well in the storyboarding phase so you don’t have
to insert a lot of scenes after the planning phase is done and scene
numbers have been assigned.
Next, we’ve got sections for action, where the action is described
and (usually) represented by a meandering line. (Usually the action
isn’t cast in stone; you can push it and pull it to make sure everything
reads well on the screen.) Then the dialogue is phonetically spelled
out in the dialogue section. (Since dialogue isn’t being covered in this
book, I’m putting in sound effects, SFX, cues here.)
Then we’ve got different layers for individual characters (parts of
characters) or objects. You can use this area in 3D animation to repre-
sent the motions of individual characters or scene elements within the
scene. You can also use these layers to choreograph elements to be
worked on in a separate scene file to be composited later in
post-production if a scene is just too complex to be held in memory all
at once.
277
Farthest to the right is where the camera instructions go. If you were
going to have to dolly the camera (i.e., move the camera as if it were on
a wheeled cart (a dolly) on a track) around the character, truck in or out
(push the camera in or pull it out, again, as if it were on a wheeled
cart), zoom in or out, or rack focus (pull the focus of the camera using
either depth of field controls or with an external post-processing pro-
gram so that it goes from being in focus to being out, or vice versa), all
this information would be here.
This X-sheet is geared for 24 fps. There’s a thick, dashed line after
every 24th frame, letting you know where each second ends. There
are thicker lines every eight frames. These thicker lines help visually
break each 24-frame second into three, equal, tractable sections.
These eight-frame divisions also help by breaking the scene down into
1/2 foot segments; many studios still measure an animator’s output in
feet and frames. (Each foot of 35mm film is 16 frames long. This scene
is 2' 14 f, it lasts :01.22, or 1.91 seconds, and is a total of 46 frames
long.)
Looking at the X-sheet for this scene, we’ve got the character lis-
tening for sounds until the “crash” happens exactly at Frame 27. He
does a wild take until about Frame 34. Then he settles until the scene
ends at Frame 46. (The folks whose job it is to make X-sheets usually
scribble a thick line where a scene ends so you, as an animator, know
where to stop. If you find yourself timing X-sheets (also known as
“slugging”), remember that you have to take into account any “heads”
and “tails” (additional time that is needed to make transitions between
scenes when dissolving or using another kind of transition that doesn’t
instantly cut from one scene to the other) that those in charge of edit-
ing the film may need.)
As you work on the scene, examine it from every angle to make

sure the character is reading as he should. Make extra sure that the
camera view reads solidly (work from the camera’s predefined
motion).
3. When you get done animating your scene, compare what you
did with my version: Scenes\chapters\ch11\Section_11-02a_
F.lws.
278
See if there are any ideas you can work into your scene, such as
ideas on timing, posing, drag, follow-through, and silhouette. Take
another pass through your scene if you feel you can push its enter-
tainment value farther. Remember to keep things from
exaggerating. Keep the silhouettes strong and “realistic.”
4. Now, save a working revision as 11-02b; we’re going to take
what we just did and add a little exaggeration to it!
5. Go back through your scene and push the poses farther. Exag-
gerate them to the limits of what your eye will believe.
(Remember to let the character return to his rest proportions
after the impacts that exaggerate him have passed.)
Really push the poses you did in the first pass of this animation;
keep them from being ultra-extreme, but really see what you can
get away with. Exaggerate everything you’ve learned so far — drag,
follow-through, silhouette, squash, and stretch; make interesting
visual shapes that flow well into one another.
6. Again, when you’re comfortable with what you’ve got, com-
pare it with my barely restrained bizarreness: Scenes\
chapters\ch11\Section_11-02b_ F.lws. See if there are any
more ideas you get about how you can push things.
If my scene does help bring about ideas of ways you can exag-
gerate things, go back and work them into your scene before
moving onward. We’re exploring how far you can push things and
still have them read as “believable,” which is very different from
“realistic.” Now’s the time to play and have fun! Push and pull, and
knock yourself out!
7. When you’re content with your scene 11-02b, save a working
revision as 11-02c and get ready to really nail a far-out,
super-mega-ultra-extreme pose!
Ultra-extremes work best as an accent to a quick bit of action.
In our scene, the only place a “bad drawing” extreme would work is
in our guy’s wild take, around Frames 30 to 32.
Ultra-extreme poses are islands unto themselves. They push
what you’ve already got to the nth degree. They shouldn’t affect any
of the surrounding frames, so they (usually) can’t be inbetweened
into; you have to isolate them so they are there-and-gone before the
279
audience has an inkling of their existence. The best way I’ve found
to put in an ultra-extreme is as follows:
8. Scrub through the action to find the place where you want this
ultra-extreme; this is where the character either moves the
farthest between two frames or comes to the apex of his
action.
9. Select the mesh object itself, and create keyframes for Current
Item and Descendants on all position, rotation, and scale axes
on the frames on either side of the frame that will be the
ultra-extreme. (If I wanted to have the ultra-extreme pose on
Frame 30, I’d go to Frame 29 and create keyframes for Cur-
rent Item and Descendants, then go to Frame 31 and create
another keyframe for Current Item and Descendants.)
By having the mesh selected, you’re creating for it and all of its
children, bones and all, keyframes to lock in these poses. You’re
telling LightWave that even though (in my case) Frame 30 will have
a bizarre keyframe, make sure everything still passes through these
pre-established poses. You may even need to create these “anchor-
ing” keyframes on (in my case) Frames 28 and 32 as well, just to be
sure this bad drawing pose doesn’t affect the splines in our anima-
tion as it currently is. Be sure to save a revision of your scene
before putting in your ultra-extreme pose!
10. Go to the frame that will be your ultra-extreme pose and start
pulling controls to throw our guy into the most extreme pose
you can think of. Move, rotate, and scale things far beyond
where you think they would rationally hold up in an animation.
11. Play your animation through, and check it out. Does that
ultra-extreme pose add extra snap to the animation!
12. Load in my version of the scene: Scenes\chapters\ch11\Sec-
tion_11-02c_ F.lws and give it a play through.
13. Go back and modify your animation if watching mine has given
you any ideas as to how to make the ultra-extreme in your ani-
mation read better.
Ultra-extremes can take a bit of finessing to get them to work
within an animation. They need to read as a bit of subliminal smack.
They shouldn’t jump out of the animation or hold your eye. They
should flow right by you, only leaving a sense of added energy in
280
their wake. Once you get the hang of extremes and ultra-extremes,
you have yet another tool at your service that can bring added life
and entertainment value to even the most mundane scenes.
11.3 Snappy Animation (Modified

Timings)
There are times when an extreme or ultra-extreme just doesn’t
quite give your scene the right plussing you’re looking for. Consider
altering the timing of things to make them snap! You can remove
frames, and you can replace an inbetween with a copy of the held-
frame from the immediately preceding key. The name of the game is
to get your scene to have the feel of what you’re trying to get
across, and in this game, there are no rules! If it works, go with it!
Remember the animation in Section 10.4 (Scenes\chapters\
ch10\Figure_10-05.lws)? I had the character spring up from the
ground a bit more quickly than would be considered “realistic.” I’ve
pulled a frame from the part of the animation where he would be
pushing off from the ground. This gives him the feeling of snapping
up from the ground, like something was there that made him want
Figure 11.8. We’re going to be animating a punch for this scene.
281
to pull his feet from the ground as quickly as possible. (“Yipe!”)

Now let’s try animating a punch.
1. Load in Scenes\chapters\ch11\Section_11-03_w01.lws, saving
it as a working revision for this section in your Chapter 11
working directory.
Figure 11.9. This is the X-sheet we’ll be animating to.
As you animate, I want you to try something. Don’t have a

keyframe showing the actual impact of the punch. Instead, put a
keyframe a little bit before the impact, and then on the following
frame, key a pose a little bit after the impact. You can have ThinGuy
2 either already arcing backward or still being propelled by ThinGuy
1’s fist.
2. Working with the above X-sheet, animate the scene.
Even though we don’t actually see a “drawing” of the impact,
we as viewers don’t have any problem interpolating what happened.
We see the lead-in and the follow-through, we see the effect
ThinGuy 1’s swing had on ThinGuy 2, and by omitting the one
frame detail of actually showing the impact of the punch landing, we
maximize the perceived impact and thrust!
282
3. Compare what you have with the animation I did (Scenes\chap-

ters\ch11\Section_11-03_F.lws). Even though our styles may
be different, the impact of the animation should be very close!
11.4 Circular Animation

The concept of circular animation says that everything in animation
happens along some form of circular, flowing arc. This follows along
the same line of thinking as arc of motion and getting the most pow-
erful reading out of a gesture. You can think of circular animation as
an arc of motion through time. It is a way of getting the strongest
four-dimensional gestural “drawing” from your work.
Figure 11.10. Turning the head from screen left to screen right; linear and booor-ing.
Figure 11.11. Just by adding one break down pose, tilting the head down so that it follows
an arc as it turns, you add feeling, heighten interest, and increase the entertainment value
of the animation.
Everything (that isn’t making use of an intentional linear

graphic element) can be plussed by introducing a circular movement
to it. Care must be taken to ensure that motions still retain their
textures and rhythms; don’t let things get so fluid that they turn to
mush. You want fluidity that is comfortable for the eye to follow and
retains all the elements of good animation.
283
Note:
Most motions produced by living beings (on this planet at least)
are constructed around an arc of some kind. These arcs have a
kind of smoothness to them because of an inherent desire to
conserve the energy required to generate that motion; it is a
needless exertion of energy to apply force to redirect or modify
the trajectory of an object when you don’t have to. When some-
one throws a punch, the motion of the punch is controlled by
the unfolding joints of the elbow, the shoulder, and the position-
ing of the body. When that punch reaches the end of its motion,
it is pulled back into the body by the same rotational joints; the
mass of the fist causes the motion to be smooth and (from a
motion analysis point of view) elegant. Everything is a balance
of rotation and counterrotation. Our minds accept and under-
stand circular movements more readily than angular or
unexpected movements because our minds have evolved to
quickly read a situation based on silhouette and movement. We
analyze motions in an instant, projecting where they will go
next; it is a survival adaptation all animals have. As animators,
we need to play to this adaptation, unless we are using our
knowledge to intentionally startle our audience or throw them
off balance.
Heads, hands, and feet aren’t the only things that have circular
motion to them. Elbows, knees, torsos, hips, shoulders, every part
of the body that moves should be handled with respect paid to circu-
lar motion as you create, finesse, and examine your animation.
As you examine your animation, glue your eyes to one part of
your character’s body, say a knee. Watch that part play through
again and again. Does it flow? Does it look believable? In its fluidity,
does it still have textures that make it an interesting and balanced
part of the whole? When knees compress for a jump, they can start
out wide, then swing inward slightly as they propel the character
upward, describing a slight ellipse. This is much more interesting
than a knee just going straight up and down. Like all things in ani-
mation, though, subtlety is the name of the game — subtlety with
intent.
284
Note:
If you’re having a hard time tracking a movement, or if some-
thing doesn’t read quite right along a series of frames, grab a
dry erase marker and put tiny dots on the monitor’s glass track-
ing a specific body part’s progress from frame to frame. (Don’t
do this on a laptop screen, and do make sure that the marker
won’t hurt the monitor first!) These dots will show you exactly
where that body part deviates from the smooth arc of motion,
where it accelerates and decelerates, and where it jumps, pops,
and wavers. It is a good idea to do this not just from the cam-
era’s view but from side, front, and top views as well.
Remember circular motion with every character, but especially

when you’re working on those characters with poise and polish. It
can make both villainy and gallantry read with heightened impact!
11.5 Successive Breaking of the Joints

Back in the early days of animation, when an animator wanted an
arm to bend or flex, he simply treated it as if it were a rubber hose.
This sort of animation was entertaining for the time, but audiences
had to have a high level of suspension of disbelief. As artists became
more comfortable with the underlying anatomy of their characters,
they began to achieve fluidity with their motions not by treating
bones like rubber, but by successively bending the joints connecting
the skeletal structures in a fluid, whip-like manner. This is known as
the successive breaking of the joints.
What this means to us (where it’s harder for an arm to bend like
rubber than to have it retain its bone structure) is to concentrate on
letting motions unfurl, paying attention to all the joints that make
that motion possible.
1. Load up Scenes\chapters\ch11\Section_11-05_w01.lws, and
then save it as a working revision in your Chapter 11 working
directory.
2. Animate the arm in a 40-frame loop (at 24 fps) so that it flows
in the same successive breaking of the joints as in Figure
11.12.
285
Figure 11.12. A wave-like motion undulates through the arm. The curve is led by the elbow,
which “drags” the rest of the arm down, then “pulls” the rest of the arm back up. All the
joints operate well within their normal ranges of motion; this is the successive breaking of
the joints.
3. Compare your work with my final scene when you’re done

(Scenes\chapters\ch11\Section_11-05_F.lws). Make adjust-
ments to your scene until the motion is smooth and fluid.
Successive breaking of the joints fits into the same category as cir-
cular motion. It helps things read better, it shows attention to detail,
and it heightens the entertainment value of your scene. These
finesse points give “high-dollar” animation the feel it does. By
understanding how to artfully incorporate them into your work, the
animations you create will read with that level of class too!
(Observe, dissect, understand! Continue with the practice scenes in
Chapter 14 and watch as the subtle complexity of your work grows
in leaps and bounds!)
11.6 Overlapping Action

Overlapping action is an extension of the principles of follow-
through. Not all the bits of a character start moving at the same
time, and not all of them come to rest at the same time. Each part of
a character has its role to play in balance, momentum, and acting.
Having each part of a character following its own natural timings
adds up to a convincing, overall fluidity of movement.
286
Figure 11.13. Here is our character doing a bit of a take as he turns around. Technically,
these poses would work, but because all his parts strike their extremes at the same time, this
appears robotic.
Figure 11.14. This is the same action but with different parts of the body pulling others into
motion in their own time.
In Figure 11.14, the hips start the movement, dragging the upper
torso which, in turn, drags the head and hands. The torso then rolls
upward as he straightens then settles back to look. Each part of his
body reacts in accordance with its own mass, dragging and following
through with respect to its own points of rotation. This set of frames
reads with more life and fluidity than that in Figure 11.13.
All animations, even the most realistic, will require attention to at
least subtle overlapping action. Acting through a scene beforehand
and really getting a sense of how it feels to perform the action will
help you to understand the order in which things move and settle.
1. Load in your setup scene, and save it back out as a working
revision for Chapter 11, Section 6.
2. Giving yourself 20 frames (in 24 fps), recreate the animation
from Figure 11.14.
3. After you’re done, compare it with the animation from that fig-
ure (Scenes\chapters\ch11\Section_11-06_F.lws).
4. Make any refinements to your scene you might need to get
your motion to express the same fluidity of overlapping action.
287
11.7 Entertainment Value (Presentation)

Entertainment! That’s the business we’re in, isn’t it? Whether it be
video games, television, or films, our job is to tell the story we’ve
got to tell in the way that is going to be most interesting to the
viewer. Even a “ready animation” (just some idle movement a char-
acter in a video game does while “waiting” for the player to decide
what to do next) should be interesting to watch.
We must do what we do not only to the best of our technical
ability but also present it in such a way that it leaves the viewer
wanting more! This is entertainment value. Viewers must feel that
they’ve gained something by sitting through and watching what
we’ve done. (Or as Frank Thomas said, “Would anyone other than
your mother like to see it?”)
Note:
A good storyteller can make even the most humdrum of sto-
ries riveting with the way he tells it.
When you get a scene to work on, go to a quiet place and think
of all the unusual ways to get that story idea across that will be
entertaining to watch. You, the animator, are the storyteller. You
have to make sure that the characters continue to develop and show
insights about themselves as your scenes progress. You have to
make sure that the acting is believable and approachable. You have
to make sure that the audience will want to know what happens
next. You have to make sure that what you’re doing is entertaining!
And you have to do all of this and still make sure that your scene fits
in as a seamless part of the unified whole, choreographed, cast, and
orchestrated by the director.
In the exercise for this section, we’re going to take a bit of
ho-hum action (the character removing a bit of lint from his sleeve)
and present it in three completely different ways. Give yourself as
much screen time as you need to get the idea across. You may pose
the character any way you like; I just want three of the most
unusual, entertaining ways anyone might remove lint from his
sleeve. These can be three completely different characterizations
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for each of the three takes, but I want this guy’s being to show
through every move in which he gets at that bit of lint!
For the first two passes, go as hog-wild as you’d like, but for the
third pass, I want you to have his attention elsewhere, not on the
lint, and still have the removal of said lint be unique and entertain-
ing. This last foray will be an exploration into what is called
secondary action. Secondary action is something a character does
that doesn’t really tell the story of what’s going on in the scene. The
scene could function perfectly well without it, but how the character
does this action speaks volumes about his personality. In live action
or theater, it would be considered a “throwaway” line or action. If
the audience catches it, great, but it should in no way overtake the
primary storytelling intent of the scene. Subtlety is power! Your
strength and confidence as an animator, and the character’s life and
energy will show through more clearly if your action reads with sub-
tlety. Think easy power! Think, “Yeah, sure… if you get it, you get
it. I know I’m good. I’m beyond having to prove myself.”
It will help in this final take to have some sort of mental story or
dialogue going on. Think of some reason for him to be focusing else-
where, brushing at a bit of lint as he does so. You’ve got to get
inside his head, get inside the scene itself. You’ve got to act it out in
order to better understand the whys of his actions. You’ve got to
understand his feelings about his actions — what he’s trying to
show, what he’s trying to hide.
1. Load in your setup scene, and save it as a working revision for
Chapter 11, Section 7.
2. Do two separate takes on our character removing that bit of
lint from his sleeve, making them the most unique and enter-
taining ways for getting at a bit of lint you can think of.
3. Do one more take on the lint removal thing, but this time let it
be secondary action, something that isn’t the primary story-
telling point of the scene, but lends depth and detail to who
this character is and how he feels.
How do your scenes hold up? Do they have entertainment value?
Are they presented in ways that make their storytelling strong?
How’s your action? Is it good animation? Does the character feel
like he’s got an opinion on things, a reason for being, a soul? Can
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you read an inner dialogue through watching your character’s

actions? Do you care about seeing what happens next?
Rework your scenes if necessary, honing points and making
them as strong as they can be.
11.8 Acting, Not Action

What we’re working for is acting, not action. It is important for you
to hone and finesse all the finer points that make animation great.
But these things are learned, then forgotten so that the character
lives and flows freely through you, not from you.
Note:
Good animation comes through you, not from you.
At first, you’ll have all these things to remember — squash and

stretch, drag, follow-through. You’ll be asking yourself, “Is my char-
acter twinning?” Often, it’s easy to lose that crystal of magic amid
what really amounts to a lot of focused work. It’s like learning a
piece of music or a dance. You go through a period of time where
you’re just worried about not hitting a wrong note or making a mis-
step. Then, after you get all the bits and pieces of it down, you can
go on “autopilot” and let the feelings the piece fills you with flow
out through you as you do what you do. You become simply another
observer to the beauty your hands or feet just happen to be
creating.
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Note:
This is actually the secret to all art, really (if art did have such
things as “secrets”). You learn a piece of classical music. You
hear it on the radio and you think, “Man ... that doesn’t sound
anything like what I’m doing. I know I’m hitting all the right
notes, but...” What you have to do is to pay attention to how
the music you’re hearing on the radio makes you feel as you’re
listening to it. Then, when you’re back at the keys playing,
replay those feelings you felt while listening to the concert pia-
nist. Your music will suddenly sound a lot more like what you
heard on the radio.
When you get done with a scene, take a break. Heave a sigh,
and walk away for a bit. Get a latte or a cup of herbal tea. Do some-
thing that will take your mind off the long, tense time you just spent
on this labor of love. When you feel like you’ve “walked it off” suffi-
ciently, go back to your scene and look at it as if you’re seeing it for
the first time.
Ask yourself the all-important question, “Is this character alive
for me?” Does he follow the direction of the scene and add to the
story in ways that seem as believable as they are inevitable? When
you acted this scene out, is the feeling you got inside the same feel-
ing you’re getting now as you watch it?
Remember, animation being the art of revision, if something
isn’t working, if the character isn’t emoting, breathing, and living,
break down what the issues are and revise. (Usually there’s just a
couple of things that when they do drop into place, the animation
seems to do a 180; what was “just not coming together” suddenly is
“totally spot-on!”)
Animation is forever. The beings we’re creating will live on long
after we’re gone. They’ll continue to touch people with the dreams
we dreamt while they were being brought into this world. Do every-
thing you can to make their lives worthy of living.
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11.9 The Importance of Thumbnails

(Planning Your Scene)
When you get a scene, whether it has been storyboarded or not,
before you start animating you need to take the time to do small
thumbnail drawings of all the poses that will tell the story of your
scene. These quick, loose drawings don’t have to mean anything to
anyone but you. They only need to show you what’s going on during
the scene, how the character feels about what’s going on, and his
outlook on making it through (hopefully) in one piece.
Try to think like a comic strip artist as you do these quick little
drawings. You’re trying to distill an expression or an attitude into a
single drawing. These drawings will have a strong line of action run-
ning through them, and their silhouettes (it is often a good idea to
shade in the thumbnails) will read with the full impact of the idea
being portrayed.
Figure 11.15. Here are some thumbnails for a scene in which the character is
running with a flashlight, slips on a banana peel (does anyone slip on banana
peels anymore?), and lands flat on his back.
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Yes, the drawings in Figure 11.15 are rough; they are just a
loose collection of circles and lines that don’t have to mean anything
to anyone but me. Yes, this is how loosely I work when I’m doing
my thumbnails for my scenes. It took less than two minutes for me
to run through three different takes on this scene; there’s so little
time invested in the drawings that I have no qualms about scrapping
the whole idea and starting over. In doing three (or more, if neces-
sary) versions, I break through the “Man, I have no idea how I’m
going to handle this” phase of ideation. The first set was a mark on
the wall. The second was closer, and the third was what I wanted; it
feels like I felt when I acted it out. (Ow … just kidding!)
Figure 11.16. These are the thumbnails I’d show to a client. (I redrew what I had
done for myself, tightening up in the process. Like I say, thumbnails don’t usually
mean anything to anyone but you; this set should clarify what’s going on in the
previous set.)
Note:
Thumbnails (storytelling drawings) aren’t the most extreme draw-
ings; they’re the ones most comfortable for the eye to settle on.
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Note:
No matter how “artistic” a client may think he is, never show
him anything he would have to use his creativity to figure out.
This goes for thumbnails, animations-in-progress, whatever.
Most often, clients just won’t get it and start complaining about
how it just doesn’t seem to be working the way they’d hoped.
Never mind that you told them this is just a rough draft. Or, on
the other side of things, they could get grandiose ideas that
there’s no way you would have time to implement. It’s a good
idea to only show the client things that leave as little room for
interpretation as possible.
These thumbnails help make sure you have the best presenta-
tion possible and the most entertainment value to your scene. (It’s
so much easier to erase a quickly scribbled line than it is to rekey a
pose.) You’re thinking out loud, throwing ideas out to see what
sticks. Do a couple of quick versions and see which one reads best.
(For some reason, I find it’s either the first set or the third set that
works best.)
Make sure your character’s attitude reads through every
thumbnail. Even if he’s only walking across the room to get the
door, his attitude and his opinions about getting the door should
remain front and center. Act your scene out. Sit. Ponder. Doodle.
Let yourself open up to the flow of good ideas that come through
you.
Thumbnails will also vastly reduce the time it takes to get a
good pose in 3D. When you do sit down with the software, there’ll
be very little guesswork as to how this guy should be posed out.
You’ll probably find ways of pushing that loose, little drawing fur-
ther, making it read better, stronger, and more on character. In that
quick little scribble, you have a signpost that tells you how to
quickly get to where you want to be. When your character reads
with the same vibrancy as in that loose collection of circles and
lines, you’ll know you’re there and you can move on!
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11.10 Pacing
As the number of things you can do as an animator increases and as
you add “riffs” to your repertoire, it is only natural to want to show
as many of these awesome little things as you can in a scene.
Remember … easy power. If you give to the scene what it needs,
and you do this with ability that looks effortless and natural, people
will just assume that you could do anything you wanted to. You just
(wisely) chose to show only what you needed to and you left your
audience wanting more.
You don’t want to rush the scene. You want to give the acting
poses (the storytelling poses you thumbnailed, the poses that are
comfortable for the eye to settle on) enough screen time for the
audience to read them. You want the audience to be able to see the
expressions change. You want to give the character time to think,
and the audience time to digest.
You want to have the flow of action in a scene be strong enough
that you keep your audience’s attention too. (If you will eventually
have music scored to your work, music can extend an audience’s
attention, as can waiting for the music to return — the “silence
between the notes”). Achieving this balance between keeping the
scene moving and giving the acting time to connect with the audi-
ence takes practice. Doing the work and revising until it fits within
the scene length requirements and still carries this power is what
will help to hone your own internal sense of pacing.
Watch animation from the great masters of the art. See what
kinds of rhythms they use and what kinds of emotions those
rhythms create. Fill the well. Practice and make it yours. You are
working in a medium where rhythm drives everything. Know
beforehand the kind of rhythmic feel you want for the piece, and
then stay true to your vision. Let that vision read clear and strong
to the audience.
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Chapter 12
Taking a Scene from

Start to Finish
Okay, so now you’ve got a scene assigned to you; what do you do?
We’re going to work here as if it came through the channels of a large
production, where you’ve got departments, PAs (production assis-
tants), PMs (production managers), APMs (assistant production
managers), and the whole nine yards. But you can make these steps
work whatever the size of your production, even if it’s just you and
your trusty computer at your side. It’s all about breaking what can be
a formidable task into small, manageable, “bite-sized” bits.
12.1 Do Your Homework...

Whether this is your first scene in this production or your one-
hundred-and-first, you need to make sure you do your homework
before jumping in with both feet. There are few things worse than
doing some beautiful, brilliant work and having the director come by
and tell you that, yes, it is beautiful but it doesn’t fit with what the
story needs, or that it doesn’t link up with the previous and/or follow-
ing scenes.
By “doing your homework,” I mean “research.” Go back through
and reread the part of the script that contains this scene. Walk around
and look at the storyboards. Find out what got the character(s) into
this place to begin with. Find out how they feel and think about being
in the situation they are in. Find out how they plan to move onward,
out of your scene.
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Chapter 12: Taking a Scene from Start to Finish
Look at animations that have been completed and approved that

go around your scene, and watch the Leica reel (the timed story-
boards made into a movie, also known as an animatic). Get a feel for
the timings and pacings of scenes that have already been finalized.
Understand your character’s timing, pacing, posing, and acting so
you can begin to feel the same things he does.
Get a clear picture of things before going to the director. If you
have any questions about the scene, curiosities, comments, what-
ever, write them down! A meeting with a director can be a
whirlwind. Make sure all the questions you can think of pertaining
to your character’s development through this particular scene are
asked. You don’t want to get back to your desk and remember those
one or two (or ten) vitally important questions that just happened to
slip your mind during the conversation.
12.2 Talk with the Director

After you’ve got a clear vision and feel for the scene, sign up for
time to talk with the director. Have your list of questions handy, and
check the items off as they get talked about. Make notes! Do every-
thing you can to retain what you learn about the director’s vision for
the scene. The director is counting on your abilities as an actor and
an artist, but in order for the show to succeed, it has to have one,
clear (good, confident, worthy, etc.) point of focus from which the
entire story radiates, and that is the director.
Listen to what he has to say. If you don’t understand something,
ask him to explain it another way. (Did I already mention taking
notes? Unfortunately, you may need to *ahem* “remind” a director
of an agreement on characterization or planning the two of you
made earlier.) A good director will always listen to what you have to
say, too. Talk through your feelings about timing, pacing, and acting.
Make sure the two of you are seeing the same vision for the scene
and its place within the film.
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12.3 Scene Planning

If there is a background already built for you, or if your character is
going to be interacting within pre-shot footage, talk with the scene
planning people about how your character will interact with and
within it. Get a clear vision of how you see your character moving
within the background. Make sure that the elements that are there
permit his freedom to interact and emote in character and to fulfill
the requirements of the scene. If it looks like your acting and the
background may clash, talk to the scene planning people about it.
If you’re the one who has to build the background yourself,
sketch out a floor plan and notate your character’s blocking. Find
out where the camera will stand and where you’re going to have to
hang lights to get the desired shot and lighting. Look to see if there
are going to be any elements of the background conflicting with the
character’s movements or drawing attention away from his acting.
Note:
The rule of thumb I use for nearly everything — animation,
character design, set design, lighting design, you name it —
came from a character in the film L.A. Story. Trudi (Marilu
Henner) was telling another woman how she coordinates her
fashion accessories. (Bear with me now.) She said that when
she thinks she’s ready to go, she turns away from the mirror,
then turns back quickly. The first thing that catches her eye, she
removes. (I would suggest doing this several times.) What she
ends up with is a complete, contiguous ensemble with every-
thing working together. As weird as it may sound, this is the
very best technique I’ve found for analyzing nearly anything
artistic. If it jumps out at you, if it stands out abruptly, it is like a
jitter in an otherwise smooth curve. Everything should work as a
unit — even the things that are meant to draw your attention!
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If you are setting up your own background, there’s one key bit
of advice I’d like to give you on lighting and setting up your camera:
Pretend you’re on a practical (real) set. Pretend you’ve got to light
it with real lights and that you’re bound by the same physical
limitations with which to shoot. We, the audience, have grown
accustomed to certain conventions established by both still photog-
raphy and motion pictures. Working within these conventions, we
more easily form a connection with the viewers because they are
preconditioned to understand the “language” you’re using. This can
be said for “steadycam” shots, too — save the flying camera for the
high-dollar, mega-impact shots! (Hitchcock shot most of his sus-
pense films from medium and long setups. When he hits you with
the one or two close-ups in the film, those shots make you jump out
of your skin because you haven’t been numbed to close-ups!)
Note:
If you can tell a story with the camera left, unmoving, on its
tripod, you really understand storytelling and the story you’re
telling.
Note:
I use mostly shadow-mapped klieg lights (spotlights) to light my
scene; they’re what I’d have if I were on a practical set. I use
spotlights and distant lights (set to not cast shadows) as if they
were shinyboards (also known as skimboards), bouncing dif-
fused lighting where I need it. I’ll use the occasional light with a
negative intensity to tone down an area, as if I’m using a flag to
block light from hitting an area. I use intensity falloff for lights
and an almost imperceptible bit of black, nonlinear fog to
enhance drama and “realism.”
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Note:
There’s only one real trick to understanding good lighting:
Watch what works, and figure out what makes it do what it
does. I love chiaroscuro (a method of painting with strong light-
ing and shadows) and film noir, and my lighting styles reflect
this. In beginning photographic portraiture, you learn that in
order to make any object look three-dimensional, you hit the
subject with a warm light on one side and a cool light on the
other. (Subtle variations of “white” will do; you don’t have to
punch the saturation unless you’re going for a specific effect.)
One light should be brighter than the other. That’s it! That’s all
you need to do, but there is more you can do. You should hit
your subject with a light that makes one part of his outline
brighter than the background he’ll be in front of (a “rim” or
“kick” light). Keep in mind the color of the “ambient” light, and
use a shadowless klieg to fill in any overly dark areas. (I turn
ambient lighting off unless I’m using radiosity.) We expect
ambient light from above to be blue, reflected from the sky. We
expect ambient light from below to be golden or green,
reflected from the ground or grass.
Now that LightWave has radiosity and caustics, we can think a

lot more like a traditional director of photography when construct-
ing our sets and lighting them. Make sure that the final imagery
(colors, tonality, “pools of light,” sharpness or softness of design
elements, curves, angles, shapes, and compositional balance) works
as a whole to convey the mood and direction of the scene. Pay atten-
tion to silhouette and design elements, just as you will with your
character when he starts interacting within this environment. Areas
of highest contrast (value, color, and saturation) should be where
the character will move, drawing the audience’s eye to these areas
instantly. The composition of the background alone should give you
an instant feel as to what is going to happen in the scene.
When you’re satisfied with how your background will work with
your character to facilitate the best, most riveting presentation of
your scene, it’s time to move on!
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12.4 Visualize
Okay, now’s the time to go to that quiet place and let yourself slip
into the world of your character … into his thoughts … into his life.
Turn off the phone. Put out a big “Do Not Disturb, Under Any
Circumstance … . THIS MEANS YOU!” sign and let the rest of the
world go on without you for just a little bit.
This is where you get in touch with the character as he exists
inside of you. Yours is a unique viewpoint on his existence, his
thoughts, his feelings, his actions, his dreams, his desires, his plans
for the future, and his laments about the past. Within the quiet
space of your own mind/heart, you can let go of your own past and
take up his. Let your mind wander …
Imagine the first thing he did when he got up that morning.
How long has it been since he’s eaten? Has he ever been in love?
How does it feel to have those hands, that face? Why do you dress
as you do? Does it make you feel safe? Does it remind you of some-
one you looked up to in your life? These may seem like esoteric
questions, but questions like these are the keys to opening the
doors inside yourself and letting you live as your character for the
length of time you are working on this scene. And that is exactly
what you must do! You have to live his scene. Every subtlety you
feel, every nuance that would touch your own actions having lived a
life like that, being in the surroundings he is, every minute detail
breathes volumes of life into this character and this scene. It is
through these details that the audience will share their own private
selves; it is through these private details that the character gains
his own life.
Wander back in time, back in his time. Live the days of his
youth, his explorations, his sorrows, his joys. Experience the
entirety of his being as a cloak that you wrap around yourself and
get lost in. Know the decisions in his life that have brought him to
the point where your scene begins.
Now, allow the scene you will work with play out before you. As
you let the scene unfold before you, remember how you feel about
what is going on. Remember how it feels to move as you do.
Remember your ideas, your thoughts — both those open to others
and those open only to yourself. Remember how the whole experi-
ence feels to live, continuing out the end of this scene and slightly
into the next.
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Note:
There’s a thing about actors, especially good stage actors. I’m
not talking about the grandiose ones who fill an auditorium with
their overblown presence. I’m talking about the ones who make
you believe they’re really there in that moment. There are many,
many things you can learn by studying these actors (and studying
acting itself), but what I’d like to make note of is that no matter
how many times a day they may have already gone through the
same material, you feel as if it is only just now happening to
them. You feel as if this set of events is only now coming into
being, and that their responses to these events are natural and
inevitable. They are merely continuing to make the same kinds of
decisions (on a moment-by-moment basis) that they’ve made all
their lives, the same kinds of decisions that have brought them to
this point right now. The “actor” may know what happens at the
end of the line or at the beginning of Act 3, but the character
lives in this one moment as we all do.
The reason I’m asking you to remember how it feels to experi-

ence his life is that for most people, it is hard to remember every
nuance of things that happen as they happen. But feelings,
kinesthetics, and empathy carry much more than just positional or
temporal information. They are the doorways through which we can
live again, in all the detail, the experiences in our past. When you’re
looking at your thumbnails, your action line on your X-sheet, and at
your animation as it takes shape before you, you know if what
you’re looking at gives you the same feeling as what you experi-
enced in your visualization. All the myriad of subtle cues, the
volumes that would fill shelves upon shelves with information, all
boil down to a single thing: a feeling.
There’s not enough room in this book to cover all the different
techniques for letting yourself live as the character with which you
work, and still cover all the other information that needs covering. I
can, however, recommend two books to you that have helped me
more than words can ever say. They are: To the Actor by Michael
Chekhov and Audition by Michael Shurtleff. I cannot recommend
these books enough. If you are serious about becoming the best
actor/animator you can be, get them, study them, and practice them.
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“… they are two sides of the same coin… or, being as there are so
many of us … the same side of two coins.”
— The Player, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
12.5 Thumbnail
While your “Do Not Disturb!” sign is still out, sketch out your
ideas. Do this as quickly as you can, still preserving as much of the
echoes of your visualization as you can. When you get done with
one set, do another and another. In the process of doing this
just-being-in-the-moment drawing, not trying to “get it right” or
“perfect,” you again link with the feelings you felt as you lived that
character.
All you’re trying to do is to put into a kind of shorthand the
things you’ll need for your mind to travel back to that place where
you walked with his feet, touched with his hands.
Note:
Small, fluid, strong, these drawings are your pitons; they’ll keep
you from falling.
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12.6 Exposure Sheet

Before you go take down that “Get lost, Punk!” sign, reach for your
exposure sheet. Use the action line to make a visual notation of the
timing of the actions you’ve just been living. (If your project doesn’t
use X-sheets, I’ve included a 24 fps sheet in Extras\X-Sheet.jpg.)
Jot down this four-dimensional shorthand for the character and
any other items that may be moving or interacting with him. Notate
any camera motions you envisioned (clear them with the director,
and the scene planning and editorial departments before putting
them into play though). When you run your eyes down the sheet at
a presumed 24 fps, you should get a feeling that rings true to what
you felt in your visualization.
Note:
The action line of your exposure sheet is your four-dimensional
thumbnail.
12.7 Animate
Using all you’ve learned, all your skills, and all your easy power,
hold the feelings you felt when you lived this scene close to you as
you work. With your thumbnails and your action line, you’ve got a
lot of the work of animation done already. You can let your mind
wander back to that visualization, and let the feelings you remember
help you to fit the hands into just the right shapes, sculpt the spine
into just the right arc, and swing the knees into just the right angle.
When what you see before you resonates with what you feel inside
you, you know you’re there.
Note:
You are an actor. You are the character. Enjoy the luxury of
being him for as long as you’re working on this scene!
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12.8 Examine
Look at your animation from all angles, not just the camera angle.
Make sure that each part reads plausibly and that the feelings you
get when you watch it are the feelings you felt when you visualized
how it would be to live that situation.
Let the animation play at speed, looping again and again. Let
your eyes focus on one part of his body as the scene repeats itself. If
there’s something in the motion of that part that catches your eye,
slow it down and examine it. Track its movement with dry erase
markers; is the motion exactly as it should be from all angles?
(Sometimes a “pop” is caused by a part of your character moving
improperly in Z, with respect to the camera, when the other two
axes are fine.)
Focus on each part of your character in turn, and then watch
your character as a whole. Are all the parts adding up to a sum that
radiates life and believability? Walk away from your scene for a
while; take a break. When you come back, look at it with fresh eyes.
Does anything jump out that didn’t before?
Examine, revise, repeat. Do this until the scene fits the criteria
both you and the director agreed upon. Do this until the feelings you
get from looking at the scene ring true with what you felt when you,
yourself, lived the same experience.
12.9 Critique
So, now you’re at a point where you want to get comments on your
work, comments from a fresh point of view. Make sure that you
seek comments from someone who knows what they’re talking
about, and that this someone knows how to look at partially com-
pleted animation (if your work is still a work-in-progress).
Hopefully, these are all the same person, and hopefully, this person
is the director.
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Note:
Learning how to accept criticism is important. It is an acquired
skill, but it is one that everyone can learn. Remember that ani-
mation is a team effort; what matters is the piece as a whole.
But also remember to consider the source. If you just asked
your cube-mate for a critique, and he mercilessly shredded all
your hard work, ask yourself if your animation, which you
thought was pretty darn good, threatens him or his position
within the company. (Unfortunately, the more you stick your
head out, the harder some people try to lop it off.) Seek criti-
cism only from those people qualified to understand what
they’re looking at. Seek critiques only from those who genu-
inely have your and the production’s best interests at heart.
Have your notes ready for when the director (and his entourage
of yes-men and yes-women) comes to call. Refer back to your notes
if something doesn’t quite jive with what you thought he said the
last time you spoke. Be prepared to talk about where you are with
the scene, where you see it going, how you feel about where it is.
Talk with him about how it makes him feel. Jot down any notes, and
make sure you understand what he’s saying. If you feel you nailed
this scene spot-on, and the director isn’t quite happy with it yet, talk
about his vision for this scene and how it fits in with his plan for the
sequence. (Compromise is not capitulation, but it is he, the director,
who must be accountable for the vision of this production after all is
said and done.)
If your studio doesn’t incorporate dailies (where they call
together all the animation staff or the entire company to watch what
was completed the previous day or week), see what you can do to
encourage the powers that be to implement them. This is the best
way I know of to boost the quality of a production. Not only is
everyone more inclined to do their absolute best on the work they
did that day because everyone they work with is going to be seeing
it, but everyone shares ideas on how to solve problems from watch-
ing each others’ works-in-progress. If you do have dailies every
single day, you really get to see how a scene evolves, you get to see
how the other animators think and solve problems, you see how
they develop their ideas. (I’ve also found that things I might not
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have noticed to be wrong just make my skin crawl when I have oth-
ers watch my work in dailies. This is a great flag for problem areas!)
The morale boost, the camaraderie, the learning that goes on in the
showing of dailies is something worth looking into.
12.10 Revise
Make it as perfect as you can. Don’t let anything that isn’t your
absolute best effort leave your desk. (Now and then, everyone does
something they aren’t completely happy with, but make sure you
put every effort into making it the best you can.) Compile the com-
ments you’ve gotten, put them through the “Do they know what
they’re talking about” filter, and revise.
They say a painting is never finished, that it only stops in inter-
esting places. The same can be said for an animation. Even so,
scenes must move on, production must continue. Learn to work
your piece as a whole, exploring finer and finer details as the entire
scene reaches contiguous levels of quality; don’t fixate on the minu-
tia of a single slice of time. Allow the entirety of your scene to carry
the emotional read you felt in those quiet moments of touching
another’s soul.
Note:
The animation you do will outlast all of us. Make it something
to remember.
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Chapter 13
Important Points for

Every Scene
What do you look for when you’re evaluating a scene you’ve done?
Almost every animator who’s been around the block a few times will
have something to say on the matter. And almost all that is to be said
revolves around the points developed by the great masters of
animation.
Use this list as a guideline to evaluate your work. (These points
are signposts to aim you back to Chapters 10 and 11 if you need more
detail on certain issues.) Scrutinize every detail to the best of your
ability. When everything falls together and all the points are properly
addressed, your work will begin to take on the same sheen of crafts-
manship and skill as those in feature-quality animation.
13.1 Composition/Design
When you sit back and look at what you’ve done, really sit back and
look at what you’ve done. Move your chair across your cubicle or
office and watch your work play out at a different size than what
you’ve grown accustomed to. Disassociate yourself from the
“groove” you’ve been working in, and try to see it as if for the first
time. Break it down into its basic compositional elements.
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Chapter 13: Important Points for Every Scene
Watch your work play out through eyelids closed just enough so
your eyelashes meet. This gets rid of a lot of the detail information
and reduces what you’re seeing to the basic compositional ele-
ments. This is how many painters break down the complexities of
painting alla prima (all at once, usually on location) into design
shapes they can more easily understand and make use of.
Note:
Another great thing you can do to help see what’s “hiding in
plain sight” is to mirror the image horizontally if you have
access to post-processing software. This is what you do when
you flip a drawing over and examine it on a light table. When
you reverse the image like this, every minute error that you
might have been content to live with leaps out at you. This stops
the rationalization of inaccurate balance, weight, and
proportion.
Watch your animation play out as a constantly transforming

composition. Its final presentation will most likely be on the 2D
plane of a screen of one kind of another. Evaluate your work with
the same criteria any other 2D artwork would have to adhere to.
(Your 2D piece just happens to evolve through time, that’s all.)
Note:
Use the flow of silhouettes and design elements to lead the
viewer’s eye just as in a still image!
Watch the balance of positive (character) and negative (back-

ground) shapes. Watch how wedges and other design elements lead
your eye around the piece as it plays out before you. Is your eye
being led to where you want it to go? Is your focus in the right
places to catch the important cues? Does your eye end up in a good
place to link with the following scene? Does your eye start in a
place that fits well with the preceding scene?
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Note:
If head and tail scenes (the scenes that sandwich yours) are
available to you as either animatics (timed storyboards with
camera motion) or final renders, compile a movie of all three
together. Watch the flow of your scene as it leaves the previous
one and enters the next.
Before you even begin to delve into the finer points of an anima-
tion, its broad strokes must be strong, solid, and powerful enough to
carry your attention, powerful enough to carry the audience’s atten-
tion. The audience may never know your usage of design and
composition to manipulate their perceptions; all they’ll know is that
your work feels powerful and they want to see more!
13.2 Appealing Poses

Your characters must first and foremost read clearly with the action
that is taking place. Second, and second only by a hair’s breadth, is
the need for them to appeal to the audience. Remember, appeal does
not mean cutesy! It means your audience must find some way to
relate to and empathize with the character and what he’s doing, how
he’s feeling, and what he’s thinking.
Your characters must read clearly as two-dimensional represen-
tations of thoughts, ideas, and actions! Your primary tool in this area
is, what else, silhouette.
Squinting your eyes, as mentioned in the previous section, will
help you to lose the surface details of your character and see him
more as a silhouette. You can also render your animation in
Quickshade mode, saving out only the alpha channel and compiling
the frames into an animation to see how your silhouettes are
moving.
Examine your silhouettes for clarity of action, strength of
design (the balance of broad and fine details, curved and straight
lines, and clear shapes orchestrating the viewer’s focus), and appeal.
Your audience needs to understand your posing, find it interesting,
and be able to empathize.
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13.3 Anticipation, Drag, Follow-Through

Do your character’s actions need to express the concepts of drawing
through time?
Do your characters anticipate their actions (in accordance with
who they are)? Do these anticipations help lead the viewer into the
action? Do the anticipations help build, accent, and punctuate the
rhythm of the scene?
Do your character’s body parts exhibit their own mass as their
individual momentums carry them along? Do they drag, unfurl, and
follow-through, each in its own time? Do your overlapping actions
add to the overall, believable fluidity of the piece?
13.4 Weight/Timing
Does your character, and everything you’re animating in the scene,
have the appearance of the weight and mass the audience would
imagine it to have?
Do your timings imply the extra “oomph” needed to get those
massive objects moving and then stopped again? Do your heavy
objects (and body parts) accelerate much more quickly toward the
ground than they do away from it?
Are your characters balanced, taking into account the perceived
mass and motion of the character, his action, and anything he may
be holding?
Have you used squash and stretch to give the audience that
subliminal shorthand of sensation, implying the forces impacting
your character?
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13.5 Entertainment Value

Imagine looking at your scene through the eyes of someone who’s
never seen this production before. This someone may be consider-
ing an extra tub of popcorn or another soda. Does your scene have
the riveting pull to keep him in his seat?
Are you presenting this scene in the most unique and entertain-
ing way that is accurate for the character’s personality?
Note:
Would anyone other than your mother want to see
this scene twice?
13.6 Characterization
Do you feel the character’s motivations, thoughts, dreams, and
non-verbal comments through watching him move in the scene?
Does he feel like the same guy you saw in the scene before?
Are his secondary actions serving to support his character? Are
the secondary actions letting the primary idea of the scene shine
through uncluttered?
Note:
Acting, not action, and always in character!
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13.7 Character Evolution

Has your character progressed along his story arc from the time
your scene began to the time your scene ends? Have the situations
evolved him subtly, almost imperceptibly?
Note:
This can be a tricky one to nail. Subtlety is the key. As the say-
ing goes, “It’s easier to show the transition of five hours than
five minutes.” Still, your character has to be in a continual state
of evolution in order to remain believable. Change is the only
constant. Your character must continually grow emotionally,
spiritually, and intellectually with everything he encounters in
order to possess that elusive spark of life. Developing an inner
dialogue that no one else need know about can help. But being
attuned to the script and to the overall arc of his character as
you work is key to getting these subtle changes to read, almost
unnoticed, as your scenes play out.
13.8 Storytelling/The Distillation of

One Main Idea
Scenes in filmmaking serve one of three purposes: to develop the
mood, to develop the character(s), or to tell the story. Everything
else is distraction and should be done away with (hopefully before it
ever touches an animator’s hands). Your scene has one main pur-
pose in this film. Make sure you understand what that purpose is
before starting work on the scene. And make sure that that one
main idea reads clearly through your scene; everything else is
support.
Note:
Is the reason for this scene being in the film clear?
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13.9 What’s Best for the Production

(Don’t Grandstand)
I hate to say it, but nobody likes a show-off. Nobody likes to be
intentionally “upstaged.” Yes, you may be capable of doing some
wonderful, flashy bit of action, but ask yourself, “Is this in charac-
ter? Is this developing and defining the story? Would anyone else in
their ‘right mind’ do this scene this way?” (You know if the real
motivation behind your work is to say, “Hey, look at me!” And oth-
ers will know it too.)
Animation is heady business. And when you’re first cuttin’ your
teeth, it is so hard to hold back! You want the whole world to know
all the great things you can do! It’s not about you, it’s about the pro-
duction; you can handle those juicy acting scenes better than those
stuck-on-themselves “stars.” Someone just has to notice, right?
Sit back and chill. Take some deep breaths. You will eventually
get noticed. The work reveals the craftsman. It may be tough to sit
tight when you get long shots or crowd scenes while others get the
ones rich with pathos. Let your work speak for itself. People will
notice, and they’ll notice you for all the right reasons. They’ll notice
that you always do what’s best for the scene; that your work, no
matter how small on screen, always reads with integrity, subtlety,
and character. They’ll notice that your work gets done on time and
with a minimum of corrections. Nothing goes unnoticed in a produc-
tion — the good or the bad. Remember that.
Animation is teamwork. Together, everyone from the janitorial
staff to the director makes the film. The director orchestrates your
visions; your visions sculpt your character; your character creates
your scenes; all the scenes together craft the movie; the movie will
be there forever. Make it something you are proud to have helped
bring into this world. Do so with strength, honor, and integrity.
315
Chapter 14
Additional Practice
Scenes
Now you know everything it takes to make good animation. But
knowing and doing are two entirely different things. Animation must
flow naturally and inevitably, like good acting. Thinking about the dif-
ferent parts of it too much usually gets you into trouble. What you
need to do is practice the concepts so that they become as much a
part of you as your own breathing. You need to learn them so well
that you can forget them. You need to free your conscious mind from
thinking about which controls produce specific results. You need to
allow your unconscious mind to “feel” what is right, what needs to be
done.
This is something you will attain with focused practice. You will
need to take at least one step toward that goal every day. You don’t
have to sit and practice for hours and hours every single day; just
make sure that you do at least one small thing toward being a fea-
ture-quality animator every single day. By doing this, you will get
there.
Note:
I like to think of it this way: You’ve got a certain number of so-so
animations in you. The breathtaking animations are sprinkled in
this pack of so-so scenes, but you’ve got to get all those mediocre
animations out of the way to make room for the good ones. So
you’d best get moving!
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Chapter 14: Additional Practice Scenes
The steps you take have to be good steps. Practice makes per-
manent, not perfect! Make sure you’re practicing something worth
ingraining within you!
This is where I wanted this book to stand out above all others,
even the rare, good ones that cover both the basic and the advanced
material, the ones that make things understandable. But how can I
help you learn to judge for yourself what is good animation and what
needs work when I can’t stand over your shoulder and encourage
your best work? I can do this by giving you good quality animations
you can explore as 3D scenes to compare with your work, scenes
you can pose-copy move-for-move in your earliest stages of learn-
ing the craft. With pose-copying (as we did in Chapter 10), you’ll
know immediately when your work is exactly as it should be. It will
be like having me right there with you, showing you all the mechan-
ics it takes to make a scene flow with life and entertainment. By
balancing between pose-copying and creating your own scenes you
will quickly wean yourself from needing my help. This is the quick-
est and surest path to becoming the animator you’ve dreamed of
becoming.
Note:
An important thing to remember is that good animation takes
time. The feature studios worth their salt will often give an ani-
mator two weeks to work on a three-foot (2-second) scene.
Don’t rush yourself! If it takes a guy who’s been doing feature-
quality animation since 1976 two weeks to get a three-foot
scene out, don’t beat yourself up if you can’t get a feature-
quality scene out in a day!
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14.1 The Technique

This is the technique I begin with when teaching students in per-
son, whether they are potential animators working for me, students,
or friends. Through the balance of pose-copying and creating origi-
nal scenes, you learn what to do, fast. And you begin internalizing
good habits right from the start. Using derivations of this technique,
you will be able to find the next logical steps in nearly anything you
wish to learn. (You can use a variation on this technique to learn
how to draw or paint in a particular style.) If you’re being dropped
into a production where you have to match a predeveloped style,
you can use this technique with movies of approved scenes. You can
also assimilate much more quickly the sensibilities of the great mas-
ters by working from clips of their traditional animation in this
fashion.
For your first scene, choose a scene from the Scenes to Copy
section (Section 14.3). These scenes are all ready for you to load in
and have you move the character to exactly match pre-existing ani-
mation on the life drawing model. Work with your first scene for a
week (or more) if you need it; make sure everything is an exact
match — timing, posing, everything. Don’t let your character devi-
ate one iota from the life drawing model. (Yes, this can be tedious.)
Give yourself as much time as you need, there’s no rush! Just kick
your feet back and enjoy the ride!
Next, pull a scene from the Scenes to Create section (Section
14.4), where you’re only given direction. Look through them and
find something that sounds fun. Go through all the applicable steps
outlined in Chapter 12 in preparation for settling in to work. (If you
fail to plan, you plan to fail.) Give yourself half a day to a day to get
your bearings on how you’re going to handle the scene (I do). Then
settle in to working on that scene for one to two weeks — however
long you might need to make sure everything is as spot-on as you
can make it.
Newbie Note:
It’s fairly common for this second scene to give you fits. Don’t
worry about it too much. Just do your best. Enjoy the process of
exploring! “Run and find out!” (Rikki-Tikki-Tavi)
319
When you feel you’ve spent as much time with this second
scene as you can without losing your mind, take another scene (or
another two, if you feel really wobbly about things) from the Scenes
to Copy section. Give the scene(s) a week or so (each), enough time
to get everything absolutely perfect. Then go back to doing another
scene where you’re taking it from scratch. You should notice things
getting significantly better this time around.
Go back and forth between copied scenes and original scenes
until you feel you’ve got your “chops” down. Then, instead of
pose-copying something from the Scenes to Copy section, make a
movie of it from a stationary viewpoint and work entirely from this
movie. Compare your work either by feel or by loading items from
the scene you’re copying. Use Loading Items From Scene only to
compare; revert to using the movie alone when making
adjustments.
Again, alternate original scenes and scenes copied from a sin-
gle-view movie. Keep at this until you feel really sharp, able to
understand what visual cues translate into 3D coordinates. Then,
take a foray into what’s outlined in Section 14.5; I think you’ll like it.
You can come back to this technique, or your own modification
of it, whenever you feel like you need a little “boost” in your skills.
It is the quickest, surest way to sharpen, to learn, and to train your
internal senses of what works. You’re building muscle memory,
good habits that you don’t have to think about to employ. You’ll just
get a feel for what’s right and what a scene needs.
Continue to study the basic and advanced animation mechanics
as you do this. Make sure your mind knows what your body is learn-
ing. “Gut feelings” can take you fairly far, and with your mind
attuned to the conscious, logical understanding of the principles of
animation, there will be nothing you can’t handle.
320
Newbie Note:
After you begin to feel pretty good about what you’re doing,
you’ll probably find yourself going through a short period where
you feel like you’re just starting out again. You may feel like you
can’t quite seem to remember how to get things into place or the
controls suddenly feel awkward, when everything was feeling
almost natural only a few days before. This is normal!!! This is
considered to be the “mammalian learning curve,” when what
we hold in short-term memory gets transferred to long-term
memory. The information is temporarily inaccessible while the
synaptic structures are being constructed in long-term memory.
Just keep at it! Once those long-term memory synapses get
physically shifted around to hold that info, you’ll be on top of the
world again!
14.2 Life Drawing

You’ll find a collection of images to practice life drawing from in
Extras\Life_ Drawing\Images\ and scenes to pose-copy in
Extras\Life_Drawing\Scenes\.
Life drawing is a great way to unwind. You don’t have to worry
about the same issues you do when your character is in motion; you
just kick back and get that one pose you see in front of you. It’s a
great way to relax and get centered before starting your workday,
and it’s a good way to get loose and get past those “stiff” first poses.
Take your life drawing further than what you see in this book. If
you have a laptop that can run LightWave, take it with you to a life
drawing class. Take it with you at lunch and capture quick gesturals
of the people you see around you. Life draw from the TV or a movie.
Life draw from poses you find in paintings, sculptures, cels. Expose
yourself to as much as you can. And have fun!
Note: Note:
All that you truly examine adds to Draw with verbs, not nouns!
what you are capable of seeing!
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14.3 Scenes to Copy

You will find scenes to copy in Extras\ScenesToCopy\. Use these in
conjunction with “the technique,” or to compare your take on a situ-
ation with mine. Each scene’s title will let you know a little of what
the scene is about, and the .txt file associated with it will give you
direction as to the scenes to create. Work both with scene ideas that
sound interesting and scenes that you have zero interest in.
Note:
Usually, being turned off by a subject is a good sign that there is
something you need to learn there.
14.4 Scenes to Create

This section contains lists of directorial comments on scenes. With
some, you may have to create your own simple props. Have fun
with the process! These ideas are for you to springboard from. Take
them, push them, make them entertaining; make them your own!
The only directorial edict I’m going to issue is that you have to be
able to imagine your finished scenes fitting in flawlessly amid a col-
lection of the best animation you’ve ever seen. Take your time; do
the best work you are capable of doing.
There are no deadlines here. There are no PAs rushing about,
desperately trying to make quota. Dive into the scenes, and forget
about (real-life) time for a while. Lose yourself in the process of
simply doing. Play! Have fun! Let your fun shine right through the
screen to your audience!
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Actions
These are just bits of action you should get under your belt. Each of
these actions incorporates many of the basic and advanced anima-
tion mechanics. I’d like you to go through each of these actions
twice; one time, perform the action as straightlaced and realistically
as you can, then do it as cornball and cartoony as you can. With the
realistic pass, make it as true-to-life as you can, make it feel like it
has been motion-captured. With the cartoony pass, really push it to
the extremes; give Tex Avery and Chuck Jones a run for their
money! Whichever you do first is up to you, but you may find your
realistic scenes benefiting from the looseness you work into your
cartoony scenes.
Make the action read well in silhouette. Give the characters a
reason for (and an opinion on) doing whatever they’re doing. Make
your work entertaining, both in the doing and in the watching!
4 Swing a baseball bat

4 Do a golf swing using a driver (the golf club used to really belt
that ball out of there)
4 Do a golf swing using a pitching wedge to get the ball out of a

sand trap and onto a nearby green
4 Throw a javelin
4 Do an Olympic-style hammer throw
4 Throw a shot put
4 Shoot a basket
4 Throw a football
4 Pitch a baseball
4 Dive from a diving board
4 Yo a yo-yo
4 Swing on a swing
4 Use your hands to “walk” across a set of monkey bars
4 Skip rope
4 Juggle (a real juggle and then a “cartoon, cascade” juggle)
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Walk Cycles
Cycles need to loop seamlessly, so that someone watching them
wouldn’t know which keyframe marks the loop’s start/end. (If
Frame 0 is the same as Frame 28, I make a preview or movie from
Frames 1 to 28.) Watch for “pops” and problems with acceleration
as the cycle nears its head and tail. I generally don’t use the motion
graph’s “pre” and “post” behavior to repeat the cycle. When I want
to integrate the cycle into a scene, I copy the keys manually for as
many times as I need the motion to repeat itself. This way I can
have unique action happen before and after the cycle if need be.
Note:
A cycle will amplify any problems an animation may have. Your
audience will catch the third time what they missed the first (and
begin to rant and rave about it after the tenth). Make sure that
everything is as polished to perfection as you can get it.
DIRECTION: Walk cycle: You’re a businessman late for an

important meeting but trying very much not to show it.
DIRECTION: Walk cycle: Do an exaggerated sneak-walk.
DIRECTION: Walk cycle: Do a “cool walk.” (Think Fat Albert
and the Gang kind of thing.)
DIRECTION: Walk cycle: Do the absolute weirdest walk you
can think of (something that would fit in with the Monty Python
“School of Silly Walks” skit).
DIRECTION: Walk cycle: Do a light jog.
DIRECTION: Walk cycle: Do an all-out run.
DIRECTION: Walk cycle: Do a walk showing your character as
light-hearted and happy as a character can be.
DIRECTION: Walk cycle: Do a walk showing your character in
the depths of misery.
DIRECTION: Take the “all-out run” you did, and copy your
keys to extend it. End with your character stumbling and falling,
coming to a rolling, skidding stop.
DIRECTION: Using your “light jog,” animate your character
blithely running along, not paying attention to where he’s going.
Life is good until he runs smack into a brick wall.
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DIRECTION: Take your character from standing into any of the

cycles you’ve done and then back to standing again.
DIRECTION: Using your “light jog,” have your character run-
ning along when he spies someone gorgeous and comes to a
screeching halt. As gallantly as possible, have him do an about-face
and strut sexily past the object of his attention.
DIRECTION: Using one of your run cycles, blend this in a
cartoony fashion with a stealthy sneak and then go back to the run.
(Think of cartoons where the character is going full-tilt, then has to
sneak by an open doorway, then goes back to his full-tilt run.)
Scenes
Use your creative license to handle these scenes in the most enter-
taining way you can think of. Create your own histories for the
characters, devise reasons for them being there, opinions on what it
is they’re doing, and thoughts about where they are going next.
Play with multiple camera angles. First, establish the scene
with a longer shot, letting the audience know what is going on and
where the character fits into his surroundings. Use medium shots
and close-ups to showcase the action and to create strong, storytell-
ing, design-oriented silhouettes. Allow your timing to sculpt the
feelings of the audience; lead them down the emotional paths you
want them to follow and at the pace you decide!
Craft these scenes so that your audience will find something
within them to connect with as they watch them. Let your scenes
remind them of similar situations they’ve experienced. Choreograph
them so those watching it will want to see it play through again, so
that they want to see what happens next!
DIRECTION: You’re walking down the street and stop because
you find a coin lying there. You pick it up, and give it a quick flip into
the air; heads you’ll keep it, tails you’ll leave it for someone else.
The coin comes up tails. Get rid of the coin in an entertaining way.
DIRECTION: You’re sitting in a chair, lost in thought and a little
bit bored. The phone rings. You leap up to answer it and trip over
another chair in your rush, tumbling haphazardly to the ground.
DIRECTION: Using the ChromeFox setup in conjunction with
your character, animate him trying to coax a timid, wild animal to
him.
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DIRECTION: Opening a letter: The contents are beyond your

wildest hopes. You leap for joy!
DIRECTION: Opening a letter: The contents are depressing
beyond measure. You collapse into the chair behind you or down the
wall and onto the floor. The key here is drama (perhaps even angst)!
DIRECTION: It is “high noon.” Two chaps face off in a duel of
“finger-pistols” (just pretending their fingers are guns). They draw!
One “hits” his opponent who fakes a dramatic death. (Really play
with camera angles with this one! Try to get that Old West kind of
feel!)
DIRECTION: You take a sip of coffee and jump because it is too
hot, fumbling the cup. You spastically juggle the cup, trying to save
it, finally having to leap out of the way as it crashes to the floor.
DIRECTION: You’re putting up a fence. You lay another board
up, pull a nail from behind your ear, and absently hammer until …
you bash your thumb with the hammer!
DIRECTION: You are breaking into an old “dial” safe. With your
ear to the mechanism, you eloquently turn the combination. You
hear the click of success, then rubbing your hands together in antic-
ipation, you open the door.
DIRECTION: You sidle up to a locked door. First, making sure
no one is looking, you kneel and begin to pick the lock. The tum-
blers fall into place and you stand, peering about to see if the coast
is still clear. You quietly turn the knob and back inside, softly shut-
ting the door after you.
DIRECTION: Like a musketeer of old, you draw your sword
and gallantly salute!
DIRECTION: Animate your character pulling an arrow from a
quiver on his back, knocking it, pullin’ it back, and lettin’ it fly!
DIRECTION: Do the ol’ ’50s sitcom bit with the character
screeching on a chair because of a mouse.
DIRECTION: You are the coolest hepcat in town. You’ve got
your back turned to the audience at a poetry reading. You’re snap-
ping your fingers and tapping your foot to the beat of the jazz band.
You motion for the band to stop. You turn, pose, and bow.
DIRECTION: It is freezing and you’re improperly dressed,
waiting for the bus. Rub your arms, stomp your feet, blow into your
hands to try to warm yourself up. Amid this action, look at your
watch, and listen to it to see if it is still running.
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DIRECTION: You are shoveling snow. You stop to rest for a

moment, wiping your nose on your sleeve, then start back to work.
DIRECTION: You’re swinging a pickax at a spot on the floor.
Hearing a “thunk,” you stop digging, kneel, and carefully brush
away the dust to find a handle of sorts. Using all your might, you lift
a heavy case from the ground.
DIRECTION: Like the hags in Macbeth, you eerily stir a
cauldron.
DIRECTION: Like in the old TV shows, do a sliding leap over a
car hood.
DIRECTION: Two characters: One character kneels before the
other, slipping a ring on the standing character’s finger in a proposal
of marriage.
DIRECTION: Two characters: The two characters run into each
other’s arms, one swinging the other around in a loving embrace.
DIRECTION: Two characters: One character hikes the uncon-
scious other character over his shoulder and carries him.
DIRECTION: Two characters: Animate a round of “rock, scis-
sors, paper.”
DIRECTION: Two characters: One character slaps the other in
the face (as in a soap opera).
DIRECTION: Two characters: Animate a tug-of-war where
someone lets go of the rope, sending the other flying.
These scenes aren’t just for practice. These are the kinds of
things that will get you a job. Set aside movies of your absolute best
work. (Don’t expect anyone to see “potential,” period!) Blend these
best-of-the-best together to make a demo reel no longer than three
minutes. (You lose your audience after three minutes, no matter
how good your work is.) Put a nice, strongly graphic plate at the
beginning, letting the art director know who you are and how to
contact you, repeating it at the end. Burn it to a CD, put it on the
Web, and/or render it to VHS. (Just as a side note: Most “art folks”
and management tend to be on Macintoshes. Saving your reel as a
QuickTime means they’re not going to have to work to see your
work.)
Leave your audience wanting more! Don’t show everything
you’ve ever done! If you have brilliant work and really poor work on
the same reel, the person reviewing it will probably wonder if you
have the sense to know what is good and what isn’t. Only put your
best work on the reel! If this means your reel is thirty seconds,
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fine! It is far better to have thirty seconds of feature-quality work

than it is to have three (or ten) minutes of forgettable work.
Easy power! Leave them wanting more! Have them so enticed
about what your work shows you can do for them that they’ll fly you
across the country just to talk with you!
Do not put anything but your absolute best on your reel!
And don’t worry if you didn’t make the models or IK the setup
yourself. (I included these high-level models and setups so you
wouldn’t be stuck with great ideas and no way to execute them if
setup just isn’t your thing. Use them!) In most larger studios, ani-
mators only animate. In the smaller ones, you generally do have to
be a jack-of-all-trades. So use this information to target your job
search. Do you want to do everything, or just focus on only one
thing? Do you enjoy setup as much as you do animation? Don’t set-
tle for the first job opportunity that comes along, even though it will
be tempting. (Don’t rationalize yourself into a job you will come to
hate.) Target what you do for a living to what you love to do!
Newbie Note:
Please don’t feel like you’ve got to rush through this whole train-
ing thing. You’ve got your entire life ahead of you to perfect this
art. Make every step the best, absolute best you can make it.
Remember that you will only achieve feature-quality animation
if, and only if, you give yourself the time you need to achieve it!
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14.5 Where to Go Next

So, what’s next? Learning from the masters what you wish to be
taught. You’ve reached a plateau where you can see the path before
you. You can understand what you need to learn. You know what
kind of animator you wish to be. In the distance, you can see the
next logical steps that will take you there. This is where you branch
from the teachings in this book and take your own path to where
you wish to be.
You know what kind of animation just sets your world spinning.
For you, maybe it’s the beautiful work of Hayao Miyazaki. Maybe
it’s the way-out shorts of Tex Avery or the brilliance of Chuck
Jones. Perhaps early Disney makes your heart pound, or the later
works of that studio line your shelves. I want you to dive into that
work that you love. I want you to immerse yourself in it, live it,
breathe it, and sleep it. I want you to use the pieces that make the
blood rush in your ears to complete your training.
I want you to take your laserdisc, DVD, or VHS version of what-
ever is your favorite animated film of all time, and using what
you’ve learned of character setup, craft a character of similar pro-
portions to the one you either wish you were or wish you were
with. Then, I want you to find your absolute favorite scene with him
in it, and recreate his every motion with your own character. Your
job is to make your character hit you with the same emotional wal-
lop that this movie character does. You and you alone will know
when you’re there. And when you are, you’ll know you are on the
path on which you were meant to be!
Continue working like this for as long as feels right. Craft your
own stories; build your own dreams into a reality you can share with
others. Use everything you can to help you get to where your
dreams are as tangible as the clothes you wear. And may your jour-
ney be one of wonder, excitement, and joy beyond measure!
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Chapter 15
Digitigrade
Characters
Note:
This is an advanced chapter. It assumes that you understand the
details of character setup. (It does not hold your hand.) If there
are parts where you are lost or confused, return to the earlier
chapters on character setup for a refresher, and/or load in and
examine one of the pre-built setups from the companion CD.
So what do you do when you have a character who walks on his toes?
How do you get your plantigrade (flat-footed) character to walk
heel-to-toe without having the animation be an exploration of
counterrotation? Digitigrade characters (those who walk on their
toes) need a bit of a change to the foot/leg IK in order to make things
work smoothly. These changes (and their derivations) can help any
character who needs special handling with their feet.
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Chapter 15: Digitigrade Characters
Figure 15.1. The structure of a fox.
It is important that you understand the underlying structures of

whatever being you’re working with, whether real or imagined. As
mammals, we all have basically the same parts. Understanding how
the parts are used in different “chassis” is key to building successful
setups that allow for intuitive posing!
Note:
Even delving into the subtleties that few people will ever con-
sciously notice can increase the power of your work. For
example, the front paws of a canid (a member of the canine
family) are larger than the back; this helps to absorb the impact
of their leaping gait. Cheetahs have no clavicle; only muscle and
ligament hold their upper arms in place. This evolution is an
adaptation for speed; the shoulder “joint” will slide back three to
six inches during the compression stroke of their run. Knowledge
like this is essential if you are attempting to recreate reality. And
your fanciful beings will become all the more real when they are
grounded in an understanding of physiology that would actually
work.
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Note:
There is more to quadrupedal motion than can be covered in
this book and still get to all the things I feel are important as a
strong foundation for animation. I’m including the ChromeFox
model for those who wish to “leap ahead.” If you choose to
work with this or another quadrupedal character, take the time
to deeply explore how they, or similar creatures, really move.
There is almost no wasted motion in a quadruped’s motions.
Every movement flows perfectly into the next, like a wave flow-
ing through their bodies. Contra-posto plays a key role in
everything they do. Watch for reversals of the pelvis and shoul-
ders on heading, bank, and pitch. The lumbar section of their
back gives power to their gallop; knowing where the rigid pelvis
attaches and how much this section actually flexes during the
compression phase is key. There is so much more than just
knowing which “foot” comes first in a walk cycle.
Newbie Note:
If you have an anatomy class somewhere in your future,
try renaming the bones to their scientific names: meta-
tarsals, metacarpals, scapula, femur, radius, ulna, etc.
When you’re working with the “proper” names every
day, they sink in faster than you might think possible!
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15.1 Bones
These bones are the same bones as in your character’s skeleton.
However, they are angled differently and of different lengths, taking
into account the different positions and pivot points of the various
body parts. We still have a puller for the leg, and we still have a con-
trol to rotate the knee. It is the foot where the change comes into
play.
Figure 15.2. The bone layout for the fox’s hind leg.
The one major difference is that the foot control is reversed. In

this new setup, the toes will be used to position and angle the foot;
the foot bone will only be rotated. Rotating the foot bone will move
the goal that will be attached to its tip, compressing and stretching
the thigh/calf section of the leg.
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The hierarchy for the leg is as follows: Pelvis => KneeControl

=> Thigh => Calf => LegPuller. And the hierarchy for the foot
is: Toes => Foot => Goal (where Goal is a null object that will be
added in Layout).
Figure 15.3. The digitigrade leg setup with IK

active in Layout. (Thigh is set to solve for IK on
two axes, while the calf only solves on one.
LegPuller is using a goal strength of 80.)
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Figure 15.4. This setup allows you to keep the

character’s toes firmly rooted on the ground while the
“heel” of the foot causes the leg to flex.
Note:
Think! Imagine! Be!
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Note:
As you work with characters that walk on their toes, whether they
be quads or bis, always remember joint flexibility and proper dis-
tribution of weight. Feel the extra spring in the step that always
walking with your heels off the ground gives you. You aren’t
restricted by platforms like high-heel shoes, and you have com-
plete mobility through your entire range of movement; you have
the strength in your calves to carry out whatever action you
dream! And remember that even though your legs may be at a
collection of angles (not the straight, rigid, locked form of a
standing human), all your angles still must add up to a constant,
structured balance.
15.2 Plantigrade Modifications

You can use modifications of this digitigrade setup to create
enhanced setups for your plantigrade characters as well. It is wise
to have a “stable” of these special-case setups so you can pull just
the right one for the job at hand — or foot. (The proper tools make
all the difference in the world.)
Figure 15.5. This setup is made by adding one bone to the digitigrade setup. It makes it a lot
easier to roll the character’s weight from heel-to-toe as he walks. The new bone is the same
length as the foot bone but heading in the opposite direction, with the toes set as a child of
this new bone. The new bone doesn’t control the character’s points directly; it only controls
the toes and foot which do.
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Note:
“Enhanced” or special-purpose setups can save a lot of time in the
long run, but they can also offer too much to think about for a nov-
ice. And while they may ease some tasks, they may complicate
others. Only through playing and experimenting will you know
what tools fit your style of working.
Explore! Experiment! The sky is the limit! And remember, if it

works, it’s got to be good!
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Chapter 16
On the Path
Advanced Note:
This chapter is more for those just starting out, finding their bear-
ings, getting a handle on how to get to where they’d like to be.
Still, you may find some interesting suggestions in Sections 16.3
and 16.4. These sections may give you some new ideas or help to
rejuvenate your career!
There is a wealth of knowledge out there from which you can learn.
But you have to know where to look and how to see what you watch.
And though you know the films that inspired you to pick up the pencil
or stylus, what about other animated works out there, the other
worlds of symbolism and inspiration; how do you find them? (How do
you weed through the mountains of mediocrity that line the video
store shelves?)
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Chapter 16: On the Path
16.1 Support
There’s a lot of good out there, and there’s a lot of not-so-good, too.
Having friends also interested in animation gives you a wealth of
viewpoints outside your own. They can direct you to what they like
best, and past the things they’ve sat through and afterward won-
dered why they did. This group of friends can also be the
momentum it takes to keep going during the rough spots. (Every-
one has times when they feel like they’re going nowhere. A good
strong base of friends can help you look objectively at your work,
and see your progress and your achievements.) Look to the Internet
for camaraderie if your local base of fellows isn’t what you would
desire. With the resources available with just a quick trip to your
favorite search engine, it shouldn’t be that hard finding a crowd you
can connect with!
With a group of friends also interested in learning 3D animation,
there’s almost nothing you can’t do! If there’s one who is further
along than the others, he can shine a light on the pitfalls. If you’re
all at the same level, all the better! With a group of close, dedicated
friends, you’ll be learning through a camaraderie that rarely exists
in “The Industry” today.
Get together and draw out your own plans for making the short
film you’ve always wanted to see. Find a particular style of anima-
tion you’d like to know how to do, something you’d like to have in
your case-o’-riffs. Make your animation fit that style. Let the
motions, characterizations, timings, character designs, and back-
ground designs all seem to be a 3D evolution of the films you’ve
seen in that style!
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Note:
A series of short films is a fantastic way to hone your skills. You
see what you would like to be able to do, and you know what
you are currently capable of. Use each short film as a step-
ping-stone for the next. Build on what you learn. Let each work
showcase what you feel confident doing, while still pushing
your skills to the next level. Easy power! Heavily stylized films
are often easier to create than ones that recreate reality. Your
first short may be heavily shadowed, like film noir, so you only
see the parts of the characters you feel confident animating. Or
you might make use of conventions that bypass the more chal-
lenging points of advanced animation mechanics. Work with
your limitations; use them creatively! Build on them and let
them lead you to where you want to be!
16.2 Editing
The problem with watching a film — any film, whether animated or
live action — is that everything is intricately woven together to
carry you deep into the story. It can be hard to figure out exactly
what was done to tell such a compelling story. Using a jog shuttle on
your DVD, VHS, or laserdisc player helps you to understand most
motions, but how do you understand how the pieces fit together so
well? How do these individual bits seamlessly recreate the
“dream-time” patterns of events that allow us to completely accept
the elements we are being shown as a contiguous, powerful story?
How do you learn to piece your scenes together so that they also
tell an accessible, lucid tale?
Learning to be a successful editor can take years upon years of
schooling and practice. (A great editor can make horrible camera
work and/or performances look stellar.) Even so, you can begin to
grasp some of the concepts by watching movies with the sound off.
Music and effects key to our emotional centers as few other
stimuli do. The score and foley (sound effects) of a movie are often
considered “invisible actors,” and are every bit as important as the
other lead actors in sculpting the way we feel. When you watch a
movie with the sound turned off, you are able to distance yourself
from the events on the screen. You are able to see the positions of
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the characters as one scene cuts or dissolves to another. You are

able to see the directions in which the characters and backgrounds
are moving, and how this complements or contrasts with the previ-
ous scene. You are able to see the positions of multiple cameras as
they intercut to tell the story of the conversation going on. You are
able to see how the director choreographs establishers, longs and
mids, close-ups and extremes. You get a peek at the gears and cogs
of the movie, all working in harmony.
Note:
Watch. Learn. Copy if you need to. Do everything you can to
understand why things do what they do. Apply this understand-
ing to your own work and make it yours.
16.3 Watching Movies

The breathtaking animated films of today are so polished that you
may have anticipations going back 24 frames or more before the
actual action itself! There is so much subtlety woven into modern
feature animation that unless you have the experience to (almost)
do this level of work yourself, you can’t see what’s being done to
create it. Go back to the early days of animation, and study and learn
by watching the masters hone their skills!
In the early days of animation, most folks were at the same
level of skill where you are right now. They were still working with
understanding advanced animation mechanics, and figuring out how
best to work them into the scenes they had. When you watch these
early shorts and features, you get a chance to see beyond the polish.
You get a chance to see how the animators were thinking, problem-
solving, how they reasoned through their scenes. You can under-
stand their processes because their work is around the same level
of ability as yours is right now! You can clearly see their thoughts
on squash and stretch, anticipation, drag, follow-through, timing,
weight, balance, and all the other things that make good animation
great. The art of a master makes what he does look effortless; that’s
what mastery is! You’ll be there someday. Luckily, you can, through
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their early works, watch them as they learned. You can study their
solid logical steps toward their own mastery of the craft. Through
an understanding of how they made their progress, you will be able
to follow as well.
The old silent films are wonderful to watch too. There is the
genius use of physical humor and pantomime storytelling in the
works of Chaplin and Keaton. There are the incredible, graphic,
painting-like visuals in films like Metropolis (1926, Director Fritz
Lang). There is the groundbreaking editing and storytelling of
Bronenosets Potyomkin (Battleship Potemkin) (1925, Director Grigori
Aleksandrov).
Note:
Watch for the discoveries of lighting, camerawork, editing, and
acting that have laid the foundations for the filmmaking of
today!
Foreign films are replete with symbolism. It may take several

viewings of a heavily symbolic film to begin to get the meanings
that may be clear to a viewer from that culture. Symbolism deals in
a kind of archetypal imagery (imagery that strikes a chord within the
viewer regardless of experience or culture). You may not get the
same messages or meanings as someone from that particular cul-
ture, but you will remember how the play of images made you feel.
You can use similar metaphors in your own films, sculpting intricate
patterns of emotion.
I’ve heard some “American” animators speak condescendingly
about the works of Japanese animation, or animé. What these ani-
mators seem to miss is that often, the budget for an animé feature is
less than what a single thirty-minute episode of a Saturday morning
cartoon would cost to make. There is much to learn from these
masters of a limited budget. They know when something has to
move with the fluidity of “ones,” and when a single, held frame will
suffice. The master directors of animé know how to spend their
budget wisely. And the delicate, finely crafted stills are so beauti-
fully done, so full of symbolism, that often these are indeed the
strongest ways to deliver the empathic vision of the scene.
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Note:
Make an effort to learn as much as you can. “I do not like”
often means “I do not understand.”
As far as modern animation, I’m only going to name two that

may have slipped by your radar. The Iron Giant (1999, Director Brad
Bird) and Cats Don’t Dance (1997, Director Mark Dindal) are two of
the most brilliantly executed (on all levels of production) animated
features of the “modern age of animation.” Their story, storytelling,
character designs, characterization, acting, animation, editing, scor-
ing, and everything about them is absolutely heads and shoulders
above most other modern animated features. (This is, of course, my
opinion. And the reasons for their slipping through the theaters like
greased lightning I’ll leave to you to ferret out once you’ve entered
the ranks of feature animation.)
16.4 Other Studies

An animator has to be the epitome of a Renaissance man (or
woman). You have to be well-read, in both fiction and non. You have
to have experience in many, many areas. (I like to think that this
includes an understanding of all things rhythmic, from the earliest
“early music” to the current beats pounding the dance floors on
Sunset Boulevard.) You have to know how things work, and you
have to understand how you would feel were you to be thrust into a
myriad of different lifetimes. You are the ultimate method actor.
As an actor/animator, books that will help you immensely are To
the Actor by Michael Chekhov and Audition by Michael Shurtleff. To
the Actor will help you to get in touch with the energies that let you
become different beings. There are exercises in that book that will
astound you in terms of how much it will open up your perceptions
of your worlds, both outer and inner. Audition will help you to
quickly break down a scene into pieces you and the audience can
relate with. It gets you to identify the motivating factor behind all
interactions, as it exists within all scenes: love. Everything we do
and everything we don’t do is motivated ultimately through this sin-
gle, unifying force. And through this single, unifying force, your
audience will see themselves in what your characters do.
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To help you plan your scenes, I recommend studying Film

Directing Shot By Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen by Steven
D. Katz. This book explains, better than any other, the rules and
conventions used in filmmaking. It will help you to understand what
you’re seeing as you watch movies with the sound off. It shows you
examples of how famous directors have storyboarded their scenes.
It will help you more than any other resource I can think of on how
to plan your production so that you get a finished product, and that
this finished product is the one you had hoped for.
For another point of view on the principles of animation, my
highest recommendation goes to The Illusion of Life: Disney Anima-
tion by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. There is a lot of history in
this book, and a lot of important information that is woven conversa-
tionally in the text. (Because of this, it is something that should be
read cover to cover.) In it, you’ll find many of the hows and whys of
films and characters you’ve grown up with.
How do you find out what you “should” be doing? Read and do
the exercises in The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativ-
ity by Julia Cameron. It is a great way to learn how to “enjoy the
process of doing” and figure out where your dreams are leading.
How do you get an interview at the “big studios”? What Color is
Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles is a fantastic resource for
both people just starting out and those doing a 180 after already
having had a successful career as something else.
Don’t stop there. Explore your world; see where the hidden
doorways lead! Take acting courses, take directing courses, find out
how to do things in live action or on stage. Study physics, quantum
mechanics, biology, mathematics, history, mythology, storytelling,
and anything else you think might be exciting. Remember, your
mind is a muscle, and if you keep exercising it, it’ll just beg for you
to give it more! Take a course on animal communication; how better
to “become” your subject than “meeting them halfway” in
understanding?
The key here is to light a fire under yourself to enjoy the pro-
cess of learning! Animation is a life-long pursuit. You will never
reach the point where there’s nothing more. There is always some-
thing more! If you can train your mind/body/soul to enjoy the
process, to regale in that which you do not know (… yet), you will
have a life the likes of which most would never believe!
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Chapter 17
Finding the Character

In the previous chapters, I’ve talked a lot about letting yourself live
as your character. For some of you, this phrase instantly connects
with experiences you’ve had where you have done this. You know
what it means to imagine yourself so thoroughly as some other being
that you know what it is to experience life through another set of
eyes, for a while. Though similar to the “lands of make-believe” we
visited as children, this kind of focused visualization is much more.
This is similar to how the shamans of different cultures call to
them the wisdom and knowledge of the different archetypal beings.
By allowing themselves to so fully let the essence of another being
flow through their entire focus, they have access to information they
would not otherwise have. We as animators must do very much the
same thing. We also work with archetypes, letting their essences
flow through us and into our work. The characters we animate are
much more than “everyday Joes,” even if our project is grounded
firmly in the “realistic” vein. Our characters are something more
than real. They are, in essence, symbols of ways of being. Just as to a
medicine person the falcon may represent sharp, clear-seeing quick-
ness and sureness in our work, Perdita (101 Dalmations) represents
the essence of maternal love and strength, feminine caring, and gen-
tleness of soul.
Ours is with the place of storytellers within the global fire circle.
We work in ideals and in symbols that evoke change within our audi-
ence. And just as the shaman draws through him the essences of the
totems (the archetypal symbols as represented through the exempli-
fication of an animal) of his traditions, so we draw through us arche-
typal symbols in the forms of the characters with which we work.
The shaman allows his senses to reach out, to touch and be
enveloped by the essence of the totem spirit; everything about him
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Chapter 17: Finding the Character
becomes influenced by this connection. To look at him with your

feelings, his essence would be that of the totem, not the man. As
actors, we let the essence of our characters envelop us as we work;
in the final animation, all you feel is the being of the character, not
the artist.
Animation has the capability to crystallize, to transform, to com-
pletely winnow out all but that which needs to be there. We as
animators have the ability to perfect a performance. We don’t have
to create it all at once, on stage or in front of a camera; we can work
at it slowly, delving into it, making sure that each and every move-
ment sculpts the feelings we intend. The characters we work with
can be perfect in their conceptualization, in their encapsulation of
ideas, essences, thoughts, gestures, and purposes. These characters
are so much larger than life, they are archetypes representing core
motivations within us all!
But how do you get into character? How do you explain the
techniques, how it feels to don another’s essence, to “shapeshift” as
it were? How do you teach the techniques that facilitate these trans-
formations to someone who has never been able to do this? Well,
the truth is, at some point or another in our lives, we were all able
to do this. Perhaps this was a long time ago, before those “looking
out for our best interests” told us to stop daydreaming, or get our
noses back into our books and our feet back on the ground. At some
point in our lives, we were like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, liv-
ing alternate lives battling incredible odds or receiving beauty and
adulation. At some point in our lives, all of us knew how to live as
another, for just a little while.
At this point in our lives, a lot of us have to shed this “stuff” (for
lack of a better word) that has been heaped upon us as we tried to
conform to what we thought was asked of us. In this area of visual-
ization, of acting, of shapeshifting, we have to unlearn how to be
responsible, respectable adults. We have to relearn how to be kids
again. The great thing about relearning this now at this point in our
lives is that now most of us are indeed adults (or on the verge of
being there), and we can look at the disapproving and say, “Go take
a hike, I’m working!” This is our job now! It is our privilege and our
duty to daydream, to wear another’s essence as our own for a little
while. This is what we get paid “the big bucks” (well, hopefully) to
do! And we are completely, unequivocally, and altogether within our
rights.
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You have reached a point in your life and career that by dedicat-
ing yourself to the pursuit and study of animation, you have given
yourself all the credentials you need to do all the wishing, day-
dreaming, pretending, play acting, role playing, and everything you
wanted to dream as a youth but never had the time to do or the
vocabulary to defend! This is one of the many reasons why this job,
above all others, is the best job in the world! Let the producers,
critics, and hangers-ons — those who wish they had the guts to
actually do what you’re doing — let them all have their fun thinking
they’re getting the good part of the deal. You know that the magic is
all within you. And it is your magic that touches the audiences, mak-
ing them wish they were what you have dreamed. And it is this wish
that keeps the cycle turning anew.
17.1 Radiating Focus

What we are doing, living moments as “another being,” is actu-
ally method acting. Method acting is the art of becoming the
character you are portraying. You aren’t just putting yourself, as you
are in day-to-day life, into a set of strange circumstances. This is
actually becoming the character you are portraying, through and
through, mind, body, and soul.
I don’t think anyone out there would dispute that the single best
source for studying method acting is the book written by Michael
Chekhov himself, To the Actor. There is no way I can come close to
putting in text the kind of guidance, the kind of experience Mr.
Chekhov has with teaching this kind of acting. I will, however, do
my best to present for you the things I have learned over my career
that have helped me the most. This chapter is in no way a replace-
ment for To the Actor. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you
read and study that text and its exercises. You will be surprised at
how much it will help you as an actor and animator, and how much
more enjoyment you may find in the simple, educated study of
experiencing life.
An animated character radiates his essence to the audience with
everything he does. We’ve explored how silhouette, gesture, and
arc of motion are all used to create this experience on the two-
dimensional plane of the screen. But how would you, personally,
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radiate? If you were to try to radiate your focus right now, how
would you do it? Being louder? Being more forceful? No. There are
many strong but gentle, shy characters who radiate their focus with-
out ever raising their voice or “bossing” another around.
This “radiating focus” is a little like the focus in the martial
arts. You project your mind, your being, and your essence into a
point and let that projection guide your actions. With your mind
leading, your body follows. And though your audience may not be
able to “see” this focus, they will be able to read what it is doing;
they will read it through every line of your body, with the very way
you interact with the space around you.
The first step in being able to produce something is to be able
to perceive it. These first exercises are designed to help you get
comfortable with focusing your awareness and using your percep-
tions to experience, create, and control your radiating focus.
Exercise 1
Sit in a relaxed position, either in a comfortable chair or cross-
legged on the ground. Rest your arms on your thighs so your palms
hang loosely, facing downward.
Start by listening to your breathing. Remember how it sounds
to hear someone breathing while they’re deeply asleep. Remember
how this sounds, the pattern of intake, pause, outflow, pause.
Remember how the breath sounds as it flows through the sleeper’s
trachea. In remembering the sounds, allow your own breathing to
fall into this rhythm.
Note:
This pattern of breathing is the “deep breathing” people talk
about in association with meditation. We’ve all heard this kind
of breathing, and we all seem to know instinctively what it
means. There is something in this manner of breathing that
kicks our mind into producing the brainwave patterns that come
with being either deeply asleep or in a deep meditative state.
And I find that having people reproduce the sound/feeling of
hearing someone else making this pattern of breathing (no, not
snoring — that doesn’t count) is the quickest way for the light-
bulb of understanding to go on, as it were.
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It may surprise you, even if you’re familiar with meditation, as

to how quickly this breathing technique lets you drop into the
“hum” of a meditative state. Your stress levels lower, your heart
rate slows, and you have access to a great deal more of yourself
than you do when you’re in “daily do mode.”
After about two or three minutes of listening to yourself
breathe as if asleep (without actually falling asleep), bring the atten-
tion of your mind to your hands. Allow your imagination to explore
your hands. Visualize the focus of your mind running along every
fold of every finger. Allow your imagination to touch the surface of
your palms, exploring the areas between your fingers, between your
forefinger and thumb, along the backs of your hands, and over your
fingernails. Imagine every detail, every crease and fold. Imagine the
temperature difference as your body warms the layer of air nearest
your skin.
Now, think about the surface of your palms, the inside surfaces
of your fingers again. With your eyes closed, you can imagine the
exact angles each of your fingers has in relationship to each other
and to your hand itself. This close, mental scrutiny draws your focus
to what you are exploring. You are focusing on your hands, how it
feels to have them, how it feels to be inside and around them.
Now I want you to concentrate on letting a bit of a light, gentle
tingling build within your hands. This may not happen right at first;
if not, imagine it to be there. Through your imagination and pre-
tending, you will allow yourself to make it real. Believe in it; trust
that it is there. It doesn’t have to exist for anyone but you, and you
are the only one who needs to know of its existence. By falling into
this imagination, exploring it without rush or hurry, you allow your-
self to believe in it; by allowing yourself to believe in it, it becomes
real. Perception defines reality. Focus on it; wrap the imagining of it
around you like a cloak. Allow yourself to drift into the sensation of
this tingling in your hands.
Now allow there to be warmth along with the light, soft tingling.
Let this warmth build slowly, but steadily. Allow it to radiate from
your hands as if they were glowing. This glow builds softly, slowly.
You can feel the warmth, the pressure of the warmth against your
legs where your hands are nearest them. Your hands warm the lay-
ers of air around them. The soft, gentle tingling increases as does
the glow of light from them, as does the warmth, building to a com-
fortable presence radiating from your hands.
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Let the sensations of this stay with you, gently letting them be.
Explore this radiating warmth, the soft, gentle tingling. When
you’re ready to come back to “normal awareness,” take a deeper
breath, holding it for just a moment, then letting it out. As you
exhale, let the warmth, the light, the soft, gentle tingling dissipate
from your hands. Flex your fingers gently, reaching, stretching, and
curling them slowly in a wave. When you feel comfortable, open
your eyes.
You have explored a meditative state in which you focused your
attention and your “energy” on your hands, and allowed this focus
to radiate from them. You have felt the effects of this radiating focus
as warmth, and perhaps even the light pressure of it against other
parts of you. With a little practice, you will be able to achieve this
point of radiating focus without having to go into a meditative state.
The radiating focus is the “clay” we will use to sculpt our
dreams and visions into a (almost) tangible reality that will directly
impact our work as actors/animators. This radiating focus shapes
the way in which we perceive and interact with our world. It can
also shape how others perceive us in person.
My first dramatic experience with someone using radiating
focus in this manner (outside of theater) was in a life drawing class
many years ago. We were drawing from a model who was absolutely
gorgeous; she was absolutely-take-your-breath-away drop-dead gor-
geous. The time came for her to take a break. Wrapped in a robe,
she seemed somehow more plain. I thought perhaps I had imagined
this incredible beauty. When she stepped onto the plinth again, I
watched as she, over the course of two seconds, seemed to trans-
form again into this goddess-like beauty. What had happened? When
she began to strike her pose, she had allowed her focus to radiate
with her visions of ideal form and beauty. Everyone in the class
noticed these transformations. Now, there are those who might say
that it was only how she used her body (her posture and carriage)
that made us perceive her as beautiful. I say there was more going
on than just the mechanics of how well she struck poses worthy of
the great masters. I say it was her “energy,” her radiating focus, her
complete belief in herself becoming this ideal, and allowing this
belief to so overflow the bounds of her physical vessel. In this
outflowing of belief, we too believed.
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Exercise 2
Now we are going to work with exploring the physical presence of
this radiating focus. Remember that though this may seem a lot like
mysticism, this is simply exploring the worlds of imagination that
we all knew and embraced when we were children. No one is watch-
ing to see if you’re “doing it right.” Success is measured only in
how much you can let go and play! (And if you just don’t feel like
you’re getting the results you think you should, pretend!)
Sit and relax again. Allow yourself to reach that strong, gentle
“hum” of the meditative state.
When you’re comfortable, bring your palms together in front of
you, almost touching, about 1/3" apart. Hold your elbows out from
your body; let your fingers form a flat extension of your palms.
Let your focus explore your hands again. Mentally, run your
imagination down the length of each finger, into the closed spaces
between them, along your palms, over the backs of your hands. Let
your mind hover in the space between your hands. Let this space
begin to build with the soft, gentle tingling you felt in the previous
exercise. Let this soft, gentle tingling build into a warmth that fills
the narrow space between your hands and fingers. Let this warmth
build, forming an almost tangible presence of its own.
As you explore this focus, feel it as an almost magnetic cushion
between your hands. This magnetic cushion not only keeps your
hands from touching, but also draws them back together when you
pull them apart. Explore the sensations, the pull as you separate
your hands minutely, the push as you bring them minutely closer
together. Explore this “surface tension” that exists between your
hands and the radiating focus you’ve created. You can feel where the
warm, soft surface of this essence exists — this place that draws
your hands into perfect equilibrium.
Then, let this radiating focus expand, slowly, putting pressure
on your hands to move apart. Let the focus grow, the warmth, the
soft, gentle tingling press your hands farther apart, coming to
another, comfortable space of equilibrium when they are about six
inches apart. Feel the surface tension again, and let your hands be
drawn back together, pulled with a power that extends beyond their
backs as you pull gently apart. Feel them pushed apart by this mag-
netic cushion that now radiates in the expanded space between your
palms and fingertips.
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Explore the sensations. Then let the space between your hands
narrow again. Take back into you the energy/focus you’ve used to
create the warmth, the soft, gentle tingling that exists between
them. Allow the space to close once again to about 1/3". Feel the
focus that once kept your hands in this cushioned equilibrium seep-
ing back through the palms of your hands, up your arms and into
your heart. Take the energy back into you, let its light fill you. And
when you have let the space between your hands resolve to being
about 1/3" again, explore the magnetic surface tension once more to
know you’re there. Gently push and pull your hands together and
apart, feeling the radiating focus draw them again into balance.
Then, when you are ready to come back to “normal” awareness,
open your fingers; let this field of softly tingling warmth envelop
your hands like a cloud. Let your hands drift apart and your fingers
bend slowly in a wave. Let the radiating focus dissolve softly back
into you. Take a deeper breath, hold it for a moment, then let it out,
and rest your hands at your sides. Feel your senses coming back to
a more “normal” kind of awareness, and when you feel ready, open
your eyes.
The focus we were exploring is something that need only exist
for you, within the space of your own mind. Even so, you can see
how it can have an almost physical effect on you. When you are
working with an older character (Yar, for example, in Walt Disney’s
Dinosaur), you don’t actually become old; you simply feel it, through
and through, so that every action, every thought, and every belief
you have is shaped by the radiating focus that exists within and
around you as that character. Using this technique, you can turn
around and jump onto a character who is as young as the other is old
(Suri, also from Dinosaur), and with a few minutes of focused medi-
tation, become the young girl as convincingly as you were the old
man. You do this through the use of the radiating focus to permeate
yourself with the character, inside and out.
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Exercise 3
Let’s do one more exercise with this radiating focus. With this one,
we’ll be exploring creating a focus, then letting it stand on its own
without our “physical” proximity.
Relax, and attain the deep, meditative state again. Focus on lis-
tening to your breathing, hearing it sound exactly like someone
else, deeply asleep. When you are ready, cup your hands together in
front of you as if holding a delicate moth: hands close but not actu-
ally touching.
Let the soft, gentle tingling fill your hands; let it fill the space
between them. Feel the almost physical presence of the tingling,
noticing when the tingling begins to build into a warmth that
caresses the insides of the curves of your palms and fingers. Let
this warmth continue to build, the soft, gentle tingling continue to
build. Let the sensations build. And as they do, through the imagery
of your mind, see a golden ball of light forming in the open space
between your hands.
This light is gold, bright, and comforting to “look” at. Allow
these sensations to push gently at the surfaces of your hands and
fingers, pressing them slowly apart. Let your hands spread as the
sphere of golden light presses them slowly, gently farther apart.
When the sphere reaches about 4" in diameter, allow it to build in
strength, maintaining its current size. Feel the sureness of its light,
the soft, golden warmth, the gentle, warm tingling of its surface
build definition and confidence.
Raise your hands slowly, keeping the golden sphere within
them. Raise the sphere up to your eye-level. Hold it there for a little
bit, continuing to visualize its presence within your hands. Then,
slowly, let your hands drop away, keeping your focus on the radiat-
ing, golden ball before your eyes. Allow your hands to drop to your
sides, your breathing to continue as if one deeply asleep, and the
sphere of golden light to hover in your mind before your eyes.
What to work for in this exercise is to maintain this radiating
focus for as long as you choose. It takes practice. At first, it may dis-
sipate or dissolve when you let your hands drop from its proximity.
Your mind may wander, or you may lose its focus. This is natural.
Practice this until you can keep the small sphere hovering before
you until you choose to dissipate it, or to take the energy back into
you.
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You are exercising the parts of your mind that allow you to
maintain a radiating focus while your thoughts are elsewhere. With
practice, you will be able to maintain your focus while drawing,
moving controls, or doing any of the other myriad tasks that present
themselves to the digital animator (waiting through computer
crashes, autosaves, network hiccups, or whatever).
Other explorations you can do with this particular exercise are
to work with other colored spheres: blue, green, silver, etc. You can
have multiple foci existing before you at once, each with a different
color, moving them with your hands and with your mind. Explore!
Play!
17.2 The Psychological Gesture

The psychological gesture is like a living gesture drawing. It is a ges-
ture drawing you assume with your body. It is one of the points in
Chekhov’s To the Actor that has the closest correlation to animation.
And like a thumbnail sketch or gesture drawing, it is more impor-
tant that it feels like the essence of your character than it looks like
him. The psychological gesture takes the idea, the essence, the one
main concept of our character, and distills that thought into a physi-
cal pose you take on with your own body.
Like with a drawn silhouette, this gesture must be strong, sim-
ple, and interesting. It has to have all the qualities of good
silhouette, even though you read it primarily with the feedback your
body gives you as to the relationship of its parts. Working with this
gesture before you animate, as you animate, holding the kinesthetic,
empathic understanding of it in your mind as you move controls will
have an amazing effect on the integrity of your work. You will create
stronger, more powerful, more convincing animations that radiate
with this essence of the character.
The psychological gesture is the distillation of all the attitudes,
plans, thoughts, experiences, wants, and wishes of this character,
drawn up into one physical pose. Why is it important for you to put
yourself into this pose? Because the logical, rational mind will only
take you so far. You are tapping into the kinesthetic, archetypal asso-
ciations of the mammalian experience. Just as you were able to
attain a meditative state by breathing as if one deeply asleep, there
are certain keys that unlock states within our bodies that even
though we might not understand them, their power is there
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nonetheless. They are like the fabled doors in the library at Alexan-
dria: archetypal, symbolic, keying deeply to essences within the
human experience.
Exercise 4
Imagine you’ll be working on someone like Maleficent, the evil fairy
from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. What is she? Who is she? How do
you define her as an essence? You don’t need to, at this point, delve
into all the experiences that made her how she is; all you need to
explore right now is how her primary impact on her world is, right
now, this moment, as you see/feel/experience her during her
performance.
Maleficent is a strong character, very strong. Her will is power-
ful and unbending. She is consumed with a desire to control and
dominate. She is filled with hatred and disgust; the world is unwor-
thy of what she has to give. Part of her appeal is in the power that
radiates from her elegance, how each movement is carefully
sculpted; nothing is left to chance.
Work with this essence. Use your own body as the loose initial
strokes of a gestural drawing. In every angle of your arms, head,
hands, legs, the shift of your weight capture the essence, the single,
defining crystallization of this character. Feel the strength, the
desire to dominate rising in your own carriage. You look down at
those around you; they are not worthy of your most worthless
thought. You command with your every gesture, yet you do not
need to exert physical strength for this to happen. The presence
and force of your will bends those around you, kings and paupers, to
your control. Through this, your poise, grace, elegance are seen,
felt, and tasted. Shape these feelings with your mind, feel them in
your heart, allow them to sculpt your body.
Your gesture needs to be strong and well-crafted. Engrossing,
encompassing the space around you, it chisels out of the very air
the essence of your desires, thoughts, and needs. You are a living
shorthand for the essence of this character. Repeat the gesture
again. Allow yourself to settle into it from a nondescript “idle” pose.
Allow the sculpting of your space to play a part of the gesture, the
“getting there,” a part of the idea itself. Repeat it again. Let the
strength of your will increase, the desire to rule, dominate, control,
the hatred, the disgust roiling within you, etching the breaths you
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take with acidic malice. Hold your poise as a weapon, capable

through it of unleashing the fury of a thousand hells. The feelings
seep, permeate your entire body, radiating outward from your
mind/body union.
Figure 17.1. Perhaps your psychological gesture for

Maleficent is something like this.
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Exercise 5
Now, if we took a look at Peter Pan, we’d see some things that con-
flict with the “traditional” image we have of him with his feet spread
wide, hands on his hips, and head thrown back.
Peter embraces much of the youthful joy of living, but he also
consciously, willfully turns away from things that are “adult.” These
scare him. Were he to even contemplate that “grown-up” things
would one day be a part of him, he would lose his powers. His abili-
ties come not so much from himself, but from others’ belief in him,
from Tinkerbell, from the Lost Boys. In this manner, it is also
Hook’s belief in their conflict that gives him strength. So, Peter’s
confidence comes not from himself, but from the beliefs of those
around him. He needs to portray enough of a mystique to keep
these beliefs going; he is actually very dependent upon them. Yet, at
the same time, he must keep everyone at arm’s length. They can’t
get too close; otherwise they might see him for what he is, a scared
little boy. To help effect this, he creates a personage that radiates a
kind of unattainable perfec-
tion; he is the Pan, no one
else can ever come close!
He is dependent upon the
energy of others, yet he
can’t look like he is; other-
wise they would have
power over him. This is a
delicate balance.
Figure 17.2. A psychological gesture for this idea of Peter

Pan.
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Exercise 6
There is a young girl in the film Angel’s Egg by Yoshitaka Amano.
(This is one of those films so rich in hypnotic symbolism that it
takes many viewings to gain an understanding of it. It is brilliant in
the fact that there is barely one page of dialogue in the entire film!)
The entire film could seem to stem from psychological adaptation to
trauma; it could be entirely her vision of a schizophrenic fugue.
The young girl keeps all the bizarre occurrences, happenings,
and visions that take place in the film distant from her. Memory
seems unimportant, as does a vision of a future. She is withdrawn
with no desire to come in contact with the world in which she lives.
This isolationism isn’t of weakness but of strength. She forces her
way through the film, protecting the treasure of this “angel’s egg.”
Figure 17.3. The young girl’s psychological gesture may be

like this, shutting out everything but that which is within
her and her scope.
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Exercise 7
Now, if we were to take someone gregarious, slightly hedonistic,
with a kind and generous heart but whose mind is easily side-
tracked, say, someone like Baloo from The Jungle Book, what kind of
psychological gesture would capture the essence of him?
Baloo lives in the moment. He is open to receiving all the plea-
sures this world has to give with abandon. He means well, but
sometimes his lack of foresight gets him into trouble. For him, the
world holds very few things to be wary of. He embraces every new
experience that holds the potential of enjoyment with the same kind
of rapture as those he already knows to be groovy.
He is firmly rooted in this world, strong with base Chakra
energy. You might spread your feet wide, grounding yourself and
your energy, strengthening your connection to the earth and earthly
things. He gives himself completely to the sensations of living,
holding nothing back, knowing no fear. There is a beat, a rhythm to
everything, and he can hear it. This beat moves everything he does
in step with the rhythm of his world!
Figure 17.4. A psychological gesture representing

Baloo might be something like this.
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Exercise 8
Now we’re going to look at a character with formidable power, but
due to a lack of belief in herself, she allows herself to be swayed
easily into fear. This character is Hitomi, from Escaflowne.
On Gaea, Hitomi finds that her “knack” for knowing the future
is much more potent, so much so that she eventually finds herself
shaping the reality around her with the force of her belief in what
will happen. These are seldom conscious thoughts, and she often
draws to herself “negative” experiences because she believes that
this is what she is “supposed” to have.
She has physical strength and agility as a track and long-jump
athlete, but she does not trust herself to be able to deal with what
her worlds may throw at her. She doesn’t exactly turn away from
adverse experiences, but often wishes they weren’t happening to
her and doesn’t confront them completely. She has a sense inside
her of her own power, but she is afraid to trust it. She explores ten-
tatively, touching but ready to draw her hand back at the slightest
hint of being “burned.”
Her one exception to
her trepidation is where
matters of her heart are
concerned, but this again
is born from a desire to
find someone to protect
her, so she doesn’t have
to protect herself.
Figure 17.5. A psychological gesture for Hitomi

might encompass something like this.
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By studying the gestures, by allowing yourself to slide into

them, you strengthen your connection with these archetypes as
they exist within you.
Note:
I like to think of each one of us as being like the shards of a
hologram. The image each one of us represents is the universe,
the ultimate all of everything there is. Goddess, God, Allah,
universe, etc. — this is the image, this is the hologram. If you
were to take a hologram and break it in two, each half of that
photographic plate would have the entire original image but
from its own unique viewpoint. Break it into a thousand pieces,
and you have a thousand complete representations of the origi-
nal whole, but a thousand slightly different points of view.
Within each of us is the understanding of everything there is,
but from our singular viewpoint. The wonderful thing about our
minds being as they are is that we can extrapolate from our
own solitary point of view and understand many, many others.
These archetypes exist within us all, balanced and blended,
particularized to become the us of everyday life. How we bal-
ance the archetypes as they represent facets of ourselves and
how we allow these facets to impact our world(s) defines us as
beings. The archetypes, what the psychological gestures repre-
sent and help us make tangible to ourselves, exist within us.
Understanding them (both the positives and the “negatives”) is
important, as actors, animators, and positive additions to this
world and the worlds we touch.
The psychological gestures I’ve illustrated here are by no

means “correct,” or even necessarily “on target” for anyone other
than me. They are right, for me, for my own point of view on exis-
tence. Try them on, allow yourself to don them from a “neutral”
position; see how the gesture affects your own psychology as you
draw nearer and nearer to the pose. How does the pose itself make
you feel when you reach it? How does it feel to hold the pose? What
are the differences you feel between successive repetitions of the
poses?
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Explore what you know of these characters to hone this psycho-

logical gesture to what you know to be true for how you see them. If
you’re unfamiliar with a particular character, go on the description
I’ve included to craft something that you feel is a kinesthetic repre-
sentation of that idea — simple, strong, interesting, powerful. Let
the focus of the character swirl around you in an almost tangible
mist. Your confidence in the “rightness” of the pose is your power.
Note:
There’s a wonderful thing about high-energy physics. And that
is the acknowledgment that the act of observing an event alters
it. This is why Heisenberg laid out his “uncertainty principle,”
which says that you cannot simultaneously know both an
object’s position and momentum. You can see this if, instead of
using photons to measure the position of a hot-dog cart, you
were to use a ’67 Camero to figure out where the hot-dog cart
had been. Because of this, one can extrapolate this to mean
that we each measure things slightly differently; even two peo-
ple standing side by side experience the same event slightly
differently. Both are correct, but both are unique. This holds
true with our perceptions of beings as well. To me, Simba (to
pick someone most of us are familiar with) is quite different
from the Simba that you know. We’re both right, and both very
different. (Just as no two of your friends have the same impres-
sion of who you are.)
Note:
“Perspective” is the illusion created when you see
things from only a single point of view.
Now, how do you apply this “psychological gesture” stuff to

actual, practical use in a production you may be working on?
The wonderful thing about animation is that chances are you
have more than just a collection of lexical symbols representing the
idea of a character to work from (a script). You have character model
sheets, pose sheets, storyboards, dialogue tracks, and probably
video reference footage from the voice actor as he recorded the dia-
logue. This is a blessing that stage actors (and the folks whose job is
to create these first passes at the characters’ identities) don’t have.
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When you are analyzing anything creative — a script, a painting,

a piece of animation — you have basically two separate directions
you can take. Both directions start from the same point, the point of
you interacting with this creative essence, and from there, they
attempt to form an opinion on what it is that is being experienced.
You have your logical, analytical, cerebral mind you can throw at the
task, or you can use your empathic, intuitive, emotional side.
I’m not going to knock using your intellect to penetrate the lay-
ers of a creative experience. It can be a useful tool, but I am going to
suggest saving “left brain” tasks for after your “right brain” has had
its full shot at the matter. Someone’s right brain, after all, had the
directorial role in the manifestation of any creative experience.
Using your empathic, intuitive, emotional right brain, you will be
“speaking the same language” as the creator of the work, as he was
deeply steeped in the process of creation. There are volumes of
information that can be transferred in a moment through right brain
centers. Allowing yourself to experience a piece as you would a psy-
chological gesture, mentally wrapping the experience of the work
around you, letting it penetrate through you, you are instantly and
intuitively, kinesthetically, and empathically aware of everything
from the pivotal to the trivial within the piece.
By using only your analytical mind (your left brain), you reduce
emotion, sensation, and intuition to concepts. You blunt their edges
so the impact is far less than it is with a more emotive experience.
Using only the left brain to experience a creative work, you can far
too easily drain it of warmth, feeling, and passion.
Note:
“The more your mind knows about a character, the
less you are able to perform it.”
— Michael Chekhov
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It is only through a blending, a balancing of both left and right

brain functions, allowing each to do what it does best, taking turns
at the proper time, that you can fully assimilate a creative work.
After you are full of feelings, after the right brain has flooded you
with the indescribable, your left brain must sift through the infor-
mation, classifying it and aligning it with things you’ve already
experienced, emotional states you already understand and can cre-
ate with your own work. By letting the two halves of your mind
work together, each doing what it does best and when it can do its
best, you are beginning to unlock undreamed-of potential within the
human mind.
Note:
The secret to life drawing isn’t in drawing exactly what you see;
it is in learning to draw your own imaginary model so well that
you can instantly identify how the “real” model deviates from
what you know.
This is why I have stressed throughout this book (when talking

about the creative issues) to go by “feel.” Does this or that have the
“feel” it did when you imagined it, when you lived it, when you held
the character’s psychological gesture pose? Going by your “gut,”
you will be able to look at something and though you may not know
why it doesn’t quite “feel right,” you know that you have to make
another visitation at that part. You might not know exactly what it is
you have to do to make it “right,” but in trusting your intuition
(right brain) and knowing how you achieved certain results before
(left brain), you will almost always arrive at this point of “perfec-
tion” light-years ahead of trying to use only logic to solve the same
problem.
Using every asset at your disposal, every technique you know,
understand, and have internalized, approach your creative issues as
first “gut feelings,” then holding that feeling close, not letting it fal-
ter or disintegrate, turn your analytical mind loose on the task of
using your tools to recreate that gut feeling within the medium at
hand. Your right brain provides a road map, your left brain provides
the means to get there. And this is why you need to internalize the
tools and techniques so well that you can forget them. You need to
trust your left brain implicitly to know how to take you there. You
don’t want to get in its way as it’s doing its job — you’ll just slow it
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down! Allow your left brain the luxury of using every trick, ability,
and skill you can give it. You and your right brain will just be along
for the ride, getting there with as much enjoyment and ease as you
can.
So, with the materials given to you — the storyboards, the dia-
logue tracks, the script, the pose sheets, the test animations —
allow yourself to craft a psychological gesture for the character. You
don’t need to be “right”; this is just a jumping-off point. (And
besides, the only person who can say whether your psychological
gesture is “right” is you — even the director can only make sugges-
tions or improvements; he is also just another point of view on this
tool you will use to create a final product.) Try the character on.
Your right brain will know if the psychological gesture fits or not.
Your intuition will tell you if one part of your gesture rings true,
while the rest needs to be shifted.
Ask yourself what the main, focusing thread of the character is.
Even if all you get is a vague inclination from this question, give it a
go. You may only get a feeling for a part of the gesture, say for a
hand or an arm, the cant of your pelvis, the shifting of your weight.
Let this lead you onward, let it help sculpt the rest of your body. For
a character who seeks interaction with his environment, you feel
that at least one arm needs to be thrust outward. Adjust it until it
rings true. Palms open, facing upward to receive inspiration from
the Divine, perhaps facing outward as if to ward off a blow. Cup your
hands together as if asking for alms. Gnarl them to fearful, evil
claws, grasping at power you cravenly desire.
Just getting one part of your body to resonate with the charac-
ter’s psychological gesture will continue to lead you onward, each
part falling into place almost without thought. You will know when
your gesture is there. The pose itself will lead you. You can build on
a psychological gesture for another character you already know to
have power. You can build the power within you by reaching a pose
you know you can settle into with comfort and ease, building your
focus, letting it radiate from you. Then you can use this energy to
sculpt what you intuit of the character into an archetype of form and
gesture.
Drop the pose, shake it off, then assume it again. Each time,
make small adjustments as the feelings come to you, honing it,
sharpening its focus closer and closer to the ideal represented by
the character. By honing the psychological gesture, exploring,
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adjusting, perfecting, you are allowing the energies that focus

within this character to move also through you. You are
becoming the character yourself!
The psychological gesture, by the very nature of its archetypal
symbolism, resonates with key parts of your own being, unlocking
and opening pathways within you. You feel the character begin to
stir and awaken within you as feelings and understandings that are
not your “normal, day-to-day” self. You begin to know how this
character would hold his hand, head, or torso, you begin to know
what this character’s timings and responses would be. You know
this because you feel this essence moving within you. You can look
at a keyframe you’ve done and know in an instant whether it fits
with the essence that this psychological gesture holds.
There is such information within the psychological gesture, this
single, intuited pose because your own body is moved, through and
through, by the condensed energy of the character. His core, his
most primal motivating goals and ideals, his experience is now
yours. The information contained within a single, psychological ges-
ture could take a thousand books to explain the hows and whys of a
character. Yet, you know it, through and through. You know it
because while you exist with the psychological character, you are
one with the character’s soul.
This is a key difference between the “left brain” and the “right
brain.” The left brain is the mind that likes to cubbyhole things into
nice, orderly arrays. It is almost entirely responsible for us being
able to encapsulate information and knowledge so that it doesn’t
need another living being there to propagate it; it is responsible for
writing. Left brain information changes little from observer to
observer. The left brain is the key to standing on the shoulders of
giants when those giants are no longer there to help us.
Right brain is the mind of intuition, of “knowing,” of “feeling,”
of “intuiting.” Its realm is much more volatile. When right brain
stimulus isn’t there, right brain experience dissipates, like smoke in
the wind, leaving (usually) only a left brain symbol of the memory of
the experience. Music, with its ability to convey emotion and, at its
best, information across language and cultural barriers, slips like a
mist through the fingers of your mind after the last echoes have
played themselves out (unless you have trained your mind to
“replay” this kind of information — something anyone can do with
practice). A painting, deep and visceral, moving you as no other
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work you’ve seen ever has; how does it look when you turn away
from it? You may be able to remember bits and pieces of it, or
remember symbols of it. (He was holding a bronze plate of smolder-
ing herbs — I think there was a fan of raven-wing feathers in his
other hand.) But the instant knowing, the emotional, empathic, per-
haps even “telepathic” conduit of bidirectional informational flow is
reduced to the memory of echoes when the experience of the right
brain stimulus is gone.
A balance of both left and right brain is required as an animator.
(And I think working to attain and maintain a balance of left and
right brain functionality will serve you best as you move through
life.) You can train yourself, you can hone the areas of your mind if
you feel you are lacking in one or the other. Classes on symbolism
and myth, the works of Joseph Campbell, and Eastern works of art
can all help strengthen both your left and right brain, and the con-
nection between them (the corpus colossum).
Your mind will give you what you ask of it. You can increase the
aptitude of a lesser-used half of your brain. And you can increase the
flow of information across the corpus colossum (and women, medi-
cally, seem to have a higher initial capacity for throughput). If you
ask of your mind, it will be given. Our brains physically restructure
themselves every single moment! Sound far-fetched? Consider that
memory is stored physically, in the shape of synaptic connections!
If you feel you need help with right brain work, play short clips
of a symphony or other musical work, and focus on replaying what
you heard in your mind. Not just “remembering” but actually hear-
ing it again in your mind, in its entirety. Practice hearing just the
oboe or just the second violin, both as you replay it and as you listen
with your ears. Practicing with the radiating focus is another way to
increase your powers of experiential cognition. Imagine seeing the
room in which you sit from another point of view, another vantage
point, with or without your eyes open. Imagine what it would look
like to be flying around your room, your house, or your yard. These
are wonderful, quiet ways of honing your right mind and helping to
strengthen its bridge to your left. And of course, studying painting
(alla prima, “all at once,” painting seems to have the strongest
impact on training the right mind), acting, dance, music, any other
“art” you can find enjoyable to study is only going to help you on
your journey.
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Can you have individual psychological gestures for certain

scenes, bits of dialogue, or action? Certainly! They must all be
refinements, dissertations, or explorations of the primary, core psy-
chological gesture. Even for Cruella DeVille (101 Dalmatians), as
close to bordering on “split personality disorder” as she is, each of
the psychological gestures that represent her mood swings are still
parts of her core psychological gesture. Her personality turns on a
dime when she finds Perdita’s puppies to be without spots, then
again when she finds out that they will eventually become spotted.
In each section of this sequence, she is completely within a different
psychological gesture, but each one is an aspect of the core of who
she is.
The shifts between scene- or sentence-based psychological ges-
tures need not be as drastic as with Cruella. Subtle shifts show the
character as he evolves and changes. And in order for a character to
live, we need to see him evolve and grow. The things he experi-
ences must have an impact on him that shifts him from where he
was to where he will be. As with ourselves, a character’s “present”
is an ever-shifting conduit from his future to his past. I believe this
is why Shan-Yu from Mulan was such a two-dimensional character.
He looked the part of a villain, often he moved as one, and his dia-
logue was executed with believability, but very little was done to
show any evolution within his character. He remains much the same
at the end of the film as he began. This is boring to an audience, and
unbelievable in storytelling.
The best kind of progression for a character to make through a
story can be seen as a “spiral.” This is the mythic mode of storytell-
ing. The masculine mode of storytelling can be illustrated as a
straight line, forever marching forward, never looking back, never
revisiting the same position as was once held. The feminine mode of
storytelling can be seen more as a circle. This is the kind of evolu-
tion that leaves the character right back where he was where he
began, following the same path. (“Masculine” and “feminine” are
only classifications of different modes of storytelling structure; this
is not meant to be derogatory to masculine or feminine energy in
any way.)
A mythic type of storytelling (or character evolution) is one that
combines both masculine and feminine modes. The character
“comes full circle” (perhaps two or three times within a story), yet
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at each revolution, he has progressed along a path and is not quite

where he was when he began.
A key to the old mystery schools (even within the foundations
of Judaism and Christianity) is to use storytelling to effect change
within the audience. This is done by connecting with and then alter-
ing the mental focus of the audience. This is done through
symbolism that leads the audience along paths that connect with
patterns of archetypal levels within them. Archetypal levels are
emotional states that are common to all, hard-wired into the fabric
of our psyche.
Figure 17.6. A visual representation of the “masculine,” “feminine,” and “mythic”

modes of storytelling.
Note:
Archetypal levels can be associated with the different Chakra
points (energy centers) within certain aspects of Eastern philoso-
phy (the Kundalini), from the “root” or Sacral Chakra represent-
ing grounded, earthly energies to the Crown Chakra representing
the OverSoul, the connection with the Divine. A character’s
mythic evolution can be traced as his focus moves through each
one of these archetypal foci: Crown, “Third Eye,” Throat, Heart,
Solar Plexus, Stomach, and Sacrum. Each of these represents an
archetypal, psychological/emotional state of being.
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Exposure to certain symbols actually causes chemical changes

within the brain. (Though it may seem far-fetched, there are
thoughts that are equivalent to a form; the reverse is also true.) The
symbols that affect this kind of change upon us are archetypical sym-
bols. This does not mean that these symbols are ancient, from times
long ago and places long-forgotten. Archetypical symbols can be any
symbol that has a strong and moving impact on the audience, an
impact that is common regardless of the boundaries of language or
culture.
In a mythic story, where the characters evolve along a spiral
path, each “turn” finds them learning new things, not just remem-
bering what they had once known but actually progressing forward,
building new elements within their psyche. The symbology that
incorporating Chakra centers represents is a wonderful overview to
make sure that your characters are indeed evolving, and evolving
archetypically (though any kind of association with archetypal traits
will do, Eastern or Western). When you can see your characters
moving from one focus to another, fitting more completely in a new
archetypal state than the one they recently held, you know that the
symbology the being of your character is exuding has evolved
archetypically. Knowing this, you also know that you are making a
deep and direct impact on your audience!
Note:
Symbols need not be a single, static image or shape. Symbols
encompass ideas, essences, emotion, and experience; they are
metaphor. Symbols can exist within any medium we can
perceive!
The fact that symbols have actual chemical effects on the brain
is why we spend so much time analyzing silhouettes (symbols)
within our animation. It is why we work so hard to capture the
essence of an idea or form in a series of drawings that combine to
create motion. It is also why the best animators and actors are able
to move us so deeply with the performances of their characters.
They are not simply representing an occurrence, a happening; they
are encompassing an archetype, carefully sculpted so the modern
audience feels the subtle complexity of a living being, that is in
essence himself, a subtly shifting, ever-flowing archetype.
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This is the magic. This is why you and I have found such a pull
toward animation that we have been drawn to becoming animators.
This is why we must give this gift of experiencing a beautifully
woven, powerfully moving story, with characters alive with arche-
typal ideals of mythic storytelling to others.
Acting, storytelling, animation — they are something more than
“real life.” Real-life gestures, actions, and thoughts don’t have the
power, the ability to stir us to our cores. They don’t have the arche-
typal essences to move us into elemental states of being. “Real-life”
gestures are too insubstantial, too weak, too splayed, or too specific.
They do not fill our body and soul; our focus is elsewhere while we
go through the motions of daily life. Archetypes and psychological
gestures fill you entirely with their focus, body and soul.
The best acting is a subtle blending of archetype and everyday.
Just as in every good drawing there is an element of caricature,
within even the most “realistic” animation, there is archetype, there
is mythic nature and structure, to move the audience, carry them
along into “learning states,” where they are receptive to the story
you have to tell. Just as a mythic character would seem drastically
out of place in the corner diner, a character who is only “real-life”
gestures and motions would be hopelessly lost within good acting,
within good animation, and within good storytelling.
Back to creating and working with psychological gestures.
Though the feeling from the psychological gesture should be strong,
full of power, stirring the soul, and honing the will, it should not
encompass unnecessary tension. The crooked hands of a hag are
clawlike from flexers and extensers battling with each other; a
mother’s embrace of her newborn is no less powerful, but done with
the delicacy of a summer breeze. Power and strength come from
focus, letting your focus radiate from within you, not from exertion
of your muscles.
Just as in Exercise 6, the Angel’s Egg girl’s gesture and silhou-
ette are not weak; they radiate with power and emotion. Concepts
of softness, gentleness, laziness, or tiredness do nothing to reduce
the strength of the psychological gesture; it is an aspect of it, but its
power is still without question.
And just as the silhouettes we evaluate in animation are
critiqued, so are the psychological gestures! They must be simple,
as understandable as possible, able to be grasped in a split second,
and without the need of the analytical mind kicking in for even a
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moment. There should be nothing vague whatsoever about the

pose. Psychological gestures also have to be interesting; they
have to hold your attention. (If you are bored, your audience will be
bored as well!) Use large, broad strokes, with fine detail in which to
delve, leading the eye, leading the heart of the holder. Layer upon
layer, the information within is almost fractal in its simplicity. There
must always be something more.
As you work with psychological gestures, experiment with tim-
ing and tempo. The tempos of animated characters are as varied as
Droopy and Woody Woodpecker; the tempos of your psychological
gestures should be just as varied.
The tempos of the gestures in Figures 17.2 and 17.3 vary
greatly. Tempo can be achieved in many ways, from the speed with
which you assume the pose to the carriage of the pose itself (as in
Figures 17.2 and 17.3).
A character’s evolution can sometimes be shown just through
simple changes in tempo, preserving the same essence of the psy-
chological gesture. A change in tempo can also completely redefine
a psychological gesture. If you assume the pose of Figure 17.1,
slowly, deliberately, with great care in the arcs that resolve them-
selves into the gesture, the pose feels very much like Maleficent:
elegant, plotting, patient, brilliant, and self-controlled. If you were to
assume that pose quickly, in a flash, the pose might feel more like
the first encounters with Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
Changes in tempo can show the progression of thought, the
interaction of external stimuli, and the evolution of the character.
Understanding tempo through experimentation and feeling its
effects on your own psyche as you take on and work with psycho-
logical gestures allows you to use this powerful acting tool with
subtlety and strength.
Using a different tempo for the character’s inner thoughts and
his outward actions can be a powerful tool for creating depth within
a character. The character’s actions may be slow, well-thought out,
planned, and carefully executed, leaving not a nuance to chance. But
his thoughts may move at lightning speed, formulating, testing, cal-
culating, reassessing. Mandible from Antz is one such character.
Gene Hackman’s voice work suggested many instances where a
myriad of possible things to say flashed through Mandible’s mind as
he searched for the words that would best further his desires. The
animators brilliantly took this dialogue and worked in subtle pauses
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showing this train of thought, the differences between his inward

and outward tempos. All the while, they preserved Mandible’s con-
nection to his psychological gesture (which might be similar to
Maleficent’s in Figure 17.1).
A quick outer tempo and a slow inner tempo can do much more
than imply a “fast talker” covering for his lack of inner “oomph.”
This contrast can imply the practiced skill of an outright master.
And this mastery doesn’t have to be over something like swords-
manship; it can be something as mundane as shipping parcels.
Practice allows the body to go on “autopilot,” running quickly
through familiar tasks as the mind relaxes.
How can you show these combinations, these contrasts? Our
physical bodies can reach limits of what they are technically capable
of showing. How do you let these subtleties read through? You do
this by bringing into play techniques of the radiating focus.
When you’ve “entered” a psychological gesture, and your body
has given you all it can give in terms of rotations and translations,
don’t just let it drop. Hold it for another ten to fifteen seconds. And
as you hold it, plus it with your mind! You’ve reached a point where
moving a hand or an arm isn’t going to increase the strength of the
gesture, so let the force of your presence that fills you seep beyond
the physical bounds of your body, enveloping and sculpting the
Note:
When you finish with an experience such as combining radiating focus
and psychological gesture, remember to take a moment to let the focus
dissipate, to “take the energy back into you,” or to reconnect with the
centers of your own essence. This is as important as the gesture itself. It
helps to outline a path to return to the gesture, and to yourself. C.S.
Lewis remarked that the writing of The Screwtape Letters was one of the
most unnerving things he had ever done; he had to become this crea-
ture jockeying to tip one man’s soul toward evil. You have to give
yourself a path back to yourself, as it were. (Archetypal symbols will cre-
ate changes within you, just as they do within your audience. Some of
these you may be thankful for; others you may wish to shed.) Method
acting is a potent tool for creating the most powerful of performances;
used properly, it can also help you to know yourself, and it can help with
your own personal, emotional, and spiritual evolution. We can experi-
ence “challenging” lives as if they were our own, and then come back to
the “safety” of our own, quiet existences. And by learning to appreciate
who you are, with respect to another spirit you’ve known as well as your
own, you not only know the character more deeply, but yourself as well.
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space around you. Use the techniques we worked on in practicing

the radiating focus to fill yourself with the essence, the energy, the
archetypal focus of this gesture. Feel the essence of this pose within
you, filling every corner of your mind’s impression of your body;
instead of a “sphere” of focus, your entire body is your focus, what
your body represents is your focus, and it cannot be bounded by
simple things like flesh. Allow it to radiate out from you, to fill the
space around you with the very pressure of the gesture itself!
Exercise 9
Subtle changes within the form of a psychological gesture can com-
pletely alter its emotional keys within you, even inverting them
entirely.
Take on the pose in Figure 17.7. As you go from your “rest”
position to the gesture, say, “I wish to be left alone.” Allow the sen-
sations of calmness, of a
certainty that you know
what you want and that it
is within your rights to
ask for it to permeate
your essence. Allow this
to radiate through both
your voice and your ges-
ture. Repeat this until
you feel a union with the
essence you are working
toward, your voice and
your body. Everything
should be an extension of
the primary core of calm-
ness, a gentle but firm
strength of will to close
one’s self off from one’s
current environment.
Figure 17.7. A simple gesture suggesting calmness

and closing one’s self off.
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Now, repeat the gesture, but this time, resolve it with your head
tilted downward. What effect does this small change have on your
feelings? Did it make you feel more stubborn, more insisting?
These feelings should be added to the base you’ve already achieved.
Repeat the gesture a few more times until these new colorings fill
your psyche, your voice, and your body.
Now to alter the feeling entirely. Resolve the gesture with your
palms turned to face outward and your head thrown back, tilting it
to one side, your eyes closed. Now the pose radiates pleading, vul-
nerability; the trauma of an attack. Tears may well up, your voice
may falter as you beg your perpetrator to leave you alone.
Explore different, small changes to this gesture (any we have
gone through already or one of your own creation). What we are
doing is building a sensitivity to the subtlety minute change can
evoke. The more subtle the changes you explore, the greater depth
of sensitivity you will find within yourself.
Subtlety and sensitivity are tools that will help you attain mas-
tery. What you are working toward is to have a unity between your
psyche, body, and speech. As you work with these and similar tech-
niques, the definition between these elements will begin to blur. You
will eventually be able to say with confidence that your body and
speech, the poses that come through you are tangible representa-
tions of your soul.
The psychological gesture is a tool for yourself and your direc-
tor only. It is not something to be shared with the “uninitiated”
public. Like unfinished animation or rough thumbnail drawings, the
psychological gesture requires a complete understanding in order to
comprehend and appreciate it.
The psychological gesture is something that you “hold” with
you as you draw, as you manipulate controls, as you examine your
work for purity and truth to what you know to be the character. Your
character will (most likely) never assume the psychological gesture
on screen. The psychological gesture is an archetypal symbol, kin-
esthetically, empathically, and visually; and it is for you and you
alone. It retains holographically all the information you know about
the character. You can go to it mentally, emotionally, physically, ver-
bally, any time you need to create, review, or revise. It is your tool
through which you will do great works; keep it safe, and use it well.
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17.3 Characterization
Character and characterizations are not the same thing. A character-
ization is a little thing you develop to personalize the character and
help define him. This may be fumbling with his clothing, folding or
hiding his hands, scratching an ear. These are little symbols that the
audience comes to identify with your character.
Characterizations are “finishing touches,” and can endear an
audience to the character. The viewers can begin to expect, antici-
pate, and look for these personal features whenever your character
is on-screen. They are symbols in and of themselves that serve to
reinforce the character as a whole.
Someone being officious and trying to exert his presence within
his surroundings could habitually rearrange the items around him,
aligning them to right angles to the desks and shelves on which
they sit. You could even build in a gag with this as the person with
whom he must interact purposefully sets something askew again to
assert his own dominance (especially if it is his space). If the pedan-
tic character is subordinate, you can run a gag showing his resolve
weakening as he fights with the desire to set the newly askew
knickknack straight.
Someone who doesn’t like to be around others could push items
within their reach away from them. A dominant, intimidating person
may have developed an unconscious habit of shaking his head “No”
as if to interrupt the speaker. Someone who is shy may continuously
glance away from someone interacting with him, at the ceiling or
floor or at objects just beyond the other character.
Imagine and play! Rewatch old favorite films and try to catch
the characterizations the great actors and animators bestowed upon
their characters. But as you watch, build within yourself the intu-
ition of what you yourself would do as that character.
Note:
“The ability to observe becomes more acute when
you know exactly what you are looking for.”
— Michael Chekhov
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17.4 Character
One of the most enjoyable and creative techniques for developing
your character is something I was taught long ago in a college
course on directing. It is a technique that blends everything in this
chapter into a single powerful tool.
What is this tool? It is a technique Chekhov calls “the Imagi-
nary Body.”
The wonderful thing about learning this tool in a collegiate set-
ting was that it lent validity to “flights of fancy” I had enjoyed since
I was very young! No longer was I guilty of “daydreaming,” “wast-
ing time,” “lollygagging,” or being generally irresponsible. No, this
was work! This was dedication to my craft, to my Art (with a capital
“A”). This was my responsibility, what I needed to do in order to
become the best animator/actor/director/writer I could be!
What using the technique of the Imaginary Body does for an
actor is that it alters what you perceive through your body, and what
others perceive of your body. Your physical body radiates with the
essence of another, and its senses are filtered through this Imagi-
nary Body. It can alter the way a thin actor carries himself to
convince the audience beyond all doubt that he is indeed corpulent,
and without the addition of prosthetic make-up! It is how a young
actor can convincingly play someone aged, a male can convincingly
play someone female, and how someone wise can play an imbecile,
or vice versa!
What this means for an animator is that we begin to know and
understand the character to a degree not possible any other way. We
have lived as the character. We understand the intricacies of his
being, his littlest habits and his grandest dreams, because we have
become them, walked miles not just in their shoes but with their
entire body! With this technique, there is no grasping as to what a
character will do when you’re handed a sequence to work on; you
know, because you have been them, and when the need arises, you
are them again.
Allow your mind and body to relax. Then, letting the creative
powers of your mind radiate outward from your body, using the
techniques of the radiating focus, and helped by an understanding of
the psychological gesture, “clothe” yourself in an Imaginary Body
that is the character. (You know what this character looks like; you
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have model sheets, pose sheets, CG models, and pre-production

art.)
Within the same space as your own “physical” body occupies,
you use your radiating focus to create the body you know to be your
character. This body exists between your real body and your spirit.
It touches your soul, as it moves your body. You begin to think as he
does, to experience the world as he does, to move, to speak, and to
evolve as he does. It changes your whole being, both psychically
and psychologically. It transforms you entirely into this other being.
As you build this Imaginary Body, don’t rush into moving
around in it too quickly. Sit or stand quietly, becoming comfortable
with the sensations of feeling with another’s hands, of seeing
through another’s eyes, of breathing through another’s nose. Let it
become comfortable and natural to you. When you do begin to get
up and move around, trust this Invisible Body to guide your move-
ments. Trust it implicitly; don’t try to sculpt it into the performance
you might be expecting. Allow it to reveal bits and pieces of the
character you may be as yet unaware of.
Let the character be your guide. Don’t force things or try to
overexaggerate things. Just let the experiences flow naturally
around and through you. Only when you feel completely comfort-
able in this Imaginary Body should you rehearse the lines of your
sequence.
To rehearse in this manner, as an animator, you can imagine the
lines your character says, or you can let your dialogue track loop as
you act out the scene. (Be sure to have the loop padded with silence
at the head and tail so you can reposition yourself and analyze what
you just did as the character!)
Note:
Some people have suggested venturing into public with this
Imaginary Body as a means of exploring the character. I would
caution against this. You have to look out for your own physical
safety (say, if you’re riding a public bus as a loud and boisterous
character, and you are not naturally loud or boisterous), and
the safety of the character himself. Any “emotional wounds” he
may receive that aren’t congruent with the story he must live
may leave “emotional scar tissue” that could make it difficult for
you to effectively play certain scenes.
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In addition to the Imaginary Body, you can use the tools of radi-
ating focus to help hone the character.
You can place (and maintain) your glowing, radiating focus in
any of the archetypal centers (Chakras) to heighten the aspect of
your character that they represent.
As your character evolves from one archetypal level to another,
visualizing the radiating focus moving from one archetypal center to
another will help lead you to experiencing that change yourself! And
in experiencing it, you are more capable of portraying it through
your art!
Moving your radiating focus from your heart to your head
moves you from emotional to cognitive centers. Moving it to your
crown enhances the connection with the Divine.
You can also play with foci outside the body as well. If you were
to be animating a meddlesome, prying character, you could envision
a tiny, hard focus just beyond the tip of your nose. Moving a focus to
a few feet out in front of your eyes can enhance a sense of a keen,
penetrating character.
If you have to play an absent-minded character, moving the
focus quickly, just beyond his “mental reach,” can effect a feeling of
dishevelment. If you are asked to animate someone who is drunk,
letting the focus wander aimlessly through his body will give you a
convincing performance.
As the focus works through your own bodies (physical and
imaginary), so it should work through your character’s model as you
animate. No one else need ever know where his focus is or of what
kind, but you should know. You should know and feel this, beyond
any doubt, as you watch your poses take shape before you, and as
you watch the final scene play before you. You should feel your own
memories of how the focus felt within you resonating in sympa-
thetic vibration with what you see in your character’s performance.
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17.5 The Animator’s Trust

These are only a few of the tools open and available to you. Perhaps
I may be placing too much weight on what we do, but I feel that
there is a huge trust placed within animators and other dreamers of
this world. We have been given the responsibility to shape the
visions and dreams of those out there, young and old. It is a place of
honor. It is a position of responsibility.
I’ve always felt that we as animators should do everything
within our power to create the best, most moving, thought-provok-
ing, memorable, evolutionary, and powerful experiences for those
who seek to be enveloped by the worlds we create, again and again.
Not only does every new step to becoming a better animator make
what you do more enjoyable and fulfilling, it makes your work more
alive, more real (to both you and the audience). Study as much as
you can, study everything you think might be interesting; it can
only add to your well of experience. Do everything you can to fall
head-over-heels in love with this beautiful, wonderful honor and gift
we are given, this gift which we in turn give back to the world!
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Chapter 18
Advanced Animation
Tools
Back when I was in art school, one assignment had us doing an 18" x
24" rendering entirely by stippling (making tiny dots) with a
fine-point technical pen. It took most people about two weeks, and
the only reason most of us actually completed this assignment was
that our final grade depended on our having done so.
What a pedantic pain in the posterior!
But I tell you what, after that exercise, when we could again
reach for that blessedly wide piece of charcoal or conté crayon to
quickly lay in our shading, we had a newfound respect for the clarity
and precision we were seeking in our renderings.
Let me be blunt. These new animation tools are fantastic time-
savers, and they reduce the precision of mental focus required to pro-
duce quality results.
Basically, they allow/encourage you to be sloppy.
So, there you go. You’ve been forewarned.
Using these tools, you’ll be able to double, triple, even quadruple
your output for the same amount of effort you expend in creating
your animations. And, I strongly suggest, that like all the top anima-
tors in the field, you make a commitment to yourself and your skills
to continually revisit the basics of animation every year or so.
Revisit the basics without any of these timesaving tools to hone
your focus of mind.
The quality of your mental focus will allow you to know your tar-
get, and then hit your target without the “hunt-and-peck” method
that these powerful, effective advanced animation tools can allow.
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Chapter 18: Advanced Animation Tools
Note:
Going in-depth on all the ins and outs of these advanced ani-
mation tools could be a book itself! I’m going to give you a taste
of how these tools can be used here (how I’ve used these tools
in a production environment). If you like what you see, use the
problem-solving skills you’ve developed. Dive into LightWave’s
searchable, HTML help documentation to find all the gory
details of these “super-mega-ultra-” powerful tools!
18.1 Dope Sheet

For years, the exposure sheet (X-sheet) has been the trusted com-
panion to the animator. By using a stopwatch, making quick, easily
adjusted notations on this “animator’s spreadsheet,” and previsuali-
zing the scene before any labor-intense work is done, it allowed the
animator to know his target, and then bring his skills to bear in hit-
ting that target.
Thanks to animators all over the world calling repeatedly for a
digital equivalent to this invaluable tool, the programmers of our 3D
tools have now given us something far more powerful than any tra-
ditional animator ever knew. In LightWave, it’s called the Dope
Sheet.
Figure 18.1. Laid out horizontally (as opposed to the vertical layout of a
traditional animator’s X-sheet) we’ll only be exploring the combination of
the Items and Dope Sheet tabs. There’s an incredible amount of power
within this seemingly simple interface. (Check out the LW documentation to
find out how you can modify nearly every aspect of your scenes, objects,
lights, cameras, and even surfaces through this powerful tool.)
384
Note:
The beauty of working with the Dope Sheet is that you can
quickly and easily lay in poses, and then slide those poses
around until you get the timing you want. (Animation consists of
posing and timing; this means that one aspect of animation can
practically take care of itself.)
The danger of working with the Dope Sheet is that it doesn’t
require you to have as clear a pre-vision before actually starting
your animation. While it is the end results that really matter, I
strongly feel that developing and maintaining the skills to know
your mark and then hit your mark is vital to being a good
animator.
Figure 18.2. Let’s say that I wanted to make a quick adjustment to the FlyBall.lws
“Life-Drawing in Motion” scene you worked with earlier, that I wanted to make the
point where the bat connects with the ball more “snappy.”
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Figure 18.3. The first thing I’d do (after loading the scene, of course) would be to
open the new version of the Scene Editor (new as of 8.0) using Scene Editor |
Open… ^F1, then right-click on the model with the animation I wanted to modify
and choose Expand child items (recursive) to make all its bits and pieces visible in
the Dope Sheet and accessible for manipulation.
386
Figure 18.4. Keyframes are represented for the items you can see on the left-hand
side of the Scene Editor as little blocks, color-coded to whatever color you have set
for that particular item. You can zoom your view by clicking and dragging on either
end of the pan-handle at the bottom of the screen (just above the VCR-like play-
control buttons) the width of the keys, and timeline rule marks (top) will smoothly
update to reflect your zoom/pan settings.
387
Figure 18.5. By (left) clicking and dragging in the Dope Sheet, you define a selection
box. Frames that have been selected (including keyframes) lighten in comparison to
the unselected frames. You can add to this selection by Shift-clicking elsewhere in
the Dope Sheet…
388
Figure 18.6. …And you can add discontinuous frames to your selection by
Ctrl-clicking (and dragging) anywhere outside the dotted-line rectangle that
represents the extents of the current selection(s).
389
Figure 18.7. You can select keyframes for all the items visible on the left-hand side
of the Scene Editor for a specific time range by clicking ( and dragging) on the little
rule marks on the timeline.
Figure 18.8. Once you have a Figure 18.9. Alt-dragging drags a copy
selection defined, you can right-click of your selected keyframes.
and drag within the selected area and
slide the selected keys left or right
along the timeline.
390
Figure 18.10. Dragging the ends of the

selection stretches/squishes the selected
keys in time.
Warning:
Stretching/squishing keyframes in time (as mentioned in Figure
18.10) will often result in those keys being on a fractional frame
(i.e., frame 3.1415769…).
If a keyframe falls on a fractional frame, the only way to get
at that frame is to activate General Options | Fractional
Frames, and Shift-Left Arrow to Snap to Previous Keyframe (or
Shift-Right Arrow to Snap to Next Keyframe).
If you’re just putting the final adjustments on an animation,
this doesn’t matter since LightWave’s renderer deals just fine
with fractional frames.
However, if you’re still planning on tweaking your work, this
can be a pain in the posterior.
A fix to this fractional frame issue is to select the fractional
frames in a Scene Editor (or leave them selected if you’ve just
performed a stretch/squish action) and, from the right-click
menu, choose Quantize. (More on Quantize below!)
391
Figure 18.11. Right-clicking on a selection opens

up a menu that gives you even more options.
4 Erase clears the selected keyframes, leaving the surrounding

keys in place.
4 Insert gap “pushes” the keys that follow the selection for-
ward in time by the number of keys selected.
4 Delete removes the selected keyframes, “pulling” the keys

that follow backward in time by the number of keys selected.
4 Cut
ory.
erases the selected frames, holding their values in mem-
4 Copy brings the selected frames’ values into memory.

4 Paste over replaces the current selection with the values in
memory. (The pasted selection doesn’t have to be copied/cut
from the same item.)
4 Paste insert puts the values from memory into the selected
track(s), “pushing” the keys that follow forward in time by the
number of frames in the current selection.
4 Edit in Graph Editor opens a Graph Editor window contain-

ing the function curves for the items to which the selected
tracks belong.
392
4 Zoom to selection causes the zoom settings to bound the

current selection.
4 Quantize removes any keyframes that fall on fractional

frames, establishing the requisite keys on the nearest whole
frames needed to retain the motion you’d see when stepping
whole frame by whole frame through your animation.
4 Undo will revert your selection to the way it was before you
started noodling with it.
Figure 18.12. Here’s an extreme case in which I created an

oscillation along the X-axis, then squished the motion in the
Scene Editor so that several keyframes were “condensed” to fall
between the whole frames. After applying Quantize to the
selection, you can see how the only keys that remain fall on
frames 0, 1, 2, and 3, holding the animation I would have seen
by step-framing through the animation, whole frame by whole
frame.
So, to make the action of FlyBall.lws more “snappy” when the

bat would hit the ball, first, I’d isolate the items that most clearly
contribute to that motion: LeftHand*, Spine2, and Spine3.
393
Figure 18.13. I’d Ctrl-click and drag to create a discontinuous selection for the keys
of LeftHand*, Spine2, and Spine3 that encompass that part of the motion. I’d drag
the “far” end of the selection to squish the keys forward in time, accelerating their
motion.
Figure 18.14. Then, I’d select and drag the keys of Spine2 and Spine3 that cause the
upper torso to swing, leading the action of the arms closer toward each other. This
increases the perception of the whip-like motion that “snaps” the action of the bat
through the frame of contact with the imaginary ball.
In less than a minute, I’ve adjusted the timings of this anima-

tion, bringing even more life and snap into it!
394
Note:
It’s so easy to get lost in “Tweaksville.” Always use your head,
and be honest with yourself as to whether you’re making things
better or just making things different.
18.2 Dope Track

LightWave’s Dope Track offers yet another way for you to quickly
and easily modify your animations.
Figure 18.15. You access the Dope Track by clicking on the little grip-textured
doohickey right above the Time Slider. (You close the Dope Track by clicking on it
again.)
Figure 18.16. The Dope Track is very much like the Time Slider, yet it shows “ticks”
representing keyframes from all selected items (whereas the Time Slider only shows
keys from the currently selected item).
395
Figure 18.17. Click and drag in the Dope Track to

select key(s) that you can then slide about by
dragging them left or right.
Figure 18.18. Right-clicking on the

Dope Track opens a menu with similar
editing functions as the Dope Sheet
that act upon the currently selected
items.
Figure 8.19. Dope Track’s marker tools are very

handy when you want to leave notes for yourself
about when things should happen in your
animation. You can even label markers (when the
Time Slider is over the marked frame) to explain
themselves when the Time Slider is over the
marked frame.
396
The Dope Track supports a Channel-edit mode (see Figure

18.18) that you can activate to manipulate the individual channels of
the selected items — acting upon only the currently selected
manipulation mode (Move, Rotate, or Scale/Stretch).
Figure 18.20. The Dope Track also sports a Baking function to create keys
on every frame of the selected range (established by right-clicking and
dragging within the Dope Track) for all selected items. (This comes in handy
when you have an item controlled by some function or tool you
must remove before sending your scene to a render farm.)
397
18.3 Motion Mixer

Motion Mixer has been in LightWave for a while now, and as the
kind of animator who enjoys creating animations “from scratch,” it
is something I never really explored until I had to do some minor
crowd scenes for Kaze, Ghost Warrior.
In my career, I’ve been asked to use a lot of animation systems
designed to blend different pieces and parts of animations together
(like the “limited animation” seen frequently on Saturday morning
cartoons like The Flintstones). The thing that sets Motion Mixer
apart from all the other ones I’ve had to use is Motion Mixer actu-
ally works.
Figure 18.21. Motion Mixer is a multi-track, nonlinear editing/blending system.

Here, you see the actor NinjaFox (from Kaze, Ghost Warrior) starting with the
“StepBack” motion (the playback rate is controlled with a spline to get the perfect
ease-in/out). He then moves into the “TurnToRun_Backwards” motion (sped up by
55% from its original animation), which flows into the motion “Run-Naginata” that
will offset repeat for just over thirty frames, making NinjaFox run off into the
distance.
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This is the perfect solution for turning out television animation

or video game cut scenes, especially if you have access to the
motions used in the game itself!
Figure 18.22. The first thing you’ve got to have when you’re wanting to work with
Motion Mixer is a rigged character in motion. (The run cycle for the ninja in Sq04 of
Kaze, Ghost Warrior is 24 fps, on twos.)
Super-Mega-Ultra Important Note:

Cycles…
The first thing most newbie animators ask to be taught is how to do a walk or
run cycle. I suppose, from an outsider’s point of view, it might make sense; after
all, there’s usually little “acting” in a walk or run, it’s mostly just getting the char-
acter from Point A to Point B, right?
The truth be known, cycles are one of the most pedantically challenging
things there are in the art of animation … for the reasons just mentioned. It is far
easier to put yourself into the scene when you’ve got an emotional reason for
being there, i.e., “acting.”
There’s one other reason why cycles are such a PITA repetition. The audience
may not catch a bump, pop, or hang the first time through an animation, but
every time that animation repeats itself, any inadequacies in the skill of the ani-
mation become multiplied exponentially.
Producing a good quality cycle requires the highest level of skill within an
animator.
Luckily, we have options.
1) Move the camera in for a close-up. Bring the camera in close, if you can,
when you’ve got a scene where you must show a character moving from one
place to another. If you have the camera relatively “tight” on the head and
shoulders, all you have to do is animate the spine, shoulders, and head to inti-
mate a walk. Take a look at live-action films for a reference of just how rare it is
to see the whole character walking or running.
2) Dick Williams and Preston Blair. (An artist is only as good as the material he
or she references.) When you absolutely, positively have to show a full character
running or walking, reference the best. The books by these two master animators
are filled with frame-by-frame side-on and front-on frames from many different
walk and run cycles. Do what the pros do — grab these books, reference, and
modify!
399
Note:
Cycles to be used with Motion Mixer need to start and end on
the same pose. (Motion Mixer will deal with making sure there
is no “catch” as the cycle repeats itself.)
Once you’ve created a motion for your character, you open the
Motion Mixer window: Window|Motion Mixer F2.
Figure 18.23. With the control bones of your character selected (all the bones that
drive your character’s motion — in the case of my riggings, these are Star through
LeftThumb_Tip), click Create Actor and a window opens, requesting a name to
identify your new Motion Mixer actor that will control all the items you have selected.
Note:
The Motion Mixer window doesn’t have Pan/Zoom bars. To pan
the view, you need to Alt-click in the view, and drag left or right.
To zoom the view, Ctrl-Alt-click in the view, dragging left to
zoom out and right to zoom in (just like getting around in any
other viewport in Layout or Modeler).
400
Figure 18.24. When you have an actor assigned, Motion Mixer gives you some
timelines to work with. Just as in a nonlinear video editing system, you can layer and
join motion clips.
Note:
You can add and remove tracks by right-clicking on the timeline.
Under the Actor menu, you’ll find that you can add any items
you may find yourself needing to control in the future, remove items
you realize you’re not using, and scan XChannels of the actor items
or external items for additional animation data (like Morph Mixer
animation data). You can also completely free an actor from memory,
and you can fine-tune your control over which specific channels of
your character are driven with Motion Mixer by editing the actor
map.
401
Figure 18.25. Within the Edit Actor Map window, you are
presented with a list of all the items and respective
channels that Motion Mixer will be taking care of. A check
next to an item or channel name means that Motion
Mixer will override that item/channel’s data with its own,
and will look to those channels for storing data for its
motions. An [L] next to an item or channel means that the
item/channel will not be driven by Motion Mixer.
Figure 18.26. With the run cycle ready that I want Motion Mixer to use as a motion, I
click on Create Motion to open the Motion Mixer|Create Motion window. I choose
to create this motion from all the actor items (by selecting specific items, I could
create motions for just the hands, head, or feet by choosing Selected Items) and
enter the frame range of 0-24 for my cycle. I also tell Motion Mixer to clear
channels, which will leave me with a blank slate in Layout from which to create my
next motion.
402
Note:
Motion Mixer enters your scene’s start and end frames by
default. Motion Mixer stores all the keys you have created for
your animation, using only the entered frames for its motion so
you can easily make adjustments later.
Figure 18.27. Selecting the appropriate motion from the Motion List (if necessary),
click Add Motion, then click on one of the tracks to add the motion to the scene.
You’ll see that scrubbing the Time Slider in Layout moves your character through the
motion and resets the character to his “blank slate” pose at the end of the motion.
Figure 18.28. You can drag the motion clip around on the timeline. You can also
stretch/squish it by dragging on the end handles, making the motion play faster or
slower than the original animation.
403
Figure 18.29. Right-clicking on the motion clip brings up a menu where you can add
weight curves (for letting the underlying animation in Layout show through the
Motion Mixer animation), TimeWarp curves (for controlling the change over time of
the motion’s playback speed), and Pre- and Post-Behaviours, which tell Motion Mixer
what to do before the beginning and after the end of your motion clip.
4 Reset causes your character to reset to his “blank slate” pose.

4 Constant
pose.
causes your character to hold his beginning or final
4 Repeat causes your actor to replay his animation from the

beginning, again and again, at the same rate of speed as the
motion clip.
4 Oscillate makes your character ping-pong back and forth

through his animation.
4 Offset Repeat causes your actor to continue on with his

motion. In the case of my run cycle, he runs into frame before
the motion itself starts on frame 16, and keeps right on run-
ning out of frame after the motion ends after frame 40.
Note:
A motion clip or Pre-/Post-Behaviour is removed from the
timeline by clicking Remove from their respective right-click
menus.
404
Note:
Pre- and Post-Behaviours can be stretched as long as you need
them to be.
Note:
TimeWarp curves are fantastic — they let you control the playing
of a clip as it moves from 0% to 100% of its animation with a
curve you edit in the Graph Editor just like any other curve! It’s
the perfect way to add variety to motions within crowds to keep
the crowd characters from looking like carbon copies of one
another. A TimeWarp curve is also the perfect way to easily,
precisely control the ease-in and ease-out of a motion.
Figure 18.30. You can add a transition between two motion clips by selecting one,
clicking on Add Transition, and then selecting the other. A bar appears between
the two clips that automatically stretches to reach each clip’s closest end.
Figure 18.31. By right-clicking on the transition, you can remove it, or edit the
transition (function curve) in the Graph Editor, controlling how quickly and/or how
smoothly the transition takes place.
405
Figure 18.32. You can also abut animations that are linked by a common pose
(shown overlaid onto the Motion Mixer window). Here you’ve got the actor stepping
forward, moving into a “ready animation,” and stepping backward.
Now, with the animations I have strung together in Figure

18.32, I animated them all with the character starting at 0, 0, 0,
which is fine for the “ready animation” that starts and ends at
exactly the same place. But with StepForward, the character ends
up one step forward, just as StepBack lands him one step backward.
Just putting these animations “nose-to-tail” as they are in Fig-
ure 18.32 causes the character to step forward, reset to 0, 0, 0, go
through his ready animation, and then step backward (again jumping
back to 0, 0, 0 because there is no post-behaviour telling him to stay
where he lands).
Figure 18.33. Selecting the ready animation, I can click on the Offset Editor and
specify from which motion currently in the timeline it should be offset and how. The
Offset Type of Relative makes it so wherever the previous motion clip ends up, the
current one begins.
406
Figure 18.34. What happens when you use Relative Offset on two animations that,
while the first may end on the same pose that begins the second, are facing in
different directions? You get some serious funk.
Figure 18.35. Motion Mixer offers a kind of offset it calls Character Offset that
understands how to link up animations that were made facing different directions —
so long as the end pose for one is the starting pose for the other. (You can even
manually adjust the alignment of the character offset, just in case you find the
need.)
407
You access Character Offset through the Custom Offset Type,

where you set your desired offset on an actor item by actor item
basis by clicking on the Type entry to scroll through the choices of
Absolute, Relative, Relative XZ, and Character.
Figure 18.36. Using the different tracks/timelines in Motion Mixer, you can quickly
layer/blend bits and pieces of animations into actions that look completely original.
Here, separate animations of the head and hands are overlaid onto my standard
Run_With_Naginata cycle.
What happens when you want to make a slight (or great) change
to an animation you stored as a motion clip?
Figure 18.37. Selecting the motion clip you wish to edit, clicking on Edit Motion
“drops” that motion back into Layout where you can edit and make changes to your
heart’s content. When you’re done tweaking, just click Edit Motion again and you
are presented with options to accept or discard the changes to the motion you just
made, to restore the animation in Layout to the state it was in before you began to
edit your motion, to keep what you’ve done in Layout, or to completely clear
Layout’s animation, restoring your actor to his “blank slate” pose.
408
Figure 18.38. If you

need to change the
in-point and out-
point of a motion in
your timeline, you
can do this through
the Motion Properties
window, opened
through the Prop-
erties option of the
right-click menu for
that specific motion.
Motions in Motion Mixer are stored with the scene file itself.
(Which means that if you have a lot of complex motions, that scene
file can get pretty large.)
You may find yourself wanting to “offload” some motions you
don’t use that often, choosing to bring them into a scene only when
you need them.
Figure 18.39. Through the Motion Menu, you can save, load, copy,
rename, and free (remove from memory) motions.
You can save and load motions between different actors, even if
the actors have different names for their controls! (Though the actors
should have similar proportions.)
409
Figure 18.40. When Motion Mixer encounters an item in a motion

it is loading that it doesn’t have in its current actor, it gives you the
option of ignoring that item or assigning that item’s motion to
something else in your current actor.
So, as you can see, there’s a lot of power in these advanced anima-
tion tools. And I’ve just barely scratched their surfaces.
There is so much to dive into and explore with these tools.
Their creators have really covered nearly every possible need and
want a user might have.
The things I’ve shown you here in this chapter have been
beyond value in the creation of my own film, Kaze, Ghost Warrior.
The Dope Sheet allowed me to quickly lay in the poses of complex
fight sequences and quickly adjust the timings for individual charac-
ters and their controls in a matter of hours rather than days. Motion
Mixer let me animate an action once, stretching, blending, and
applying it to other characters when there simply wasn’t enough
time to animate the entire scene from scratch.
I encourage you to explore these tools. Find out what they can
do that is exactly what you need for your own projects. And share
what you find — you’ll be amazed at how far you can go when your
focus is to simply enjoy the process of discovery!
“For if a human … is able to play, he can be taught. And if he

is teachable, he is capable of unlimited development and
accomplishment.”
— J. Allen Boone, Letters to Strongheart
410
Chapter 19
Facial Animation
The principles of facial animation are the same as the principles of
animation we’ve gone over for the rest of the character. All the rules
still apply, all the skills still stand.
And this is why I’m going over facial animation now, here, at the
end of the book….
You must be good at animation if you wish to be good at facial
animation.
At Disney, the characters’ bodies were animated first, approved
by the director before any facial animation was even begun. Why?
The character must be able to sell his performance with panto-
mime alone if it is to be truly believable. Facial performance is just
“icing on the cake.”
I can’t stress this enough.
Watching your character perform, evaluating silhouette, timing,
the illusion of weight, following the arcs of motion, understanding
squash and stretch, your character must deliver on his ability to con-
vince the audience of the emotions he feels, the thoughts he thinks,
his “past,” his “future,” and his opinions on both. And all this must be
done successfully first, before any facial animation is even thought
about.
Note:
By knowing and understanding the principles of animation, you
already know how to do facial animation; you just need to have
someone show you how to use the tools designed for creating
facial animation.
411
Chapter 19: Facial Animation
19.1 Two Paths

There are two main ways people have been doing facial animation:
facial riggings and morph targets.
Facial Riggings
A facial rigging is, for most intents and purposes, the same as a
character rigging. It is a system of bones and weight maps, IK, and
FK that pull the points of the face, just as the character rigging pulls
the points of the body.
I’ve never used a facial rigging in production.
From what I’ve seen of them, they appear to be powerful within
the parameters they were designed to fulfill. But to my way of
working, I’ve never been able to fully wrap my mind around them.
I much prefer the precision definition achieved by using
predesigned shapes, sculpted in Modeler and then blended in Lay-
out, to give me what I’m looking for.
Morph Targets
Modifying your character’s face in Modeler, sculpting the precise
definition you wish to see in an expression or phoneme, and then
telling Layout to move the vertices of your character’s face into that
shape is by far the most common way of doing facial animation,
regardless of software package. (Which is not to say it is the best
way … it’s just more common.)
Using Morph Mixer, you can layer morphs onto each other, con-
trolling their mixture with sliders that affect a percentage (negative
or positive) of that morph’s influence. The cumulative effect of this
is that (as with layering motions in Motion Mixer) you can quickly
and easily sculpt shapes that appear to be completely unique, yet
still retain the precision of “pre-sculpted” definition.
There are two main approaches to working with morph targets:
“tiny bits” and “big bites.”
The “tiny bits” method is common at large studios with lots of
people and lots of time to do the work. With this method, each sec-
tion of the face has its own morph target. The outer, middle, and
inner part of each eyebrow would have its own targets for up, down,
in, and out.
412
Using the “tiny bits” method, animators get a lot more controls
to more precisely craft their facial expressions in Layout. It makes
for a lot of flexibility and a lot more work (a.k.a. time).
The “big bites” method sculpts specific shapes for common
applications (like the phonemes that make up dialogue) and also
“modifiers” to be layered/blended onto/with those common shapes
to create diversity.
Note:
To tell the truth, I always favored the “tiny bits” method of
morph target facial animation as being able to produce beauti-
ful, lifelike, asymmetrical facial performances … until Kaze,
Ghost Warrior.
I didn’t have the time to go all out and do the tiny bits
method, and so I had a new software package made to my
specifications that would push the big bites method into a whole
new valence shell.
Mac Reiter, the programmer for Timothy Albee’s Facial Ani-
mation, succeeded well beyond my hopes and expectations.
When you look at the scenes of KGW done using TAFA, it’s hard
to imagine those as simply modified phonetic poses.
19.2 Endomorphs
LightWave has the ability to store modifications to a model’s geom-
etry for application in Layout (morph targets) within the model’s file
itself: endomorphs.
Endomorphs are vertex maps (just like the eight maps we use
to assign points to move along with their respective bones) that
store data based on how much a vertex has changed from its base
position.
413
Note:
Since it takes a little practice to know how to model facial
geometry to retain the “landmarks” we’ve come to identify as
the human face, I’ve included a new model on the CD for this
book — Mr. Cool. (Mr. Cool has two base versions, both with
and without facial modeling, so you can animate the body with-
out being distracted with thinking about facial animation, and
then when you’re done, you can swap out the standard model
with the facial model.)
Objects\BaseChar\MrCool\MrCool_Facial_Blank.lwo is the
“raw” Mr. Cool model that has all the geometry modeled and
weighted but none of the facial morph targets modeled.
Objects\Final\MrCool_Facial_F.lwo is Mr. Cool weighted and
with all the facial morph targets I’ll be talking about in this
chapter already created for you.
(Objects\Final\MrCool_Facial_F_FA.lwo is the Timothy
Albee’s Facial Animation version of Mr. Cool. We’ll explore this
model in the next chapter.)
Figure 19.1. Mr. Cool has the same proportion, scale, and weight maps as
ThinGuy. He can be swapped onto the riggings we’ve been using with ThinGuy in
Layout, following the steps in Section 7.3.
414
Figure 19.2. In the lower right-hand corner of Modeler, among

the series of lettered vertex map buttons is one with an “M” on
it. This “M” button lets LightWave know you want to be working
with the morph style of vertex maps. Selecting (new) from the
list box to the right of the buttons opens a requester to name
your new morph map.
Note:
For the purposes of facial animation, we’ll be using relative
morph maps — storing morph data as the amount of change
with respect to the base object.
Note:
Just as with weight maps, a morph map without any data held
within it is “forgotten” by Modeler when you select another
map. If you were to change back to (base) right now, the new
morph map you’ve just created would disappear.
415
Figure 19.3. My favorite tool for creating morphs is Magnet (Modify|Magnet).

Magnet lets you drag (selected) points and polys around based on a two- or three-
dimensional “sphere of influence.” Right-click dragging in a viewport sets the
position and extents of this influence. Left-click dragging then moves that geometry
based on the falloff from the centerpoint as set in the Numeric n options window.
(Working with the Magnet tool reminds me of sculpting in clay.)
Important Note:
When working with facial morph targets, it’s important to pre-
serve your model’s symmetry. Unless you have a darn good
reason not to, always make sure you’ve got Symmetry mode
active while you’re “pulling points.”
Figure 19.4. On the left is our unaffected base model. Test_Morph, on the right,
retains changed positions of the points we’ve moved in Mr. Cool’s nose.
416
Figure 19.5. If we then changed the shape of the nose in our base model, we’ll find
that the points we moved in Test_Morph still move the same amount relative to their
new starting positions.
So, in creating the different facial shapes we’ll be using for our
morph targets, it’s really just a matter of carefully selecting the
geometry we’re wanting to affect, and then using the Rotate, Move,
and Magnet tools. Using these three tools, you can create the entire
range of facial expressions you’ll need.
Figure 19.6. LightWave lets you group and select both polys and points in a variety
of ways.
417
Because the ability to precisely select and isolate different areas

of our model is so vital in creating the facial targets we’ll be using,
you’ll want to use all the different ways LightWave lets you group
and select geometry, both polys and points.
4 Surfaces
4 Parts (View|Selection Sets|Create Part)
4 Sketch Color (Detail|Polygons|Sketch Color)
4 Point Selection Sets (View|Selection Sets|Selection Sets)
In Figure 19.6, you can see that I’ve got nearly every area of Mr.
Cool’s head and face accounted for with some sort of selection set.
The different surfaces themselves serve as a great place to start in
isolating different areas of the model. When I need more refine-
ment, I can add or remove the geometry I’ve assigned as parts —
Ears, BottomLipBulge, Tongue, etc. I’ve got one sketch color,
brown, assigned to the whole head so I can quickly select it and hide
the rest of the body.
Between the fact that LightWave’s toolsets restrict themselves
to only working on selected geometry (when you have geometry
selected) and that you can show/hide parts of your model at a
moment’s notice, you can quickly get at even the most challenging
bits of your model, if you’ve planned ahead in his/her modeling.
19.3 Expression Morphs

The easiest “sculpting” you’ll do is in the creation of the expres-
sions for your model, the scowls, the grins, the puffing of the
cheeks, etc. These are the best ones to get your feet wet with when
you’re starting out.
Newbie Note:
Just as with animation, it’s probably best to count on starting
over after you’ve done your first pass — you’ll be much better in
your second pass at this for having done so.
418
Note:
Morph Mixer parses the names you assign to your morphs,
meaning that it will go through your names and try to make
sense of them, and sort them accordingly. Morph Mixer uses a
period (“.”) within the endomorph names to sort them into dif-
ferent groups. The part of the name before the period is
handled as the group name, and the part that comes after is
handled as the morph name. So, Cheeks.Puffed in Morph Mixer
would simply be called Puffed, but would be grouped within the
Cheeks group.
Any endomorph without a period to define its group mem-
bership is collected in Morph Mixer under a group named
General.
Figure 19.7. Cheeks.Puffed. With symmetry active and the Thinguy_Skin

surface selected, I just used the Magnet tool, setting its influence to encom-
pass the cheek area but not the corner of the mouth, and dragged the
points out and slightly forward in a Top viewport.
419
Important Note:
Making facial morph targets isn’t like doing life drawing in 3D. There
is no right or wrong! Don’t fixate on trying to get things “exactly right”
because there is no such thing. Just play and have fun! Find out what
works for you!
The great thing about the way LightWave works with its endomorphs
is that you can completely finish facial animation on an entire sequence
of scenes, realize you don’t really like a particular endomorph, then go
into Modeler and make the needed changes to that morph. When
LightWave reloads the scenes you’ve already done, loading the new
version of the model, Morph Mixer references the new morph shape(s)
based on endomorph name(s)! So just by “fixing” the model, you’ve
also “fixed” all the animations that use that model!
So don’t tie yourself in knots trying to figure out exactly what I did to
get Mr. Cool’s face into a specific morph shape.
Go play! Explore! Experiment! Have fun!
The important thing in everything you do is that if you are able to
have fun doing what you’re doing, you’re learning without even trying!
Note:
LightWave [8]’s update to
Morph Mixer now lets you
easily do morphs with a neg-
ative percentage. So,
morphs like Cheeks.Sucked
aren’t really necessary any-
more — all you need to do is
Cheeks.Puffed and run that
morph into the negative per-
centages and you’ll get
pretty much the same result.
Though sometimes, like with
Brows Scowl and Surprise,
you’ll want specific shapes
for each, in which case you’ll
want to model both morph
targets.
Figure 19.8. Cheeks.Sucked. The

opposite of Cheeks.Puffed. I simply
created a new endomorph and, leaving
the Magnet’s regions where they were,
dragged the points of the cheeks
inward and back.
420
Figure 19.9. Eye.Brow_Scowl and Eye.Brow_Surprise.
Figure 19.10. Mouth.Frown and Mouth.Smile_Closed. Notice how even the

cheeks, lower lids, and “wings” of the nose are affected by the smile and
frown (just like in real life).
421
Figure 19.11. Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen and Mouth.Smile_MouthOpen. Being

able to isolate the upper and lower lips made Smile_LipsOpen a snap!
Selecting the geometry of the lower jaw and rotating it about where the jaw
attaches to the head in real life (up near the front of the ear) made
Smile_MouthOpen look natural.
You get the idea. You can browse the different endomorphs in
the Facial_F version of Mr. Cool to see how I chose to do things
with him.
The list of expression morphs I’ve included with Mr. Cool are:
Cheeks.Puffed Mouth.Lip_BOTTOM_Dn
Cheeks.Sucked Mouth.Lip_BOTTOM_In
Eye.Brow_Scowl Mouth.Lip_BOTTOM_Out
Eye.Brow_Surprise Mouth.Lip_BOTTOM_Up
Eye.Closed Mouth.Lip_TOP_Dn
Eye.Lid_Lower_Dn Mouth.Lip_TOP_In
Eye.Lid_Lower_Up Mouth.Lip_TOP_Out
Eye.Lid_Upper_Dn Mouth.Lip_TOP_Snarl
Eye.Lid_Upper_Up Mouth.Lip_TOP_Up
Mouth.Corner_Back Mouth.OpenWide
Mouth.Corner_Front Mouth.Smile_Closed
Mouth.Frown Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen
Mouth.Smile_MouthOpen
422
19.4 Asymmetry
Organic systems are rarely perfectly symmetrical. The facial
expressions we go through on a moment-to-moment basis are a per-
fect example of this. From lopsided smiles to “speaking out of the
corner of one’s mouth” to doing a “Spock” eyebrow thing, we’ve
come to associate asymmetry with life.
Note:
Just as with the body’s animation, you want to avoid twinning in
facial animation at all costs.
So, if we want asymmetry in our morphs (we just spent so

much care in building so they would be perfectly symmetrical),
we’ve got to split each symmetrical morph into left and right halves,
which we can control separately in Morph Mixer.
First, to make this task as easy as possible, we’ve got to find a
way to quickly separate the left, right, and centerline points of our
model.
Note:
I’ve done the creation of these point selection sets for you with
the Mr. Cool models in the Final directory, but not with the
model in the BaseChar directory in case you want to follow
along.
423
Figure 19.12. Selecting all the polygons with the Sketch

Color: Brown (which I’ve already assigned to the geometry of
the head and neck) I press = to hide unselected geometry.
Figure 19.13. Pressing / to

drop my selected polygons, I
select one or two polygons I
know belong to the hair, and
press ] to select connected.
With the hair selected, I press
- to hide selected (leaving
me with a bald Mr. Cool).
424
Figure 19.14. Focusing my attention on a Top view, with nothing selected in Point
Selection mode, I press “ (quotation mark), which inverts my selection (inverting a
selection of “nothing” is a quick way to select all geometry of your current selection
mode), and press = to show only the points of Mr. Cool’s head.
Figure 19.15. Very carefully, I select all the points

along X=0. (It’s easiest to do this in a maximized
view, and still I like to zoom in really close to make
sure I’m getting the right points.) Then, I click
View|Selection Sets|Selection Sets to assign these
points to a point selection set I name Head_Center-
line.
425
Figure 19.16. Having assigned the points along X=0

to a point selection set so I can get at them easily
later, I hide them so I can clearly see the points of the
left and right halves of Mr. Cool’s head.
Figure 19.17. I select the points of the right side of

Mr. Cool’s head and assign them to a point selection
set named Head_Right.
426
Figure 19.18. I hide the points of the right side of the

head and assign the points remaining on the left to a
point selection set named Head_Left.
Figure 19.19. Now, through a Point Statistics win-

dow, I can instantly select the points I’ll be using in
the next steps.
427
Figure 19.20. Using the Point Statistics window, I select the points associated with
the Head_Left point selection set. And in a Windows|Vertex Maps Panel window, I
scroll down through the list of my morph maps until I come to Mouth.Smile_Lips-
Open. Right-clicking on the morph’s name, I choose Copy Vertex Map. In the
window that opens, I name the copy Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen_L.
Figure 19.21. Working its

magic only on the points I
have selected, LightWave
copies the morph data
assigned to those points to a
new morph map named
Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen_L.
428
Figure 19.22. Returning to the Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen morph

map, still with the points of the left half of the head selected, I
press _ (underscore) to remove the morph data from those
points. Then, right-clicking on the morph’s name, I choose
Rename Vertex Map and add an “_R” to the end of its name.
So, now that we’ve got the left and right sides of Mouth.Smile_
LipsOpen assigned, you may be wondering about the points along
the center of the model. You may have noticed that for the left side
of the head, those points remain as they are in the base pose, yet for
the right side of the head, those points still reflect 100% of the posi-
tion data we “sculpted” for that morph.
We can’t simply copy the centerline point data along with the
rest of the points of the left side of the head; Morph Mixer’s effect
is additive. If the centerline points for left and right morphs both
held 100% of their “sculpted” data, the points along the centerline
would move twice the amount we originally sculpted when both left
and right morphs were active at one time in Morph Mixer.
What we need to do is to apply 50% of the position data we
sculpted for this morph map to the centerline points of both the left
and right morph maps.
429
Figure 19.23. Using the point selection set Head_Centerline to select the
points along X=0 of the head and setting Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen_L as
the active morph map, I click on Map|Morph|Apply Morph. From the
selection list, I choose Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen_R (which has the cen-
terline points at their full “intensity”) and set the Strength to 50%. After
clicking OK, 50% of the positioning data from Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen_R
is applied to our selected points. (See Figure 19.25 to compare the
results.)
430
Figure 19.24. Now, we need to copy the vertex map data

for those points back onto the points of Mouth.Smile_
LipsOpen_R, so that both morphs contain position data
that is 50% of the originally sculpted position data.
Figure 19.25. The left and right versions of the Month.Smile_LipsOpen

morph are perfect mirrors of each other, and with their centerline points
being 50% strength versions of the original, when these two morphs are
combined in Morph Mixer, we’ll get a perfect rendition of what we symmet-
rically sculpted for this facial expression.
431
This process of splitting the morphs into left and right versions
needs to be repeated for every facial expression, except those in
which the lower jaw moves. (In the case of Mr. Cool, these excep-
tions are Mouth.Smile_MouthOpen and Mouth.OpenWide.)
Note:
If you’re thinking that this morph “splitting” business is pedantic,
manual labor, I completely agree with you. But it’s one of the
things that’s just the way things have been done. The good
thing is, you don’t have to like it, and if you use Timothy Albee’s
Facial Animation, you don’t need to do it — TAFA does this for
you!
19.5 Re-Symmetry
Okay, so now you’ve got all your expression morphs all asymmetri-
cal. What happens when you want to make adjustments to that
matched pair of morphs and you want exactly the same adjustment
to be applied to both halves?
Figure 19.26. With Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen_R as the active morph map,

we simply apply the morph data from Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen_L with a
Strength of 100%…
432
Figure 19.27. …And both halves become

whole again!
Delete the Mouth.Smile_LipsOpen_L morph map so you don’t

forget it will soon contain out-of-date data.
Activate Symmetry, make your changes, re-split your morph
into left and right halves, and you’re back in business!
433
19.6 Dialogue Morphs

Having had all the practice you’ve just accumulated with creating
the expression morphs, creating the dialogue morphs is going to be
a lot easier.
Dialogue morphs are the facial shapes that create the different
phonemes we use to form words.
Figure 19.28. “Sculpting” dialogue morphs isn’t diffi-

cult; it just requires observation, knowledge of the
tools, and a sense of subtlety (as appropriate to that
particular character).
The best way to see how a dialogue morph should be con-

structed is to study your own face as you make the different
phonetic shapes in a mirror.
As with expression morphs, there’s no need to worry about get-
ting things perfect, because there is no such thing as “perfection.”
Just play and explore, knowing that by making a change for the
better to your model, you are also bettering all the scenes that use
that model.
434
Note:
I prefix my dialogue morphs with Dial. so they all fall under a
Dial. group within Morph Mixer (and so the default settings
within TAFA recognizes them as dialogue morphs).
I was able to do all the dialogue for Kaze, Ghost Warrior with a
grand total of fifteen dialogue morphs. These are shown in Figures
19.29 through 19.43.
Note:
Bear in mind that these are American English pronunciations.
Figure 19.29. A (Ace).
435
Figure 19.30. ah (absolve).
Figure 19.31. E (Eat).
436
Figure 19.32. eh (bed).
Figure 19.33. F (Face, Vase).
437
Figure 19.34. K (Kusac, Garras).
Figure 19.35. L (Lunch).
438
Figure 19.36. M (Man).
Figure 19.37. O (Oh).
439
Figure 19.38. oo (boot).
Figure 19.39. P (Peas, Beans).
440
Figure 19.40. r (Right).
Figure 19.41. S (Sun, Zoo).
441
Figure 19.42. T (Tip, Did, Nice).
Figure 19.43. th (this).
442
As you can see, we’re not concerned with the sound of each
phoneme, but rather the shape of our mouths as we make the
sounds. You’ll notice there is no shape in the above list for the “H”
sound in the word “Hat.” This is because we can use percentages of
the shapes A, ah, E, or eh to provide any number of visual interpre-
tations of that sound.
Important Note:
Remember that animation isn’t about recreating how it looks to
do something, it is giving a visual impression of how it feels to do
something. This holds equally true for character and facial ani-
mation alike.
19.7 “Plussing” Morphs

What happens when you’re watching your facial performance and
you say to yourself, “Gee, things look good, but everything is just a
bit too subdued”?
Are you stuck with having to re-model a morph target in
LightWave if you want to boost or reduce its intensity? Heck no!
You can use Apply Morph to apply a morph to itself, fiddling with
the Strength percentages (positive or negative) until you get the
“volume level” you’re looking for.
Figure 19.44. In the center is the base morph for the th phoneme. On the left is the result
of applying the morph to itself with a strength of –30%, effectively reducing its intensity by
30%. On the right is the result of applying the morph to itself with a strength of 100%,
effectively doubling its influence on the model.
443
19.8 Morph Mixer

So, how do you put all this facial sculpting and splitting to work
and get a character to speak? Through the magical manipulations
made manifest through Morph Mixer.
Figure 19.45. Scenes\CharacterSetups\MrCool_Facial_Setup has (the Morph Mixer

version of) Mr. Cool all set up and ready to go on the ThinGuy rigging we’ve been
using.
444
Figure 19.46. With Mr. Cool selected, I open an Object Properties window and, from
the Deform tab, Add Displacement|Morph Mixer.
445
Figure 19.47. Double-clicking on the plug-in’s name in the displacement list opens
the Morph Mixer window. (You can also open a plug-in’s window by selecting it and
then choosing Edit|Properties.)
446
Figure 19.48. The Morph Mixer window itself. You expand and collapse your groups
of morphs by clicking on the little triangles to the left of each group name. The cur-
rently selected group has its morphs displayed in the “action area,” where you see
sliders you can quickly move between –100% and +100%. In the Readout/Input box
you can see the value of the slider and enter values by hand. When you have more
morphs than the window can display, a scroll bar appears in the upper-right corner
of the window. You can edit the envelope for any morph by clicking on the “E” but-
ton to its right. And using the left and right triangles, you can quickly jump to the
next and previous keyframes for that morph. The Keyframe indicator shows when
your current frame holds a key for a morph.
447
Note:
Morph Mixer has some helpful keyboard/mouse combinations
for working with keyframes within a group of morphs that I use
frequently:
4 Clicking on a keyframe indicator that shows that there is

no key on the current frame for that morph will create a
key on the current frame with the current value for that
morph.
4 Clicking on a keyframe indicator that shows that there is a

key on the current frame for that morph will remove the
key on the current frame for that morph.
4 Shift-clicking on a keyframe indicator that shows that

there is no key on the current frame for that morph will
create keys for all morphs at their current value on that
frame.
4 Shift-clicking on a keyframe indicator that shows that

there is a key on the current frame for that morph will
remove keys on the current frame for all morphs.
4 Ctrl-clicking on a keyframe indicator will set a key on the

current frame for that morph with the value of 0%,
regardless of whether or not there already is a key on that
frame.
4 Shift-Ctrl-clicking on a keyframe indicator will set

keyframes at 0% on the current frame for all morphs.
448
Figure 19.49. After you get the hang of understanding how each morph affects the
face and how they interact with each other, it’s just a matter of applying the same
knowledge of silhouette, anticipation, timing, and all the other principles of anima-
tion you’ve already learned to this new set of controls.
449
Advanced Note:
In the Mr. Cool facial setup scene, you’ll notice a black null named Eye_Mover.
This is used by the surfaces of the eyes as a reference object to control the posi-
tion of the painted texture map of the eyes’ coloring.
Figure 19.50. Under the Texture Editor for the Eye_Left surface, you see where
I have set Eye_Mover as the reference object. Since this is surfacing informa-
tion, it is saved with the object (not the scene). And in order for it to work
properly, the scene must already have an object named Eye_Mover loaded
This isn’t the greatest way to do eyes that are neither spherical nor ovoid, but
it works passably, and it’s free.
Newbie Note:
Surfacing is something beyond the scope of this book on anima-
tion, but if you’d like to add that skill to your growing list,
Essential LightWave 3D 8 (1-55622-082-0) covers surfacing in
great detail. (The book is designed to give you the same level of
LightWave aptitude that I had after working on Babylon 5.)
450
19.9 Sample Workflow

The first thing you need to do when you want to work a scene with
dialogue is to figure out how long that scene will need to be.
If you’ve “timed-out” your storyboards into an animatic (mov-
ing storyboard — see CGI Filmmaking, The Creation of Ghost
Warrior (1-55622-227-0)), you already know your scene length.
If you’re uncertain of how long you need/want your scene to be,
it’s usually okay to have your scene be as long as your dialogue
track (assuming you don’t need a head or tail on the scene to give
you some room to play with in editing — again, see CGI
Filmmaking).
Note:
Even when I’m rendering to NTSC (the U.S./Japan television
standard), which runs at 30 frames per second, I always do my
work at 24 fps. This is in part because I started off working as a
traditional animator working at the frame rate for theatrical
films. There are two other reasons why I like working at 24 fps:
Though most laypeople couldn’t tell you why, 24 fps looks like
“movies” and 30 fps looks like “video.” And when you’re work-
ing at 24 fps, you’re saving your render farm from having to
render six more frames per second — and that time saved adds
up quickly.
Figure 19.51. Here, I’ve loaded the file Audio\ManyYearsAgo.wav into a work-scene
created from Scenes\CharacterSetups\MrCool_Facial_Setup.lws. Looking very closely
at the representation of the audio wave that appears in the timeline, I see that it
ends right around frame 36. (So I’ll be setting my scene length to 36.)
451
Figure 19.52. Printing out the X-sheet (located in the Extras folder in the
Content Directory), I use the arrow keys to step-frame through the scene in
LightWave, making note of the mouth shapes that I feel are creating the
sounds I hear.
452
Figure 19.53. Moving to frame 4 (where I’ve indicated on the X-sheet that the “M”
sound should be), I move the slider for the “M” morph to 100% (a key is automati-
cally created for that morph). To create keys on all the other channels (so they stay at
0% until I tell them to move), I Shift-click on one of the other morphs that doesn’t
have a key on frame 4.
453
Figure 19.54. Moving to frame 6, I Shift-Ctrl-click on a keyframe indicator to set 0%

keys for all my dialogue morphs at this frame, then move the “A” morph’s slider to
100%.
I repeat this process for the rest of the line of dialogue, using
my X-sheet as my guide.
Setting my scene length to 36 and centering the head nicely in
the upper-left viewport set to Perspective Textured Solid, I create a
preview.
Note:
Sometimes LightWave needs to play through your preview a few
times before audio and video sync up properly.
If you’ve been following along with Mr. Cool on your own, using
my X-sheet notations to guide your own placement of dialogue
morphs, you’ll notice that things look a little funky at the beginning
of the scene: There’s too much action going on for me to believe
that Mr. Cool is actually saying those words.
454
I jump to frame 8 and, by Shift-clicking on one of my dialogue

keys in the Morph Mixer window, remove all the keys I’d put in for
the “N” sound (“T”=100%, all the rest 0%).
A new preview shows that the dialogue now reads just fine!
After the dialogue morphs are doing what they need to be
doing, it’s just a matter of scrubbing through the timeline and using
the other morph groups to “sculpt” the different facial expressions
that complete the performance.
Super-Mega-Ultra Important Note:

Less is more!!!
It seems to go against logic, but the more keyframes you have in your dia-
logue morphs, the worse your dialogue will read!
You want to have the absolute barest minimum number of keys to convinc-
ingly convey the impression of the spoken line.
When you watch the great Disney classics and step-frame through their
dialogue performances, you’ll see that what you thought was a “spot-on”
lip-readable performance actually falls much more in the realm of suggestion
than it does the land of simulation.
This is why I strongly recommend against using any kind of “automated”
lip-synch package. Work from these packages may be correct simulations, but
they are grossly incorrect when it comes to good animation.
My rule of thumb is that you should never have dialogue keyframes closer
than every other frame. I try to have as much space between the dialogue
keyframes as possible, wherever possible, always keeping in mind the rhythm
we talked about earlier in the book.
Note:
The best way to do facial expressions is to follow the time-
honored way that’s been used in animation for a hundred years
— use a mirror. Hang an inexpensive mirror (safely) in your
work area so you can see both you in the mirror and your char-
acter on the screen without moving your head. Watch what your
own face does as you deliver the lines convincingly and recreate
that performance for the character.
After you get used to the controls, you’ll see that doing facial
animation in this manner isn’t difficult, it’s just moderately time-
consuming. I find that if it takes me x amount of time to do the ani-
mation of the character’s body, I can expect that it will take me the
same amount of time to do the facial as well.
455
19.10 Recycling
One of the greatest things about the way LightWave stores its endo-
morphs “inside” the model itself as deviations from a base pose is
that if you use a finished head as a base from which to sculpt
another head, the new head will retain all the morph targets of the
first!
Figure 19.55. In doing Kaze, Ghost Warrior, the first

character I did was Itsua, the bartender. I spent a
good week and a half getting all his point weights,
surfaces, and morph targets to be as good as I
could make them.
After Itsua was moving well on his rigging and speaking and
acting well with his facial morphs, I took him into Modeler and (sav-
ing him as a new model first) started dragging his points around
until I had a new character. And because this new character’s morph
data was based on the distance each vertex was from its “base”
position, nearly all of the morphs created for Itsua were fine for this
new character as well!
456
Figure 19.56. Kaze was created from pulling points

on Itsua’s head model. And even though feline and
lupine muzzles have many differences, Kaze’s
morph targets only need minor adjustments after I
had finished resculpting Itsua’s head into Kaze’s.
This ability to recycle both the body’s weight maps and the dia-
logue morphs is just one more reason to like LightWave!
457
Chapter 20
Timothy Albee’s
Facial Animation
Note:
This section was written while Timothy Albee’s Facial Animation was still
in pre-alpha. Many workflow improvements have already been imple-
mented, not the least of which is a streamlining of the internal code to
allow for frame rates of over 110 frames per second while working on
the film resolution version of Kaze’s head at a level of Sub-D smoothing
equal to LightWave’s level-2 SubPatch setting. Check out http://Kaze-
GhostWarrior.com for current information.
So, what you saw in the previous chapter is the way facial animation
has been done in 3D for quite a while now. It’s a good technique —
it’s precise, but it’s slow. (And because it is slow, there’s less of an
impetus to explore, play, and try new things with a performance.)
With the production of Kaze, Ghost Warrior, I needed something
that would give me the rich, lifelike, asymmetrical performances I
want out of my characters, and give me access to all the best tools
from both traditional animation and CGI animation. (After all, tradi-
tional tools have been honed over the course of over a hundred years.
It’d be foolish to ignore their advances!)
With the disappearance of my old favorite tool for facial anima-
tion, I took that as a sign that it was time to stop wishing and start
doing. Teaming up with programmer Mac Reiter, together we created
a facial animation package that does everything that I, as an animator,
ever wanted a facial animation package to do (and what Mac has
planned for v2.0 makes even my head spin).
Using the core of this tool on Kaze, Ghost Warrior (even though
the tool was in pre-pre-alpha), I was able to do in twenty minutes
what would have taken me about a day and a half the old-fashioned
way.
459
Chapter 20: Timothy Albee’s Facial Animation
20.1 Remember Yoda?

Isn’t it amazing that in the original Star Wars series of films, in
which Yoda was a foam and cloth puppet, he lived, thought, and felt.
His performances (by Frank Oz) were works of powerful acting,
regardless of the fact that Yoda, without Frank, was painted plastic.
I’ve yet to really see that kind of touching performance in a CG
character.
I’ve got theories as to why this is so, and they stem from my
training as an actor, an animator, and a director.
As an actor, you are taught (in the “method” school of acting) to
forget yourself and actually become the person you are portraying.
Performances are spontaneous, flowing from the heart, and millions
upon millions of subconscious decisions affect the subtle pauses and
movements, which the audience interprets as cues to hidden
thoughts and feelings.
As an animator, you spend hours and hours on a few frames that
go by in the blink of an eye. Preparation and planning are integral,
and changes are painful. It’s easy to lose sight of the performance
amid the myriad of keyframes, slider-controls, and sheer volume of
time it takes to create a performance in animation.
Facial Animation uses interfaces familiar to both CGI animators
and traditional animators. The X-sheet and dialogue “scrubbing”
tools allow for the fastest timing-out of dialogue I’ve ever used,
allowing for quick and easy modifications of the keyframes without
the hassle of remembering sets of arcane numbers (unless you
really want to). And the Function Curve Editor lets those born and
bred on CGI animation have the familiar spline curves they’ve come
to know and love so well.
But the real power of Facial Animation is in its ability to record
a puppeteered performance using facial palettes.
A puppeteered performance holds all the subconscious nuances
that are the cornerstone of powerful acting. It also holds far more
keyframes than could be easily added and/or manipulated simply by
moving sliders.
460
And a puppeteered performance can be created and recreated in

as much time as it takes to play the animation in real time.
This is a huge plus for directors who can now, in walk-throughs,
help hone a facial animation performance to perfection, rather than
having to go away and come back the next day to see the changes
the animator interpreted from the director’s words!
20.2 A Separate Program?

What? Not animate facial animation directly in LightWave? What’s
the big idea?
Remember a while back when I said that you must first sell
your performance with your character’s physical animation? That
wasn’t just lip service. That’s the way we did things on Dinosaur,
and the way all the top studios get the best overall performances to
tell their stories.
If you can convince an audience of the character’s emotional
state and motivations without facial animation, then what you do
with a facial performance will crank up the intensity and believabil-
ity of that performance tenfold.
So, two separate programs help to make it absolutely positively
clear: When your character’s physical performance sells the shot,
then you move on to adding facial animation.
461
20.3 FA’s Interface
Figure 20.1. Timothy Albee’s Facial Animation consists of several floating windows
you can position and resize to suit your needs and your desktop space.
462
Figure 20.2. Main window. The Main window of FA shows your model in
real time, subpatched (Sub-D surfacing), textured, and lit with up to eight
lights you can position and change in color/intensity. You have complete
rotational control over the main head and “icon heads” (that show your
current facial palette) at all times, even during playback.
Note:
The geometric white lines over the image in the above illustra-
tion are visual guides that may be turned on and off to help you
in knowing the extents of the capture plane, and give you a
visual representation of the currently selected blending mode.
(FA supports several different kinds of blending modes for
recording its puppeteering data — certain kinds of facial
morphs work best with specific blending modes.)
463
Figure 20.3. Playback controls. The Playback control window lets

you control the playback and recording of your scene data. In
addition to providing you with standard VCR controls, you can set
the speed independently for playback and record. (The Record
button is only active when you are working with a puppeteering
track in the X-sheet.) When you have a selection highlighted in
the X-sheet, you have the option of having your recorded
performance punch-in and punch-out, recording over only your
selected frames (with the default three-second pre-roll to get into
the feel of your animation beforehand).
Figure 20.4. Control window. The tiny,

little control window gives you quick
access to other Facial Animation
functions. Clockwise from upper left,
the FA button opens the Expression
Palette window, the shaded sphere
opens the Geometry Visibility window,
the wavy lines open up the Function
Curve/Graph Editor window, and the
spreadsheet-like button opens the
X-sheet window.
Figure 20.5. Geometry Visibility window.

The Geometry Visibility window lets you
choose which parts of your model are
visible as textured solids, shaded solids,
or wireframes, or hidden completely.
Clicking on the triangle beside Surfaces
will let you choose to set your visibility
from LightWave’s surface names, parts,
or sketch color.
464
Note:
You should plan on having your model on the first layer for
Facial Animation, but if you absolutely, positively must have
your model on some other layer, you can specify which layer(s)
FA should use for saving animation and which it should show
under the Options menu.
Figure 20.6. Morph File.

The Morph File shows GL
pictures of your character’s
visible geometry that can
be rotated separately (by
Shift-dragging on the icons)
or as a unit to show the
most informative side, or as
a whole (Ctrl-drag to make
all icons follow your current
icon’s rotation, Alt-drag to
add your rotation to all
other icons). Labels for the
icons are generated from
the morph name that
follows the prefix (Dial.Oh
would be labeled “Oh”).
465
Note:
In FA, endomorph prefixes are stripped (the morph name before
the first period) and are grouped on scollable pages similar to
Morph Mixer’s groups. Morphs with the prefix “Dial.” are
grouped on page 1, the “Dialogue” page. Other morphs are
grouped alphabetically on their respective pages labeled with
their group prefix. (Endomorphs without a prefix are grouped
last, under the heading “General.”)
Figure 20.7. Facial Palette. Like an

artist mixing colors, the Facial Palette
lets you mix your endomorphs in real
time. Each icon represents a quadrant
of the Main window. When in test mode
(holding the “T” key), you can see the
influence of the current morph palette
on your model by moving the mouse
around the Main window’s active
capture area. Moving your mouse
closer to the corners of the Main
window will blend that morph target
more and more onto the model, all in
real time!
Note:
By default, Facial Animation parses your endomorph list, group-
ing pairs and quads together based on the naming convention
described in a moment in Section 20.4, “Morph Targets and
FA.”
Through the drop-down list box, you can select a facial palette
from among those FA has created via parsing your endomorph
names and from among those you’ve created and modified. You can
also use the arrow keys on either side of the list box to scroll visu-
ally through your facial palettes.
New palettes can be created by clicking on the “new” icon in
the upper-left corner of the window, and a palette can be deleted by
clicking on the “x” box in the upper right. Palettes can be renamed
by click-dragging over the current palette’s name.
466
As with the icons in the Morph File, these can be rotated in

real-time by Shift-left-click-dragging on them. (Alt and Ctrl dragging
work similarly to the way described for icons in the Dialogue tab;
however, rotations in the Facial Palette are mirrored across your
current centerline axis.)
Figure 20.8. TAFA’s

X-sheet. X-sheets
(exposure sheets) have
been a staple of
traditional animation
for over 75 years. It’s a
mystery why only
in-house tools at the
major studios,
programs designed to
be used in traditional
animation, and old
Amiga animation
programs make use of
this time-proven,
intelligent way of
laying out animation
information.
On the leftmost track, you see a waveform representation of

your loaded audio track (which you choose from under the File
menu). Facial Animation defaults the length of your animation to the
length of your audio clip, with respect to your frames per second
setting (which can be set from the Options menu).
Note:
You can also load and clear dialogue and set scene length by
right-clicking on the X-sheet’s Audio track.
467
Click-dragging over the Audio track will “scrub” the dialogue,

letting you play each frame of your recorded dialogue at a fixed fre-
quency as quickly or as slowly as you move your mouse. Your
model’s animation in the Main window will follow in real time as
you “scrub.” Clicking on a single cell within the Dialogue track will
play just that one frame of audio.
Facial Animation automatically provides you with one Dialogue
track, onto which you can drag and drop dialogue morph icons from
the dialogue morph file, or Alt-click on a cell to insert the most
recently selected dialogue morph.
Once a morph target is in a cell, click on the cell and press the
Delete key to remove it.
Right-clicking on a cell brings up a menu from which you can
choose to have that cell be the model’s neutral (base) pose, repre-
sented with a large red “X” within that cell. You can also cut, copy,
paste, delete, and add keys from a list with this right-click menu.
Ctrl-left-drag on a cell with a dialogue morph to interactively
set the percentage of that target’s influence on the left side of the
centerline.
Ctrl-right-drag on a cell with a dialogue morph to interactively
set the percentage of that target’s influence on the right side of the
centerline.
Note:
You adjust both “halves” of a dialogue morph by simultaneously
holding both the left and right mouse buttons while Ctrl-drag-
ging on a dialogue morph on your X-sheet.
The cut, copy, and paste functions of the X-sheet work much the
same way as in a spreadsheet program. Drag to select a group of
cells, then Ctrl-x, c, and v to cut, copy, and paste, respectively. You
can quickly move a selected group of cells by dragging up or down
on the selected cells.
Note:
Double-clicking on the track’s name selects the entire track, let-
ting you easily copy all your work to another track for trying out
new ideas.
468
Right-clicking on the track’s name lets you rename, acti-

vate/deactivate the track, or choose to delete it altogether.
Right-clicking on an empty part of the X-sheet’s top row lets
you add more dialogue and/or facial tracks. (You can have as many
tracks as you’d like — FA will play three tracks as quickly as it plays
three hundred!)
Figure 20.9. Puppeteer

tracks are created by
choosing Puppeteer
when right-clicking to
add another track to
your X-sheet. They
function in much the
same way as Dialogue
tracks, except that you
only see “dots” to
represent the presence
of a quad-keyframe
within the Puppeteered
performance.
Note:
By default, Puppeteer tracks are assigned the name of the active
facial palette they have recorded. However, this can be changed
by right-clicking on the name of the Facial track.
Selecting, copying, and pasting of these quad-keys works the

same as it does with dialogue morphs in a Dialogue track. Using the
right-click menu on a cell on a Puppeteer track to add a quad-key
will add a quad-key with the current, interpolated values for that
frame.
469
Ctrl-left-dragging on a quad-key opens up a small, square win-

dow with a “dot” representing the quad-key’s position within the
four quadrants to which the Facial morphs are assigned. Drag the
“dot” to adjust the quad-key’s position information, watching the
result in real time on the model in the Main window.
Important Note:
All this manipulation of the X-sheet can be done while the
animation is playing! You can instantly see the results of your
adjustments as you make them.
Note:
Selecting a group of cells of a Puppeteer track sets a “Punch-
In/Punch-Out” range for re-recording that section of
puppeteering. (By default, you get a three-second Pre-/Post-
Roll, heralded by audio beeps to get you set to record, and to
let you know when recording has started and ended.) Once the
“Punch-In/Punch-Out” range has been set, you still need to click
on the Punch In/Out button in the Control window to activate
the “Punch-In/Punch-Out” recording mode.
Note:
Clicking on a cell in a Dialogue or Puppeteer track sets that
track as the active track for recording or manipulation.
Figure 20.10. Function Curve Editor: Dialogue view. The Function Curve/Graph
Editor reflects the data of the currently active track in a way that may be more
familiar to 3D animators who didn’t start out as traditional animators.
470
When a Dialogue track is active, the Function Curve/Graph Edi-

tor shows the keyframes for the currently selected Dialogue track.
Keys representing the percentages for the morph on the left side of
the centerline are represented in green, and keys for the model’s
right side are represented in red.
Select and drag keys up and down to change their values. Select
and drag keys or the dialogue labels left and right to change the
frames on which they exist. (Dialogue keys consist of both a left and
right value, and will always remain as pairs.)
The Function Curve/Graph Editor’s “highlight” moves in con-
junction with the timeline’s. You can cut, copy, and paste keyframes
in much the same way as by using the X-sheet for that Dialogue
track.
Right-clicking on a keyframe opens up an edit menu for that
frame, from which you can also set values numerically for the left
and right halves of the dialogue key.
Figure 20.11. Function Curve/Graph Editor: Puppeteer view. The quad-keys that
comprise the stored performances for the Puppeteer tracks are “split” to represent
percentages along the Y axis of the capture plane for the left and right halves of the
model. Keys and curves in green represent data for the left half of the model, and
keys and curves in red represent data for the right half. And as with dialogue, keys
are paired and remain together when being moved, deleted, copied, cut, or pasted.
The horizontal centerline represents the 0% influence of the

respective curves. The top of the chart represents 100% for the top
facial morphs, and the bottom of the chart represents 100% for the
bottom facial morphs.
Cut, delete, copy, and paste key functions in the Facial Function
Curve Editor work the same as they do for dialogue.
471
Right-clicking opens up an edit menu for the frame directly

under the mouse from which you can also set values numerically for
the left and right halves of the facial quad-key.
20.4 Morph Targets and FA

Facial Animation can use the same morph targets you created in the
last chapter for Morph Mixer. However, FA is a lot smarter when it
comes to understanding how morphs are created.
Facial Animation will split your morph across the X=0 (center-
line) axis for you, so you don’t need to have separate morph targets
for left and right sides of your character. (Your centerline axis can be
changed under the Settings menu.)
Facial Animation will parse your endomorph names to automati-
cally sort Dialogue morphs from Puppeteer morphs. (The default
prefix for Dialogue morphs is “Dial.” This can be changed under the
Options menu.)
Facial Animation will also parse your Puppeteer morph names
to automatically create facial palettes with morph pairs (by ending
your endomorph name in “.U” for up, and “.D” for down) or quads
(by ending your endomorph name in “.UL” for up left, etc.).
(These letter codes can also be changed under the Settings menu.)
472
Figure 20.12. Here you see

the complete listing of Mr.
Cool’s morph targets for
Facial Animation. (There
are nineteen fewer morphs
than what are required to
give the same range in
Morph Mixer.)
All targets beginning with “Dial.” will be sorted (alphabetically)

in Facial Animation’s Dialogue group within the morph file.
Facial palettes will automatically be created for all morph tar-
gets ending in “.U” and “.D”, where the “.U” morph will be
assigned to the top two squares and the “.D” morph will be assigned
to the bottom two squares (both morphs will be split along the cen-
terline axis by default).
Facial morph targets (not beginning with “Dial.”) not ending in
“.U” or “.D” can be set to appear in a facial palette of their own or to
remain unassigned until you do so manually. (Yep, you guessed it —
you choose how Facial Animation handles these morphs under the
Options menu.)
473
20.5 Integration with LightWave

After you’ve laid in your dialogue shapes, honed them with perhaps
a second or third dialogue track, and recorded your puppeteering
tracks, Facial Animation gives you two ways of interfacing its data
with LightWave.
If you don’t ask FA to “split” your morphs for you (if you’re
using a model that has separate shapes for left and right morphs like
we created in the previous chapter), you can choose to export a file
that can be read directly by Morph Mixer (Options|File I/O|Load
Endomorph Mix within the Morph Mixer window).
You can also have your animation data “mixed-down” to a
Motion Designer .mdd file that can be applied as a displacement to
your model. (See the Facial Animation or LightWave documentation
for details on how to apply a Motion Designer .mdd to an object.)
Note:
The rules of applying a Motion Designer .mdd file to a model is
that the model must be set to Subdivide After Motion or Last.
And after adding the MD_Plug Displacement handler, within the
MD_Plug interface you’ll need to make sure you have Key-Move
set to ON so your keyframed movement in Layout still affects
the mesh.
I’ve never found anything to yield faster, better facial animation

than this blending of traditional animation, CGI animation, and
puppeteering. In short, Facial Animation is what I always wished
existed — and now it does. And rather than it being a proprietary
tool of a huge mega-studio, it is something you have access to bring-
ing into your own productions!
474
Chapter 21
In Conclusion
So how do you feel?
You’ve learned how to set up a character and how you can modify
that setup to create anything you desire. You’ve learned the controls,
and probably surprised yourself with how easily you took to life draw-
ing in 3D. You’ve followed me in animation, and you’ve begun to
create your own. And now you realize that this dream of yours, this
dream that you might never have told anyone about, this dream of
becoming an animator may indeed be possible!
I’ll let you in on a little secret … You are an animator! You’ve fol-
lowed me through the exercises, you’ve made your own artistic
decisions, you’ve learned all the tools you will need to become a fea-
ture-quality animator. The rest is up to you. If you don’t believe me,
go take a look at one of your old scenes. I imagine it looks like it was
done by a completely different person. You’ve got confidence in your
abilities now. Even though the road to mastery stretches out over the
farthest horizon, you know you can get there under your own power!
You’ve seen the logical steps that have brought you this far, and you
can look down the path and see where the next ones are. And you
know that whatever the path brings, the sights you’ll see will make
the journey worthwhile!
Congratulations! I’m really proud of you! You’ve proved to your-
self that you can do this; you can fulfill this dream that you’ve had
perhaps for as long as you can remember! It is a wonderful path that
lay open before you; where you go now is entirely up to you.
475
Chapter 21: In Conclusion
Note:
Realize though that with power comes responsibility. “We are
such stuff as dreams are made on.” (Prospero, The Tempest)
And although you may see all the ways in which you can (and
must) improve, others will begin to hang their dreams from the
high points of your craft. Make your dreams that others see be
the best and brightest they can be! And when those who have
shaped their lives to your work ask for your help, be kind. Lend
them a hand, for they are the ones who allow you to be who
you are.
Remember as you journey this path that we are storytellers. No

matter how interesting the technology we may use to create our
visions, our magic exists only in how we connect with the audience.
It is in characters you want to be or to be with. It is in situations you
wish you had lived. It is in scenery you wished you had touched. We
are creating dreams for others to hold. Tell the stories you wish you
had been told, and in them, let us dream with you.
I wish you well on this wondrous journey. I look forward to see-
ing your work, whether it be television, feature film, video game,
Internet, or some completely new medium as yet undreamed of in
the minds of common men. May the beauty of your vision shine far
into the future!
Be well, my fellow animator!
Timothy Albee
476
Index
101 Dalmatians, 347, 370 Bolles, Richard Nelson, 345
bone hierarchy, 99-101
A bone rest position, recording, 105-106
acting, 290-291 Bone Weight Map, 152
action, overlapping, 286-287 Bone Weights, 82
actions (practice scenes), 323 bones,
actor, creating (Motion Mixer), 400 converting from skelegons, 85-88
actor map, editing (Motion Mixer), 402 joint compensation/muscle flexing,
Add Motion (Motion Mixer), 403 23-26
Add Transition (Motion Mixer), 405 boning, 53-55
advanced animation
mechanics, 265-295 C
tools, 383 Calvin and Hobbes, 347
Aleksandrov, Grigori, 343 Cameron, Julia, 345
Angel’s Egg, 360 Campbell, Joseph, 369
animatic, 451 CGI Filmmaking, 451
animation, 305 chains,
advanced mechanics, 265-295 long (IK Booster), 31
advanced tools, 383 terminating, 107-108
basics, 239-264 character, 379-381
snappy (modified timings), 281-283 and weight, 225-227
animator’s trust, 382 evolution of, 314, 374
animé, 343 finding, 347-349
anticipation, 248-252, 312 Character Offset (Motion Mixer), 407
Antz, 374 characterization, 313, 347, 378
appeal, 311 Chekhov, Michael, 344, 349, 356
archetypal circular animation, 283-285
imagery, 343 Classic Scene Editor, 89
levels, 371 color, item (Layout), 89
symbols, 372 commitment, 382
arcs, 283 compensation, joint (bones), 23-26
Artist’s Way, The, 345 composition, 270-271, 309-311
asymmetry (facial animation morphs), control order (for posing characters),
423-432 199-210
Audition, 344 Controller Edit mode (IK Booster),
Auto Key Create, 14, 103 130-131
controller size (IK Booster), 129-130
B controllers, activating (IK), 114-122
Balloo, 361 Controllers and Limits tab, 15
bank, 16 controls
bank rotation handle, skelegons, 58 elbow, 179
Battleship Potemkin, 343 finger, 183-185
Beauty and the Beast, 374 foot, 180
477
Index
hand rotation, 177 digitigrade characters, 331-332

hand translation, 176 setting up, 334-337
head, 175 director, talking with, 298
knee, 182 Display Options (Modeler), 59
pelvis, 172 Display SubPatch Level, 86
root, 171 Dope Sheet, 384-395
shoulder, 178 Copy, 392
spine, 173-175 Cut, 392
thumb, 183-185 Delete, 392
toe, 181 Edit in Graph Editor, 392
controls, Erase, 392
manual, 122-123 Insert Gap, 392
using, 169 Paste Insert, 392
controls, IK Booster, 187 Paste Over, 392
elbows, 190-191 Quantize, 393
feet, 196-198 Undo, 393
fingers, 188-189 Zoom to Selection, 393
hands, 196-198 Dope Track, 395-397
head, 194-195 marker, 396
hips, 191-193 drag, 253-255, 312
knees, 190-191
shoulders, 191-193 E
spine, 194-195 easing in/out, 261-262
toes, 188-189 Edit Actor Map (Motion Mixer), 402
controls, skelegon, Edit in Graph Editor (Dope Sheet), 392
finger, 69-71 Edit Motion (Motion Mixer), 408
foot, 66 editing, understanding, 341-342
hand, 62-65 elbow control, 179
spinal, 55-61 elbows, IK Booster control, 190-191
cool walk, 232-233 endomorphs, 413-418, 472-473
coordinates, worldspace, 99 recycling, 456-457
Copy (Dope Sheet), 392 entertainment value, 288-290, 313
copying, Erase (Dope Sheet), 392
keyframes, 390 Escaflowne, 362
pose, 250-251 evolution, character, 314, 374
scenes, 322, 329 exaggeration, 273-281
Create Actor (Motion Mixer), 400 exposure sheet, see X-sheet
Create Motion (Motion Mixer), 402 expression morphs, 418-422
critique of scene, 306-308 eye, leading, 270-271
Curve Editor, 244 F
Cut (Dope Sheet), 392 facial animation, 411
D asymmetry, 423-432
Delete (Dope Sheet), 392 dialogue morphs, 434-443
design, 309-311 expression morphs, 418-422
dialogue morphs, 434-443 morph targets, 412-413
dialogue, sample workflow, 451-455 plussing, 443
re-symmetry, 432-433
478
Index
Facial Animation, Timothy Albee’s, see holds, moving, 262-264

Timothy Albee’s Facial Animation holographic points of view, 363
facial riggings, 412
feet, I
aligning, 91-99 IK (Inverse Kinematics), 8-16
IK Booster control, 196-198 activating, 112-113
straightening, 161-165 activating controllers, 114
feminine storytelling, 370-371 full-time/part-time, 15
Film Directing Shot By Shot, 345 goal objects, 109-111
finger controls, 183-185 Goal Strength, 112
skelegons, 69-71 hazards, 16
fingers, IK Booster control, 188-189 limits, 17
FK (Forward Kinematics), 7-8 number of axes solved, 18-19
FK (IK Booster), 132 pre-bending, 16-17
flexing, muscle (bones), 23-26 terminating chains, 107-108
flipping, 22, 26-27 Unaffected by Descendants, 108
focus, 349-350 IK Booster, 28
developing, 350-356 and keyframes, 32-34
follow-through, 256-260, 312 and movement, 32
foot control, 180 applying, 28-30, 125-132
skelegons, 66 Controller Edit mode, 130-131
Forward Kinematics, see FK controller size, 129-130
full-time IK, 15 FK, 132
IK Stop, 128
G loading poses/motions, 35-36
gesture, 246-247 saving poses/motions, 35-36
psychological, 356-357 IK Booster controls, 187
gimbal lock, 22 elbows, 190-191
goal objects (IK), 8, 109-111 feet, 196-198
Goal Strength (IK), 112 fingers, 188-189
grandstanding, 315 hands, 196-198
Graph Editor, 244 head, 194-195
Grid Snap, 58 hips, 191-193
groupings (Modeler), 47 knees, 190-191
shoulders, 191-193
H spine, 194-195
hand controls, skelegons, 62-65 toes, 188-189
hand rotation control, 177 IK Booster Menu, 35
hand translation control, 176 IK Booster Track, 33-34
hands, IK Booster control, 196-198 IK chains, terminating, 107-108
hazards, IK, 16 IK system skelegons, 72
head control, 175 placing, 72-83
head, IK Booster control, 194-195 IK Stop (IK Booster), 128
heading, 16 Illusion of Life, The, 345
Heisenberg uncertainty principle, 364 imagery, archetypal, 343
hierarchy, bone, 99-101 Imaginary Body, 379-381
hips, IK Booster control, 191-193 Insert Gap (Dope Sheet), 392
Hitomi (Escaflowne), 362 Inverse Kinematics, see IK
479
Index
item color (Layout), 89 modification ideas, 186

item properties, 86 modified timings, 281-283
item visibility (Layout), 89 Morph Mixer, 444-450
mouse/keyboard shortcuts, 448
J morph targets
Johnston, Ollie, 345 for facial animation, 412-413
Joint Compensation options (bones), in TAFA, 472-473
23-26 morphs,
Jungle Book, The, 361 dialogue, 434-443
K expression, 418-422
Katz, Steven D., 345 plussing, 443
keyframe Move mode (IK Booster), 37-38 Motion Designer, using with TAFA, 474
keyframes, 13, 390 Motion Mixer, 398-410
auto-creating, 103 Add Motion, 403
knee control, 182 Add Transition, 405
knees, IK Booster control, 190-191 Character Offset, 407
Create Actor, 400
L Create Motion, 402
Lang, Fritz, 343 Edit Actor Map, 402
layers (Modeler), 55 Edit Motion, 408
leading the eye, 270-271 Motion Offset, 404
“less is more,” 455 Offset Editor, 406
levels, archetypal, 371 Relative Offset, 407
Lewis, C. S., 375 Motion Offset (Motion Mixer), 404
life drawing, 211-212, 321 Motion Options window, 15
in 3D, 211, 237 motion, whip-like, 285-286
in 3D (example), 199-210 motions, loading/saving (IK Booster),
limits, IK, 17 35-36
line of motion, 246-247 motivation, 252
loading poses/motions (IK Booster), Move mode, keyframe (IK Booster),
35-36 37-38
long chains (IK Booster), 31 movies, watching, 342-344
moving holds, 262-264
M
moving keyframes, 390
manual controls, 122-123
Muscle Flexing options (bones), 23-26
marker, Dope Track, 396
mythic storytelling, 370-371
masculine storytelling, 370-371
mechanics of animation, advanced, O
265-295 object,
meta-NURBs, 87 color (Layout), 89
method acting, 349 saving transformed, 159
Metropolis, 343 visibility (Layout), 89
mirroring (Modeler), 65 objects, goal (IK), 109-111
model, Offset Editor (Motion Mixer), 406
reclining, 220-224 order,
seated, 218-220 control (for posing characters),
standing, 213-217 199-210
swapping, 148-154 rotation, 19-22
480
Index
organizing schematic, 89-90 recycling endomorphs, 456-457

overlapping action, 286-287 Relative Offset (Motion Mixer), 407
Render SubPatch Level, 86
P Replace With Object, 150
pacing, 295 rest pose, 25
Parent in Place, 100 rest position (bone), 105
part-time IK, 15 re-symmetry (modeling), 432-433
Paste Insert (Dope Sheet), 392 revisions, saving, 53
Paste Over (Dope Sheet), 392 rigging modification, 186
pelvis, riggings, facial, 412
aligning, 91-99 root control, 171
control, 172 rotation,
Perdita, 347 order, 19-22
Peter Pan, 359 pivot, 25
pitch, 16 quaternion (IK Booster), 27
pivot rotation, 25 recording pivot, 102-104
recording, 102-104 rotations (LightWave conventions), 16
plantigrade characters, 331 run cycle, 399
modifications to, 337
plussing morphs, 443 S
point selection sets, 47 sample workflow (for scene with dia-
point weighting, 133-148 logue), 451-455
points, finding stray, 157-160 Save Transformed Object, 159
pose copying, 250-251 saving
poses, poses/motions (IK Booster), 35-36
loading/saving (IK Booster), 35-36 revisions, 53
timed, 227-231 scene,
posing characters, control order, 199-210 critiquing, 306-308
practice scenes, 317-328 examining, 306
pre-bending planning, 292-294, 299-301
for IK, 16-17 revising, 308
for modeling, 45-51 studying, 297-298
presentation, 288-290 visualizing, 302-303
properties, item, 86 Scene Editor (Classic), 89
psychological gesture, 356-357 scenes,
creating, 356-370, 376-377 practice, 317
puller (IK), 8 to copy, 322
to create, 322-328
Q scenes (practice scenes), 325-327
quad-keys, 469-470 schematic, organizing, 89-90
Quantize (Dope Sheet), 393 schematic layout, 90
quaternion rotations (IK Booster), 37 seated model, 218-220
R selection set, points, 47
radiating focus, 349-350 Set Map Value, 139
developing, 350-356 setup modification, 186
reclining model, 220-224 shapeshifting, 348
Record Bone Rest Position, 105-106 short films, 341
Record Pivot Rotation, 25, 102-104 shoulder control, 178
481
Index
shoulders, IK Booster control, 191-193 timings, modified, 281-283

Shurtleff, Michael, 344 Timothy Albee’s Facial Animation, 459
silhouette, 265-272 interface, 462-472
size, controller (IK Booster), 129-130 morph targets, 472-473
Skelegon Tree window, 74 using with LightWave, 474
skelegons, To the Actor, 344, 349, 356
bank rotation handle, 58 toe controls, 181
converting into bones, 85-88 toes, IK Booster control, 188-189
creating, 57 transformed object, saving, 159
IK system, 72
naming, 60 U
sketches, thumbnail, 292-294, 304 Unaffected by IK of Descendants, 108
Sleeping Beauty, 357 uncertainty principle, 364
snappy animation (modified timings), Undo (Dope Sheet), 393
281-283 unwelding, 74
spinal controls, skelegons, 55-61 Use Bones From Object, 153
spine, Use Weight Map Only, 156
aligning, 91-99 V
control, 173-175 visibility, item (Layout), 89
IK Booster control, 194-195 visualizing your scene, 302-303
squash and stretch, 241-245
standing model, 213-217 W
Star Wars, 460 walk cycles (practice scenes), 324-325
Statistics window, 47 weight, 312
storyboards, 451 affecting the character, 225-227
storytelling, 314 weight maps,
modes, 370-371 bone, 152
stray points, finding, 157-160 Bone Weights, 82
stretching keys, 390 testing, 148-154, 166
Subdivision Order, 86 Weight Normalization, 156
subdivision surface, 87 Weight Shade (Modeler), 136
SubPatch Level, 86 weighting, point, 133-148
successive breaking of the joints, 38, welding, 74
285-286 whip-like motion, 285-286
support, 340-341 workflow, sample (for scene with dia-
symbols, archetypal, 372 logue), 451-455
symmetry (modeling), 423-433 worldspace coordinates, 99
Symmetry mode, 47
X
T X-sheet (exposure sheet), 277-278, 305
tempo, 374-375
Y
terminating IK chains, 107-108
Yoda, 460
testing weight maps, 148-154, 166
Thomas, Frank, 345 Z
thumb control, 183-185 Zoom to Selection (Dope Sheet), 393
thumbnail sketches, 292-294, 304
timed poses, 227-231
timing, 239-241, 312
482
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About the CD
The companion CD-ROM is organized into the following
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Timothy Albee (including animation drawings, paintings, and
3D renderings), life drawing models, and 3D scenes to study
and learn from
4 Images—Images needed for exercises in the book

4 Objects—Objects needed for exercises in the book
4 Scenes—Scenes needed for exercises in the book
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LightWave 3D 8

Wordware Publishing, Inc.

© 2005, Wordware Publishing, Inc.

2320 Los Rios Boulevard

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means

Printed in the United States of America

LightWave 3D is a registered trademark of NewTek, Inc.

Chapter 1 About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2 Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics,

Chapter 3 Prepping Your Character for Setup . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 4 Boning Your Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Chapter 5 Converting, Organizing, and Aligning . . . . . . . . . 85

Chapter 6 Putting IK and IKB to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Chapter 7 Point Weighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Chapter 8 Using the Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Chapter 9 Life Drawing — The Next Logical Step . . . . . . . . 211

Chapter 10 Reviewing Animation Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Chapter 11 Advanced Animation Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Chapter 12 Taking a Scene from Start to Finish . . . . . . . . . . 297

12.4 Visualize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Chapter 13 Important Points for Every Scene . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Chapter 14 Additional Practice Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Chapter 15 Digitigrade Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Chapter 16 On the Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Chapter 17 Finding the Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

17.2 The Psychological Gesture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Chapter 18 Advanced Animation Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Chapter 19 Facial Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Chapter 20 Timothy Albee’s Facial Animation . . . . . . . . . . 459

Chapter 21 In Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

In my career, I have met only a very small handful of individuals

About This Book

1.1 Who Is This Book For?

the point of view of feature-quality animation, and that is what will

1.2 How to Use This Book

1.3 The Models

1.4 The Exercises

2.1 FK (Forward Kinematics)

With FK, if you wanted to make the tip of the character’s

2.2 IK (Inverse Kinematics)

Figure 2.2. Inverse Kinematics.

Figure 2.3. IK in action, driving the positioning for a character’s arm.

We’ll be driving our character’s motion with bones eventually,

2. Click on Setup|Add|Bone, and a requester window opens,

3. You can add a second bone that is automatically set to be the

4. Use Items|Add|Null to create another null object, but this

5. Working in a Right viewport, move the null object you’ve just

Setting the chain’s goal

That’s a quick and easy explanation of standard IK and how to

If you need a child item to favor bending in one direction over

Number of Axes Solved

While it may be tempting to want to have the shoulder or hip

LightWave has a fixed order in which it calculates the rotation of

You can think of this rotation order as

In Figure 2.21, notice I’ve selected both arrow objects and

In each viewport, the left-hand arrow is rotated 0, 0, 0. The

Joint Compensation and Muscle Flexing

At the bottom of the Bone|Properties window, LightWave has a set

Here, you see the differ-

Okay, so what if you want