Picking Up the Slack

(RANT)I get real tired of getting students from beginning animation class that have not been taught some of the simplest things about animation. I find these lacking students at the beginning of semesters and the end of semesters. (the beginning of semesters when they become my students and the end of semesters when they come into my classroom to use the equipment to finish their assignments for other teachers).

One of the things that really smokes my shorts is when they have never even heard of the Rule of 3s. It is one of the simplest techniques in the animators bag of tricks and any beginning student should know about it by that or any number of other names. (I am using Ken Southworth`s name for the concept).

Basically it is that the eye is lazy and will preserve movement across the shorter of 2 distances. Which is why the wheels on the stagecoach seem to travel backwards at a certain speeds in film. The 24 FPS look we are taking at the spokes of the wheel shows a shorter distance going backwards and the wheel seems to go that way.

The wheel is the easiest way to look at the Rule of 3s example (it is called the Rule of 3s because 3 images will give you a complete cycle) other uses of this concept are rain and even walk cycles.

I have seen Rule of 3s violations that have characters moon walking when the animator didn`t want them to. In fact, I saw one such case just last week with a panning run cycle. I asked the student and they never were introduced to the concept under any name. That is not the student`s fault, that is the fault of the teacher (sic).

Animation schools, I do not care how many degrees someone has, if they don`t animate then they have no business teaching animation. It is not a skill you can learn out of books without protecting the skills over and over. Those upper level degrees may look nice at accreditation time, but come on. It they don`t animate then they have no business teaching animation. You are getting paid to teach animation to your students then you better be able to do it yourself. And not just one student film 6 years ago to get that piece of paper either.(/RANT)