How do the Pro's do it?

[NeilV]

In all these Ice Age Animated movies, you get very QUICK sneak peaks at how the animators do their thing. But, how much easier do they have it?

For instance,

Is animating facial expressions like a smile, anger, sadness, etc, far easier using Pro equipment than it is for home Equipment? For us, we have to move every little verticy to make sure that it is in it's proper place. I imagine all the pro guys have to do is hit a button and any new character they create smiles instantly ;)..

[Cryrid]

There's always tools like Face Robot, Mova, and other forms of facial motion capture, but even then it is never as easy as hitting a button or just capturing a preformance - the data might need to be cleaned up and further tweaked for example. Still though I imagine these tools make it easier to do a great job faster, the main catch being their price-tag.

I've never used such things though, so I can't say too much about the fancy things they get to mess around with.

[Fongool]

It's funny, because when I watch the "making of" featurettes for animated features, especially Pixar's, between seeing quick glimpses of the tools and hearing the animators talk about using them, I always feel like they have it much harder and wonder why they don't just use off-the-shelf solutions! LOL

[SebasProulx]

To aswer your question, yes , it can be easier for an animator sometimes then doing it all by your self, but the only reson is that, on a film production, there is usualy a modeling team,a rigging team, a tool developpement team.... Everything to make the animators life easier, but these things as to get done anyway, it's just that someone else does it for the animators.

But in smaller production, sometimes, the animator is also the modeler/rigger/tool developper... So he can end up doing everything like you would do working by your self.

And even with "off the shelf solution", a lot of work as to be done, and tools as to be developped because every company as their own pipeline.

As for companie like Pixar, it's a good thing that they do their own things, these guys sometimes have a lot of money and they can invent new technologies that will be available for everyone later. Also, this is the way they can do things nobody as ever done before.

Example: Pixar's Renderman, Digital Domain's Nuke...