In Class:
What I Learned About Advanced Blocking
1. Basic Blocking:
This is where the foundation is laid—key poses, timing, and rough spacing that define the action.
2. Blocking Plus (Blocking+):
This goes a step further. You add breakdowns and more detail to the movement, refining the poses and building in anticipation or follow-through. It gives life to the shot even before splining begins.
3. Avoid Hitting Spline Too Early:
One of the key rules is not to rush into spline mode. Jumping into spline without solid blocking can mess up the rhythm and make the animation harder to fix.
4. Moving Holds:
These helps keep the animation from looking too stiff or frozen. A moving hold is when the character pauses but still has small, natural motion—for example, a slight tilt before turning the head in the other direction. These moments add realism.
5. Overshooting:
This is the subtle continuation of movement after an action ends. Say a character quickly turns their head—there’s often a little bit of extra motion that follows. Including this makes the motion feel more organic.
6. Copy-Pairs:
To hold a pose without creating unwanted in-betweens, I learned that copy-pasting the same frame works well. This way, the character stays in that position cleanly for as long as needed.
7. Timing Tweaks:
To adjust the feel of a hold or transition, I can use middle-mouse dragging in the timeline to shift poses around easily without breaking the flow.
Understanding Breakdowns and Arcs
We also explored the importance of breakdown poses, which act as the bridges between keyframes. They help define motion clearly—whether it’s the arc of a waving hand, a bend in the torso, or how a leg moves during a walk.
Speaking of arcs, they’re vital for making everything feel smooth and natural. Even if the animation isn’t perfect, having strong arcs makes it feel much more believable and professional.
My Progress:
This week, I focused on going beyond basic blocking and started applying what I learned about blocking plus. Instead of just setting up key poses, I worked on adding more detail to the movement—like the landing after the jump, the bounce during the jump, and the motion of the sword swing.
I kept everything in stepped mode and didn’t move into spline yet. The idea was to make the movement feel strong and clear even at this early stage, so that once I do go into spline, there’s less guesswork and cleanup needed.
I also applied the feedback I received from George this week. He pointed out that the movement needed to feel more snappy, and he noticed that the character’s standing pose wasn’t balanced properly. So I adjusted the timing of some actions and fixed the standing pose to make the weight distribution feel more natural. I also focused more on the arcs in the motion to make the animation flow better.
Overall, this week was about refining the performance and improving the quality of the blocking using both feedback and the new concepts I learned.
