Animated women UK, arranged a talk in Axis studios with Senior Animator, Laura MacMahon. Talking about her animation development with project - K/DA - More, music video for Riot, Axis works a lot with Riot and also works on Film, Tv, Theme, etc.
Laura MacMahon, is a Senior animator who has worked with Axis for 6 years,
within layout and animation. and worked on a vast array of amazing projects.
for; Magic of the gathering, League of Legends, and various others.
K/DA - More. Development
Before the animation process began, Axis experimented with motion capture, which turned out to be mostly unusable, as the time taken to iron out the defects would take just as long as animating it, and may still need heavier editing.
with the choreography video reference, animation was keyed every 2 frames and made to match the dancing as closely to the reference, and the same animation was initially used for each of the characters during the layout stage, which was then pushed in the later stage. The Reference was super important as it helps notice the nuances and subtle micro-movements and weight shifts, which without it would make it less believable. A personal note to add would be, try not to make all the movements perfect, purposely in a sense that the character isn't a perfect dancer, this is usually helped through the use for reference, which can help connect with the audience. The animation passes are; Blocking > Refined > Polished. To add character personality with less- robotic unison movements. as well as adding a stylistic hint to the realistic movements. this was done by breaking down the choreography using the 12 principles of animation.
Animation principles are everywhere, find them in the reference and push them to create efficient, stylised realism.
•Using timing- to hold poses/ adjust the timing between poses- snappy/ smoother transitions, to offset the characters.
•Squash + Stretch- a use for this was for the spine to stylise a Bouncing movement.
(everything you animate is basically a bouncing ball)
•secondary action- used for the hair/ tails
•appeal- posing the characters with clear, appealing silhouettes and contrast in poses.
•Exaggeration- for some shots, scaling up hands/ stretching limbs was needed to push the
pose. e.g. reaching out towards the camera.
•among may other refinements to add appeal.
The limitations were to keep as close to the choreography as possible and to keep to the beats and timing of the music, this is mostly worked out in the layout stage but changed may be made to develop the shot/ if the client (Riot) asks for changes.
For this project the focus was more on looking cool rather than emotion. And would break as many rules in a physics sense, so long as it looked cool.
E.G. technically the characters would break their backs for some of the poses, but if it looks cool then it works!
When moving the body, its best to offset the movements. E.G. when a character stands up-
the head, torso and hips don't move at the exact same time, so by offsetting them, it becomes a more believable motion.
When it comes to poses, it is important to use the line of action, and lead the viewers eyes
where you want them to look, and adjust the timing to make sure they can take in what is happening, E.G. movement snapping the fingers- offset the body movement from torso to wrist and extend the arm creating a line of action, push the pose, scale the hand, and hold the pose long enough to take it in.
Challenges
a big challenge with the video as a whole, was to create a sequel to the original, successful music video from K/DA. So to prevent comparisons they needed a new style. And Axis smashed it as usual!
A challenge as an animator for this project would be the un-sequential shots that had no straight forward narrative. But this did allow for creative expression, experimentation and also weren't constrained by continuity.
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Axis K/DA: More - Breakdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyS1Hxn5fN4
Keep Animating the world a better place :)- CG World
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