Breakdowns are an extremely important part of animation and what separates the animator from the machine. And as one of my favorite mentors likes to say, breakdowns explain how your character gets from here to there.
The purpose of breakdowns is to eliminate the floaty and even feeling we get from the computer, when it interpolates between poses. It allows us to control exactly how our character moves, and to create this motion in the most interesting way possible. Today, I'll explain how to add breakdowns and give you some tips on what to think about when creating them. I'll also talk about how they're used in both the body and the face.
Creating Breakdowns
To add a breakdown, all we have to do is set a key between two main poses. Sometimes there will be one breakdown key in between, and sometimes there will be multiple. If it's just one breakdown, the key will usually go right in the middle between your main poses. Once you've added your breakdown keys, now you have to offset each body part. The initial instinct might be to have each part move half the distance to the next pose, but this defeats the purpose of the breakdown. Instead, the motions of each body part should be offset from each other.
There are several ideas to keep in mind when deciding how to offset each body part. These are not rules, since there are many different breakdowns you could choose to create for the same set of poses, but these will give you a starting point for how to think about breakdowns.
1. Lead and Follow
I would argue that this is the most important part of breakdowns. In every breakdown, one part of the body should be leading the action, with others following later. Often, this will be a successive pattern. The difference in offset may only be a frame or two, but this makes your character feel much more natural and organic, since in reality, we would not start moving every body part at the same time. You can use all of the following concepts in order to create lead and follow in your breakdowns.
2. Arcs
Incorporating a variety of arcs is a great way to make each breakdown unique and interesting. The most common types of arcs are C shapes, S shapes, and figure 8's, and the most important places to incorporate them are in the the hips and the wrists. Whatever arc you use, be mindful that it flows nicely over the course of the animation. I recommend using an arc tracker in order to make sure your arcs are clean and don't have hitches. The arc on Scrat's nose in the clip below is a great example of how you can continue an arc throughout your animation.
3. Ease In/Out
Eases are extremely powerful when it comes to offsetting body parts. For example, you might have a greater ease out on the hips than on the foot as the body steps forward. You could also have the hips ease into the next pose sooner than the arms. However, be careful with how much ease is used and where you use it, or your character's body parts might feel like they're unnaturally sticking in places. Notice how the eases are used in this clip from Brave.
4. Anticipation and Overshoot
Breakdowns don't necessarily have to move in the same direction that the poses are moving. For example, the hips could anticipate down before going up into the next pose. You could also have an arm swing past its position in the next pose, creating an overshoot. Both of these are great ways to create much more interesting breakdowns.
5. Overlap and Drag
Overlap will almost always be a part of your breakdowns. To get from one pose to another, there should be a successive breaking of joints in the arms and the spine, to keep it feeling organic. This is essentially the same idea as drag, since the wrist and the forearm will usually drag behind the action. However, you can also use drag for the entire arm, having it lag behind the action of the body. (To find out more about overlap, see this post: https://rbossert27.wixsite.com/mysite-2/blog/creating-overlap)
Keep these ideas in mind when creating breakdowns. Many of these work in combination with each other, so you might end up using multiple of these in one breakdown.
Breakdowns and Body Mechanics
When applying this information to body mechanics shots, keep in mind that your movement should be favoring a pose. This means that the arm might be favoring the previous pose, and the hips might be favoring the next pose, etc. By doing this, you will create much more interesting spacing. This fantastic demo from Animator Island does a great job of showing this concept in action:
This second video also shows how you can create many different breakdowns for the same two poses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdPbiy-8BRo. Don't be afraid to think outside the box, and choose whatever you feel works best for the animation.
Facial Breakdowns
These same concepts also apply when creating facial animation. You can similarly have anticipations, overshoots, and eases in the different parts of the face. This example from Inside Out very clearly shows this idea. Also notice how squash and stretch is used to create the anticipation and overshoot.
Get Animating
I encourage you to go experiment with breakdowns in your animation. It's all about deciding how the character gets from one pose to another. Think about how you can incorporate the tips that I mentioned, and just have fun with it!
As an extra tidbit, I also like to color my breakdowns keys differently from my main keys in maya, to make them easier to see, so here's a link explaining how you can do that. https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Maya/files/Animation-Basics-Set-the-appearance-of-key-ticks-in-the-Time-Slider-htm.html
Good luck and have fun!
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