Keith Lango:

Animating to the camera: (
Reference: CGChar)

"I come from a TV/Film background, so I can't speak to the challenges of 360-degree game animation.

All I ever care about is how it looks to the camera that the audience will be looking through. I don't bother making the motion, staging or the action work in any other view. I just use my other views as portals for grabbing my puppet for manipulation. But I'll never do playback previews in another view, nor will I ever bother even looking at my animation in anything but the "real" camera. The audience doesn't see it from any other view, so to me it's not even worth looking at. The only time I'll care about what anything off camera is doing is if I know from layout that their shadows will be seen on screen. But if it isn't in camera, it doesn't exist in the end result 2d planar image I am constructing. Which is another of my passionate points: your animation should construct strong 2d images. Composition, contrast, staging, silhouettes, space, line, direction of motion- the audience doesn't get to spin the world around for another peek. So all your energy should go into constructing the image as it will utlimately be seen- in two strong dimensions. And if I have to "break" a rig to get the silhouette or staging I want, then so be it, I break the rig. If the director wants the camera to change, I'll adjust accordingly. But by the time the director sees my first pose tests they'll know if they want something different and they most likely will ask me to change it there. But if you're had a good layout process that should be something that isn't all too common because it could mess up so many other areas of the pipeline.

To me the only animation that matters is the animation the audience will see. To look at my work in any other view is a waste of time for me. huh.gif
I guess I'm kinda odd that way. "