Breaking Down the Breakdown

Recently I felt like I was struggling with some of my animation. Specifically, the best way to approach the breakdown pose. So, I took a step back from what I was doing and went to study the basics of timing charts and breakdowns.

My Breakdown Workflow

First of all it's helpful to define what a 'Breakdown' actually is. The simplest definition that I can give is:

"A Breakdown is an initial position between two keys. It defines how a character moves from one pose to another"

Eric Goldberg:

"Key poses are what the character is doing, then the breakdowns are how the character does it"

Keep in mind the performance

I think the most important thing is to keep in mind is what you want the final action to look like. By doing this it helps inform all the other variables that are decided in the breakdown. 

Where does the breakdown go?

Refer to the timing and spacing on your chart for the action (if you used one) for a rough guide on what eases in and out for the action.

Does the action snap out of the initial pose? Does it ease in the final position?

For example, if you want the action to snap out of the first pose and ease into the second, the breakdown will probably be placed nearer to the second pose. 

However, The breakdown pose is not always a dead in the middle inbetween!

By adjusting the breakdown pose we can create automatic overlap, drag and arcs. And most importantly for a character we can add personality to the movement. You can actually achieve two entirely different performances from the same key poses and timing by making the breakdowns different. 

See the example below taken from Eric Goldberg's book "Character Animation Crash Course":

In the examples we have a dog looking in one direction and then turning his head to look in another direction. (Note how the timing chart indicates the ease in and out between the key poses. The ease in to the second pose is slightly longer.)

This example above shows a very stiff, mechanical breakdown. Something we often see the computer give us in CG animation.

In this example we have adjusted the breakdown to give us much looser and livelier movement between the two poses. Also note how the breakdown favours the first key.

In this last example the action is really polished up by adjusting inbetween 9 also. It follows the flow of the breakdown at 7.

To Recap:

1. Keep in mind the performance you want to give.

 2. Decide what eases in/ eases out during the action.

    3. Decide what frame the breakdown should occur on.

    4. Adjust the breakdown pose to create, drag, overlap and interest in general

5. Play and adjust! It will hardly ever be right first go so play about a bit and adjust accordingly. However, it is easy to get confused because of all the variables in a breakdown so try and understand what you want to do before changing it.

Have a look at Eric Goldberg's book "Character Animation Crash Course" for more info. Highly recommended.