1
00:00:00,190 --> 00:00:06,540
Hello everybody, my name is Dan, I'm an animator, and this is New Frame Plus, a series about video game animation.

2
00:00:06,670 --> 00:00:13,019
So, I'm working on a pretty big multi-episode project for this series right now, and I'm very excited about it,

3
00:00:13,019 --> 00:00:15,508
but it is taking a long time. Fortunately,

4
00:00:15,509 --> 00:00:19,948
I do have one more regular sized episode in the works, too - should be out very soon -

5
00:00:19,949 --> 00:00:24,029
but after that, I'm gonna be pouring all of my attention into this big project,

6
00:00:24,029 --> 00:00:27,329
which means that this series is gonna sort of vanish for a little while.

7
00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:31,600
So, since there won't be a lot of New Frame Plus episodes happening in the near future,

8
00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:33,960
I thought that I would list off some other fantastic

9
00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:39,980
resources for learning more about game animation in the meantime. You will find links to all of these down below.

10
00:00:42,370 --> 00:00:47,489
To start, one of your best resources is going to be the GDC vault. This site contains

11
00:00:47,620 --> 00:00:51,809
recordings of just about every talk ever given at a GDC for the last

12
00:00:51,809 --> 00:00:54,509
I don't know how many years. There are some great

13
00:00:54,610 --> 00:01:01,619
animation talks in there, as well as a vast bounty of talks on other game development topics. If you're looking for industry folks talking shop

14
00:01:01,620 --> 00:01:07,019
and explaining how they made awesome things, this is the mother load. Any animators watching

15
00:01:07,020 --> 00:01:11,580
this might be particularly interested in the animation boot camp, tricks of the trade talks,

16
00:01:11,590 --> 00:01:16,770
where a bunch of pro animators rattle off a ton of tips and advice rapid-fire. Now

17
00:01:16,770 --> 00:01:23,640
unfortunately, a lot of the GDC vault's more recent content is behind a paywall, and much like GDC itself, it

18
00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:31,500
is unreasonably expensive. Which kind of sucks. Frankly this vault could and should be one of the best game dev education resources on the Internet.

19
00:01:31,780 --> 00:01:35,610
Fortunately, this paywall only applies to talks from the most recent two years

20
00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:37,720
Everything from GDC

21
00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:44,669
2015 and earlier has been made free to watch, and even the talks that are locked behind the wall are often still available in slideshow

22
00:01:44,740 --> 00:01:48,000
form so you can still get some of that information. Even better

23
00:01:48,250 --> 00:01:49,930
GDC does have a YouTube channel

24
00:01:49,930 --> 00:01:56,399
where they upload some of those recent talks for free viewing, and there are already a handful of animation talks on that channel

25
00:01:56,399 --> 00:01:59,729
so that's a good place to start. I hope they start uploading them there more often.

26
00:02:00,130 --> 00:02:06,000
Fortunately, a considerable number of animation talks given at GDC this year weren't actually at GDC.

27
00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:12,959
Twitch was kind enough to host the Animation Exchange, a day full of animation talks by a lot of the same folks who were giving

28
00:02:13,090 --> 00:02:14,440
talks at the conference proper,

29
00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:18,369
so, there is an entire day's worth of GDC style animation talks

30
00:02:18,370 --> 00:02:20,620
which you can watch for free right now on Twitch.

31
00:02:20,920 --> 00:02:26,120
Animation Exchange was organized in large part by Mike Jungbluth, a veteran animator, who also

32
00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:32,940
participates in the game animation podcast Re Animators and helps to run Anim State, a website dedicated to game animation.

33
00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:36,580
Neither the podcast or the site are updated super often,

34
00:02:36,580 --> 00:02:41,640
but they're both pretty great places to find more animators talking shop. Speaking of helpful online

35
00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:48,400
resources, if you are an animator yourself, you might want to check out the Animator's Resource Kit, created by Adam Turnbull.

36
00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:52,630
It is an immensely helpful site with links to just about anything an animator needs.

37
00:02:52,630 --> 00:02:58,689
You're looking for animation software? Tools? Character rigs? Video reference? Book recommendations? Tutorials?

38
00:02:58,690 --> 00:03:02,799
You can find links to all of that useful stuff through the Animator's Resource Kit.

39
00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:07,540
So, bookmark that place. And there are a lot of other animators out there doing some great

40
00:03:07,640 --> 00:03:13,920
tutorials and analyses and live streams of their work. So let me just rattle off a few here. Let's start with Gwen Frey.

41
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:18,910
She animated the flame and the flood, she was a tech animator on BioShock Infinite before that,

42
00:03:18,910 --> 00:03:23,000
she's done some work on the upcoming Psychonauts sequel, and she has a YouTube channel

43
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:27,420
where she started posting some short guides and breakdowns showing her work process.

44
00:03:27,430 --> 00:03:30,940
It's a great way to get a taste of the technical side of game animation,

45
00:03:30,940 --> 00:03:38,109
which is only becoming more important. Next up, Kristjan Zadziuk, a veteran animator who worked on Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell Blacklist.

46
00:03:38,420 --> 00:03:44,470
This guy has a YouTube channel as well, featuring not only a handful of videos on motion capture and some fancy new

47
00:03:44,599 --> 00:03:47,199
motion matching tech that he's been working on at Ubisoft,

48
00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:52,959
but he's recently started a series where he gives critiques on people's animations reels. If you're studying animation

49
00:03:53,030 --> 00:03:58,479
yourself, and you want an idea of what sort of things industry leads and recruiters watch for an animator reels,

50
00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:03,940
this series is gonna be very useful to you. Then there's David Gibson, he is an animator on Overwatch.

51
00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:09,310
He also worked on Evolve, and in film before that. He has put out some videos breaking down his work,

52
00:04:09,310 --> 00:04:10,790
you may have already seen that

53
00:04:10,790 --> 00:04:17,739
time-lapse of him animating Mei's play of the game intro. He gave a great talk on Overwatch's animation at GDC, which is free to

54
00:04:17,739 --> 00:04:24,529
watch by the way, and he also occasionally streams himself working on his own personal project. A really sounding game called Line

55
00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:26,270
He's a fantastic animator,

56
00:04:26,270 --> 00:04:29,680
so watching him work is gonna be a great way to learn some neat tricks.

57
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:31,900
And to learn a lot more neat tricks,

58
00:04:31,910 --> 00:04:38,479
you should also check out Jason Shum, a senior animator at Riot who not only has a Vimeo channel with videos of his work and

59
00:04:38,479 --> 00:04:39,650
a handful of tutorials,

60
00:04:39,650 --> 00:04:42,350
but he also offers a full-blown online class.

61
00:04:42,350 --> 00:04:44,959
If you sign up, you can get access to his video

62
00:04:45,060 --> 00:04:51,500
tutorial course, and get personal feedback and critique on your own work. If you're looking for some animation fundamentals training,

63
00:04:51,500 --> 00:04:54,470
but aren't quite prepared to shell out the money for animation school,

64
00:04:54,470 --> 00:05:00,589
his course might be worth looking in to. He also runs the Anim Break animation challenge, a monthly themed

65
00:05:00,750 --> 00:05:06,079
contest that anybody can participate in, followed by live critique sessions of the reels people submit.

66
00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:12,020
They even give out some pretty sweet prizes to the winner. Then there's Mariel Cartwright aka Kinuko.

67
00:05:12,030 --> 00:05:16,639
She was the lead animator on Skullgirls, and she's currently the lead animator on Indivisible.

68
00:05:16,639 --> 00:05:20,059
She has given some great GDC talks of her own, and she occasionally

69
00:05:20,220 --> 00:05:23,479
streams herself animating on Lab Zero's Twitch channel.

70
00:05:23,479 --> 00:05:28,009
If you want to see how an Indivisible character comes to life, or if you just want to see a professional at work,

71
00:05:28,010 --> 00:05:34,249
this is gonna be an amazing learning resource. Oh, and there's also Jonathan Cooper. He's an animator at Naughty Dog,

72
00:05:34,250 --> 00:05:36,979
he worked on some Mass Effect games and Assassin's Creed 3

73
00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:44,240
before that, and he's got a blog called Game Anim, where he posts links to a lot of the interesting game animation videos, talks, and

74
00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:48,769
articles that pop up on the internet. Great way to keep up with things. Follow him on Twitter, too,

75
00:05:48,770 --> 00:05:51,799
he tends to share a lot of great thoughts on game animation there.

76
00:05:51,830 --> 00:05:54,889
In fact, follow all of these people on Twitter. Find

77
00:05:54,960 --> 00:06:01,250
animators from other games you like on there, and follow them, too. If there's something interesting happening in the world of game animation,

78
00:06:01,250 --> 00:06:04,339
not only are these the people most likely to be talking about it,

79
00:06:04,340 --> 00:06:09,470
they're gonna be the ones speaking from experience. And I think that'll do it for now. Thank you for watching,

80
00:06:09,470 --> 00:06:11,989
I hope you found this useful or at least interesting.

81
00:06:11,990 --> 00:06:12,740
Like I said,

82
00:06:12,740 --> 00:06:19,849
I've got another New Frame Plus episode coming soon, and then a much much bigger New Frame Plus project coming... not so soon.

83
00:06:19,849 --> 00:06:21,409
I'm really excited about it, though!

84
00:06:21,409 --> 00:06:24,079
And I hope you will all enjoy it when it is finally done.

85
00:06:24,180 --> 00:06:29,750
Until then, if you haven't checked out the rest of my New Frame Plus episodes, here is a playlist of everything released so far.

86
00:06:29,750 --> 00:06:34,070
I hope that'll tide you over until the mega series drops, until then...