Animation

About animation for games.

Animation Theory

 * Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair
 * 28 Principles of Animation by Walt Stanchfield
 * Tricks to Animating Characters with a Computer by John Lasseter
 * Acting and Animation by Doron A. Meir
 * Letters of Note - How to Train an Animator by Walt Disney

Animation Tutorials

 * I want to be animator thread on the Polycount forum with a bunch of useful links.
 * Pose to Pose Pop-Through Animation by Keith Lango
 * The Walk Cycle tutorial by Dermot O’ Connor
 * Animation tutorials by Mike Brown (theory, gimbal lock, rigging, walk cycles)
 * The Animation Clinic: Animation Training for the Masses ($) by Keith Lango
 * Spungella Many tutorials and links, great resource for Portfolio Tips, Animation Resources, and Rigs
 * Great Links at AndyToons More links, Tutorials, Interviews with Great Animators etc.gathered by Andres G. Lazaro
 * The Angry Animator Bouncing Ball, Walk Cycle, and Lip Sync Tutorials by Dermot O' Conner
 * Manipulating Rigs at Animation Buffet (norman rig but can be applied to any rig) by Nair Archawattana
 * Jason Ryan Animation
 * TraptCG - animation tutorials as well as others.
 * Blocking Fast Action Shots By Kiel Figgins

Rigging
Rigging, or skinning, refers to the act of weighting a polygon mesh to a skeleton for the purposes of animation. The "mesh" is the skin, and it is stuck to the "bones" of the animation rig, which form a skeleton that can then be manipulated by an Animator to pose and animate the character.

The skeleton rig can be a complex structure and is usually recreated to fit the unique requirements of each job. It is usually created by a Technical Artist or an Animator.

Skinning has also been used to refer to painting a color map texture for a 3D mesh, but this term is deprecated and hasn't really survived past the Quake 3 era.


 * Creating Custom Characters for UT3 by Epic Games is an overview of how to setup characters for Unreal using 3ds Max. See also Creating Animations for the Unreal Engine: Character Setup and Rigging.
 * Facial Rigging Tutorial by Alden Filion. Rigging up a  control board with the help of a script.
 * Facial Control Board Tutorial by Jesse Sandifer. A video tutorial that outlines the same method but walks you through it  manually, good info to know.
 * Wrinkle Map Wiring in 3dsMax by Mark "Vig" Dygert
 * 3ds Max - Cloth Sim to Bones by Mark  "Vig" Dygert
 * Multi Layer Cloth Basics by Paul Hormis
 * Creating Collision Meshes Using Conform Wrap by Paul Hormis
 * Using Cloth to Simulate Chains by Paul Hormis
 * Articulation by Brian Tindall, Character Technical Director at Pixar
 * Rigging 101 by Javier Solsona Maya rigging tutorials and resources
 * The Setup Machine Maya rigging made simple
 * MEL Scripting for Animators from Insomniac Games
 * Weight Painting By Kiel Figgins

Free Rigs

 * Animators: Free rigged characters online? from the Polycount forum

Motion Capture
Sources for free motion capture (mocap).


 * http://www.animazoo.com/
 * http://freemotionfiles.blogspot.com/
 * http://www.mixamo.com/motions
 * http://mocap.cs.cmu.edu/ (bvh format for 3ds Max here)
 * http://www.mocapdata.com/
 * http://stockmoves.e-motek.com/

Blogs, Podcasts, Etc.

 * http://www.navone.org/blogger/ Victor Navone's blog (The alien song guy who works for Pixar now)
 * http://animationpodcast.com/ Animation Pod Cast
 * Speaking of Animation - Podcasts with Industry Professionals on current releases by Ben Willis, Adam Strick, Jacob Gardner, Stephen Melagrano
 * Carlos Baena's Blog
 * The Yelling Rocket

Must Read Books

 * The Illusion of Life by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas
 * The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams
 * Drawn to Life by Walt Stanchfield
 * The Animators Workbook by Tony White
 * Stop Staring by Jason Osipa
 * Directing the Story by Francis Glebas
 * Anamie - simplified Drawing/planning animation by
 * Draw the Looney Toons by Dan Romanelli