modern interior design essay
hey, folks! my name is dan. i'm a professional animator and this is extra frames: a show about animation in video games. today, i would like to talk about tracer. and i'd like to use that whole recent pose change kerfuffle thing as an opportunity to talk about pose design. we're going to get back to that 12-principle series of episodes really soon,
i just wanted to do this one thing first, but here we go! so, just to establish what we're talking about here, this is overwatch. it's blizzards first completely new ip in, like, 17 years, and it looks, just, rad. this is one of the best animated games i have ever seen. like, like, even for blizzard this looks really amazing.
i am probably, definitely, gonna do a bunch more episodes on it for the series someday. this is tracer. she's arguably the game's mascot character, and she is, also, rad as hell. "...she's like, 'cheer's love, the calvery's here,' pshew, pshew, pshew..." the game is not even out yet, and i already love this character.
now, recently, some minor controversy happened when blizzard opted to replace one of tracers in-game victory poses, due to a fans criticism of it on their forums. now, as a professional game animator, i'm a guy who poses 3d characters for a living, so, already this situation had my interest. but the thing that got my full attention was that the fans criticism of the pose
wasn't merely that the pose was sexually pandering, but, specifically, that the pose was "out of character." that's the sort of phrase that gets my animator brain going. if animators were actors, this would basically be the same as criticizing an acting choice. and to see the overwatch creative team take that criticism and say 'huh, hm, yeah, good note, we'll give that a second pass,' makes this an even more fascinating situation.
today, i would like to analyze these poses from an animators perspective but to do that, we first need to learn the basics of pose design. pose design is super important for character animation. when you think about it, an animated performance is basically just a succession of poses. characters moving from one pose,
to the next one, to the next one. its easiest to see this in action when you watch television animation, which has to keep things efficient for budget reasons. see, check this out: pose, pose, pose... ...and pose.
"what was that?" "an accent." "from where?" "i dunno." together: "acting!" so, in terms of animation, what makes a good pose? you could easily fill a book with that topic, but i think it could be condensed down to four key things.
number one: a good pose is clear and instantly readable. you want to be able to tell, right away, what that character is doing. it should be so clear that, even if you looked at that character in silhouette at that exact moment, you'd still be able to tell what they're doing. if they're gesturing, the audience needs to see that gesture clearly.
if they're holding something that the audience needs to know about, the pose needs to draw attention to it clarity should always be a top priority. number two: a good pose demonstrates proper physicality. the specifics can vary based on each character's body type, but an understanding of body mechanics is important so that you can give every character
a real sense of weight distribution and balance, no matter what they're doing, or how they're built. they don't necessarily have to be balanced all the time but they should at least feel affected by gravity; that's what helps to give them presence and make them feel believable. number three: a good pose is visually interesting. it's not enough for a pose to just
be clear and feel physically correct. those things are important, but they don't make a pose interesting. no, for that you need the pose to feel dynamic or to capture a sense of motion. the pose should have a strong line of action, which is an invisible line down the characters body which shows the primary force of the action. all the parts of the body should coordinate
to either work within the flow of that line or complement it in some way. the pose should avoid symmetry to keep things varied and interesting. really, a lot of art rules for composition and design apply here. you need to pay attention to negative space, you want to create contrast you want to guide the viewers eye
to where you want them to focus, at the end of the day your goal is to create a visually engaging image. or, in the animators case, a succession of them. and, number four: a good pose conveys character this one's really important, because every character has their own personality, their own soul, so to speak,
and, in animation, great poses are like a gateway to that character soul. it's important to avoid clichã©s when posing your character, because every character has a different way of doing things: different posture, different expressions, different ways of viewing the world. and, just like an actor, an animators job is to know that character inside and out, and effectively present them to the audience.
the best poses are the ones that are just loaded with character that clearly communicate what the character is thinking and feeling in the moment. if the audience can immediately get some idea of who the character is just from a single glance: that's the sign of a good pose. now, that was a lot of stuff to absorb, but it's okay.
animators spent their entire career trying to master this stuff. but, now that we've gone over a lot of the fundamentals, why don't we try putting it into practice with some test examples? now, i'm going to put up two images that feature the same character in two different poses. and let's see if we can pin down
'which pose works better?' if you'd like to have a second to look at them and make your own assessment before i share mine feel free to pause the video after i put up the images. alright! here's the first one, you ready? okay: which one, of these two princess peach poses, would you say is the superior one? which one's more interesting, or communicates more personality?
well, i would say that the one on the right is more energetic and eye-catching, and also far more readable in terms of action. you can instantly tell that she's stretching out to reach at something. all of her body language sells it: the line of action, the outstretched hand, her eye line, the dress billowing behind her. i wouldn't say that this pose necessarily
communicates a ton about the character, but the emotion of the moment at least reads aloud and clear. the pose on the left isn't terrible, but it is less clear in a lot of ways: her body stance feels okay, and those arm poses do feel really in-character for princess peach, somehow, but the expression's not communicating a whole lot to me.
it's somewhere between joy and... i don't know, surprise? the really confusing thing for me is her ponytail. nothing about the rest of her pose conveys much movement or inertia but her hair is just flying up in the air like she jumped off of something. it really doesn't feel like it ties into the rest of the pose at all. i'm actually a little surprised this was
released as a promotional hero pose, but, eh. anyway, moving on: next pose! okay, now these are pretty similar: what do you think? now, again, neither of these are terrible, but the one on the right is definitely more interesting, visually. having sora's body turned slightly away from us gives us a nicer line of action from head to toe,
and his eye line ties into it really nicely. his body language, combined with the expression, and that tilt of the head, makes sora look heroic but not super serious about it at the same time, which is totally who sora is as a character. looking at the pose on the left, you do still get that personality, and that smile, and that nice, strong, wide, a-shaped hero stance, but having him face us dead-on,
even with that little bit of head rotation, makes the pose look really symmetrical and just a bit more bland. also, his crossed arms get a little bit lost visually and not only because of all the detail complexity happening in that general area, but also because they don't make for a clear silhouette. the flat symmetry of this pose
really hurts most with the legs and the feet. they look almost like a mirrored copy-paste. the negative space between the pant legs makes for a less appealing shape than what we see on the right. the flattened silhouette of the chain at his side doesn't work super well. and then there's the angle of his feet. looking at the pose on the right again,
sora's feet feel nice and planted. even without seeing a floor beneath him you can still get a feel for the surface he's standing on, and the planted feet make that heroic pose feel all the stronger. the pose on the left just not getting that benefit. judging by the angle his feet are splayed out at, it looks like he's either; standing on a surface that isn't flat, or maybe we're seeing him at a slightly
down-tilted angle, like we're overhead slightly. but then the rest of his pose doesn't really feel like that, so eh, yeah. overall i would say that the pose on the right: definitely stronger in this case. okay, next: whup! three poses! a twist! all right: which one works best? (and remember: we're basing this strictly
on the quality of the posing here, not the quality of the games these come from.) okay, let's go one by one. the first pose is okay, but it's hurt somewhat by this iteration of amy's design (and i'm mostly referring to the enormously-sized hands and boots). they aren't insurmountable animation problems, but those kinds of proportions can have a
significant impact on how a character animates: what they're physically able to do, and how they'll look doing it. the boots aren't too big a problem for this particular pose, but that waving hand is one of the poses biggest weaknesses. its sheer size makes it difficult to create negative space between her head and hand
to make a clearer silhouette, and *groan* one of her fingers overlaps the white of her eye there, and that's not really a great look either, and i don't entirely love the facial expression here but, eh, really most of my complaints come down to this iteration of the design: it's just not super animation friendly. but the important thing is
that despite all those minor problems the character's exuberant attitude does come across loud and clear in the pose. so, that's good. now, this second pose is really working. her attitude is different than in the previous pose, more of a relaxed confidence, maybe a little cocky. but her posture totally sells it. she's got a strong line of action: that's good.
nice, clear silhouette. the head tilt really helps to communicate that laid-back confidence, and i like the expression here, too. if there's one thing the sonic boom redesign succeeds in its in giving the sonic cast a better range of facial expression. i mean, it's not like there's anything remarkable about this lidded 'yeah, i'm cool' expression, but it works, and it's nice seeing some range for once.
also, sonic characters tend to look their best when you cheat their mouth expression toward the camera, like you see here. it looks really nice here and neither of the other poses are doing that. this one is just really well-composed overall. i like it. can't say the same for that third pose, though. that eye expression's just not really working
i can tell that they're going for that sort-of 'one eyebrow raised' thing, but it's kind of hard to achieve that when all you've got are eyelids, and this attempt leaves her looking somewhere between 'sassy' and 'wasted.' and there's not much sense of weight to the pose either. the line of action isn't that clear, the legs feel really stiff and upright
compared to the curved lean on the spine, and the way she's holding the hammer doesn't feel like it really ties into everything else. i think she's meant to be resting the thing on her shoulder but... i mean- it's not doing that. and the way she's holding the hammer makes it feel completely weightless too. i realized that they play fast-and-loose
with the weight of this hammer in the sonic series, but it seems like it shouldn't ever feel so light that it looks like it's an inflatable. so, yeah: pose number two is the winner! next! alright, let's do one more set of three. (again, never mind which of these games or iterations of dante you like more: we're looking strictly at the pose design here.)
so what do you think? i'm actually going to call this one, pretty much a tie between the first one and the third one. the first pose is facing us dead-on, so we're not getting a lot of curve to his line of action, but he's got just enough lean to the left in his torso, and variation in the position of his arms and legs, to keep everything from feeling too symmetrical. and his silhouette is crystal clear.
i really like the composition of this pose overall. like the way the arms reinforce the shape of the long coat, the way the sword on his back is angled in the opposite direction of his line of action in order to create a better sense of balance and it's somewhat succeeds in conveying this newer, more punk-influenced dante. he's walking right at us,
he's direct, he's going for intimidation, he's got that young 'anger' thing going, and this pose totally sells that. strong pose overall, but i would say that the third pose is equally effective. he's got a much stronger line of action here and the coat reinforces it. and this pose is even better at clearly conveying the personality
of this iteration of dante. he's cocky, he's not terribly serious, he's intimidating but in a way that suggests he, in no way, feels threatened by you. where the first pose successfully conveys a facet of dante's personality, i feel like this pose captures the whole picture. the only real nitpick i have with this one is the silhouette i see two issues:
first, his gun arm that's pointing at us gets completely lost in the torso, which could be a problem, but different colors help to make that arm pop over the red of his coat, so that kind of saves it. there's also this other problem where his other gun hand overlaps with his head, though. you see how that pistol grip edge lines right up with the edge of his hair?
i think they probably could have found a way to clear up that aspect of his silhouette as well, but it doesn't ruin the pose. that's why i think this one's a tie. better composition and silhouette on this side, better asymmetry and communication of character over here. and then there's this pose, which is just... incredibly boring. it's like, 'hey i'm dante i'm also here what are we doing?'
it's got no energy, the near-symmetry of his arms is pretty dull, and i, i mean, what's he doing? is he just shrugging? i guess they're going for a 'cool, nonchalant' look, but, i dunno, he just ends up looking bored. yep, not even close: these two. okay, i think that's enough warm-up, so, let's finally start talking about tracer.
"pst! what you looking at?" *chuckle* *giggle* what do we know about her from what blizzard has shown us so far? well, we know that she's quick. we know that she's friendly. we know she's heroic, "don't worry loves, cavalry's here!"
and she seems to genuinely care about what she does and who she does it for. but we also know that she's goofy. she couldn't put on a straight face if she had to. now the context for all the poses we're about to discuss is 'victory.' these are the poses that your team of characters stand in when you win the game. so the goal of these poses, from an animation standpoint,
should generally be to show how the character reacts to success. maybe they're celebratory. maybe they just stand all 'cool and heroic' somehow. whatever they're doing, given this game's aesthetic, they should at least strike a pose that looks right out of an illustration for a poster or something.
so, without further ado, here is the original tracer pose which blizzard eventually opted to replace. now, i should say up front, this is not a terrible pose. i mean it's not incredible but let's go down the checklist: it's instantly readable, strong silhouette, good sense of physicality and weight distribution, and it's also pretty visually interesting:
lots of asymmetry in the limbs a decent enough line of action, it's definitely not the best tracer pose on offer, but it's certainly more interesting than this stupid pose. but then there's the big question: what does this pose communicate? what's the character doing? what does it convey about who they are? that's where this pose falls pretty flat,
and it's where the complaints raised about it are dead-on. i mean her stance does maintain some of that light-hearted-yet-casual 'tracer energy,' but not nearly as much as some of these others do. this particular pose says nothing more than 'i'm posing for the camera!' and that would be fine (like i said these are hero victory poses most everybody looks like they're posing for the camera),
and it's not like every pose has to function as a character biography, but, above all, they do still need to stay true to character no matter what they're doing. and... well... (alright i've talked around it long enough.) everything about this pose is drawing attention to her butt. like- all of it.
the line of action down the spine. the straightened legs. the angles of the arms. her eye line. everything about the position of this pose draws attention right here. the only reason to stand in that particular way is to say 'hey, check out my butt.' i've seen some people try to argue
that other overwatch characters are doing the same pose, as if everybody's complaints about this tracer example are arbitrary and ridiculous. and *uggh* what? no. the- look: yes, these poses have a character rotated away from us and looking over their shoulder, but the posture and stance of these poses have very little in common with the tracer pose.
the lines of action are different and neither of these is built to draw attention to the characters butts, or to sexualize them in any way really. honestly, if anything, they're just kind of boring poses this is the only overwatch character who has a pose that's even in the same ballpark in terms of posture, and it's still not the same pose. look at the line of action.
look at the angle of the torso. nothing about the composition of this pose draws the eye to hanzo's backside. quite the opposite: our eyes are pulled up toward his face and his shoulder. now there is one other overwatch character who does have an over-the-shoulder pose that draws attention to her features in a more sexualized way, and it's this one.
notice it's not the same pose but it does draw attention to her physique in a sexualized way. in fact, a lot of her costuming and animation do. and yet, widowmaker's presentation hasn't caused nearly so much a stir. the fan who brought up tracers posing expressed no problem with widow-makers portrayal, and the widowmaker's animation hasn't been changed at all,
while that tracer pose has. why? well, widowmaker's character is clearly a spin on the 'femme fatale' archetype: the attractive or seductive character who uses sexuality to draw you in before wrecking your day. and we can argue over whether-or-not that's still merely a justification
to objectify a character, but let's at least agree that sexuality is a somewhat-key-component of this character as she's presented that's why widowmaker striking this pose works, and it's why tracer striking this one, doesn't. one of these poses stays true to the character, and the other one feels like it compromises the character for the sake of pandering,
because it doesn't align with the tracer we've been shown thus far. and, clearly, the overwatch team ultimately felt the same way. so, with all of that said, let's have a look at the pose blizzard chose to replace the old one with. alright, let's just go at this with the same criteria we've been using: it's still instantly readable; silhouette is still nice and clear;
good weight distribution; good asymmetry in the limbs; and, compared to the original pose, this one is way more dynamic. it has a much stronger line of action that runs head to toe, and it has a much greater sense of motion. and that alone makes it feel much more in line with tracer as a character: even in this static pose
she feels like she's springing up into the air. now, it's worth noting that this pose has its own sexualized aspects as well. for starters, it totally looks like a pinup model pose, specifically: this one. (i'm sure that was their reference.) that actually doesn't bother me, though. for one, tracer's a pilot. so, having her strike a pose that evokes
the sort of imagery that you'd see painted on the side of an old world war ii bomber, is kind of neat. and also, despite the sexual context of the reference source, the sense of motion in this pose still feels like tracer, way more than the old one did. of course, her butt is still pretty darn prominent here, but she's no longer posed in a way that makes her butt the clear center-of-focus.
honestly, at this point, it's more of a character modeling issue than an animation one. the way the models been sculpted with such a deep crack, her butt's probably going to look sexualized no matter how you pose her. if it was me, i'd consider giving the character model a revision-pass two but, whatever. my point is, from an animation standpoint,
this is just a straight-up better pose. it's better designed and, even more crucially, it's in-character. and i do want to stress, again, that sexuality can be integral to communicating character. i mean, sex is a huge part of the human experience, so, of course sexuality informs who we are. a lot of great stories and characters have been built around the subject of our sexuality
but more often than not in this industry, portrayals of female sexuality aren't about conveying something about the character at all. the purpose is just to pander all it really communicates, is that the character's creators are willing to turn that character into eye candy for you. lightning here, is a warrior.
she's powerful and dignified, but emotionally closed off after some really painful experiences. but, we'll gladly drop all that and turn her into eye candy, if you like. this character is a sniper: one of the greatest alive. a supernaturally capable marksman, nearly impossible to detect.
she refuses to speak under any circumstances, and her allegiance is always suspect. she's a complete enigma. she dresses like this, though. no, hey, no- come on, wait just a minute, it makes sense: she breathes through her skin, you see. *uggh* this is a much, much larger topic, way outside the intended scope of this video, and there are plenty of other people
better qualified to tackle this issue. but, suffice it to say, that, whether you're an actor, or an animator, a writer, a designer... really any kind of storyteller, finding a character's soul and staying true to them, is vital. it's what separates the good characters from the great ones. and this whole episode may have sounded to you like i'm just massively overthinking things,
or, at the very least, that i'm being incredibly nitpicky, but, this is what animators do. this is exactly what we're supposed to do. this kind of eye for detail and attention paid to character is how great animation gets made. every animated character you've ever liked or gotten really attached to, is the product of one, or maybe a lot of people,
putting exactly this amount of thought into that characters design and performance. i mean blizzard has clearly spent an incredible amount of effort developing this cast of characters: to build a diverse roster of personalities that embody every kind of hero fantasy you can think of. as an animator, it makes me really excited seeing a studio prioritized characterization
to such an extent that they would replace a pose that compromises it. i like seeing a team value their characters that much. "yeah!" anyway, if nothing else, i hope that this has been a fun little crash course in pose design 101. i will be back again soon to continue that principles of animation series we've been doing,
but until then: thank you for watching, and i'll see you next time. ♫ music ♫