De Proxy-nator

You  know the saying “A picture tells thousand words,” well a proxy object is not like that. Haha. A proxy object is a reference for animators to work around in a scene. They aren’t created to look exactly like a final model, it’s just a representation of it. For example a car can be displayed as simple six side box, a line, even a plane with a picture added to it. The pros know a lot about it and if you’re a beginner then it’s something that you’ll find very helpful.

Even as simple as a water bottle needs proxy love

The biggest reason for using them is preparation. Preparation is the key to help keep complex scenes under control. The last thing you want is to redo a particular animation that requires a lot of time and attention. Let’s say I animated a cat running across a room and jumping on a table then falling off it. Then watching it, I decided the cat should instead just run pass the table, but now it’s too late - due to the amount of work that has to be redone. Now if I had done a less complicated animation with a proxy of the cat, I could have seen the overall animation, and would have decided not to jump on the table. Hmm….could have explained that much easier haha.

Another reason, one that would involve you guys, is the limitations of computers. I’m sure there are a few out there who have the raw computer power to pull off epic type animations. But if you don’t have this ultimate power, and want to do an epic scale animation, it would be best to start by using proxy objects. With proxies you can control timing and the basic movement with the elements involved, thus no strain for your little computer…of course that will change when you start adding the detail

Sometimes the crew have to be proxy’d

Proxies are what layouts are made from. If you look back at my earlier blog’s, I talk about layouts and their purpose. So there really isn’t much to write about now since I covered most of it on the layouts blog. But I can say this, experiment with different types of proxy shapes and elements, if you’re lucky enough you might get smacked on the head with an idea. Basically you don’t need boxes and spheres to represent an object, go nuts!

Proxy’s are more effective within an animation studio due to the limits of a project’s budget and time. This is different if you’re at home, where you have the freedom to do whatever whenever. A studio needs to use layouts and proxies to see the overall progress of the project and the direction it is heading. The last thing anyone wants is to be wasting time on something that wouldn’t be in the final output. That said, I conclude this blog and hope I have something more interesting in the next one

Not every proxy looks like you want it to be!