I'm animating the first rough 3D pass - or animatic . This is mostly about blocking shots and getting a better sense of timing. Character animation is limited in this pass, the second pass is where I'll breathe dramatic life into the characters! So, in this pass, they will slide instead of walk, and behave a little bit like robots dancing.
I've animated about five minutes so far, of the roughly sixteen+ minutes that comprise the film...not bad (considering this is my first time), but not brilliant either.
A lot of the slowness is down to bug fixing, and making initial camera/style choices...so, this should not be a flat/linear curve of progress, but, in theory, I hope to get faster as I go along, though every scene presents it's own unique challenge.
Once I complete this pass, I'll really zero in on the edit - It should be much more clear what really works and what doesn't, vs the boardamatic, which is like a really nice figure study, but not the final work...this is like the linework for the painting.
Onward and seaward!