Hello, I am a pipeline TD at a small studio working to do more animation; as usual, the TD's opinion doesn't much matter - we're seen as an extension to IT sometimes ... that's another topic for another day :)

So, while the artists are out making a disaster pipeline, I've been writing a real specification that gets all their working points while still being functional, flexible, automatable and organized. But one area that I keep butting heads is where to put the cameras.

The artists have decided that it should go with the character. Their concern is that because we're not a large team, the animator responsible for the character would also animate the camera, and if there's a change to the character's motion, then there would be a change to the camera. Then they go on about how they'd have to open two files instead of just one (the horror, I know).

Ok, that's fine and makes sense, I don't care who's animating the camera, but does it make sense to include the camera inside the same asset? Do you think this makes sense? If I were animating, and for the record, I do have a BFA in Animation (one of two, I don't know why the other isn't more involved in pre-production), I wouldn't want to be concerned with what the camera is doing. I'd want to focus on animating.

One of the artists with a film background said "in film, the camera comes first, and everything works around it" ... well yeah, I've taken film production courses also ... but this is animation, not film, we can move the camera literally anywhere and frame anything the way we see fit. Also in practice wouldn't you always animate the camera in a second step once you have the motion locked in??

My pipeline proposal is flexible enough to put the camera anywhere, that doesn't really matter, I just thought it was a strange approach to set it inside the character animation asset... and what do we do for shots that don't have a character? I guess whatever operational exception they decide on <cringe>...

Oh well, maybe I should just stick to Python.

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(ETA: I know I sound crabby and unhappy, I'm not. I like my job and where I work ... just a bit frustrated with this)