3D Character Animation

Choosing a sound Clip

In my third week of the animation project I had to choose one of three sounds clips, these short six second sound clips were sampled from various unknown movies. When selecting a sound clip I wanted to choose one which I thought was different and gave me more room to get creative with the context of the sound clip. I decided to use sound clip three, my reason being is the first two seconds of the clip had no dialogue, and faint footsteps could be heard.  I decided with the first two seconds of sound I could build anticipation with a scared looking character, carefully and wearily sneaking along. 

With the remaining four seconds of sound, the dialogue “There coming to get you Barbra” I wanted to tell the story purely by the expressions and actions of the character Barbra, rather than introducing other characters to react with.  I felt that by only animating Barbra meant I could focus on just her actions and make her character the centre of attention, rather than spending time animating other characters and shifting the attention.

 

Creating a Back Story

Before I animated even the first frame I knew that it was essentially to create a back story behind the animation. When creating a back story, I thought what could make the animation more interesting, and what story could I create that would focus just on one character (Barbra).  I wanted a back story that would have some context to the sound clip, but would still provide an unexpected action that would create appeal and anticipation. 

Back Story

First two seconds of animation – The Nervous Blind Walk (No Sound)

Barbra is navigating her way through a tight corridor of a poorly lit crypt, with one hand outstretched and a forward poised posture, she stumbles along in the darkness with every sense heightened.  As Barbra walks along she becomes more and more anxious and nervous with only her belief in God to Guide her.

Remaining four seconds of animation – A Startled Barbra followed by screaming and running

(There coming to get you Barbra!)

Barbra suddenly stops on the spot and frantically checks behind her, frozen with fear, her hands start to shake, her lip quivers, and her body tightens up in anticipation. Without another seconds delay she turns to her faith, going down on one knee she closes her eyes and begins to pray to God to save her. Barbra’s prayers are answered and she feels Gods presence lift her up and away to the safety of heaven.

Story Boarding

After creating a back story to my animation and the character Barbra I knew it was time to storyboard. Remember the importance stressed by Richard Williams in "The Animators Survival Kit" I knew a storyboard was essential to the planning of any animation. When storyboarding I took the main points of action and interest of my back story, and put them in to six scenes of a story board.  With the actions of each scene planned I then draw an accompanying image. 

Animating a 2d and 3d Ball

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My first 2D Ball Animation

After extensively researching the principles of animation it was now my turn to animate, for my first animation I animated a simple 2d ball using CS5. In my first 2D ball animation it was clear I did not use enough in-betweens as my ball bounced to quick lacking timing and motion.  Also I did not plan the positions of the in-betweens, as a result my ball fell at the wrong speed and there was too much squash and stretch.

Refining my 2D Animation

After watching my ball animation back it was clear it needed allot of iteration before it fulfilled the basic fundamental principles of animation. In my first week I researched the 12 principles of animation, finding good and bad examples. But when it came to my first animation even though I knew what the principles were I did not know how to apply them. For this reason I then went and researched animation further, finding the Richard Williams and "The Animators Survival Kit". In the “The Animators Survival Kit" Richard Williams explains exactly how in-betweens work, showing how using numbered grids can structure an animation. 

I decided the only way I could achieve a good timing and motion/squash and stretch is if I planned each frame of my animation using a numbered sequence that showed the position of the ball though the entire animation.

    

Final 2D Ball Animation

For my final 2D ball animation I carefully went back thorough each frame and checked the positioning of the ball in relation to its numbered grid position. When I started the animation my aim was to animate a ball falling in off camera bouncing along and rolling to a stop. I feel my animation achieved its aims and fulfilled several of the main principles of animation such as timing and motion and squash and stretch. However I do feel my animation lacked appeal and due to the poor proportions of the ball, the animation was not as smooth and following as I would have liked.     

My first 3D Ball Animation

Animating a 3D Ball with Maya has been my first experience of using 3D Animation software, because I have not used 3D Animation software before I found Maya very confusing at first. I found that because Maya had quite a lot of controls and options it was easy to get lost or to choose the wrong feature. At first I struggled to get to grips with key framing, I found that there were some movement in-between key frames. I also discovered that certain key framing controls had very sensitive values, for example the squash stretch values were very sensitive and it took allot of trial and error before I was using the wright value and achieving a realistic squash stretch.

 

Final 3D Animation

After allot of trial and error I had familiarised myself with the controls and key framing system used to animate in Maya, I found the keyboard shortcuts especially useful as they allowed me to perform certain actions quicker than if I had to select them  from the control panel . When it came to refining my animation I found it difficult to achieve a smooth bounce, even when using more key frames. To smoothen out the balls bounce I had to go into the hyper graph section of Maya, once there I had to break the tangents and smooth the key frames position on the graph. I feel my 3D ball animation achieved its purpose of familiarising me with the animating process involved when using 3D animating software like Maya.  Below is my final 3D ball animation, I kept the animation simple having the ball just bounce up and down on-loop.

Bad Examples - The 12 Principles of Animation

Introduction

To further demonstrate my understanding of the twelve principles of animation, I have searched for a bad example of each. I have looked at animations that do not use, or poorly executes the twelve principles of animation. When watching bad animation it was clear when a principal was not being used, or was being used incorrectly, often a single animation would poorly use many of the principles, or not abide by any.

Squash and Stretch

This amateur ball animation is a perfect example of a poorly executed squash and stretch, in this short three second clip the ball can clearly be seen distorting in the wrong point. Because the size and proportions of the ball change from frame to frame, the ball seams to shrink and grow in size. In this animation the squash and stretch does not simulate the contact point of the balls bounce, but instead highlights the disproportions of the balls size and shape. 

How is Animation Defined?

How is Animation Defined?

In the dictionary Animation is defined as:

animation [ˌænɪˈmeɪʃən]

n

1. liveliness; vivacity

3. (Performing Arts)

a.  the techniques used in the production of animated cartoons

b.  a variant of animated cartoon

Comment – Animated Cartoon

Animated Cartoons where one of the earliest forms of animation, done using a pen/paper sketch drawn for each movement in the scene, each sketch was then drawn on plastic cells for each movement and photographed in a series to make the scene in the cartoon.

Comment - Digital Animation/CGI

Not mentioned in the traditional definition of Animation is Digital Animation or CGI (computer generated imagery), both being new technologies that have developed with the creation of the Computer.

 The continual development of Computer hardware and software has lead to digital Animation and CGI replacing more traditional forms of animation, such as stop-motion" animation of scale-model puppets or drawings. Because of the expensive time-consuming nature of Animation, Computers are now used in every step of sophisticated animation — for example, to supply the in-between drawings for full animation. The simplification and computerization of Animation has been used as an effective cost cutting measure.

The 12 Principles of Animation

Below are some brief definitions of each of the twelve principles of animation:

1) Squash and Stretch - defines the rigidity and mass of an object by distorting its shape during an action. When an object squashes or stretches, it appears to be made of a pliable material, only totally rigid objects remain stiff in motion, but with living creatures the shape will deform in some way. Objects that are partially pliable and partially rigid should have only the pliable parts deform.

A hinged object can squash and stretch without deforming

An important rule is that the volume of the object should remain constant at rest, squashed, or stretched. If this rule is not obeyed, then the object appears to shrink when squashed and to grow when stretched. 

2) Timing and Motion - gives meaning to movement, both physical and emotional. Spacing actions define the weight and size of objects and the personality of characters.

3) Anticipation - can be the anatomical preparation for action or a device to attract the viewer's attention to the proper screen area and to prepare them for the action. A well timed anticipation can enable the viewer to better understand a rapid action, e.g., preparing to jump and then leaping off-screen.

4) Staging – presents an idea so that it is unmistakably clear to the viewer, this idea can be an action, a personality, an expression, or a mood. An important objective of staging is to lead the viewer’s eye to where the action will occur so that they do not miss anything.

5) Follow Through and Overlapping Action - is the termination of an action and establishing its relationship to the next action. In the movement of a complex object different parts of the object move at different times and different rates, heavier parts lag farther and stop slower.  Overlapping means to start a second action before the first action has completely finished. This keeps the interest of the viewer, since there is no dead time between actions.

Here is a quote about overlapping from Walt Disney:

"It is not necessary for an animator to take a character to one point, complete that action completely, and then turn to the following action as if he had never given it a thought until after completing the first action. When a character knows what he is going to do he doesn't have to stop before each individual action and think to do it. He has it planned in advance in his mind.

6) Straight Ahead Action - in hand drawn animation is when the animator starts at the first drawing in a scene and then draws all of the subsequent frames until he reaches the end of the scene. This creates very spontaneous and zany looking animation and is used for wild, scrambling action.

6) Pose-to-Pose Action - is when the animator carefully plans out the animation, draws a sequence of poses, i.e., the initial, some in-between, and the final poses and then draws all the in-between frames (or another artist or the computer draws the in-between frames). This is used when the scene requires more thought and the poses and timing are important.

7) Slow In and Out - refers to the spacing of the in-between frames at maximum positions. It is the second and third order continuity of motion of the object. Rather than having a uniform velocity for an object, it is more appealing, and sometimes more realistic, to have the velocity vary at the extremes. The name comes from having the object or character "slow out" of one pose and "slow in" to the next pose.

8) Arcs – are the visual path of action from one extreme to another is always described by an arc. In nature, arcs are the most economical routes by which a form can move from one position to another.

9) Exaggeration - does not mean just distorting the actions or objects arbitrarily, but the animator must carefully choose which properties to exaggerate. If only one thing is exaggerated then it may stand out too much. If everything is exaggerated, then the entire scene may appear too unrealistic.

10) Secondary Action - is an action that directly results from another action. It can be used to increase the complexity and interest in a scene. It should always be subordinate to and not compete with the primary action in the scene.

11) Appeal - means something that the audience will want to see. This is equivalent to charisma in a live actor. A scene or character should not be too simple (boring!) or too complex (can't understand it). One principle to achieve this is to avoid mirror symmetry. Asymmetry tends to be more interesting and appealing.

12) Personality - is the objective of the principles previously discussed is to give the characters in an animation a personality those appeals to the viewers. The different principles should be applied in a fashion to produce a consistent personality. This means that the animator must have a good idea of the desired personality before beginning the animation.

Good Examples - The 12 Principles of Animation

Introduction

To demonstrate my understanding of the twelve principles of animation, I have watched the first episode of my favourite animated Manga series, Guyver the Bio boosted armour. As I watched the animation I took an analytical approach to each scene, closely watching to see how the twelve principles of animation where incorporated into the design.

As I watched the animation, I took three screen shots of each scene I thought was a perfect example of one of the twelve principles of animation, for most of the principles I used a different scene to explain, but for some principles I felt one scene was suited to both.

                                                  

Squash and Stretch

In this scene several onscreen characters make a quick exit by rapidly bouncing out of frame, as they make each jump to form the bouncing motion, their bodies compress and distort to simulate the spring like motion of a real person jumping. This scene demonstrates how “squash and stretch” can simulate realistic movement on a hinged object, without the object deforming. The animator also uses an overlap between frames to create a motion blur reflecting the onscreen movement of the characters.

 

Arcs

In the above scene the animator uses arcs to create motion that is more expressive and less stiff than action set along a straight path. Because the animator has used “arcs” the visual paths of the characters onscreen jumping and bouncing looks natural. 

Timing and Motion

This scene opens with a rock falling into a lake after just being thrown by one of the off screen characters. This scene perfectly demonstrates “timing and motion” because the spacing actions of the rock falling and the reaction of water are defined by the weight and size of the featured rock.

 

 

Anticipation

In this scene a character is ambushed by a group of soldiers, he is backed into a corner and has no where to go. In the “anticipation” before the fight, the animator clearly shows the characters anatomical preparation for the action. The animator does this by focusing in on the characters facial expressions, a nervous sweating face, followed by a clenched closing of the eyes and finished with a body shredding transformation into a zoanoid monster.

  

 

Staging 

In this scene a vehicle is driving along the motorway while a colourful mountainous backdrop passes by, as the vehicle drives along, the moving background draws the viewer’s eye to the still image of the vehicle. Through the use of “staging” the animator is able to present the idea of motion and movement which is unmistakably clear to the viewer.

 

Follow Through and Overlapping Action 

In this scene one of the characters asks the other to pass him the Soya source, this is a perfect example of how “follow through and overlapping action” can be used in animation to simulate real world material properties, in this case the movement of liquid as an object is passed from one character to another.

 

Pose-to-Pose Action

The animated Manga series, Guyver the Bio boosted armour is classified as a “pose-to-pose action” animation, this is because the animator has carefully planned out and drawn each frame from start to finish. The animator has used this technique to achieve a well timed, realistic and stylised form of animation.

 

Straight Ahead Action

In this animation the animator starts at the first drawing in a scene and then draws all of the subsequent frames until he reaches the end of the scene. By using this method of animation the animator is able to create a very unpredictable and unique looking animation. 

Slow in and out

This scene shows how “slow in and out” means rather than having a uniform velocity for an object, it is more appealing, and sometimes more realistic, to have the velocity vary at the extremes. This scene works well because when the character is bouncing the ball off his knee, the ball moves fast as it bounces off his knee and slows as it falls back down.

 


Exaggeration

In this scene two characters lock hands in a deadly game of mercy, until one of them is overpowered and his wrists snap, spraying an over exaggerated amount of blood. This fight scene is a perfect example of how “exaggeration” can add more impact and depth to a fight scene, by exaggerating certain elements of design the animator is able to stylize the action and make the animation more enjoyable for the audience.

Appeal

In the above scene the animator uses a bright sunny back round and its diffusing light to symbolize the main characters aura of overwhelming power. The animator has used well designed characters, and a stylized presentation of action to create a visually stunning animation, that perfectly demonstrates “appeal” by creating a scene that the audience enjoys watching. 

 

  

Secondary action

At the beginning of this scene the primary action focus on a police car driving along the motorway and spotting an abandoned vehicle, as a direct result of spotting the vehicle the police car stops and the officers investigate. I would consider this scene an example of good “secondary action”, the reason being is because in this scene each action is a direct result of the previous action.

 

Personality

Throughout the entire animation Guyver fully exploited the benefits of effectively using the twelve principles of animation, by creating characters with appealing personalities, and action scenes with well designed stylised animation. From the above images and their animation principle explanation, it is clear that the animation fulfilled this last principle.