Just thought I'd chime in on this, since we never actually talked about this in regards to your assignments. We definitely don't want to discourage you from using video reference (we use it at work, it's a very useful tool in your arsenal), but we'd like you guys to think of ideas for this assignment and upcoming ones more creatively, and only when you need additional details to help sell your idea or help make it feel more physical and believable, use video reference in that fashion. Remember, reference should be used to help inform you about something you're animating. Trying to emulate exactly what you see in reference video can become problematic to you, unless you're trying to animate something virtually identical to the thing you found reference for.
At the end of the day, we're animators, not motion capture dudes, and bringing things to life in a unique and appealing way should always be the end goal of all our work.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Anticipation and overshoots
More things to think about for your assignment... Don't worry about this too much, we'll go over this in a lot more detail in class. Just wanted you to have something to look at in case you were bored...
To create believable character animation, your audience must be able to see and understand what your character is doing before, during, and after an action. The key to making your character's actions "read" is anticipation and overshoot.
Anticipation: Anything your character does to prepare for an action. If your character does not anticipate its actions well, it will appear as if the character is moving without thought. And your audience will have a hard time knowing when to expect or see the action.
Overshoot: Motion that is a direct result of an action.
Without anticipation and overshoot, some actions may happen too quickly for your audience to recognize them.
Anticipation and overshoot are best explained by a real life example. Take the action of a baseball pitcher throwing the ball. The pitcher anticipates the throw by pulling his arm back and lifting up his leg. Then he throws the ball. The overshoot of this action occurs when the pitcher, in this case Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants, continues to rotate his body forward while his back leg swings over to the front, all after the ball has been released from his hand.
With strong enough anticipation and overshoot poses, the audience can tell what action the character is performing without really seeing the action. To create snappier animation, have your character hold the anticipation and overshoot poses for more frames than the action itself.
This next example was taken from John K's blog, creator of the Ren & Stimpy Show: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/03/basic-classic-antic.html
Take a look at this clip from Woody doing a classic anticipation and overshoot.
Imagine how much less dynamic and readable this simple action would have been without anticipation and overshoot. Here's the break down of the animated frames:
1) Start
2) Antic Down (helps audience see that action is coming)
3) Antic Right
4) In between pose
5) Overshoot
6) In between pose
7) Settle from overshoot
Here's another great example of both from "Baby Bottleneck."
Here's a classic anticipation before Daffy takes off walking, and then another great example when Porky's hand appears in the next shot, and antics for two frames before reaching out to grab Daffy's neck. Anticipating the grab by showing the hand for two frames first, allows the audience to then instinctively look at the hand. That act of grabbing the neck is made much strong by an overshoot, and even stronger still by the overlapping action of Daffy's body (we'll get into overlapping action in a couple of classes).
Even when Porky pulls Daffy back to him in the next shot, there is an overshoot. Watch how Porky pulls Daffy back closer to his body for two frames before settling his arm back away from his body for the final pose. The combination of anticipation and overshoot throughout this clip shows how dynamic pushing these principles can be in your animation.
To create believable character animation, your audience must be able to see and understand what your character is doing before, during, and after an action. The key to making your character's actions "read" is anticipation and overshoot.
Anticipation: Anything your character does to prepare for an action. If your character does not anticipate its actions well, it will appear as if the character is moving without thought. And your audience will have a hard time knowing when to expect or see the action.
Overshoot: Motion that is a direct result of an action.
Without anticipation and overshoot, some actions may happen too quickly for your audience to recognize them.
Anticipation and overshoot are best explained by a real life example. Take the action of a baseball pitcher throwing the ball. The pitcher anticipates the throw by pulling his arm back and lifting up his leg. Then he throws the ball. The overshoot of this action occurs when the pitcher, in this case Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants, continues to rotate his body forward while his back leg swings over to the front, all after the ball has been released from his hand.
With strong enough anticipation and overshoot poses, the audience can tell what action the character is performing without really seeing the action. To create snappier animation, have your character hold the anticipation and overshoot poses for more frames than the action itself.
This next example was taken from John K's blog, creator of the Ren & Stimpy Show: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/03/basic-classic-antic.html
Take a look at this clip from Woody doing a classic anticipation and overshoot.
Imagine how much less dynamic and readable this simple action would have been without anticipation and overshoot. Here's the break down of the animated frames:
1) Start
2) Antic Down (helps audience see that action is coming)
3) Antic Right
4) In between pose
5) Overshoot
6) In between pose
7) Settle from overshoot
Here's another great example of both from "Baby Bottleneck."
Here's a classic anticipation before Daffy takes off walking, and then another great example when Porky's hand appears in the next shot, and antics for two frames before reaching out to grab Daffy's neck. Anticipating the grab by showing the hand for two frames first, allows the audience to then instinctively look at the hand. That act of grabbing the neck is made much strong by an overshoot, and even stronger still by the overlapping action of Daffy's body (we'll get into overlapping action in a couple of classes).
Even when Porky pulls Daffy back to him in the next shot, there is an overshoot. Watch how Porky pulls Daffy back closer to his body for two frames before settling his arm back away from his body for the final pose. The combination of anticipation and overshoot throughout this clip shows how dynamic pushing these principles can be in your animation.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Squash and Stretch
Something to keep in mind while you're thinking about your homework assignments...
Squash and Stretch
When real objects move only totally rigid ones, e.g., dishes and frying pans,, remain rigid in motion. Most things deform in shape or form, or show movement within its shape, especially organic things.
When you bend your arm, your biceps contract and bulge out. They then lengthen and go back down when your arm straightens out. The squashed position shows the form contracted and the stretched position shows the form extended.
Bounding animals will squash down and build energy before leaping into the air in a more stretched form.
A mouse jumping a large distance will squash its body considerably before leaping and stretching its body in a completely extended position. Unfortunately you can't frame by frame it here.
Squashed form = form flattened out by pressure, or bunched up and pushed together
Stretched form = same form but in a very extended condition
Volume
Tex Avery’s rules of squash and stretch:
1) All squashed or stretched objects must, eventually return to their original (default) shape.
2) Volume should be preserved. This means that no matter how you deform the ball, it should
maintain its original volume, so it is not seen as growing or shrinking
The volume of the object should remain constant at rest, squashed, or stretched. Violating this rule makes the object appear to shrink and grow beyond its actual volume, or become bloated when squashed and stringy when stretched.
Why Squash and Stretch in Animation
When an object squashes or stretches, it appears to be made of a pliable material. Objects that do not appear rigid. Lack of squash and stretch in an organic object makes that object appear stiff and inorganic.
Even solid objects can give the impression of squash and stretch. A great example is Luxo Jr...
Exaggerating squash and stretch can break the realism of the thing you’re animating, but it can also be used to give something a more “cartoony” appeal. Check out this clip from "Fun and Fancy Free" and look for the squash and stretch in the face in the anticipation of the sneeze, and then especially in the eyes during the sneeze to accentuate the action.
Overusing squash and stretch in this way can reduce believability as well. We will be teaching you to use squash and stretch in ways to maximize appeal and believability, while at the same time maintaining the essence and truth of an object or character.
Squash and Stretch
When real objects move only totally rigid ones, e.g., dishes and frying pans,, remain rigid in motion. Most things deform in shape or form, or show movement within its shape, especially organic things.
When you bend your arm, your biceps contract and bulge out. They then lengthen and go back down when your arm straightens out. The squashed position shows the form contracted and the stretched position shows the form extended.
Bounding animals will squash down and build energy before leaping into the air in a more stretched form.
A mouse jumping a large distance will squash its body considerably before leaping and stretching its body in a completely extended position. Unfortunately you can't frame by frame it here.
Squashed form = form flattened out by pressure, or bunched up and pushed together
Stretched form = same form but in a very extended condition
Volume
Tex Avery’s rules of squash and stretch:
1) All squashed or stretched objects must, eventually return to their original (default) shape.
2) Volume should be preserved. This means that no matter how you deform the ball, it should
maintain its original volume, so it is not seen as growing or shrinking
The volume of the object should remain constant at rest, squashed, or stretched. Violating this rule makes the object appear to shrink and grow beyond its actual volume, or become bloated when squashed and stringy when stretched.
Why Squash and Stretch in Animation
When an object squashes or stretches, it appears to be made of a pliable material. Objects that do not appear rigid. Lack of squash and stretch in an organic object makes that object appear stiff and inorganic.
Even solid objects can give the impression of squash and stretch. A great example is Luxo Jr...
Exaggerating squash and stretch can break the realism of the thing you’re animating, but it can also be used to give something a more “cartoony” appeal. Check out this clip from "Fun and Fancy Free" and look for the squash and stretch in the face in the anticipation of the sneeze, and then especially in the eyes during the sneeze to accentuate the action.
Overusing squash and stretch in this way can reduce believability as well. We will be teaching you to use squash and stretch in ways to maximize appeal and believability, while at the same time maintaining the essence and truth of an object or character.
love that rainbow!
Hey guys just so you know the animation club is starting up again this semester. Check out the blog for more information on meeting times.
AAU Animation Club Blog
Here's a clip that should keep with the theme of this site..enjoy!
Care Bear Genocide
AAU Animation Club Blog
Here's a clip that should keep with the theme of this site..enjoy!
Care Bear Genocide
Monday, September 20, 2010
Homework reminder!
For the most part, there weren't too many people who submitted their animation clips in the asked for dimensions of 640x480, and some of you didn't even submit your clips as .mov files. After the next class coming up, if you don't follow these procedures, we're gonna have to get medieval on yo asses! and by medieval i mean big ole Terry Song from the next class over is going to give you a wedgie.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thoughts on class
So now that you've looked over the sylabus (right?), and we've gone through two (okay, maybe one and a half) classes, I'm just curious if there's anything specific you want us to cover this semester? Is it helpful when we open up some of your shots and try and tweak, albeit clumsily, things? KC and I obviously have some specific things we've laid out throughout the semester to talk about, mainly touching on the 12 principles of animation (squash and stretch is coming this Tuesday). But I'm curious as to what you guys would like us to also cover, or concentrate on? More technical talks on workflow and how we go about animating in Maya? More high level talks on developing your animator's eye? How to come up with good ideas for an animation exercise? I'm opening it up now, so please chime in!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Welcome Anim Care Bears!
If you're in the Animation Principles class, and your teachers are a dopey looking white guy and a short asian dude, you're in the right place! This is our "official" blog, and hopefully we'll be using this throughout the semester to post interesting videos and clips, as well as some of your own WIP shots to share with your classmates to get feedback on. We will also try to give you feedback here during the week when we're not busy! So have fun, and try and keep this place active!
In the meantime, check out how useful computer animation can be!
In the meantime, check out how useful computer animation can be!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)