So apologies for the video and music selection. Just randomly youtubing slow motion walking clips and came across this. It's pretty stupid, but it does demonstrate some of the things we've been talking about in class in terms of seeing what's happening to the hips when the feet make contact with the ground and weight shift occurs. Look at the girls on the left and right (errr...Rory and Mariana), and watch their hips (strictly animation here folks!). See it?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Hey everyone,
Thanks KC and Stephen for the walk cycle handout it was pretty helpful. Just had two questions on the article. Mr. Gordon used the term "flapping the knee" a few times threw out the article. I've never heard this term used before and was wondering what it was exactly. Also towards at the end when he talks about leg polish he says he uses "rotation on top of Inverse Kinematics in order to hyper-extend the knee a touch, again for good shape change." I was wondering if someone could clarify these terms and techniques for me. Or maybe we can go over them and demo them in class next week?...
Thanks KC and Stephen for the walk cycle handout it was pretty helpful. Just had two questions on the article. Mr. Gordon used the term "flapping the knee" a few times threw out the article. I've never heard this term used before and was wondering what it was exactly. Also towards at the end when he talks about leg polish he says he uses "rotation on top of Inverse Kinematics in order to hyper-extend the knee a touch, again for good shape change." I was wondering if someone could clarify these terms and techniques for me. Or maybe we can go over them and demo them in class next week?...
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Funny vids from class
By popular demand (actually, I just wanted to post it), here's that cute clip KC showed in class:
And Here's the crazy one of the long-jumper girl with 18 different antics before she takes off running! Enjoy! :)
And Here's the crazy one of the long-jumper girl with 18 different antics before she takes off running! Enjoy! :)
Monday, October 4, 2010
Connection problems?
I'm not sure if my e-mail that I sent at the beginning of the week went through or not as I have yet to recieve a reply (or, plausibly, our teachers are simply too busy), but I thought I'd post it here as well(albeit relatively last minute) just in case.
I spoke with Stephen at the end of last class in regards to changing the idea for my animation. The teachers both mentioned that it's difficult to see any substantial physicality in a dive, so I opted to change it up for this week.
Better? Worse? Let me know what you think! (If anyone finds the time, that is.)
--Lana
I spoke with Stephen at the end of last class in regards to changing the idea for my animation. The teachers both mentioned that it's difficult to see any substantial physicality in a dive, so I opted to change it up for this week.
Better? Worse? Let me know what you think! (If anyone finds the time, that is.)
--Lana
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Thoughts on video reference
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.
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.
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.
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