Facial Rigging Techniques with Josh Burton - Faceware Webinar Series

Facial Rigging Techniques with Josh Burton - Faceware Webinar Series from Faceware Tech on Vimeo.

MasterClass - Animating Animals: Tips and Tricks to Animating Believable Animal Characters in a Live Action Feature by William G

MasterClass - Animating Animals: Tips and Tricks to Animating Believable Animal Characters in a Live Action Feature by William G from CGMeetUp Team on Vimeo.

Speed Animating a Walkcycle Timelaps video

Speed Animating a Walkcycle - Timelapse Video from Brian Horgan on Vimeo.

Character Design for Animation Class with Nate Wragg

Acting for Animation Part 1

Acting for Animation Part 2 Improv Class

Walking thumbnails

Dog walking cycle tutorial from this page https://vimeo.com/user196480  

Untitled from coop on Vimeo.

Sherm Cohen sharing some Nice Video tutorial on Story Boarding

 

Storyboarding 01 - Establishing Shot
Storyboarding 02 - Panning
Storyboarding 03 - When To Cut
Storyboarding 04 - Staging and Design
Storyboarding 05 - The Close-Up
Storyboarding 06 - ThreeShot
Storyboarding 07 - Staging for Movement
Storyboarding 08 - Posing
Storyboarding 09 - More on Posing
Storyboarding 10 - Still More Poses

 

 

 

AnimSchool Classtime: Gesture Drawing for Animation

The Process of Animation

 
1. A storyboard is made, all the animators and directors come together to discuss the entire film.
2. The storyboards are presented as the story

3. Once the story is laid out, the dialogue is recorded. This is done before animation, so the animators know what the characters will say.
4. After the dialogue is recorded, the animators can make rough sketches of just the characters. Usually these drawings are quite messy, there is still no color, or background. Some animated films have used over 50,000 individual drawings.

At most animation studios, the best animators only sketched a few animation drawings, leaving gaps in between. Later on, a person called an "inbetweener" would finish the scenes, by drawing in between the areas that the animator had left.
5. Once the entire film has been drawn on paper, the animation drawings go to the inking department. There, the inkers copy the animation drawings on to a clear celluloid acetate, sometimes called a Cel.
6. After the outline of the characters has been made, the unfinished Cel's go to the Painting Department. The painters flip the Cel over, and paint the colors on the back. They paint on the back so the characters appear crisp, and have an outline.
7. Before the Animation Cels get photographed a background must be added. Because a Cel is clear, and it only has the painted character on it, if a background is made, it will show through. Usually backgrounds are painted with Tempera or Water Color paint. Although, in some Disney productions, the background was painted on glass, and combined with other glass painted backgrounds to create the illusion of extreme movement. (This technique is use in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.)
8. Now all the combined elements (the Cel and the background) can be photographed. Although, the final product is not filmed with a normal projector, or camera. A special device, with a lens mounted facing down on to a table top captures each frame of the animated feature. Usually, the background is placed into a special mount, then covered with the Cel, then covered with a large piece of glass, then photographed.
9. After all the drawings have been filmed, the dialogue is added. Sometimes the film is edited at this step.
10. The animated film is released, and the general public may view it.
 Photographs on this page © Disney

Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose

Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose are work methods for animators. They are possible answers for the “how do I animate?” question.

Straight Ahead

This is the oldest one. It means animating sequentially, creating pose after pose, frame after frame, "straight ahead", from the first to the last in a sequence.
Its main characteristic is that while animating one has considerable creative freedom to choose how and where each pose will be.

Pose to Pose

Following this workflow, the artist starts 1st blocking out (planning, sketching) a sequence, by defining the key poses in it and roughly estimating in which frame each of them should be. These poses, which are known as extremes, are created first.
The remaining, "transition" ones -- called inbetweens -- can be done automatically by software interpolation, but for acceptable results, in particular to apply the principles we're studying and to remove the mechanical look of computer animation, further work is needed.

Why

Straight Ahead

Good points:

• very open for creativity during the keyframing work;
• can result in more fluid and natural looking animation;
• done for all frames in a sequence it totally eliminates the use of computer interpolation;
• a talented artist in a good day can achieve very spontaneous and elaborate results;
• specially good for fast, wild actions;
• only after finishing the animator will know how the scene ended up.

Bad points:

• it's easy to come to dead ends, where work may have to be discarded and redone;
• hard to make the character respect "marks": be somewhere or grab something at a definite frame;
• hard to create strong poses, well staged, solid and appealing;
• the resulting set of keyframes will probably be complex and disorganized, hard to work with;
• only after finishing the animator will know how the scene ended up.

Some might also add: more work while animating.

Pose to Pose

Good points:

• more control over the results, easy to respect marks;
• less room for pitfalls;
• more work in less time;
• the created extremes (plus soundtrack) can be used as animatic for critique and corrections;
• with planning, there's a better chance to come up with elaborate poses and moves;
• done every N frames or so, results in a clean layout of keyframes, easy to work with;
• randomness is played down.

Bad points:

• easy to result in “robotic”, dull animation;
• less room for creativity while creating and keyframing poses;
• randomness is played down.

Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation

Reference: John Lasseter, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", Computer Graphics, pp. 35-44, 21:4, July 1987 (SIGGRAPH 87).
George Maestri, "Digital Character Animation", New Riders Press, 1996.
Introduction
Many of the principles of traditional animation were developed in the 1930's at the Walt Disney studios. These principles were developed to make animation, especially character animation, more realistic and entertaining. These principles can and should be applied to 3D computer animation.
Principles of Traditional Animation
The following principles were developed and named:
1.Squash and Stretch - defining the rigidity and mass of an object by distorting its shape during an action
2.Timing and Motion - spacing actions to define the weight and size of objects and the personality of characters
3.Anticipation - the preparation for an action
4.Staging - presenting an idea so that it is unmistakably clear
5.Follow Through and Overlapping Action - the termination of an action and establishing its relationship to the next action
6.Straight Ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose Action - The two contrasting approaches to the creation of movement
7.Slow In and Out - the spacing of the in-between frames to achieve subtlety of timing and movement
8.Arcs - the visual path of action for natural movement
9.Exaggeration - Accentuating the essence of an idea via the design and the action
10.. Secondary Action - the action of an object resulting from another action
11.. Appeal - creating a design or an action that the audience enjoys watching
Personality in character animation is the goal of all of the above.

The Twelve Basic Principles of Animation

The Twelve Basic Principles of Animation is a set of principles of animation introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation.^[a][1] Johnston and Thomas in turn based their book on the work of the leading Disney animators from the 1930s onwards, and their effort to produce more realistic animations. The main purpose of the principles was to produce an illusion of characters adhering to the basic laws of physics, but they also dealt with more abstract issues, such as emotional timing and character appeal.
The book and its principles have become generally adopted, and have been referred to as the "Bible of animation."^[2] In 1999 the book was voted number one of the "best animation books of all time" in an online poll.^[3] Though originally intended to apply to traditional, hand-drawn animation, the principles still have great relevance for today's more prevalent computer animation.

Contents1 The 12 principles
1.1 Squash and stretch
1.2 Anticipation
1.3 Staging
1.4 Straight ahead action and pose to pose
1.5 Follow through and overlapping action
1.6 Slow in and slow out
1.7 Arcs
1.8 Secondary action
1.9 Timing
1.10 Exaggeration
1.11 Solid drawing
1.12 Appeal
2 Notes
3 References
4 Further reading

The 12 principles[edit]

Squash and stretch[edit]

Illustration of the "squash and stretch"-principle:
Example A shows a ball bouncing with a rigid, non-dynamic movement. In example B the ball is "squashed" at impact, and "stretched" during fall and rebound. The movement also accelerates during the fall, and slows down towards the apex (see "slow in and slow out").

Animated sequence of a race horse galloping. Photos taken by Eadweard Muybridge. The horse's body demonstrates squash and stretch in natural musculature.

The most important principle is "squash and stretch",^[4] the purpose of which is to give a sense of weight and flexibility to drawn objects. It can be applied to simple objects, like a bouncing ball, or more complex constructions, like the musculature of a human face.^[5][6] Taken to an extreme point, a figure stretched or squashed to an exaggerated degree can have a comical effect.^[7] In realistic animation, however, the most important aspect of this principle is the fact that an object's volume does not change when squashed or stretched. If the length of a ball is stretched vertically, its width (in three dimensions, also its depth) needs to contract correspondingly horizontally.^[8]

Anticipation[edit]

Anticipation is used to prepare the audience for an action, and to make the action appear more realistic.^[9] A dancer jumping off the floor has to bend his knees first; a golfer making a swing has to swing the club back first. The technique can also be used for less physical actions, such as a character looking off-screen to anticipate someone's arrival, or attention focusing on an object that a character is about to pick up.^[10]

Anticipation: A baseball player making a pitch prepares for the action by moving his arm back.

For special effect, anticipation can also be omitted in cases where it is expected. The resulting sense of anticlimax will produce a feeling of surprise in the viewer, and can often add comedy to a scene.^[11] This is often referred to as a 'surprise gag'.^[12]

Staging[edit]

This principle is akin to staging as it is known in theatre and film.^[13] Its purpose is to direct the audience's attention, and make it clear what is of greatest importance in a scene; ^[14] Johnston and Thomas defined it as "the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakably clear", whether that idea is an action, a personality, an expression or a mood.^[13] This can be done by various means, such as the placement of a character in the frame, the use of light and shadow, and the angle and position of the camera.^[15] The essence of this principle is keeping focus on what is relevant, and avoiding unnecessary detail.^[16][17]

Straight ahead action and pose to pose[edit]

These are two different approaches to the actual drawing process. "Straight ahead action" means drawing out a scene frame by frame from beginning to end, while "pose to pose" involves starting with drawing a few key frames, and then filling in the intervals later.^[14] "Straight ahead action" creates a more fluid, dynamic illusion of movement, and is better for producing realistic action sequences. On the other hand, it is hard to maintain proportions, and to create exact, convincing poses along the way. "Pose to pose" works better for dramatic or emotional scenes, where composition and relation to the surroundings are of greater importance.^[18] A combination of the two techniques is often used.^[19]
Computer animation removes the problems of proportion related to "straight ahead action" drawing; however, "pose to pose" is still used for computer animation, because of the advantages it brings in composition.^[20] The use of computers facilitates this method, as computers can fill in the missing sequences in between poses automatically. It is, however, still important to oversee this process and apply the other principles discussed.^[19]

Follow through and overlapping action[edit]

Follow through and overlapping action is a general heading for two closely related techniques which help to render movement more realistically, and help to give the impression that characters follow the laws of physics. "Follow through" means that separate parts of a body will continue moving after the character has stopped. "Overlapping action" is the tendency for parts of the body to move at different rates (an arm will move on different timing of the head and so on). A third related technique is "drag", where a character starts to move and parts of him take a few frames to catch up.^[14] These parts can be inanimate objects like clothing or the antenna on a car, or parts of the body, such as arms or hair. On the human body, the torso is the core, with arms, legs, head and hair appendices that normally follow the torso's movement. Body parts with much tissue, such as large stomachs and breasts, or the loose skin on a dog, are more prone to independent movement than bonier body parts.^[21] Again, exaggerated use of the technique can produce a comical effect, while more realistic animation must time the actions exactly, to produce a convincing result.^[22]
Thomas and Johnston also developed the principle of the "moving hold". A character not in movement can be rendered absolutely still; this is often done, particularly to draw attention to the main action. According to Thomas and Johnston, however, this gave a dull and lifeless result, and should be avoided. Even characters sitting still can display some sort of movement, such as the torso moving in and out with breathing.^[23]

Slow in and slow out[edit]

The movement of the human body, and most other objects, needs time to accelerate and slow down. For this reason, animation looks more realistic if it has more drawings near the beginning and end of an action, emphasizing the extreme poses, and fewer in the middle.^[14] This principle goes for characters moving between two extreme poses, such as sitting down and standing up, but also for inanimate, moving objects, like the bouncing ball in the above illustration.^[24]

Arcs[edit]

Most natural action tends to follow an arched trajectory, and animation should adhere to this principle by following implied "arcs" for greater realism. This can apply to a limb moving by rotating a joint, or a thrown object moving along a parabolic trajectory. The exception is mechanical movement, which typically moves in straight lines.^[25]
As an object's speed or momentum increases, arcs tend to flatten out in moving ahead and broaden in turns. In baseball, a fastball would tend to move in a straighter line than other pitches; while a figure skater moving at top speed would be unable to turn as sharply as a slower skater, and would need to cover more ground to complete the turn.
An object in motion that moves out of its natural arc for no apparent reason will appear erratic rather than fluid. Therefore when animating (for example) a pointing finger, the animator should be certain that in all drawings in between the two extreme poses, the fingertip follows a logical arc from one extreme to the next. Traditional animators tend to draw the arc in lightly on the paper for reference, to be erased later.

Follow through/Overlapping Action: as the horse runs, its mane and tail follow the movement of the body.

Secondary action[edit]

Adding secondary actions to the main action gives a scene more life, and can help to support the main action. A person walking can simultaneously swing his arms or keep them in his pockets, he can speak or whistle, or he can express emotions through facial expressions.^[26] The important thing about secondary actions is that they emphasize, rather than take attention away from, the main action. If the latter is the case, those actions are better left out.^[27] In the case of facial expressions, during a dramatic movement these will often go unnoticed. In these cases it is better to include them at the beginning and the end of the movement, rather than during.^[28]

Timing[edit]

Timing refers to the number of drawings or frames for a given action, which translates to the speed of the action on film.^[14] On a purely physical level, correct timing makes objects appear to obey the laws of physics; for instance, an object's weight determines how it reacts to an impetus, like a push.^[29] Timing is critical for establishing a character's mood, emotion, and reaction.^[14] It can also be a device to communicate aspects of a character's personality.^[30]

Exaggeration[edit]

Exaggeration is an effect especially useful for animation, as perfect imitation of reality can look static and dull in cartoons.^[14] The level of exaggeration depends on whether one seeks realism or a particular style, like a caricature or the style of an artist. The classical definition of exaggeration, employed by Disney, was to remain true to reality, just presenting it in a wilder, more extreme form.^[31] Other forms of exaggeration can involve the supernatural or surreal, alterations in the physical features of a character, or elements in the storyline itself.^[32] It is important to employ a certain level of restraint when using exaggeration; if a scene contains several elements, there should be a balance in how those elements are exaggerated in relation to each other, to avoid confusing or overawing the viewer.^[33]

Solid drawing[edit]

The principle of solid drawing means taking into account forms in three-dimensional space, giving them volume and weight.^[14] The animator needs to be a skilled draughtsman and has to understand the basics of three-dimensional shapes, anatomy, weight, balance, light and shadow, etc.^[34] For the classical animator, this involved taking art classes and doing sketches from life.^[35] One thing in particular that Johnston and Thomas warned against was creating "twins": characters whose left and right sides mirrored each other, and looked lifeless.^[36] Modern-day computer animators draw less because of the facilities computers give them, yet their work benefits greatly from a basic understanding of animation principles, and their additions to basic computer animation.^[35]

Appeal[edit]

Appeal in a cartoon character corresponds to what would be called charisma in an actor.^[37] A character who is appealing is not necessarily sympathetic – villains or monsters can also be appealing – the important thing is that the viewer feels the character is real and interesting.^[37] There are several tricks for making a character connect better with the audience; for likable characters a symmetrical or particularly baby-like face tends to be effective.^[38] A complicated or hard to read face will lack appeal, it may more accurately be described as 'captivation' in the composition of the pose, or the character design.