Principals of Animation

Yay! Time for the technical part of things. I'm gonna talk a bit about the principals of animation and where/how/if i'm gonna apply them to the final project.

• Squash & Stretch

One of the main things to master in animation really. It gives characters or things volume and weight. The amount of squash and stretching all depend on what you are animation and what style it is. For the final project, i think most of it will be in the facial expression... it's a funny horror story, so you need to get those eyes popping out, the mouth stretching, arms flying high is the hair... etc.

• Anticipation

Anticipations are the movements done before actions. Every action has an anticipation, some are big and obvious... like someone punching another really hard, so they bring their arm back THEN punch... some are small but they are there. Sometimes those, for comic purposes, you can have an action without anticipation, but sometimes it just looks a bit odd. You know those Chinese films of samurais flying? I've always found pretty odd the way they 'jump' in the air with no anticipation at all... it's so unatural. Of course, the whole thing is fantasy, but they could try be a bit more realistic about it!
So, anticipation is important, and like in squash and stretch, it also influence the characters style and personality.

• Staging

Staging is what's going on in the scenes and how it all communicates the story to the audience. It's having harmony between characters actions and poses, background, camera angles, mood, etc to make sure everything is telling the story as it should be. It's a very important principal, if not planned correctly it could damage the storytelling and the audience could get lost in it and lose interest.

• Follow Through & Overlapping

I always find both of them quite hard, but overlapping is probably harder. They are basically the principal of inertia. A furry object flying forward, if it comes to a sudden halt, the fur will not stop straight away, it will keep moving forward then stop because it's attached to the object. If that object istead of halting turns, the fur would have 2 forces acting on it, the inertia of moving forward, then being dragged by the object to the side it had turned to. I find it complicated because it all depend of the mass of the 'fur' and the speed of the object... so its not that easy to time correctly.

• Straight Ahead Action

This is when you draw your animation frame by frame, without keyframes. It's one drawing after the other until it completes the action. It's not as planned out as pose to pose animation and the object or character should change sizes and shape as it goes.

• Pose To Pose

Like i mentioned, pose to pose is when you plan keyframes for the action and then draw the inbetweens. It's good to keep the characters or object you are animation the same size. I found it also helps to know how many frames you need to draw for the action you are animating. In a team, the leader animator would draw the keyframes and the assistants would draw the inbetweens. I suppose that helps speeding up the animation process.

• Slow In & Out

Every action starts slowly then speeds up and before it ends, its slows down. The more drawings means the character/object will move slower, so obviously, more movement in less frames means the character/object will move faster. Like in the ball exercise that we've done so many times in this course... as the ball goes up it's slower (more drawings) when it's up in the air and falling down again it's faster (less drawings). This is very important for the animation to feel smooth. Of course, everything that break the rules is funny, so for comical purposes you can always not use one of the other. Like in Family Guy when someone falls. It's sudden and unatural, so it's funny.

• Arcs

Humas and animals have circular movement path, like turning the head for example. That's is true for almost every action that doesn't involve machines or other mechanical devices. Using arcs when planning an action will make the animation smoother.
For the animatics, it would be interesting to actually draw the arcs and leave them there since not all the frames will be drawn. Arcs are also drawn in storyboards to represent characters and objects movements if necessary.

• Exaggeration

Real life can be boring compared to animations and i believe it's because in animation most actions are exaggerated. I don't mean you have to over do it, cos that would make it all look a bit too much, but say a character is running, very long and stretched strides makes it more interesting. It all goes with the characters personality, mood and story as well. Everything can be exaggerated in animation, but as long as it's well thought through.
I think we'll probably use alot of it in out project. Big popping eyes, extremely raised eye brows, exaggerated shivering... they all go with the mood we are trying to get.

• Secondary Action

Those are the actions that follow the main action... gee, how obvious does that sound >

Appeal

It's hand to explain this because it's basically everything. It's motion, timing, artwork, character development, style, personality, mood, storytelling, plot etc. Everything put together in harmony should are a certain appeal.
What appeals to me are well developed character, personality and interaction between them and the plot. I hope we can achieve that in out animatics... it's all about getting the composition right.


Will this be my last entry? @_@ Probably. I tried putting as much as i could of my ideas here without overdoing it (it happens sometimes). From now on i can be found here
http://nowayanimation.blogspot.com/

More to come!

I'm not going to lab class today, not feeling very well. I still have a few things to put in this blog... i just hope i have the time to do it today and tomorrow... o_o week 6 ends tomorrow, right Tom? I hope so.

I dunno if i should post the animation i did last year. Maybe i should... but i need to find it, cos it's in my external HD. I guess it's good to show some lipsync.

Anyway... i'll post more once i finish typing the stuff.

Stop Motion practive

Stop Motion is doing my head in, i still thing i haven't got the timing correct, which worries me. But i thought i would try things out... and ended up in this test vid. It's jerky cos the toys just wouldn't move, and wouldn't stand on their own, they kept falling all the time... it was a nightmare XD

It's a bit big and blogger wont upload it, so you here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vPDBnJqhrE

The Magic of Graphics Tablet

Why is a graphics tablet required?
I don’t want to write a small formal entry on the benefits of using a graphics tablet, instead, I’ll show it.

Obviously, I’ve spent more time drawing the Wacom Maui, but I can’t draw more than 5 strokes with the mouse at once because my wrist, thumb and finger hurt. In the end though, doesn’t matter how much time I spend trying to draw with the mouse, it will never look as good as a tablet drawing.

But it’s not just a question of pain on my hand or even lack of skill, it’s time as well. Because the mouse has no pressure, to change the thickness of the stroke you have to change brush sizes. That on it’s own, is enough for me to put the mouse in the bin. Look the difference in the image below.

There is also the limitation of hand movement when you have to click and drag that huge thing as opposed to the normal movements you can do using the pen of your tablet.

I started using an A5 Trust tablet, at back then it was good enough. I was happy I could colour my drawings in a more precise way. Yet, after a year, Trust wasn’t good enough. The resolution and precision were not satisfactory anymore and I couldn’t get things done the way I wanted them. So, I change to an A4 Wacom Intous3. The difference was crazy! The strokes were smooth, the pen was light, it has a rubber tool on the back so you don’t even need to change the tool in the interface of the software… usually Photoshop CS2 or OpenCanvas 4+ for me.

I know there are people who can actually draw well with a mouse… they should get an Oscar and a certificate of madness! Lol

Some might say though, that the fact that tables don’t work with all softwares is a disadvantage. To me, any relevant software that is not compatible with a graphics tablet is the one that has disadvantages and should be updated.

... when i finish university and get a proper job... i'm so getting one of these X3

>O< I love Wacom <3

The battle between 2D and 3D... and the stuff in between.

Good morning! I just woke up, had some breakfast and now i'm drinking my triple expresso coffee to try and wake my mind up as well. While doing that, i'm staring at my 2 piles of animation dvds and i have a big mixture of 3D and 2D. Most of my 2D is Anime, Japanese animation, but i have one DVD with old Michey Mouse cartoons, Charlie Brown, Familie Guy series, South Park and some awful awful western superhero ones... spiderman, superman and even the 'good' old Dungeons&Dragons series. I say they are awful because... well, they are. The voice acting is so bad, it lacks expression! I don't even know how i didn't realise that when i was a kid. The art is also pretty bad, especially in D&D. Each scene the characters look different, the editing is terrible as well, all the episodes are the same thing, over and over and over again. Seems that the characters hardly develop, and don't get me started on the plot!

But i wont complain too much about 2D, i love 2D animation... and i love tradifional animation over digital 2D. Why? Being a crazy Anime fan, it would be hypocritical to say i like 3D more, or that i would prefer going to the cinema to see a 3D rather than a Studio Ghibli animation. I believe the reason behind this is the fact that Anime usually have people as main characters and i feel like i can be drawn into the story much easier. The development of the characters, either in feature films or series, is very interesting and most of them feel so real i can say i cried many times watching Anime... they can be very profound sometimes.

Last year i did a presentation on the importance of sound in animation, and i had the oportunity to show how voice acting is important. Japanese voice actors are amazingly expressive. Because animation in Japan has always been to them what Hollywood is to the film industry in America, the experience of the Japanese voice actors is unbeatable. For that reason, when watching an Anime in Japanese, you forget those characters and the world they live in are only drawings on a paper.

I could go on and on about Anime, but i'll move on...

In 1995, when ToyStory came out, I was already a CGI freak and when i heard there was a full length feature film done 100% digital... and 3D... i went crazy. I saw ToyStory so many times and i never grew tired of it. The whole concept and idea was new, the voice action was flawless, the characters were so well developed and when i saw it on the cinema i was like 'oh my god, i had that toy when i was a kid!' (I was already 17 when it came out, by the way.)

From that moment on, i couldn't wait to see more Pixar films and as other studios began to work with 3D animation, i became a fan of the whole thing. Said that, i believe there are limits to 3D animation. It's impossible, or nearly impossible, to portray people (as in human form) very well. They seem somewhat cold, their eyes have no soul, and maybe because they look so real you expect them to BE real and it's easier to spot anything on 3D human form characters that seems out of place compared to reality. The only 3D film i watched that has strong human expression and yet subtle and believable, is Square Enix's Final Fantasy Advent Children, and even in that film the characters do look a bit Animish. So, in my opinion, 3D works best with animals, creatures, objects or very stylized people, like in Pixar's The Incredibles. But live in everything in life, limitations are not always a bad thing, it gives you (or force you) into creative alternatives.

In recent years, we've seen 2D traditional using computers to add special effects, and sometimes even mixing it with some 3D. Call me traditionalist, but i don't believe that mix for 2D and 3D works well. It's like trying to merge 2 different worlds that deny each other. The Korean film, Sky Blue (or Wonderful Days, depending where you are in the world), is a good example of that clash. They used 3D and other CGI rendering in different parts of the film, mixing it with traditionally drawn characters. Personally, every time a CGI seemed obvious to me, i felt like i was pulled back from the story, realising i was just watching an animation. I was too aware it was all fantasy and couldn't get into the film or characters at all. I read a few reviews on the film once saying the characters were badly developed and THAT was the reason why the viewer wasn't dragged into the story. It might be true, but i'll also stick to how i felt when watching the film. So I can say i'm not very fond of mixing 2D traditional and 3D/CGI too much.

ToonBoom Studio or Flash MX?

The perfect software would be ToonBoom Exposure Sheet on Flash’s interface instead of the timeline. I could never get used to the timeline on Flash when we used in the first year of this course and for that reason ToonBoom is still the software I go to if I have to do an animation. It seems much easier to add layers and frames.

ToonBoon also have the lip-synch option, which is very handy and can speed up the process and it’s very easy to synch sounds there too, but funnily enough, all the time saved on that side will be consumed somewhere else. The pens, brushes, colour palette, fonts are not at hand and they seem to lack functions that Flash has. It’s very easy to draw on Flash, it actually reminds be of Adobe Illustrator. All drawing tools you need are on your interface. They are easy to spot and understand, something that is not always clear on ToonBoom. Also my Wacom seems to love Flash and hate ToonBoom. Most of the time I can’t get the tablet to work as precise as it should and pressure strokes are not constant.

I think ToonBoom is more straightforward and easier to use, but Flash seems like a better software overall.

How does Maui’s head work?

I don’t remember when exactly I began writing stories and creating characters, but I know it’s been more than 20 years, that’s 2/3 of my life. Only in the past few years though, when I started to write stories for comics that I really got into developing characters as deep as I could. Most of them had/have more background story than what was showed in the main plot, simply because this way I could understand them so much they would take actions for themselves.

Plots…they usually come to my head when:

• I want to express a feeling
• I want to persuade others to my cause (whatever the cause may be)
• A line of dialog popped into my head
• There is a character in my head that needs to come to life
• I dream something interesting.

Sounds very schizophrenic and it probably is.

There is a massive pile of paper, diaries and sketchbooks in my workstation containing ideas for comics(manga style to be more specific), films, animations, rp characters etc…. I have developed 3 mains stories in the past 4 years:

• JAZZ is probably the most developed one and I used to produce my Narrative Construction project last year. I used half of a chapter to develop into storyboard and final illustrations. All characters have a long background story and are extremely developed. The story itself is set in an alternative future where entities who are responsible for creating life on earth seek refugee from a war that is happening in their own world. The main character, Kenji, is sent to earth as a bounty hunter to kill those who ran away. But as the story goes, Kenji learns about a past he had long forgotten and finds on those he was supposed to kill a reason to live by his own rules and will. Jazz my ‘baby’ and one day, hopefully, I’ll turn it into a 2D animation.

• UNDER YOUR CHARMS, is a love story with a sci-fi twist. It’s not as long as Jazz and it was written with a friend who usually co-writes with me. It’s a more adult story because it deals with a homosexual relationship and has lots of violence in it…. So I guess I’ll just keep this one for the pages of my comic.

• STRIKE, is one of those plots I had to write to persuade people to my cause. It deals with a not so bright future, environmental problems, social issues etc. Strike is actually how the main character is called throughout the story, his real name though, is unknown. He runs away from the factory that owns him (yes, corporations own people in this story) to see the world for himself and to find the so-called ‘dream land’… the only place on earth that is not occupied by artificial ecosystems. He meets this young boy on the way who’s running away from his family, a very rich one. Strike doesn’t want a companion though, especially that one who turns out to be the son of the people who owns Strike. I believe this story could make a cool animation… or a film packed with CGI.

I have many other stories, but those are the ones I constantly work on, writing the plot, filling up holes in the story, developing character, designing… etc. I’m going to add some artwork I’ve done for them at the end of this post.

Character development is one of my favourite parts of all the process. It’s amazing to see how even their names end up influencing in the personality. Like I said earlier, characters tend to come to life and develop on their own as they speak to me in my schizo-mind, of course… so from a drawing, a word, a name, a habit, I can created someone believable. After choosing the name, or the lack of name, I give the character flaws. No one is perfect so a perfect character is hard to empathise with and for that reason, he/she is not a likable character. Flaws make them ‘human’ and that’s the main thing. Doesn’t mean they have to be like a human in their day-to-day life though, the character can be a superhero chicken saving Earth from Armageddon, but if given human/believable traits it’s enough for people to like, or hate them.

My most developed character is called Kieran. He was created for a role-play game but became much more than that. He has a complete past life (not part of the main plot), a middle and an end… yes, he dies, so sad ;_;. Anyway, this is Kieran’s character analysis sheet…. A brief one, believe me.

Name: Kieran Matsuki/Flanagan
Age: 25 (beginning on the story)
D.O.B.: 10^th November
Height: 6f5
Weight: 11st (on a good day)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blond (naturally, but he dyes it red usually)
Skin: Pale
Occupation: Painter

Fashion/Appearance: Outside his flat Kieran wears a black long sleeve turtleneck top, jeans and Doc. Martins style boots, either black or burgundy. He also wears 3 hoop-piercings on is left ear. When indoors, he wears only his jeans or jeans and a white t-shirt. He has a special pair of jeans just for when he paints. At least three times a day he showers, so he always looks fresh and clean.

Physical Description: Kieran looks a bit ill. He smokes a lot, sleeps badly and drinks lots of coffee. His body has many scars from when he was young, scars that he obviously didn’t make himself. To contribute to his ill appearance, Kieran is very thin, looking somewhat anorexic. Despite all that, he has his charm and a beautiful and flawless face.

Intelligence: He’s not extremely bright because of how he isolates himself from the world. All he understands is art and how to express himself through it. When in public, during his exhibitions or interviews, he gets really nervous and stressed. To put up with it all he pretends to be this outgoing seductive man, but it’s all a façade.

Diet: Not very fond of any kind of food, but he eats to keep himself alive. The only thing he can’t eat is meat or any animal, so that makes him a vegetarian. His food must not be salty or too sweet. Anything with too much taste makes him sick. Mostly he lives off coffee and fruits.

Cultural Background: Kieran was born in Ireland but at the age of 8 he moved to Japan and was brought up by a Japanese artist.

History: Born from a drug addict teenage mother, at the age of 4, he was put for adoption. Not long after he was placed with foster parents who were art lovers and had many contacts in Japan. When he turned 8 his foster parents took him to Tokyo for holidays. One afternoon they visited a friend, an artist called Yoishi Matsuki, who looked after him while his foster parents had some ‘business’ to do. The couple never came back. Yoishi, despite being quite famous, was an antisocial man, who didn’t speak English and couldn’t be bothered to learn. So deep in his own world, Yoishi took Kieran in but never reported to the police the disappearance of his parents. Kieran never attended school in Japan, all he was taught was how to speak, read something here and there and paint. When Kieran turned 12 he began to ask questions, he was irritated most of the time, became aggressive and as a result, so did Yoishi. From them on Kieran lived in hell and learned how to put his emotions into his paintings. Naturally talented, soon the boy caught the art media attention and Yoishi grew jealous of it all. Through illegal documents he made Kieran his adopted son and put everything he owned in his name. During one of Yoishi’s psychotic attacks he almost killed Kieran and took his own life. At the age of 16 Kieran was alone. But the Matsuki name and galleries weren’t the only thing Yoishi left him, he also left a debt to be paid to the Japanese Mafia. Kieran saw himself involved in money laundry that was being done through the sales of his paintings. When the main story begins, Kieran is 25 years old and living in a huge hotel suite where he is constantly working on commissions.

Personality: The events that took place the day Yoishi died are not clear to him and he has a hard time remembering a lot that happened in his teen years. They usually come back to him in form of nightmare, so obviously, Kieran hates sleeping. He is very obsessive about lot of things (including daily routines, people he has contact with, food he eats and even sex). He showers a lot, can’t stand too much noise and hates when anyone (usually the hotel maids) touches his paints and canvas. When triggered he can be violent. There are only 2 things that keep him sane, one is his art and the other is Orian, the maid that is assigned to clean his room and the only person he would give anything to protect. But of course, he is obsessed about Orian too and very jealous.

Kieran’s Rules:

• Doesn’t matter how happy he is with Orian, he will always be linked to Yoishi and will always feel guilty for his death.
• Never will Kieran draw a portrait on canvas.
• He will never be faithful
• He’ll always be rich, famous and attractive
• He’ll paint something everyday
• He’ll always be emotionally unstable.

……………….

That was long, there’s much more to say but I believe that shows how deep into the characters I can get sometimes. If I feel passionate about a story or a character I always end up developing as much as I can.

Artwork time! My 2^nd favourite part of the creative process. These are 2 examples of characters sheets and a couple of presentation panels done for Narrative Construction based on my script JAZZ.

This is a concept idea for Strike: