Thursday, July 30, 2009

Another animation article found on http://www.animationarena.com:

Wanna be a 3D Animator?


Good 3D animators are the most highly sought-after artist in the world of 3D. There's a reason for this: good animation is hard. Which is not to say that animation is hard to learn, but rather that making animation that is believable and entertaining requires a lot of skill and practice. Most people who become 3D artists rarely venture beyond modeling, and their forays into animation are inexpert at best, and cringe-worthy or unwatchable at worst.

This is because animation requires a completely different skillset than 3D modeling. In fact, these two aspects of 3D art are so different that 3D modelers are rarely animators, and animators can rarely model. Established studios usually hire dedicated animators to do the bulk of the animation. Modelers, if they have any input into the animation process at all, usually stick with rigging.

What you should take away is not that it's impossible to be a good modeler and animator, but that these two subsets of 3D art require different ways of thinking and usually do not share techniques.

The Basics of 3D Animation
Animation in 3D applications usually happens in two primary ways. In major productions, both may be used.

1. Keyframe animation - Keyframe animation, or keyframing, is the most well-known and oldest style of animation. In fact, there are examples of frame-by-frame animation dating all the way back to 1600 B.C. Egypt! Modern keyframing techniques date back to the early cartoons created by animation pioneers like Winsor McCay and Walt Disney. What may surprise you is that keyframing techniques have not changed much since the early 1900's - most of the basic principles still apply today. What has changed is that 3D software packages have made keyframing much easier to accomplish, meaning a broader scope of artists can learn how to animate.

Keyframing is essentially changing the shape, position, spacing, or timing of an object in successive frames, with major changes to the object being the key frames. In traditional 2D animation, each frame is usually drawn by hand. When frames are shown in succession, as in a movie, the slight differences in each frame of animation create the illusion of motion. 3D software packages make keyframe animation easier by interpolating, or "tweening," the in-between frames. When animating a falling ball, for example, one key frame might be of the ball in mid-air, the next key frame may be the ball touching the ground, and the key frame after that would be the ball squishing down as the impact deforms its shape. All of the in-between frames are then calculated by the software automatically, including the squish at the bottom, making actual process of animation a matter of creating a few great key frames.

2. Motion capture - Motion capture, or mocap, was first used sparingly due to the limitations of the technology, but is seeing increased acceptance in everything from video game animation to CG effects in movies as the technique matures. Whereas keyframing is a precise, but slow animation method, motion capture offers an immediacy not found in traditional animation techniques. Mocap subjects, usually actors, are placed in a special suit containing sensors that record the motion of their limbs as they move. The data is then linked to the rig of a 3D character and translated into animation by the 3D software.

There are a couple downsides to motion capture which make it difficult for beginning 3D animators to learn. Firstly is the cost of mocap technology, which can run several thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. This means that most new 3D artists must learn to incorporate this animation style by importing mocap data into a project from a commercially available mocap library.

The other downside to mocap is that the end-result is often far from perfect; mocap animation usually requires clean-up from keyframe artists to make it look more realistic, especially if the character being animated does not have an anatomy or proportions similar to those of a human.

Learning 3D Animation
Animators must have a keen understanding of motion, movement, and acting. It may surprise you that the best animators take acting lessons - this helps them understand how their own body moves, and makes it easier to transfer that understanding into believable animation.

Keen observation may be the most important skill to develop as an animator. Observe life around you, and how things move. Make sketches, take notes, and try to give meaning to what you observe. Don't study just animation. Learn from film, theatre, and even comic books to understand how poses and movement create moods and nonverbally communicate messages. New animators would do well to learn from the old masters of 20th century animation - Walt Disney, Art Babbitt, Grim Natwick, and Ken Anderson. The principles used to bring characters like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny to life are still as relevant today as they were back then. Indeed, the first place a new 3D animator should look is to the old animation manuals of 2D artists. Consider picking up "The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams from your local book dealer. While written as a book about hand-drawn animation, it contains everything you'll need to know about good animation techniques in the 3D world.

The beginning 3D animator will want to focus on basic objects first: how to make a ball move from one place to another, and how to make it bounce. Later, as you explore character animation, you'll need to understand what makes a good walk cycle, and how to cut down on "float," a common problem for new animators where the character moves as if underwater. The software used is not important, at least in the beginning, as animation packages all have the same basic features.

3D animators must also have a good grasp of how models are rigged for animation, especially character animators. The "bones" used in a rig must be placed in a way similar to that of a living creature. Animators must also learn how to use inverse kinematic (IK) setups for their character rigs to reduce the amount of time spent keyframing.

Above all else, animators must practice their craft. Like modeling, animation requires time to learn, and even more time to master. Even experienced animators may create dozens, or even hundreds of test movies before getting a good final result. A good animator can make an average model come to life, while even the best model can be made to look amateurish by a poor animator. Persistence will pay off, as a skilled animator can very well be the most important team member to a production.

Below are a few schools that offer relevant 3D Animation courses.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

This is one of my favourite cartoons ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4U_xk6CKI0

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

found this list of animation schools:http://www.animationarena.com/best-animation-schools.html
i'm a bit surprised that CalArts animation program is not in the first place.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Adventure Time

this animation is just mind-blowing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNVYWJOEy9A

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Found this wonderful article:

Acting and Animation

By Doron A. Meir

"An animator is an actor with a pencil", goes the oldest and truest animation cliché. Not "a draftsman that acts", but first and foremost - an actor. If you're trying to tell a story through a character, inevitably you're an actor. The only question is whether you are a good actor or a bad one.

My feeling is that in the past few years, while there's been great progress technology-wise, the art of acting in animation has been abandoned. Compared with the acting quality of characters such as Shere-Khan (The Jungle Book), Captain Hook (Peter Pan) and others, today's characters are pale, dull, and lack personality. In better cases, an exceptionally interesting voice-talent saves the day (Robin Williams as the genie in Aladdin); but usually the script alone is responsible for providing the characters with some sort of personality.

In the various internet forums one can find threads concerning software, design, textures - some even talk about movement - but it's rare to read something about acting. I haven't yet seen a comment saying something like "the animation is good, but the character has no personality". It seems that the level of expectations is so low, that it's enough for an animator not to make technical errors. Would you consider praising a writer simply because he made no spelling mistakes?

In the following article I have put on paper my thoughts considering acting in animation, which apply to any form of character animation - including 3D. The article is not meant to provide a "good acting in animation" formula - simply because such a formula does not exist. Every animator has his personal attitude, every film has needs of its own, and undoubtedly there are other ways of getting good acting. The goal is to propose a "toolbox" for the actor/animator, and maybe raise - even a little - the animators' awareness of acting in animation.

What is good acting?
When I ask my students what they think good acting is, the first answer is usually "believable acting". But credibility is only one side of the story. Good acting is believable and interesting. In my opinion, these two attributes wholly define good acting. With this idea as an axiom, we will try to separately analyze what makes acting believable, and what makes it interesting.

I. Believable acting
In the life of an animator there are short and rare moments of true magic. Those moments are the reason I became an animator, and they are the reason I still am one. I'm talking about a moment in which you look at the animation you've just created, and suddenly you believe your own character. Suddenly it's alive, it's there in its own right. Those are the moments of believable acting.

Believable acting holds a great power over the viewers, because the character they're watching gets a sort of meaning. Every man has meaning to us - even if we don't always think about it: If a total stranger sitting next to you on the bus suddenly collapses, you will not be indifferent - because the very fact that he is a flash and blood human earns him that meaning. This is why we feel sorry when Bambi's mother dies: we believe her and we believe Bambi, and both of them mean something to us. On the other hand, the characters in South Park are anything but believable, which is why there's no problem killing Kenny in each chapter.

(This might be the right place to reemphasize that the animator is of course not solely responsible for contributing meaning to the characters - script has an important part in it too. This article, however, is dealing with animation).



Believable acting means that the audience feels that the character's actions are the result of its own inner motives, and not the animator's inner motives; that the character feels, thinks and reacts consistently according to its personality and mood. I emphasized the last sentence since it encapsulates many of the ingredients of convincing acting:

Feel.
The aim here is not just to portray clear and defined feelings (happy, sad, etc.) but to look for a kind of inner feeling that we have in us all the time - maybe it can be called "consciousness". Try to "feel" your character when you create animation, not just move it around according to the principles of animation.

Think.
Your character shouldn't always act on immediate instincts. Look for opportunities to show thinking process, which leads to decision and action. It will enrich your animation with depth, complexity and believability.

React.
Acting is actually more or less a series of reactions - the character reacts to its environment, to other characters, to stimulus. Every action must have a reason. Make sure you know what your character is reacting to, and that the reaction is reasonable (in other words: it's reasonable that this particular character will react in this particular way).

Consistency.
Retain a consistent attitude to your character's reactions. A shy character (small, timid movements) that unexpectedly acts in an extroverted way with no clear reason, will suffer great damage to its credibility.



Personality.
The character's personality dictates its reactions - i.e., its acting. Again, we are not necessarily talking about a definite personality such as "arrogant", "grumpy", etc. Try to get to know your character the way you know a family member or someone you work with. What makes him tick? What is he afraid of? What are his problems?

Mood.
Mood resembles personality - it, too, dictates the character's reactions - but unlike personality, its effect is temporary. For example: a guy who's hurrying to work acts and reacts in a very different way than the very same guy as he calmly walks his dog in the evening.

* * *

Reading the above notions, one might think - "hey, all those things belong to the script and storyboard! Reactions, personality, mood - I can't control that! I'm just the animator here, my job is merely to move the character around and make sure there's a lot of anticipation!". My answer is in the following example:

The storyboard shows a character entering the frame, and looking angrily at another character. You're assigned to the scene, and the questions that should arise are: does the character enter slowly? Quickly? Determinedly? Hesitantly? Does he stop suddenly or gradually? Did he know the other character would be there, or does he spot it in the scene? Is he furious, or merely dissatisfied? What sort of anger is it - helpless (like a child's anger towards his parents), or superior (like a parent's towards his child)? And so on and so forth.

The actor/animator's task is to carefully read the script, study the storyboard, and try to "get into" the character. In other words: to find the character's inner feeling and to "wear" it for a while as if it was his own - so that he can get to know and understand the character. A good actor doesn't invent his acting - he discovers it. And still the animator faces the tough challenge of putting the experience into his animation, keeping the principles of motion. It isn't easy, but the reward - that magical moment of believable animation - is worth the effort.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

28 Principles of Animation

Here is a list of things (principles) that appear in these drawings, most of which should appear in all scenes, for they comprise the basis for full animation

-Pose and Mood
-Shape and Form
-Anatomy
-Model or Character
-Weight
-Line and Silhouette
-Action and Reaction
-Perspective
-Direction
-Tension
-Planes
-Solidity
-Arcs
-Squash and Stretch
-Beat and Rythem
-Depth and Volume
-Overlap and followthru
-Timing
-Working from extreme to extreme
-Straights and Curves
-Primary and secondary action
-Staging and composition
-Anticipation
-Caricature
-Details
-Texture
-Simplification
-Positive and negative shapes

That's a part of an article by Mark Kennedy, the full version can be found here: http://www.animationarena.com/principles-of-animation.html

Saturday, July 4, 2009


Watched Waltz with Bashir. Right after I started watching, I tried to determine what technique was used to animate- some things were strikingly similar to Rotoscopy, but there was something weird in them. After first 5 minutes I suddenly realised- its Flash animation! With abundance of motion tweens, that are superb coordinated and adjusted, thus producing this effect. Basically each character is cut into pieces, and then these pieces are just moved, with only some of them being replaced with others. In some parts this movie was extremely moving and expressive. I just loved the blue water-woman that came out of the sea.

I noticed a lot of scientific psychology references in modern time cinema. This one was exploring the fact, that after a stressful event, in order to protect the body from the terrifying experience, our memory erases this experience. Other references like this are in Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind, Paprika, Science of sleep. Weird.