Slow in / Slow out / Pose to Pose - Walking animation

'Pose to Pose' is where the animator will create the main key frame(s) poses before working on the finer details in the animation. Once the main key frames are set, the frames between them can be done afterwards more easily. Creating Pose to Pose animations will save the animator time because the computer will generate the frames between the key poses and all the animator needs to do then is refine the frames between.

'Pose to Pose' animating is a good way to create looped animations such as walking, the start and end frames can be set so that the model is in the exact same position as in the first frame. 

Start and End frame pose

Half way-in frame pose

Once the beginning, middle and end frames are set the animator can then go in and add in frames between the main pose key frames. 

1/4th of the way in to the walk cycle

'Slow in and Slow out' is about increasing the realism of an animation; in real life an object will never completely stop moving in an instant, it will gradually slow down before coming to a stop. The idea is to make things flow more naturally where objects or limbs will gradually increase or decrease in their movement speed.

Increasing the Bias on the first frame

Decreased the Bias on the last frame

Changing the key frame 'Bias' in an animation will remove the popping effect which occurs when the object changes direction by making the movement smoother; it's slow in and slow out.

A visual example of what slow in and slow out looks like is this picture of a pendulum.

The ball slows down as it reaches the ends of it's swinging range but speeds up as it moves towards the middle. 

Staging / Solid Drawing / Appeal - Emotional Poses

Today we were given a scene with two human characters and our task was to modify the scene.

This is a render of what I ended up with; the guy on the left is being startled by the guy on the right (jumping out to scare the guy on the left).

Using a circle spline shape; the camera was then animated to fly in a circle around the scene using the animation path constraint.

'Staging' is one of the animation principles that dictate how the animation appears to the viewer, it also helps direct the viewer to the main points of interest.

The camera positioning is important when setting a scene to make sure the characters are visible and clear, the characters need to be facing the viewer so that they draw attention.

The character positions must be open to the viewer to draw in attention, the body positioning can lead the viewers eyes to look at the main focus point; they must be positioned so that their expressions or actions can be recognised as a silhouette.

Scene lighting must be set up so that the scene looks right, if it's too light or dark it can ruin the composition.

Extreme poses

An example of bad staging is having the characters facing away from the viewer preventing their faces from being seen, a scene where the characters are out of place and not fitting with the theme, the character silhouette being unrecognisable.

Good staging is having the characters turned to face the camera so their faces or body language is visible, having spooky characters in a spooky house and the character silhouette being recognisable.

In game design, staging is about positioning of the lighting, the game objects, character positioning, debris, shapes and the environment.

'Solid Drawing' is a principle of taking into account the form and 3d space of a character or object and giving them weight and volume. Solid Drawing needs knowledge of volume, weight and anatomy.

In 3D animation, the character needs to be able to move limbs and stretch in places that might look odd when animated. Extra polygons in the elbows and knees for instance may help to keep the object looking realistic.

The founders of the 12 principles said that two characters should not look identical as it makes them look lifeless.

'Appeal' is the principle which creates appeal towards a character. The viewer must find the character feel to be real and interesting in order for it to be appealing.

The characters movement should be fluid and it should flow, a clumsy or awkward movement is unappealing to the viewer.

The personality and appearance are important for creating appeal, the way the character moves or looks. Humanising a robot can create a more appealing character.

Arcs / Timing / Secondary animation / Exaggeration - Pinball Obstacle Course animation

Objects move in an arc path or slight curved path; humans, animals, characters, etc. It is usually mechanical objects which move in a straight path.

Body parts always move in arcs or curved paths; the weight is transferred in the body parts and limbs have limited ranges of movement due to their skeleton. Moving our animations in this way means that the animation will be more natural and believable to the viewer. 

Here is my obstacle course animation, as you can see by looking at the trajectory displayed, the ball follows a path of curves and arcs. The curves and arcs in the ball's path shows that it will move in a realistic and natural way. 

Trajectory turned on

On my follow through animation, the pendulum has a more of a mechanic feel to it because the platform moves in straight lines without any curves.

'Secondary Animation' is having an additional animation or action along side the main animation. The idea is to make the primary animation more effective. To make a secondary animation work well, it needs to support the primary animation. Once the primary animation is working well, the animator can then work on the secondary one. 

In my pendulum animation, the ball swinging about under the box is the secondary animation for the scene as it follows the moving box adding in some exaggeration and weight to the object. 

'Timing' is an important part of animation, it would look wrong if the timing was off and can end up making things look unrealistic if it's not timed correctly. 

The key frames need to be spaced correctly and timed at the right times. Timing of a bouncing ball can change the perceived physics and weight of the floor or the ball that is bouncing. 

With my bouncing balls animation, I was able to create the affect of different weights by changing the timing of each ball so that there was the illusion of there being a heavier ball. 

'Exaggeration' is where the animator will use extreme distortion of the character or object to create a more interesting look to the animation.

When creating a realistic animation, things will be done more subtly; in a cartoon or comic though things will be more exaggerated to get across what is happening.

Here in my bouncing balls collision animation I squash the ball on the left to exaggerate the impact of the ball before it bounces back up off the ground.

Overlapping / Follow-through animation - Pendulum

Today we were given a scene to animate, the task was to create an overlapping / flow-through animation using the ready made pendulum rig.

The red path shows where the object moves

In creating this animation, I first drew out a plan of what my animation will be on paper. In 3ds Max I set the Auto Key on and moved the box to the start position, I then selected key-frame 10 and then I moved the object to the 2nd position; repeating this process of changing the key-frame and moving the object until I had all 7 movements key-framed in. I used shift + drag (copy key-frame) from frame 0 to frame number 100 so that the animation would be looped. Next I animated the pendulum objects by rotating them with 'Use Pivot Point Center' selected in the Rotate tool.

The pendulum swings backwards as the platform moves forwards

When the platform comes to a halt, the pendulum swings back and forth

As the platform moves faster, the pendulum moves back further

After the platform stops, the pendulum swings and continues to do so as the platform moves downwards

Follow through means that separate parts of an object may continue moving after has stopped. It adds the feeling of there being weight and physics into the animation; when a pendulum moves, the ball will swing back and forth even after the object carrying it has stopped.

In animating a human character, various body parts will move at different times meaning the different limbs may overlap other movements. If the character comes to a complete stop, their hair might follow through the main action to convey it's light weight and improve realism. Limbs can have their movement frames delayed by a few frames.

"It is not necessary for an animator to take a character to one point, complete that action completely, and then turn to the following action as if he had never given it a thought until after completing the first action. When a character knows what he is going to do he doesn't have to stop before each individual action and think to do it. He has it planned in advance in his mind." – Walt Disney