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.