This week I revisited the 12 Laws of Animation and gained a deeper understanding of them.
In addition to this, I also practised bouncing a ball, which I know is important because it is a fundamental part of the animation. Just like when you start to learn to draw, the teacher must first teach the students to practise drawing geometric plaster, and only once they have a certain understanding of geometry will they be able to learn to draw portraits.
Here are the hyperlinks to both blogs
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This is one of my favourite animated episodes; it comes from ‘Kung Fu Panda’ and is the beginning of this animated movie when Master Oogway and Kai present. Firstly, we can notice when the Master Oogway appearance, the picture of the light, which is warm yellow light, is from the top right to down: showing that the Turtle Master is decent. Instead, when the Kai appearance, the light, which is a cold green light, is from the bottom left to up, showing that the Kai is the supervillain. The contrast between both lights makes it is easy for the audience to understand the opposite relationship between the two characters. Secondly, the green light–representing the supervillain Kai, occupy the majority of the picture，when the master Oogway and Kai fight, and the yellow light–representing the master Oogway，occupy only a small part, which forebodes the failure of master Oogway.
I like this film not only because the director establishes the character image using the character design, line design, he also uses the light, which is a relatively veiled way, to show the characters and story.
This video comes from the Brazilian animated film ‘the Boys and the World.’ It is worthy for animation students to learn about the colour used in this movie. This episode is about the boy who recalls his happy childhood time with his father. The director fancied the night sky into colour, which also reflected the boy’s happy mood at that time. While the boy’s father was playing the flute, the flute spits out one pink bubble one by one, and then the boy fills one with bottles. The director is bold and fantastic, making abstract music look figurative by using these pink bubbles. I am very keen on the colour and composition of pictures in this animation, and it is fantastic that the director uses several crayon strokes to show scenes, props, and characters. I think animators should be creative; the significance of animation is to create some pictures and shots that cannot be expressed in real films. This is also in line with the 12 principles of animation: exaggeration and appeal. Only in this way can the animation have vitality and life.
This clip comes from the Chinese online animation Mainland of DouLuo. It is one of the most popular animated dramas in recent years. Despite its vast fan base, I, as an animation student, was not satisfied with his crude character movements, costumes, and prop design. First of all, when talking, the character’s mouth is only open and closed, which is entirely odd. The animator can do more mouth shapes to switch. Secondly, the character walking movement is very stiff, from the head and hip analysis, they move almost in a straight line and walk without weight, which gives the audience a kind of feeling that the character is floating in the air; sometimes there are some slip phenomenon when the characters moving, which is very terrible. Such examples abound in this animation. So, we can conclude that Chinese films still have a long way to go, and I, as an animation student, need to continue to work hard and hope to be able to contribute to Chinese animation in the future.
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In the last century, Disney animators invented the 12 principles of animation. The principles have now become widely recognized as a theoretical bedrock for all artists working on animated video production. Understanding and practicing these principles not only helps us create animations, but also makes our animations more attractive and dynamic.
In nature, apart from rigid bodies such as iron balls, stones, and so on, other objects or life bodies in collision with other objects or self-movement will produce deformation phenomenon, that is, squash and stretch. By exaggerating this natural physical phenomenon, the object looks more elastic, quality and vitality, thus obtaining a unique interest and drama in the animation world.
The intention of the anticipation is two: firstly, to attract the attention of the audience, to prepare the audience to see the character’s physical performance, so as not to miss the storyline; secondly is to accumulate the kinetic energy needed for the action.
The direction of the preparatory action is often the opposite of the approach of the active action.
The preparatory action does not have to be wildly exaggerated, but can also be very delicate.
Exaggerating the performance of the preparatory action, it goes far beyond what can be achieved when designing subsequent actions. And if you see the exact opposite of what you predict when the audience prepares for the move, you’ll have the amazing effect.
‘Staging’ is one of the most commonly used principles in animation, control through the performance layout to achieve all elements of the scene to work together to move the audience viewpoint, if the performance layout is bad, the characters are in the mirror, the audience will not know which to look at. Therefore, in the animation of all the action arrangement, composition, mirror, movement, position needs careful design, arrangement, to avoid too many trivial actions and changes at the same time. The most important thing is to carefully design every lens and action, after the design, not only can make the animation better overall, but also save a lot of unnecessary cost and waste.
Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose is the way of operation defined by 2D hand-drawn animation. In simple terms, Straight Ahead Action is drawing one by one from scratch, while Pose To Pose is the key action in the show, which we call key Pose, and then connects key Poses in a cut-in fashion. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, which are not repeated here.
In terms of 3D animation, we mostly work based on Pose To Pose, but for this reason we should especially avoid rigid performance dynamics. Ideally, the two approaches are combined, which we’ll cover in future lessons.
Follow through refers to the physical phenomenon of natural fluttering or delayed movements such as animal ears, clothing, hair, etc. Under the unconscious control of the character.
Action overlap refers to the time difference between the various parts of the character’s limb during the performance action.
In short, these two points are the most important concepts of activating animated characters.
Newton’s first law of motion states that any object must remain in a constant linear motion or still state until external forces force it to change its motion. However, the reality of objects has the effect of force, such as the car start, from stationary gradually accelerate to speed on the road, and then gradually slow down until the brakes. The “Slow In and Slow Out” rule of fade-in and fade-out refers to the fact that almost all movements start slowly, then accelerate, and end slowly. This is one of the important principles for realistic motion, and it makes things look mechanized without getting faster and slower.
The movement of critters (humans, animals, birds, fish, etc.) and many other objects occurs not in a straight line but in an arc. Imagine a pendulum whose motion reflects an exact arc. The same applies to the hands, legs, head, and body as a whole. A perfect example is walking. Pay attention to how to move your feet. You start lifting and moving your feet at the same time, ending with a lower and a complete stop. Your feet make an arc motion. Your pelvis also moves in arcs. When you throw a ball, your arm moves in an arc, and the fly ball moves in the same arc. It will appear more natural and attractive in the animation arc motion.
Secondary performance action is the extra physical performance action outside the main activity that helps express the character’s inner state or personality. For example, if a character taps his finger on the table while talking to someone else, he may reveal the character’s impatience. Proper secondary action can make the character more live.
A good ‘Timing’ means looking vivid, funny, natural speed, and of course, considering whether the performance fits at this time of spacing. So timing is what animators have been looking for over the years.
Timing’s other explanation is rhythm, which can be said to be inseparable from all art. A song with rhythmic changes will be good to hear; similarly, a movement with fast and slow changes in this action will be comfortable and interesting.
By means of exaggeration, we can achieve greater expression, precision, more dynamic poses, and motions. Not only primary lines of a character can be exaggerated, but also his personal traits, his behaviour, condition, his motions, etc. Exaggeration is one of the most common parts of the animation, and the soul of animation can make the animation look more powerful and interesting. But exaggeration does not mean more contempt, but more convincing.
Vivid, interesting, and natural character gestures are one of the elements of good performance. Your personality, posture should be clear and expressive, and silhouettes are easy to read. Adhere to an exact shape, observe the centre of gravity; weight should be evenly distributed. Posture should clearly express a character’s thoughts, intentions, conditions, desires, and feelings.
Appeal means acting in a way that matches the character’s personality, with heroes acting like heroes, fools acting like fools, bad guys performing hateful things, and in short, ‘playing what, like what.’ Our animated characters should have unique personalities and appearances that appeal to the audience. Whether the audience will be impressed when they see the character’s performance often depends on whether the animator has anything unique in the design, whether the expression is rich in change, whether the action performance is dynamic and so on, and all the elements that can catch the audience’s eye.
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