Category: 3D Computer Animation Fundamentals

Week two courses focused on 3D animation fundamental theory and practice. From the 12 principles of animation to bouncing ball animation training, my fundation was totally restrenthed. I researched some tips of 12 principles of animation and then took several notes, which helped me to memorize these knowledge. What’s more, based on what I learned on courses, I managed to design and make a bouncing ball obstacle course.

Frankly, practice is the best way to learn. During the practice, some of my weakness emerged. For example, my timing and spacing is not good enough to demostrate a realistic free fall. I remade the animation, paid more attention to my shortage and finally solved the problem.

I also did some research on bouncing ball and realized how important it is in animation training. Bouncing ball, which is one of the most important fundamental practices for 3d animation, is a good way to learn timing and spacing. By making bouncing ball animation we can learn how timing and spacing works, and why it’s so vital to our animations. Not only are we learning how to animate realistic movements in a ball, but it’s teaching us how other objects or even animals and people should move. Bouncing ball is almost every animation’s fundation. When we animate human walking, the movement of hip is exactly the same way that a ball bounces on the ground because if we track the trace of hips we can find out that it is the same way that a ball travels. Therefore, the practice of bouncing ball is much more important than we think. No matter how complex an animation is, the basic of it is just the bouncing ball theory.

I chose the third rig and built a obstacle course and animated a bouncing ball navigating its way through it.

Before starting to make this animation, I designed the obstacle first. I wanted the ball acts more like a charactor and can intereact with the environment around it. I decided to let the ball jump from buttom to the top, then go through a slide, fall off to the ground, hit the seesaw and finally stop on the ground.

Then I started to build the scene based on my design. I build some staggered stairs so that the ball can jump from oneside to another. I also added some cubes on the seesaw so when the ball hit that seesaw, these cubes will be throwed out and hit other objects.

Then comes to the animation part. I animated the ball based on what I learned this week. Adjusting timing and spacing took me a lot of time to get a fine result. What’s more, I put a lot of effort to make the scene follow physics rules. For example, the left cube on seesaw will be throwed out just after the seesaw becomes vertical to the ground. I also followed squash and stretch rules to make the ball looks softer. Several anticipations were added to make the ball humanic. When the ball recieves a bigger force or it decides to jump to a further target, it will take more time and “energy” to squeeze.

Finally, I added some lights to make the scene looks more three-dimentional and clearer. I used three area lights and a directional light to illuminate the environment. I also adjusted my side camera a bit to get a better result.

Here is the playblast:

Reflection：I think the timing and spacing of this animation can still be improved and adjusted a little bit. The design of obstacle and the reaction between ball and environment can be more real and interesting.

Based on what I learned from this week’s courses, I chose the third rig to make a bouncing ball animation, here is the playblast:

Reflection：I think the timing and spacing of this animation can still be improved and adjusted a little bit. Maybe I make it better sometime.

Good Animations

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Ghost in the Shell is a 1995 anime neo-noir cyberpunk thriller film. Apart from the story, Ghost in the Shell is still a good animation.

The stagging of Ghost in the Shell is great, animators used a film standard staging in this production. Animators used close-up to show charactors facial expressions and their mental statement. They also used great composition to show the distance between different charactors and depth of scenes.

By obeying the follow through & overlapping and timing principles, the actions in this film are quite realistic. For example, when protagonist through a bomb to the robot, her arm followed with her elbow and her hand followed with her arm. It also used less frames to draw that action to emphasis the energy of that action. What’s more, protagonist’s body move forward a bit when her hand quickly moved backwards, which “help” her to hold the balance. Also, to make a human-like action, animators used less squash and stretch and paid more attention on the physics in animation (force response).

Good example of follow through & overlapping, environment response and secondary actions:

Spongebob Squarepants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwyRxK0htpI&ab_channel=SpongeBobSquarePantsOfficial

Spongebob Squarepants is also a good animation with impressive charactor design and interesting actions.

The best part of Spongebob Squarepants is its charactors. Animators used different colors and simple shapes to design these charactors, make them look quite appealing. The proportion of charactors are great, too. With big head and thin, long arms and legs, charactors can show their facial expressions clearly. These charactors, like Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick Star, are so unique that people can memorize them just at a glance.

Animators also exaggerate charactors’ facial expressions to make them more funny and emotional. Same as some Disney animations, the physics in this cartoon are also quite ridiculous, which gives charactors more choices to do actions.

Bad Animations

Detective Conan is one of my favourate Japanese animations. However, because of the changing of animators every year, the quality of this animation are quite uneven. Some of its episodes show bad proportion of charactors and wired facial expressions, for example:

Sometimes there is some strange distortion of charactors’ face, like:

The animation of Overlord is terrible, too. The bodies of soldiers look mechanical when they are running and fighting. Also, the physics in this animation looks hilarious, people almost fly to the sky after they were punched by enermy. To solve these problems, animators should follow arc, overlapping and follow through principles to make actions more realistic and interesting. The physics should be improved, too. Charactors should have more realistic reactions to the environment and forces.

The CG Crowds in Overlord S3 has gone from noticeable to bad to now hilariously awful. pic.twitter.com/XMgeyWtKTP

— Gigguk (@GiggukAZ) October 4, 2018

Research of 12 principles of animation:

Briefly, 12 priciples of animation is:

1. Squash and stretch
2. Anticipation
3. Staging
4. Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose
5. Follow through and overlapping action
6. Slow in and slow out
7. Arc
8. Secondary action
9. Timing
10. Exaggeration
11. Solid drawing
12. Appeal

Squash and stretch

Squash and stretch is a good way to emphasize charactors or objects’ weight, mass or speed. Squash and stretch can make objects look softer. Some tips may help to make a better squash & stretch results:

1. Keep the volume. Remember to stretch one direction of the shape when the other direction has been squashed. Always keep the volume the same.
2. Do not always use squash and stretch. Squash and stretch should be used only when people need it.

Anticipation

Anticipation means that charactors should prepare before they make actions. This method can make actions more realistic. What’s more, anticipation can help audience realize what will happen next.

Anticipation can be simple or more complex. Mutiple-anticipations is needed when actions quite complicted.

Staging

Staging is the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakablly clear.

Staging can be applied to acting, timing, camera and settings.

• Acting: Acting should be designed properly to lead audience to watch. A messy acting will be terrible.
• Timing: The rhythm of an animation is also important. Give audience time to think or realize what is happening.
• Camera: Use far away camera to show charactor’s big actions and use close-up to show their expressions.
• Setting: A better setting can show clearer charactor’s personalities.

Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose

Straight-ahead & Pose-to-pose are two common methods of making animations. Straight-ahead means that animators draw/keyframe animations from start to finish. Pose-to-pose means that animators firstly draw/keyframe most important parts of animations and then come back to fill in the other parts of it. Frankly, both of them has pros and cons:

Straight-ahead:

• Pros: smoother action,
• Cons: terrible timing, hard to control, size of charactors may change

Straight-ahead should be used in some unpredictable actions like fire, particles, explosions or overlapping actions.

Pose-to-pose:

• Pros: better control, better timing, prevent size change of charactors
• Cons: hard to make unpredictable actions

Pose-to-pose should be used in some predictable actions like charactor animation. There are some special terms for pose-to-pose animation. The most important frames in animation called Keys, the second important part called Extremes, the third important part called Breakdowns.

Straight-ahead & Pose-to-pose should be used based on what animations need. A combination of straight-ahead & pose-to-pose workflow is the best.

Follow through and overlapping action

Follow through refers to the way parts of the body continue to move after the body is stopped. Overlapping refers to the offset between the timing of the main body and its other parts. Both of them make animation more realistic and more interesting.

Mostly, the part of the body should follow the action of main body. For example, hand should follow arm and hair should follow head.

Slow in and slow out

Slow in and slow out is that actions should start slowly and end slowly as well, which can make actions more realistc. Slow in and slow out should be used base on different situations. Do not use them everytime.

In 3D animations, slow in and slow out can be easily achieved by changing the tangent of curves in animation viewport.

Arc

Arc means that moving things in circular paths. Mostly living creatures moving in circular paths, only machanical things moving in lines. A straight arc gives the movement more power.

Arc can also represent objects’ weights or other physics. For example, different circle movement of arms can should dfferent weights of the ball that charactor is holding.

Arc can also prevent animators from making some common mistakes like accidentally cut the length of objects.

Secondary action

Secondary action refers to gestures that support the main action to add more dimension to the charactor animation. Secondary actions can make the whole actions more interesting and add more personalities to the charactor.

However, secondary actions should not overlapping the main actions. Also, don let it go unnoticed. People shouldd give audience enough time to notice secondary actions.

Timing

Timing states that the personality and nature of an animation is greatly affected by the number of frames inserted between each main action. With more drawings/keyframes the action will become slower. One action can have different meanings when the timing is quite different. Sometimes less drawing/keyframes can make the action smoother.

Exaggeration

Exaggeration is one of the most common parts of animation, which can make animation looks more powerful and interesting. Exaggeration does not mean more distored, but mroe convincing.

When making fast animation, bigger exaggeration can make the animation looks better.

Remember to do exaggeration more and more until it is enough, then go back to adjust it.

Solid drawing

Solid Drawing refers to the use of the basic principles of drawing form, weight and volume to create the illusion of a 3d object. Some tips may help to make a better soild drwing:

1. Do not make pose symmetrical. Symmetrical poses are bad for animation, which looks unnatural and boring.
2. Using perspective. Perspective can help animators to check whether their charactors fit in the 3D environment properly.
3. Avoid symmetrical lines. For 2d artists, do not use symmetrial lines to draw things. Draw things more three-dementional.

Appeal

Appeal means that animators should keep their charactors outlooking interesting, for both heros and evil charactors. Appealing does not mean good-looking but impressive. Some tips may help charactors looks more appealing:

1. Use variety of Shapes. Use same shapes to design charactors can make them quite boring. Instead, using clear and variety of shapes bring them more personalities.
2. Edit Proportion. Editing proportions can enlarge the adventages of charactors and make up the disadventages. Magnify things that looks interesting and shrink ugly or boring things.
3. Keep simple design. To much complex details is not good for an animation charactor. Keeping it simple may gives audience a better first impression.