Task : Basic Characterization and Proposing Idea
For this task we need to make a research and understand about the basic principle of the animation. There is 12 basic principle of animation that we should know :
1 . Squash and stretch
- Gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it move.
- Useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions.
- How extreme the use of this principle is depends on what is required on animating the scene.
- It's broader in a short style of picture and subtler in a feature.
- Use in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking
2 . Anticipation
- Prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as,starting to run, jump or change expression.
- A dancer does not just leap off the flour. A backwards motion occurs before the forward action is executed.
- The backwards motion is the anticipation.
- A comic effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that use anticipation.
- Almost all the real action has the major or minor anticipation such as a pitcher's wind up or the golfers' back swing.
- Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless the scene require it to develop a character personality.
3. Staging
- A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it related to the story and continuity of the story line.
- The effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angle also helps in telling the story.
- There is a limited amount of time in film, so each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story.
- Do not confuse the audience with to many actions at once.
- Use one action clearly stated to get the idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion.
- Staging directs the audience attention to the story or the idea being told.
- Care must be taken in background design so it isn't obscuring animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation.
- Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene.
4. Straight ahead and pose to pose animation
- Straight ahead animation start at the first drawing and works drawing to the end of the scene.
- You can lose size, volume, and proportions with this method, but it does have spontaneity and freshness.
- Fast, wild action scene are done this way, as is the action.
- The lead animator will turn charting and keys over to his assistant.
- An assistant can be better used with this method so that the animator doesn't have to draw every drawing in a scene.
- An animator can do more scene this way and concentrate on the playing of the animation.
- Many scene use a bit of both method of animation.
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action
- When the main body of the character stops, all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character. Such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail.
- Nothing stop all at ones. this is follow through.
- Overlapping action is when the character change direction while his cloth or hair continues forwards.
6. Slow-out and Slow-in
- As action starts,we have more drawing near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more drawing near the next pose.
- Fewer drawing make the action faster and more drawing make the action slower.
- Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like.
- For a gag action, we may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more snap to the scene.
7. Arcs
- When animating, it is important to keep track of the paths your character and their limbs take while moving across the screen.
- Instead of translating directly from to point to point in straight lines, they should move in arcs.
- Arcs will help your animation flow more naturally and look less robotic.
8. Secondary Action
- Secondary action is the use of a subsidiary action within a scene to add more life and dimension to the main action.
- Generally, this will be something moving that is affected by the main action.
- If the secondary action are featured too prominently, they can overshadow the main action can add believably and detail to the scene.
9. Timing
- Timing, give meaning to movement, both physical and emotion meaning. The animator must spend the appropriate amount of time on the anticipation of an action, on the action, and on the reaction to the action.
- If too much time spent then the viewer may lose attention, if too little, then the viewer may not notice or understand the action.
- Timing can also affect the perception of mass of an object. A heavier object takes a greater force and a longer time to accelerate and decelerate. For example if a character pick up a heavy object such as a bowling ball, they should do it much slower than picking up a light object such as basketball
- Similarly, timing affects the perception of object size. A larger object move more slowly than a smaller object and has greater inertia.
- These effects are done not by changing the poses but by varying the spaces or time between poses.
10. Exaggeration
- Exaggeration is used in animation for visual effect. An action becomes a lot more interesting wit exaggeration to make it look extreme and surreal.
- It is apposite of realism if we were to animation a perfect imitation, it could look static and dull.
11. Solid Drawing
- Solid drawing is being able to draw your character from every angle in a believable manner so that they look alive.
12. Appeal
- Character appeal is designing a character's look in a way that's real, interesting, and engaging to an audience.
- Character appeal is difficult to quantify is like to gauge " charisma" in an actor. yet as in live action, star quality is important.
- One strategy for creating a like able character is using symmetry, and smoother curves or shapes in their composition.
- This tends to create a character that is easier for viewer to process.
