4. ANIMATION Skills
Animation is the art of capturing a series of individual Drawing, Storytelling,
movements, whether on film or in digital form, and Story Boarding
replaying them in rapid succession to give the illusion A good sense of timing
of movement. The dictionary meaning of animation is A good sense of composition
state of being full of life or vigor, liveliness An understanding of motion
Example: A cartoon on television is one example of Size, ratios and perspective
animation. Software-specific computer scripting languages
Digital asset management
ANIMATION IN DIFFERENT MEDIUM You have to have immense patience
Animation can be achieved in different mediums or
using various materials, it can be done using Images
drawn on a cel, Paper, Puppets, Computer generated
images, Photographs, Typeface, graphics, Clay figures,
etc.
In the animation industry, it is widely recognized that
the most important skills needed by new entrants (as
well as practitioners generally) remain fundamental
ones. Aside from the less tangible attributes creative
flair, a good visual eye and raw talent, etc.
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5. ANIMATION
A written version of scenes of a play.
Timeline
GRAMMAR
Part of software that displays the events and items of
an animation in terms of time or frames.
Frame
one of a series of still photographs on a strip of film
There are some terms that you will encounter when
used in making movies or animations.
using the Animation functionality that are essential to
understanding the Animation. Below are some of the Key frame
most common terms you will encounter when creating Shows where the key (most important) actions occur.
animation.
Pre-production Tweening
An animation process in which frames are created
The planning stage of a film or a film or animation
between the keyframes that are needed to create the
before shooting begins.
illusion of movement.
Storyboard Cel
A series of small drawings plotting key movements in
A clear piece of plastic on which the animator's finished
an animation narrative, and accompanied by caption
drawings are painted. The cel is clear so that when
for the descriptions of the scenes.
placed over the background, the animated characters
Scene appear to be in a setting.
A small part of the overall story such as the introduc-
tion of a character or conflict.
Background
A flat piece of artwork that is the setting for a moving
Script character in an animated film. A background could be a
picture of a forest, a sky, a room, or a castle.
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6. TIMELINE
The timeline is a part of software that displays the
Playhead indicates the current frame displayed
on the Stage. As a document plays, the playhead
moves from left to right through the Timeline. By
events and items of an animation in terms of time or default, the playhead loops when it reaches the end.
frames. The Timeline status displayed at the bottom of the
Adobe flash is the most basic software with which Timeline indicates the selected frame number, the
people generally start their course of animation. current frame rate, and the elapsed time to the current
frame.
Adobe flash timeline: Note: When an animation is played, the actual frame
The Timeline in Adobe Flash Professional organizes rate is displayed; this may differ from the document's
and controls a document's content over time in layers frame rate setting if the computer cannot calculate
and frames. Like movie film, Flash documents divide and display the animation quickly enough.
lengths of time into frames. Layers are like multiple
filmstrips stacked on top of one another, each contain- The Timeline shows where animation occurs in a
ing a different image that appears on the Stage. The document, including frame-by-frame animation,
major components of the Timeline are layers, frames, tweened animation, and motion paths. Controls in the
and the playhead: layers section of the Timeline make it possible to hide,
show, lock, or unlock layers, as well as display layer
Layers in a document are listed in a column on the contents as outlines. You can drag frames to a new
left side of the Timeline. location on the same layer or to a different layer. If you
enable the onion skin feature, you can see multiple
Frames contained in each layer appear in a row to frames simultaneously—helpful when creating
the right of the layer name. The Timeline header at the
frame-by-frame animations.
top of the Timeline indicates frame numbers.
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7. FIG1
A. Playhead G. Tweened animation
B. Empty keyframe H. Scroll to Playhead button
C. Timeline header I. Onion-skinning buttons
D. Guide layer icon J. Current frame indicator
E. Frame view pop up menu k. Frame rate indicator
F. Frame-by-frame animation L. Elapsed time indicator
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8. WALKCYCLE
Creating a walking animation is a foundation exercise,
Creating a walk cycle
Walk cycles can be broken up into 5 keyframes,
but it is also one of the most difficult to master as a namely Contact, Plant, Pass, Stride, and Contact.
beginning animator. Learn how to understand the Frames that are drawn between these key poses
body’s movements while walking with helpful infor- (traditionally known as in-betweens) are either hand-
mation from a writer, director and animator. drawn or using computer software to interpolate
them.
In animation, a walk cycle is a series of frames or
illustrations drawn in sequence that loop to create an Breakdown of Walk Cycle
animation of a walking character. The walk cycle is
looped over and over, thus having to avoid animating Besides the apparent movement of the legs, many
each step again. more details are necessary for a convincing walk cycle,
like animation timing, the movement of the arms,
head and torsion of the whole body.
Contact Plant Pass Stride Contact
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9. Pose1 where the arm and leg positions are the opposite of
Start by drawing the ‘contact’ pose. This is when the those of the first frame.
heel of the leading leg is just striking the ground, and Pose2
the toes of the trailing leg are bearing most of the Now draw the first of the in-between poses. The ‘plant’
body’s weight. Note that the torso twists so that one pose comes between the first ‘contact’ pose and the
shoulder is further forward than the other ‘pass’. This is when the leading leg takes the full weight
Pose3 of the body, and the foot is planted flat on the floor.
Next draw the ‘pass’ pose. This is when the arms and This is the lowest point of the head movement arc.
legs are passing each other as they move. The arms are Pose4
close to the body; one leg is straightened, bearing all Finally, the ‘striding’ pose comes between the ‘pass’
the weight, while the other leg is bent and moving and the final ‘contact’, and has the trailing leg
forward. The torso should not be twisted at this point. stretched upwards, and the leading leg moving
Pose5 forward, with the knee raised. This pose is the highest
The final pose of the sequence is the ‘contact’ pose, point of the head movement arc.
Pose1 Pose3 Pose5 Pose2 Pose4
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10. ANIMATION Cutout animation
STYLES
Cutout animation is pretty much exactly what it
sounds like: cutout shapes arranged on a flat surface,
and manually moved and repositioned to simulate
There are few animation techniques which are so animation
called animation styles, some of them are
Collage
In one word we can sat collage animation as “Giving
Keyframe animation new life to old pictures”
Keyframes are defined throughout an animated Making collage is something most of us did in art class
sequence, in order to define pivotal points of motion during school days, using papers cut from magazines,
before the frames in between are drawn or otherwise photographs, bits of cloth, leaves and twigs - anything
created to "tween" the motion between the two key we could find to create a picture. Now that we have
frames. One example of key frame animation is as loads of digital technology, we can take one step
shone in figure. K indicates keyframe, T indicates the further and animate the pieces to tell a story.
“tween”
K2
T Rotoscoping
T
K3 Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which
K1 animators trace over footage, frame by frame,. Origi-
nally, recorded live-action film images were projected
onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an anima-
K4
K5 tor. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope,
although this device has been replaced by computers
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11. in recent years.
Kinetic typography
Kinetic typography, sometimes also referred to as
motion typography, is known as the art of integrating
movement with text. Due to the availability of anima-
tion software like Adobe Flash, Adobe after Effects and
Apple Motion, interest in kinetic typography has more Charecter cel 1
recently been rekindled, with the technique growing
increasingly popular both in amateur and professional
circles.
Cel animation: Layer 1
Charecter cel 2 Final Composition
A traditional form of animation used in the production
Layer 2
of cartoons or animated movies where each frame of
the scene is drawn by hand. A full-length feature film
produced using cel animation would often require a Background layer
million or more drawings to complete.
Background
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12. FLIPBOOK
tubes inside, covered with white glass or Plexiglas.
Finally, you will need something to hold all the loose
papers together so they don’t spill into a messy pile on
the floor. The best is a bulldog clip or a plastic slide
Selecting your material binder, but a strong elastic band or stables can be
You will need some papers or thin card. The paper used.
should be thicker than standard copier 80(gsm), but
card should not be too thick, or you will not be able to Doing it
see the underlying image. A pocket sketchbook that is
You need to start with an idea. Because of the nature
already perfect bound or ring bound would be a good
of the format it has to be something simple that is
choice. Index cards are another possibility, and are
going to last just a few seconds, a bouncing ball, Water
something you will always find handy while working
flow, a sneeze. These are the kind of things you could
on an animation, from the writing stage onwards. You
animate.
could even use a pad or peel-off reminder notes. The
important thing to remember when selecting your
Whatever you decide to animate you have to start
stock is that it needs to be robust enough to withstand
from the end and work backwards, tracing over the
to flipping but thin enough to allow tracing.
previous image, altering as necessary to capture the
A black pen is best for drawing, to ensure that you can
scene of movement. Once the drawings are finished,
see the linework through the paper. You may want to
clip them together and marvel at your first moving
start with pencil sketch to get the first image right,
picture, and you’re done
before you ink it.
You may also need a light box (fig). This is the device
that shines light through your paper or card to make
tracing easier. It is usually a metal box with florescent
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14. ANIMATION Anticipation: An action can be divided into three
phases: preparation for the action, the action itself,
and termination. Anticipation is the preparation, and it
PRINCIPLES
tends to be the longest and most important part of an
action. It helps set up what a character is about to do
and directs attention to where the movement will take
place, so that once the action happens the viewer will
better understand what is going on. Anticipation in its
Squash and stretch are the exaggeration of a
most basic form is an action that takes place in the
non-rigid body's deformation as it moves. In general,
opposite direction of the main action. Some common
squash is used to show the force of impact or anticipa-
examples are the windup for a pitch and the crouch
tion, while stretch indicates acceleration or velocity.
before a jump.
For example, a falling rubber ball may begin to elon-
gate as it speeds up. It will then squash when it hits Ease In and Out is one common problem in
the ground, its speed on impact determining how beginning animation is character motion that tends to
extreme the deformation is. When leaving the ground start, stop, or change directions abruptly, resulting in
from its bounce, the ball will be temporarily stretched robotic movement. An easy way to fix this is to use the
again before gravity slows it down. ease in and out animation principle (also referred to as
"slow in and out"). A natural example of this principle
can be seen in the pendulum below. As gravity over-
takes the pendulum it begins to slow down to a brief
stop, until it begins accelerating again in the opposite
direction.
Arcs: When animating, it is important to keep track
of the paths your character and their limbs take while
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15. moving across the screen. Instead of translating pockets, he can speak or whistle, or he can express
directly from to point to point in straight lines, they emotions through facial expressions.The important
should move in arcs. Ultimately, this will help your thing about secondary actions is that they emphasize,
animation flow more naturally rather than take attention away from the main action.
Straight ahead action and pose to Timing refers to the number of drawings or frames
pose: These are two different approaches to the for a given action
actual drawing process. "Straight ahead action" means Exaggeration is the enhancement of a physical
drawing out a scene frame by frame from beginning attribute or movement.
to end, while "pose to pose" involves starting with
Solid drawing means taking into account forms
drawing a few key frames, and then filling in the
in three-dimensional space, giving them volume and
intervals later
weight
Follow through and overlapping Appeal: A live performer has charisma. An
action: Follow through and overlapping action is a animated character has appeal. All characters have to
general heading for two closely related techniques have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic
which help to render movement more realistically, and or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to
help to give the impression that characters follow the read design, clear drawing, and personality develop-
laws of physics. "Follow through" means that separate ment that will capture and involve the audience's
parts of a body will continue moving after the charac- interest.
ter has stopped. "Overlapping action" is the tendency
for parts of the body to move at different rates These principles are not hard and fast rules, but they
Secondary action: Adding secondary actions have been found to work since the early days of
to the main action gives a scene more life, and can animation. Bear them in mind at the story board stage
help to support the main action. A person walking can and your animation definitely have believability
simultaneously swing his arms or keep them in his
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