The stepped version of the scene, the way to clearly see how everything moves together without spline/ autotangents on and see if everything reads correctly, a lot of principles can still be applied even at this stage, overlapping action, secondary action, squash and stretch, anticipation are all readable.
The problem with this state is that it feels like its running at a lower framerate compared to that of full spline/autotangents, it feels like its missing parts of the animation however it can become a large mess of keys.
The final version of the animation, using spline. Spline creates a rather smooth looking animation however it requires clean up with this method of animating compared to others so after your done animating the majority you clean up parts to make the transitions smoother because of the amount of keyframes used.
Overall however the project turned out well, the character’s are close to the storyboard and emote and act in a rather cartoony way. The part about it that’d change for next time would most likely be the exaggeration, pushing some of the emotions harder might push the style harder and be closer to that of a real tom and jerry cartoon.
Another aspect for next time would be mostly just polishing up the curves more, leaving some time in to focus exclusively on that however with the amount of keys done there might not be as much proper clean up needed potentially.
Overall I think the project was a success, minus some minor technical flaws with the presentation.
These were poses of the part that weren’t able to be animated mostly due to time limit. They depict Jerry pulling the hammer up and causing Tom to fall over. Which would be the end of the scene. Some exaggeration, squash and stretch would of been used as well as aniticaption and overlapping action and secondary action to achieve the fall and Jerry’s pull. Given more time this scene might of been completed.
This module focuses on the use of the animation principles to create a scene that focuses on acting and staging, we’ll be focused on using several characters to create animation that has an action and reaction.
For this project the characters Tom and Jerry have been chosen as their rigs are flexible and allow for a lot of acting choices, like smears and squash and stretch across a lot of the body. More subtle details are whiskers and hair fluff that have the ability to be used for overlap and follow through
(Animation / Cartoon Animation by Preston blair)
Another reason for choosing these rigs is that Preston Blair’s original version of his Advanced animation book has a lot of references to Tom and Jerry as they best showcase the ideas of fundamentals he presents with animation and even though the rigs are 3D hopefully the ideas of his work can be translated to 3D with success.
The first thing done was finding various Tom and Jerry cartoons and finding examples of the two characters actions in their original works, this helped figure out what best works for the two.
Going through example of classic cartoons and finding examples of actions I’d like to recreate was the starting point, slapstick violence requires a lot of sharp, fast timing and spacing as well as using squash and stretch to feel the impact of an hard object against another.
Taking screenshots of Tom from a Tom and Jerry episode using a bat, his anticipation and Arc, mixed with some overlapping action. Brought together to create the idea of weight being lifted, and the arc for a clear understanding of where the bat is going. A smooth C shaped arc and then a hard straight line for when it reaches the peak the release of the hit is also a similar C shape arc even the settle is an arc so in total 3 C shaped arcs to create the hit with the baseball bat.
Another part is timing, with easing in and out, the bat has weight to it with the use of easing hanging on the bat for slightly longer creates the weight, its not a light object so there has to be a moment to show that there is weight to it.
The initial hit of the hat has secondary action with spike being hit and his face squashing and stretching, this helps push the idea of the weight against his face as well as a way of quickly identifying the impact of the bat. Taking these factors into consideration when animating the bat swing will help create the illusion of a heavy object affecting the world around it. Action and Reaction is an important factor to also consider throughout.
(Cartoon Character animation with Maya, Mastering the Art of Exaggerated Animation by Keith Osborn)
In Keith’s book about Maya animation he expresses his desire to create a cartoony characters and begins this process with breaking it down into 4 sections, the Confident walk, Antic, Smear and “Vibration” these together create the idea of his animation. Firstly the breakdown of the keys to help understand the entire action is useful technique in figuring out the important parts of the scene, secondly he always ensures the character has a clean easily readable silhouette to understand everything that happens and lastly isn’t afraid to completely break a character in order to push the exaggeration of the character with the smears. These rough sketches are the foundation of the entire animation and thus several iterations are done to figure out the strongest poses.
Later in the book he shows off his method by using Tween machine and creating the breakdowns with it as well as discussing how to exaggerate the character’s movement to create a toony way of moving, this is similar to that of Tom and Jerry and thus shows just how flexible the method is.
This part of the book describes his need to input another breakdown before the final settle and helped understand that sometimes adding more in-betweens can benefit the movement this was a problem that was occurring frequently in the previous animation specifically limiting amount of in-betweens rather than potentially adding/removing some to help make the animation snap more.
A large factor in creating quick solid movement is the use of smears as it makes up some of the information that gets lost during a transition, its similar to motion blur too as it smears details that have a similar look in real life. Richard Williams shows examples of how t o use it for transitions, smearing the faces and parts of the body even if it looks off it works and feels good in motion.
Breaking the Joints is another property that Richard Williams discusses and gives examples of, having the arm and hand drag in a way that the elbow is leading the action so that it creates a flow, even if realistically it doesn’t work like that. Drag and Overlapping action follow similar ideas as they don’t always follow the main action but have reactions based on them.
Taking these elements from the books helps create fundamentals of creating an animated scene as well as using the principles of animation to help create the illusion of life.
Once analysis has been done for Tom and Jerry, what was next was considering an idea to create, this involved sketches and thumbnails to understand where elements of the screen and what the characters will do.
The initial sketches of Tom and Jerry, extremely off model but rough to bring out more ideas. It’s about quantity over quality at this stage and thinking what sort of way the principles can potentially be utilised throughout.
Posing expressions and trying to be somewhat more on model. Line of action and thoughts on perspective, staging/appeal and some dynamic movement were being considered.
The storyboards for the short scene, it depicts Jerry holding up a block of cheese and then devouring it becoming a block of cheese.
The shape is a reference to an episode of Tom and Jerry were Jerry is depicted swallowing a whole block of cheese and becomes a similar shaped piece.
Then Tom shows up, showing off a smug demeanor which is the start of the conflict as Tom wishes to dispose of Jerry. However he’s unable to due to his own overzealous behaviour he ends up hurting himself in the process however he has his revenge and Jerry is smug knowing that he’ll fight back.
The boards here have an extra scene of Jerry fighting back however this part was ultimately cut due to time constraints and the focus was what we originally had which was just up to Jerry being crushed.
This was a practice piece of just the two posing, getting acquainted with Jerry’s Rig and seeing how the two balance off of each other. A lot of Jerry’s Controls weren’t turned on or adjusted as much as Tom’s which made certain poses awkward to place with him compared to Tom.
The key poses from the storyboard taken and posed out into the scene, aiming to keep them accurate while also adjusting parts to try and keep the staging as clear as possible.
Posing being as clear as possible is the ultimate goal as later on in the process the animation will become easier to read as the poses will be clear.
Once the keys were done the inbetweens were next,a lot of anticipation, drag and overshoot to use of Arcs. The Arc’s felt like they were the most important as legs, arms, thighs, head all follow some form of Arc.
A pretty common element used throughout was smears, this was used whenever parts of the body moved extremely fast so it helps read better where parts of the body are going. Squash and Stretch was a fairly common way of achieving this, with drag as the palm is what’s pulling the entire motion forward.
Squash and stretch was applied to the face to help with fast motions too, a way of adding a bit more life to the animation as the speed can cause parts of the body to shake or wobble and this was the way to achieve that.
These two screenshots show exaggeration, (Touch and foot) to help push the idea of “Pain” hitting him and to highlight the area in which he is in pain. Pushing the expression can help quickly identify what emotion the character is feeling and what will happen next.
The second screenshot is of the arm, even though it isn’t exaggerated the arm is bent back to follow the ideas of Richard William’s proposed in which it can help push the animation’s flow by not always following the rules of the world.
These two screenshots show two parts of the body that had a lot of overlapping and secondary action as they both almost followed their own path while the body and head were moving. The tail swings around to follow Tom but also can have a mind of its own, the ear can change depending on emotion too but is more dragged around by the head. These two properties were considered throughout.
2 weeks into the project there was a showing on the progress we had made throughout and some helpful reviews were done a lot of the changes with this specifically relating to timing, and it was just to hold some poses for longer the two above are the movements that most requested to “hold” this would help read what the animation was and overall the feedback helped create a clearer understanding of the poses.
The first pass of the tom scene, all keyframes were in and timing was tweaked constantly to try and achieve a clear emotional and flowing animation. The timing of the hammer hasn’t been refined yet here and thus has a light feeling to it, it’ll be adjusted to be heavier and weightier throughout. The swing of the hammer is also too fast feeling like a light item and not something with weight, slowing it down and adding some easing in and out would help achieve that as well.
Video reference footage taken to help understand the movement of the heavy object from lifting to putting it down on the shoulder, the arcs, anticipation, easing were all considered when analysing the footage as well as general timing as reality can help understand that.
Another important thing was the overshoot and impact the heavy object has on someone when it hits their body, what the body does was considered like the thighs shifting weight and parts of the body that were impacted shift to help react to the object.
Lastly was the second part and that was the hit, even though later on in the scene the hit was a lot faster this one was considered with the intent to be a slower and heavier feeling also how someone would hold a hammer over their head and the swing is brought down as well as how the hands and movement happens. A sharp strong arc as well as overshoot, overlapping action and some secondary all help push the speed and power of this.
Another video reference this one to help with the idea of weight and how people position themselves, however this wasn’t the main focus it was mostly the easing in and out as well as general feeling of weight throughout.
In future the changing of the pose to focus on the realism might help with having a stronger pose that follows a realistic way of moving however the goal of the entire project was to focus on more exaggerated cartoon-like animation and not realism.
This section will focus on the creation of overlapping action and follow through as well as pose-to-pose, with 3D the idea of pose-to-pose is a little different from how it’s done in 2D but the core concept is the same. Creating Key frames is “The storytelling drawings” they’re an important part of the whole, these poses express the intent and what happens next throughout the situation. Next is the extremes and breakdowns, the inbetweens and the further inbetweens these parts help create the entirety of the motion.
Overlapping action and follow through;
Follow through typically depends on the movement of an extremity which can be:
The actions of a character
Extremities own weight and flexibility
Air resistance
Like a Dog’s ear in the wind for example, as stated by Timing for animation by Harold Whitaker and John Halas.
I took the concepts discussed in the previous section and applied to my own work, this included a bouncing ball with a tail. To begin with I used the previous example of a bouncing ball and did squash and stretch, timing, easing in and out and Arcs but this time had a tail which involved having it sway in a direction opposite than the action happening with drag to help emphasis the idea of the tail being its own independent object compared to that of the character itself.
Similar to the bouncing ball example I believe there’s still some “float” when it comes to this which is most likely due to the spline not being adjusted enough and has been over easing going on to fix this it would need to be cleaned up with breaking tangents and removing keys that hindered the movement.
This is a breakdown of the process for this pose-to-pose of the Tom rig, when creating the movement for this I try and think about it broken down into stages, Firstly is the A key, typically the before action and then the B pose once these are established the anticipation of the action is next then the drag/breakdown, then an overshoot which can depend on how harsh I want the movement to be when it hits the B pose.
The posing and general silhouette of this is solid, I tried to keep everything as clear as possible however I believe his hand emerging from behind him needed to be cleaned up at tad as it snaps rather awkwardly into the next pose, adjusting the frames or his arm some might of given some help in fixing this issue.
The exaggeration throughout I believe helped make the final key overall solid, as it pushed the sadness of Tom. A concept that Richard William’s discusses in the survival kit is the idea of “breaking the Joints” which a lot of the time just involved having the character’s limbs not completely be stiff and follow the limits of real joints throughout and I try and use this concept as it helps with more cartoony characters. A similar idea to exaggeration as its pushing the limits of something for the sake of the animation looking good.
Squash and stretch in the eyes gave an interesting “zip” like eyes darting back and forth. Sometimes small details help with making something toony.
Another example of using the Tom rig for a Pose-to-pose exercise, this one involving Tom snapping. Similar to the previous example it has Tom posing from a chin rub to a double point then a snap, the idea being he’s pointing something out and then understands.
This time the focus was on exaggeration with the face controls and follow through/overlapping action of the ears, arcs are always important throughout these too, trying to make the arms/hips/face all follow an arc in a way that keeps the motion looking fluid.
The overall movement of this exercise is solid however a fixing of timing, might make the movement more snappy and less start/stop-like as right now it has a very stiff look to some of the movement and going through and cleaning that up would take some time to help smooth out the movement.
This section will cover a walk and run cycle, both fundamental to the art of animation as it uses multiple principles together to create a perfect loop. The examples found show the process of it, Preston Blair’s Run and Richard William’s walk were used to help figure out the basics of each of them then references were use to help fix any of the missing pieces of the two cycles.
There are typically four to six stages of a run and walk cycle, but both have Contact, down, passing pose and up and potentially extras depending on the run.
The endless reference video of a walk showcases a lot of about a walk that needs to be consider when creating it, the way the hips sway and follow the upper body’s twist and the arm motions while traveling between each stage. Arms and Legs always seem to move opposite from each other one moves forward and the other is behind etc, small things like the head following the body, up and down motion and bend of bodies are all important movement factors to consider.
Similar to a walk the run has equal amounts of important details, a lot of similar however a big thing to factor is how when running at least visually feet don’t always touch the ground compared to that of a walk and typically the body is further position forward to emphasis speed and aerodynamics.
The walk animation, a very old timey style of walk with his arms up in a fisticuffs type of gesture, while strolling about. Making sure to use the principles such as arcs, squash and stretch, timing and spacing, easing in and out, overlap and follow through making sure the loop is true.
Follow through and overlap help give the bounce of the ears and the arc of the hips always helps give it a solid bounce and similar helps the feet move correct manner.
This was the first attempt at a running animation and it sadly it’s more like a power walk than a run, as the feet connect to the ground and the movement overall feels a little too slow to be considered a run. Adjustments for this would be needed for it to be considered a run and a big one would be to adjust the back as its currently facing forward. When running the back is typically arc’d forward and not back as it is here. Overall speed too could be faster.
This run was similar to the previous attempts however I adjusted the back, sped up the overall cycle and made sure the legs followed a quick turn around. However it does appear to be a run I think there are minor aspects that are holding it back, mostly the lack of a body sway of overall body movement to help give it a bit of edge on a run compared to a walk.
Compared to previous attempts as well there isn’t a lot of overlapping action and follow through on parts to give it some extra motion during, which might of helped conveyed a sense of speed compared to the results here were ears and the tail are stiff. Something to consider for next time.
The animation exercise is to create a personality for a sack of flour by using the principles to create a personality with emotion by acting and not having any facial expressions to help show the emotion.
Principles such as squash and stretch, overlapping action and follow through, arcs, timing and spacing, easing in and out as well as other principles help elevate the performance to give the character a sense of purpose.
This example shows all the potential ideas that could be done with a flour sack in 2d as its flexible and simple shape allowed for a lot of malleable possibilities, sadness, joy and a lot of falling has high potential with the flour sack.
The first attempt at the flour sack, starts with a simple hop and tries to keep his balance then falls over and gets back up. Showing off a positive, clumsy personality. This first attempt while a solid premise needed some real life reference to help make the posing of the fall more believable. Reference is a good way of understanding the posing and where limitations of the human form lie as well as help figure out certain transition between poses.
Using my phone camera I performed out the scene to show off how someone losing balance would look to help understand the way balance and how the core of the body looks as well as the arms and legs behave during such a motion and then regained my footing. I believe this helped understand the positioning and balance of forms throughtout.
Second attempt, adjustments were made to have the character double their pose to seem like an over balance however I don’t think the pose was pushed far enough and reviewing the reference again the limbs have an almost overshoot appearance.
This attempt was similar to the previous although in stepped and showing a different type of anticipation for the second part of it to try and suggest a struggle however I don’t believe it helped convince the movement of a struggle and more a minor twitch, some adjustments would be needed for it to be a convincing struggle to maintain balance.
Lastly the final version, removing the extra twitch and giving a more pronounced overshoot would help push the posing of the flour sack and give the effect of a struggle however the flip and roll of the character could do with a stronger arc and perhaps more squash and stretch to help push the flour sack-ness and maybe slow down some of the pacing to give the weight of the flour sack a higher prominence.
The final pose has a strong silhouette which helps with appeal and a clear view of the emotion of the character and his attitude.
This section is for the character pushing a heavy object/box and is to showcase the idea of weight and body mechanics, an important part of this process is to be aware of the line of action as Timing for animation showcases the idea of weight and strength to help have a solid form while pushing or being pulled. Squash and stretch, arcs, easing in and out, timing and spacing are all always very important to the overall process of pushing weight.
Throughout the process of creating the weight push a big factor was to trying to make sure the line of action was strong throughout, a lot of S’s curves and C’s to help push the line of action. When pushing it was important to keep the pose looking solid too. Another important tip was making sure feet stay planted firmly on the ground as form is just as important as line of action. Exaggeration was used throughout the scene too to help push the cartoony aspect of the rig. Follow through and overlapping action helped on arms and legs to give a moment of relief as well as help show the speed and shift in weight when Tom moves around.
A big concern through the scene was the character standing up from the ground so footage was recorded to help understand the mechanics of leg placement, body shifting, center of gravity changes and potential use of principles to help elevate the process. Arcs are everywhere from how legs are placed and move and offsets to body parts is also important as not every part of the body moves together. Drag in areas and followthrough, such as the head and arms to create the weight of the body getting up from an exhausting position.
First version of the animation, the major differences from this and the final is that a bit smoother in areas and his fall is complete, also him getting up off the ground has a bit more understanding and isn’t just guess work, lastly how the character pushes the object away has a bit more weight and adjustment compared to the final version. This version overall has several uses of Arcs, anticipation, exaggeration and such however what it could potentially have more of is squash and stretch to help push some of the fleshy aspects of the character. An example could be the use of it when his arms hit the wall to suggest him pushing his full weight onto the wall.
The final version, this one smooths out a lot of the animation work previously and adjusts the lift and push to the solid object, mostly fixes. The biggest adjustment is the character’s body being pressed against the object as it now feels more like the arms reach first then the body this gives the character a strong form when pushing the against the object.
Some of the arcs of initial step into the shot need to be adjusted as well as the foot placement as it walks into the scene, the push and the rock’s movement could be adjusted too to help adjust the weight. Anticipation is in the rock’s initial movement but could be adjusted to be more exaggerated.
This exercise is to have a character jump and throw a ball into a hoop, the intent is to figure out how to effectively convey body mechanics with the 12 principles. A mixture of squash and stretch, arcs, anticipation, easing in and out, follow through and overlap, and combine these to create a character who can jump and shoot.
The first thing to do was to find reference that can help understand the body mechanics and break down the process of dribbling a ball and then jump shooting it into a hoop.
The dribble for example has anticipation and arcs with squash and stretch for the ball to give the the push of the hand on the ball and the weight of the ball. The form of the body is also important making sure the line of action is pushed into a C shape for a solid form. Easing in and out is also important to ensure the speed and bounce has the right energy from the force.
The second part of this was the jump shot, and how it has an anticipation and follow through to help with the understanding of throwing the ball, the anticipation is one of the most important aspects of the throw as it helps produce the power and speed of the ball as it leaves the hand as well as direction. Secondary action would be the trousers swaying which could help with understanding pieces of the rig should have it to convey the aspect of weight of items and the feeling of movement.
Even though these videos were used as reference, its okay to push the limits on what can be done with the understanding of bouncing and throwing a ball. Originally the plan was to create a very by the books animation following the reference.
The first attempt at this was created with the intent to follow the references closely, but it was suggested to add some exaggeration to push the poses and to make it be an action that tom himself would do and not just a by the books jump and throw.
The second attempt this time the latter poses were redone and tweaked to emphasis the exaggeration and follow through, giving it a much more toony scene of Tom throwing the ball and the ball hitting him an action with reaction moment.
More principles were used and smoother arcs were considered throughout to try and make the follow through and overlapping action a little more expressive, squash and stretch has been used for the ball and the model itself, arcs were studied throughout to make sure they have a smooth transition.
The final version this one slightly different from the previous with adjustments to the ball’s movement and the impact moment, were it hits him this one removing a few frames to try and speed up the process.
Overall: the scene successfully conveys the goal of the principles, it uses a lot of squash and stretch, arcs and overlapping action and follow through to help push the piece further some secondary action might help give an idea of items on him that are lose such as whiskers could be affected while jumping which in term helps with the feeling of him moving through space.
In this post I’m going to be discussing the principles of animation with research and practical examples to show my understanding of animation. This first part will be the bouncing ball, a simple task used to help with the fundamentals of animation, using; squash and stretch, timing and spacing, arcs, ease in and out, pose-to-pose and exaggeration. These together create the fluid motion of a ball bouncing and falling down.
Richard William’s Survival Kit and Timing in Animation by Harold Whitaker, John Halas both were used in figuring out the general timing and understanding of the bouncing ball, taking the idea of spacing, timing, squash and stretch and Arcs to put together the stages of the animation. The ball eases in when it reaches it peak and then eases out, the arc contains where the ball goes with squash and stretch helps emphasis the the ball when it squashes and stretches. These methods can be applied to other examples like someone jumping and a mallet moving. Richard William’s also uses the example of a coin and shows spacing in how that impacts the movement of the object.
Putting these together helps create the illusion of an object having a smooth enter and exit. Which creates the illusion of a ball bouncing.
After looking at the Animator’s survival kit and Timing in Animation, I created some rough ideas of what the potential movement for these would be like, similar to the book’s suggestion. The ball arcs, squashes and stretches and moves. The other examples here are used for potential weight changes, a lighter ball like a ping-pong ball and a slower, heavier, bowling ball.
Another example found for help with researching this was “Bouncing Ball – How to make an animation” by Puuung 퍼엉
This example shows off their way of creating a bouncing ball and how it uses similar ideas from the Survival kit and timing in animation, squash and stretch, timing, spacing, easing in and out and other principles.
Once the core concepts were created next was moving onto the bouncing ball, creating a sphere and a floor in maya I used a mixture of Translate, Rotate and Scale to help use the ball into the direction of animation I wanted, the ball’s scale can be adjusted for squash and stretch, translate helps move and rotation to add an example spin to a typical ball.
Final bounce animation, showing the principles in action. The ball animation itself showcases the principles I have outlined however for next time I’d try and make the ball move faster as of right now it has a slight “float” to it that feels like it makes the ball lighter than I would of liked, changing the timing to be faster or having the air time be less might of allowed for a more solid overall ball.
Another animation of the ball, a sort of alternate idea with a smaller, lighter ball and having it bounce in a similar manner to the previous example but have the air time intentionally longer as the weight has changed from a standard bouncing ball to a more rigid and denser item.
The first bounce could of been adjusted to have a more solid looking bounce as is, potentially pushed higher as its a very light material and the first bounce should shoot further up however the bounces after the first do have a solid bounce overall.
The graphic editor for the ball bounces, the graph editor is adjusted for each version of the ball bounce. Translate Y, Translate X, Rotation Z, and Scale Y were all adjusted here to create this graph and creates this pattern.
Some parts of the graph needed to be cleaned up however the main areas of the animation are perfectly useable as is.
Conclusion:
Overall the bouncing ball exercise was a success as it demonstrated the principles in their most clearest ways, a good starting exercise to help us get back into the groove of animation. Helps get us thinking about squash and stretch, easing in and out, Arcs and the general principles overall. The bouncing ball exercise helps build on the foundations of the principles, most likely the reason Richard Williams and the Timing for animation book both have them.
What I’d do for next time is try and figure out how to make the ball’s mass feel solid and keep the volume consistent to hopefully make the ball feel like a solid ball and not a more malleable mass. Even though Solid drawing wasn’t a principle that was possible with 3D, certain ideas can be taken from it to create the idea of realism when it comes to an object.
These were poses of the part that weren’t able to be animated mostly due to time limit. They depict Jerry pulling the hammer up and causing Tom to fall over. Which would be the end of the scene. Some exaggeration, squash and stretch would of been used as well as aniticaption and overlapping action and secondary action to achieve the fall and Jerry’s pull. Given more time this scene might of been completed.
The graphic editor for the ball bounces, the graph editor is adjusted for each version of the ball bounce. Translate Y, Translate X, Rotation Z, and Scale Y were all adjusted here to create this graph and creates this pattern.