Principles and Production of Animation
Richard Zhang Lecture 3
Reading
R. Parent, Computer Animation: Chapter 1 J. Lasseter, Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation, Computer Graphics, 35-44, 21(4), 1987 (SIGGRAPH 87) Course #1 at SIGGRAPH 1994: Animation Tricks K. Laybourne, The Animation Book, Crown Publishing, 1998 T. White, The Animator's Workbook, WatsonGuptill, 1988
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Hao (Richard) Zhang
Overview
Some principles of animation Animation production
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Principles of animation
Principles gained from hand-drawn animation From original animators of Disney, e.g., Lasseter Combining the physical and the artistic Each principle can be implemented by associated computer animation techniques
CMPT 466 Summer 2013
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Principles: simulating physics
Not true physics simulations to look right and sometimes with exaggeration A lot of examples (following list only partial)
Pick the most visually important Experiences gained from traditional animation
Physics based animation attempts to model the more complete set of physical principles
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Hao (Richard) Zhang
Simulating physics
Squash & stretch
Distortion of shapes to emphasize motions It really happens, but here a form of exaggeration To better reflect non-rigidity/mass/weight/volume of the animated objects E.g., bouncing ball, body weight of character walking Perhaps the most important element to master
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Simulating physics
Timing
How actions are spaced across time, reflecting characteristic or even personality of object/actor E.g., heavy object moves slowly Slow-in (ease-in) and slow-out (ease-out) of motions more natural and physically plausible A lot coming from experience and observations
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Simulating physics
Secondary actions
Physically based reaction to support main action that is primarily modeled E.g., movement of skin or hair during movement of human characters (can always exaggerate) E.g., an angry walker moving the legs (main motion) must be supported by movement of arms and heads Even modeling of reaction of other objects/actors
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CMPT 466 Summer 2013
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Simulating physics
Slow in & slow out --- example of timing
How things move through space Objects slow in and slow out of poses, to model inertia, friction, viscosity More drawing at start and end of motion sequences Movement often in arcs (not straight line) due to gravity or underlying physical structure E.g., think of movement of arm, leg, fingers
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Arcs:
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Principles: aesthetic actions
Exaggeration
Grab attention or make a point Very frequent, e.g., squash & stretch
Appeal
Make it enjoyable to watch
Follow through and overlapping action
Actions flow into another, continuity, e.g., squash & stretch
Solid drawings: to give illusion of 3D
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Principles: presentations
Anticipation
Setting up the upcoming action for the audience Movements preparing audience for a major action the character is to perform, e.g., starting to run, jump or change expression.
E.g., a dancer does not just leap off the floor; a backward motion (the preparation) occurs before the forward action is executed.
Almost all real action has major or minor anticipation such as a pitcher's wind-up or a golfers' back swing.
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Principles: presentations
Staging
Directs the audience's attention to the story or idea being told so that it is not missed by the audience A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line. The effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once.
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Principles: production
Straight ahead
Develop motion continually, first to last Principle followed by physically based animation Identify key frames and then go back to interpolate Typical in conventional animation
Pose-to-pose
Principles of film-marking, see Section 1.3.2
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Some examples
Three point lighting
Key light Above camera; highintensity; shadow
Fill light Below camera; flood light; details
180-rule Rule of the third Camera distance and angles
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Rim light Behind camera; brings objects out of background
All three lights together
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Animation production
Elements of a production: 4-level hierarchy
Production
Entire animation Major episode Associated with staging area Continuous camera recording
Sequence
Shot
Frame: single recorded image
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Animation production pipeline
A trial-and-error process with feedbacks between steps Preliminary story / script Storyboard: sketches of representative frames Sheets:
Model sheet (character details, e.g., in diff poses) Exposure sheet (camera details, soundtrack cues) Route sheet (statistics and responsibilities of scenes)
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Storyboards
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Hao (Richard) Zhang
Animation production pipeline
Animatic (or story reel)
Recording of storyboard frames Each storyboard frame lasts as long as the corresponding sequence Presents a rough feel of timing (and story)
Detailed story
Key-frames: chief/master animations job In-betweenings: associate/assistant animators job
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Computer animation production
Very much mimicking the production pipeline of traditional animation Some differences, e.g.,
Story dept.
Visuals and story reel
Art dept.
Lighting and appearance,
Modeling dept. Shading dept. Layout dept.
2D-to-3D, staging,
Clear separation of different computer graphics tasks for reuse, e.g., modeling, lighting Use of level-of-details
Animation dept. Lighting dept. Camera dept.
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Actual rendering of the frames
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Post-production: video editing
Use of digital representation of films/frames
Digital images can be copied without loss Analogue converted to digital
In the older days:
Cutting and splicing tapes (physical medium): non-linear editing (can follow any order) but tedious
Digital linear (electronic) editing: besides being linear, physical wear and loss of quality due to physical tape copying process
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Electronic editing
Output is assembled in sequential order linear editing
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Digital non-linear editing
Flexible cut, drag, drop, overlap, etc.
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Video editing
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Video editing software
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Cinelerra
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Video compression
Why do we need it?
The so-called true high definition video mode, 1080p, supports a screen resolution of 1920 1080. Suppose that the video content is to be displayed at 30 Hz and that we wish to provide 24 bits of color (8 bits per R, G, B). Then how many seconds of video of this type could fit on a single-layer HD DVD, which has a storage capacity of 15 Gigabytes?
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Video compression
Why do we need it?
Answer: 80 seconds!
The so-called true high definition video mode, 1080p, supports a screen resolution of 1920 1080. Suppose that the video content is to be displayed at 30 Hz and that we wish to provide 24 bits of color (8 bits per R, G, B). Then how many seconds of video of this type could fit on a single-layer HD DVD, which has a storage capacity of 15 Gigabytes?
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Video compression
Codec (compression/decompression) Symmetric codec
Equal time for compression and decompression
Typically, decompression has to be real-time Lossy vs. lossless Interframe vs. intraframe compression
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Codecs
Compression methods
Runlength encoding (stores runs of same data as a single instance plus count; useful for animation) Vector quantization Digital cosine transform (DCT = JPEG) Wavelet compression MPEG, DivX, etc
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Examples
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