19/11/14
Kinetic Verb
Poor animation can look lifeless and robotic, this task is to help me learn to emulate from the real world to create more natural and expressive movements in my work. I am going to be exploring some of the fundamental principals of animation in this project.
I will come up with a word and animate it in a way that reflects the nature of the word. I will consider weight, squash and stretch, slow in and slow out (easing, to create a more natural look as opposed to a robotic one), exaggeration. anticipation, follow through and overlap.
I will be using adobe After Effects to animate my word and will try to keep the movements pure and clear for now so as to not overcomplicate things for my self and to show clear message of the action of the word and therefore relate the action to the word clearly.
The 12 basic principles for animation were developed by the 'old men' of walt Disney studios, amongst them Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, during the 1930's. These principles came as result of reflection about their practise and through Disney's desire to devise a way of animating that seemed more 'real' in terms of how things moved and how that movement might be used to express character and personality.
(i have added these principles on another post)
Animation Cartoons shows these principles well as they tend to exaggerate them making it obvious to notice when a principle has been applied.
Roger Rabbit: Animation Directed by Richard Williams :
Looking back over his many triumphs – as well as some notable disasters – Williams himself ascribes much of his success to a decision he made in the late 1960s, when he effectively demoted himself within his own, highly profitable and multi-award-winning, company. At that time, on the other side of the Atlantic, some of the great animators of the 1930s and 40s were beginning to retire. And as Disney and Warner Bros dispensed with their services, Williams began to hire them.
This videos shows numerous uses of each of the 12 principles. To give examples of a few of them:
Exaggeration - This is the main principle used in this animation and same with many of the disney animation. When roger rabbits eyes pop out of his head when he sees the baby walking across the oven. This gives a humorous effect to the animation as it is an exaggeration of the 'extremely shocked / scared' expression. People generally tend to widen their eyes when shocked and lean forward as though they can't believe what they are seeing and need to get a closer view. Onto of this roger jumps in the air and hovers for a moment in his shocked state. When people are scared they tend to jump, this again is an exaggerated version of this reaction showing that roger is scared and shocked when he sees the baby. These are three actions that the animators have exaggerated, that people will relate too and understand, it then becomes humorous due to the exaggerated and unrealistic add ons, it only works however due to the grounding factors stemming from realistic movements and reactions that people know.
Stretch - This can be seen in the video when the baby is trying to get out of the crib it is trapped in. He stretches the bars open and his body extends and stretches. Again this is exaggerated, but if someone was half in and half out of a small space and trying to pull their lower half out, the body would extend somewhat to do so. This tension also shows the anticipation action before the follow through movement of flying through the air.
Squash- when roger rabbit crashes into the vacuum his body compresses due to the impact.
Anticipation - is the movement before an action. In this video there are many examples. When the baby lands on the plungers handle, before it is sprung up in the air by it, there is a backwards movement showing momentum and showing a realistic movement of the baby landing on it and the force of its weight against the springy nature of the plungers handle flinging it up in the air. (of course however this is again exaggerated but the main underlying principles of force and momentum are there)
Follow Through - Follow through is the movements that follow after an action such in the video the obvious one to point out is rogers ears. As he moves his ears trail after his and reflect the movements he is making.
Here are some quick words i did as practise before i created my chosen word:
This animation shows exaggeration of the principle squash. This helps emphasise the word as it makes the moving motion of the word from the right to the left of the word seem quick and there for makes the audience view the result of this as hitting a wall hard. Connecting the motion 'slam' to the word.
I made this animation using the idea of the movement of a leaf. I made the text move gently and made it take longer to reach the bottom to appear light swell as making it move side to side in rack movements as it travels down the screen again to male it appear lighter. The font i used reflects the nature of the movements as it is lower case and curvy and small.
This word i made sway by parenting the letters to each other meaning that when the bottom letter moves side to side the top letters follow the movements.
In this second attempt at the word sway, i made the letters move separately rather than all together to add more movement into the animation and make it seem less robotic and stiff and more natural. I have included some follow through with this animation as well which can be seen when the letters flick slightly after a big movement.
For this motion i made the animation fairly quick in order to show the force behind the compression of the text and make it seem springy due to the compression.
Leap
I decided that i would animate the word Leap as it is one that i have not tried yet and i think it can offer me a challenge without being too complicated or fiddly to animate.
Synonyms:
Surge, Upsurge, Upswing, Rise, Bound, Escalation.
Antonyms:
Plummet, Fall, Reject, Drop.
What is the difference between a leap and a jump?:
The Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (HarperCollins, 1995) describes jump as being somewhat more frequent in usage than leap.
It describes jump this way: "If you jump, you bend your knees, push against the ground with your feet, and move quickly upwards into the air."
And it describes leap this way: "If you leap, you jump high in the air or jump a long distance."This is a video i found online that demonstrates the action of leaping in both a person and a horse:
I have decided that for my research of the movement of leaping a horse would be a good animal to look at, and how it jumps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFImjWUvgQI
Various action poses of the horses jump at each stage:
This image shows the actions of each stage of the jump, however not including the beginning anticipation movement which should show the horse riveting backwards slightly before the jump (even when running). It shows the stretch of the horses body as it jumps of the ground and the body extends and then shows a stretch just before it lands. The point of the jump in mid air is less stretched. (this can be seen in the first diagram on the second row). These diagrams remind me of Edweard Muybridge's recordings of movements.
Eadweard Muybridge:
Eadweard Muybridge was an english photographer, important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and early work in motion picture projection.
He used multiple cameras to capture motion in stop motion photographs and was the first photographer to develop sequences of moving objects.
This is one of his pieces where he has captured the movement of a jumping horse and the stages of the jump.
He also captured the movement of a jumping man, who compresses his height a lot and uses his arms to get momentum and to hurl himself forwards. this shows extreme squash and stretch, before and after the jump and in the middle of the jump.
This videos shows a different type of leaping to the previous action i was looking at:
(0.30 seconds - 0.36 seconds, 0.41 seconds - 0.48 seconds)
This video shows fox leaping into the air and diving into the snow. The fox is at a stand still before the leap takes place and so there is no previous momentum of running behind the jump, meaning the fox has to bend really low to create his own momentum (the anticipation of the movement) before he springs himself up into the air. I think this would be a good movement to try possibly as it very exaggerated before and after the movement due to the subject matter being stationary before and after (when running after the jump the 'sqaush'/ bend effect of the force of the jump is lost some what) it also shows follow through animation which i could consider in my own animation when making my word move (the trail of the letters perhaps flick at the end slightly as the word falls and lands).
The type of leap preformed by a ballerina will be much different again from the previous two jumps i have looked at:
As it is a form of dance and is supposed to be elegant and is more controlled. There is a more exaggerated stretch in the middle of the leap as the ballerinas do the splits in the air. the general flow of this leap is more smooth, less bounding motions. and the legs bend slightly backwards on themselves when they split. Natural leaps the legs keep a slight bend in them.
This movements most focusing principles are :
Arcs - All natural things move in arcs, leaping is a very clear example of movements in an ark as all of my research show that the movement of leaping makes a semi circle from where the subject jumps from to where the subject lands, the height and width of this ark varies depending on the momentum of the leap (the more anticipation, the higher the jump the higher and shorter the ark made by the jump)
Squash- This can be seen in my research before and after the jump even if ever so slight.
Stretch - This can be seen in the middle of the leap
Also i will involve:
Anticipation - before the jump (the squash)
Follow through - the trailing letters movements in the air
Types of Fonts to Consider:
Depending on the type of movement i choose for my leap (be it a high leap or a long leap or smooth or more clumsy) i will have to choose different fonts to represent this movement.
Horse style leap : a more lean and sturdy font such as Malayalam MN or rockwell extra bold. Engravers MT.
Ballerina style leap: a more dainty fragile font possibly curly and representative of ribbons (like on ballerina shoes) such as Lucida Calligraphy or Harrington.
This is the animation i made for my leap animation. I decided to use the leap made by the fox in my research video from 41 seconds as the jump that i will be creating for my animation. I used a font that reflects the leap slim nature of the fox in one of my research videos. My animation shows the Anticipation before the jump when it squashed down and tilts back on itself to create momentum, the small jump at the beginning of the jump also shows a build up of momentum. I also made sure i included the follow through motions of the tail flick at the end of the jump that can be seen most exaggerated with the L as it flicks up wards at the end when trailing after the other letters. However i think with the motion of this jump the ending dons look quite right and perhaps is too slows and control. It appears as though the P is pulling the letters down like a roller coaster after the leap reaches the top of the arc rather than gravity pulling the down. Perhaps the letters stay in the air for too long as well.
I then decided to try and create a ballerina style jump version of this animation just to start to get an understanding of the principles and differences in motion between the two jumps. I used a more curved font for this animation to symbolise the ribbons that are associated with ballerinas and also to represent the flowing movements made by the dancers,The font is also slim to represent the delicate nature of the appearance of the dance. The movements i changed in this version is the exaggeration of squash which i made less so for the ballerina jump and made the first little jump quicker like a small skip before the jump as the ballerina video i watched shows that the dancers made small jumps before the big leap however they were very tiny and quick dainty jumps. I also made the word bend back on itself slightly imitating the shape made by the dancers legs when at the height of the leap. i also slowed the speed down in parts of the jump to create a more flowing and controlled effect to the animation similar to how the dancers move.
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