Category: 3D Computer Animation Fundamentals
This week, I continued to refine my body animation to make the movements smoother and better reflect the sense of gravity. I also added some squashing and stretching effects to it.
9 Tips for Shooting Body Mechanics Reference
- Keep the same angle of the refrence
- Capture different views and perspectives of the same action
- No orthographic view, only the front and side view
- Locked the camera, or only shifted little.
- Morrors
- Continuity
- Intention and acting, make the character live and let them focus what they are doing.
- Keep remember all the behavior that the character do have the purpose
- Put post-it notes on your body
This week I continued to modify my walking animation, it is now smoother
When I was working on the walking cycle animation in week seven, the biggest issue was how to ensure the character didn’t slide.
After watching tutorials online, I tried adding the values of the left and right feet, which allowed me to get the correct number of steps on the Z-axis.
Center of Gravity and Balance.Stride and Rhythm.Overlapping Action and Delay.Forward Momentum and Leg Swing.Key Poses
Theory
As a character walks, the center of gravity shifts between the feet to maintain balance. During this movement, the hips, shoulders, and center of mass exhibit subtle shifts up and down or side to side, giving the walk a realistic sense of physicality.
Walking isn’t just leg movement; it requires coordinated motion across the shoulders, arms, and torso. Overlap and delay refer to the slight time offset between these parts. For example, the arm swing might lag slightly behind the leg movement, giving the motion a natural feel and avoiding mechanical stiffness.
Practice
This week I finished the character walk animation for the animation bk stage, these are the screenshots of what I learned from the Animator’s Survival Manual, and finally my production video
In animation, how to show weight is very important. It allows the audience to see the texture of the performance object and increase the vividness of the character.
Theory
If a character or object in animation doesn’t exhibit weight, it may appear floaty or unrealistic. Adjusting the speed of an object’s fall, its bounce on impact, and other dynamic responses can depict its mass and weight. For instance, a heavy object typically falls quickly with minimal bounce, often causing the ground to shake slightly, unlike a lighter object.
Practice
This week I filmed real-life references and learned how to animate a ball to convey human weight. I also learned a lot of tricks from these videos. Finally, here is my production video.
Based on the Pendulum animation knowledge I learned, I was able to continue making the squirrel jumping animation in the animation stage.
Theory
anticipation is the key to describing how much strength and force go into a movement, while squash and stretch is the key to selling the physical believability of an action
Practice
I learned a lot about Pendulum animation from these videos, and they helped me review the importance of ANTICIPATION. At the end is the animation stage of my pine tree animation.
Anticipation is a mechanical build up for force. It’s important to understand now that all movement is created by forces, either external or internal.
Theory
Anticipation
is the most natural way to build up internal force in order to execute dynamic motion. Bill Tytla, legendary animator, says Any animation consists of anticipation, action, and reaction. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted on by an unbalanced force. This Law applies to everything in the universe, including us. It’s precisely because of this law that anticipating left before walking right results in a conservation of energy.
Practice
This is the bk phase of the squirrel bounce animation I made this week. I was inspired by these references.
I was particularly impressed with the final tail reference animation which helped me solve the tail animation problem very well.
George showed us how to create chain animations this week and suggested that we study some chapters in the Animator’s Survival Book. Here are my conclusions.
Theory
The use of small original paintings can prevent the animation from becoming boring, but it should be noted that not all actions need to be so complicated. Often when the character does something that can reflect his personality, we need some changes.
Following is one of the essences of animation. By driving one joint with another, we can make the character alive. In addition, by properly bending the joints, we can make the character more vivid, but we need to consider carefully where and when to bend. During the joint animation, we should try to make the curve move in an arc shape, which can make the character more vivid.
Practice
Next is my study of Pendulum animation. I learned a lot of animation knowledge from these videos.
My pendulum animation practice