Layouts

Layouts relates to making & designing the various characters & the backgrounds that are later to be passed to the artists along the animation & background departments.

The layout artists design the model sheets of characters along with various poses & actions.

Example of a Model Sheet:

The layout artists also design the various backgrounds.

It is always to be understood that, layout is not a phase of production that generates the finished art. The value of a good layout is not in its rendering but in how easily can it be reproduced by the artists & how each layout fits in the final animated film. - H&B Layout Notes

Good sense of planning & design are one of the important abilities that a good layout artist should possess.

Layout defines the spatial relationships between the various objects in a scene, including its location & its size.

Keys, Extremes, In Betweens

Keys: They are the major story telling drawings.
NOTE: While animating, figure out the keys first & place/draw them.

Extremes: As defined, earlier (http://animatoralmanac.blogspot.com/2011/11/timing-spacing.html), it is the position where-ever there is a change of direction or when we start/end an action.

Keys can be Extremes. Extremes cannot be Keys.

NOTE: After figuring out Keys, place/draw Extremes followed by In Betweens.

Quick Drawing - 3

Another Page Of Quick Human Anatomy Drawing:

Life Drawing - 2

Quick Drawing - 2

Here's another set of Quick Human Anatomy Drawings:

 

Quick Drawing - 1

Here's a Page of Quick Human Anatomy Drawing:

TIming & Spacing

Timing & Spacing are two most important things in animation which are closely linked with one another.

How I understand, based on Richard Williams' book (Animator's Survival Kit)

Timing can be defined as the part of the animation, where the drawing/CG denotes any particular action where as Spacing can be considered as the distance between the two drawings in that particular action.

Example:

"Spacing Is The Tricky Part. Good animation spacing is a rare commodity" - Richard Williams, Animator's Survival Kit.

Note: DO The Timing first. Then figure out your keys,extremes,in betweens etc.

Extremes: It is the position in the chart where-ever there is a change of direction or when we start/end an action.

Arcs & Straight Line:

• Arcs: They are beautiful to watch, gives a fluid movement.
• Straight Lines: They denote power.

Manga Character Sketches - 1

Hatake Kakashi (Naruto Series):

Uzumaki Naruto (Naruto Series):

RedBull Canimation

After the Tutorial with Charles on Thursday (03/11/2011) , here's the model I built for the competition along with texture and few test Blend shapes..

These are the Front, Side & Back View of the Redbull Can.

I used  Blinn Material (because metal cans are shiny) and applied the texture file in the color option.

Here's the image for several blend shapes.

The one in the centre is the base model of the can.

File Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?dorwttd94ms4ccf

Transition Of Emotions - A Taxonomy Project (Part 2)

Continued From: Transition Of Emotions - A Taxonomy Project (Part 1)


Emotions is a very very vast subject in animation to explore and portray. As a part of my taxonomy project, I would like to depict human emotions via animation.

As a part of my research, I stumbled upon this video from youtube:

This part of research also helped me for Redbull Canimation Competition, where I've to show various emotions in a can of Redbull Energy Drink.

To express emotions in an animated character, it is very very vital to study the body language. Body language of an animal is what gives away the underlying feeling of sadness, joy, love, fear, etc.

Storyboard Pitching - Toy Story Style...

Here's a link to the video where the importance of storyboard & the process is shown.

Study of Movement (In Humans)

While working on Leoni's assignment on a Descriptive Journey, I unknowingly did a little bit of research on Movement in Humans.

In the following video, Thanos & me are the subjects, where we've walked & run using different speeds, resulting in a quite extensive collection of images which shows frame by frame movement progression. In this, I also requested a skateboarder to skate in front of the camera & got frame by frame images of him skateboarding in front of the camera. Its just so very amazing to know that even a simple task of walking or running leads to the complete movement in the body. No single person walks similar, unless of course if you see a troop of defense personnel marching around.

I would like to thank Thanos for being so patient & helping me out with this.


The video:

A Descriptive Journey

Before I start describing the following assignment, I would like to thank Thanos for being really patient and helping me out!

In this assignment, we were asked to describe an actual journey in any form seemed fit. I tried to use a series of photographs to describe a simple walk from the City Centre Campus to the Newport Bus Station.

This experiment also led me to a fascinating study of human walk, as I was able to study the movement of various people walking down the street frame by frame. I also had a chance to ask a skateboarder to skate in front of the camera, and captured his movement too.

All these photographs were imported in Adobe Premier Pro in a sequence and converted to a movie as an output.

In this post, I've just edited & selected the images, depicting the journey from the campus to the bus station.

Here's the outcome:

The process of capturing all these photographs was simple..

I used my DSLR camera in continuous shooting mode using a tripod, with a fix aperture of 1.8 and slow shutter speed of 1/25sec.

The reason behind choosing a fix aperture was to maintain a fix amount of light entering the camera and not mess around the environment lighting. I used slow shutter speed to show blur while I was walking. This showed a sense of movement in the images I captured.

Transition Of Emotions - A Taxonomy Project (Part 1)

A battle fought..neither with weapons nor with life, still lost and destruction following its everlasting glory..Destruction of a mind and a soul..Is this what makes a loss??Is this the reason for feelings to be so morbid and morose???

Emotion without a corresponding behavior, maybe considered the behavior not to be essential to the emotion. Emotion is the essential aspect of any life form whether expressed visually or not. The amount of emotions a life form can express depends on the biological development of an animal. Emotions form the driving factor for any task that an animal does. Emotional expressions,coupled with others is what puts a human in continuum with other animals - Charles Darwin

The quote above that I came up with once when I was on my bed, lying down reflecting upon my life was the direct relation to emotional upheavaling I constantly felt around in my surroundings, maybe in my personal life or in others.

Watson came up with the fundamental emotions based on the behavior. They were Love, Fear & Rage. Any other emotion were based on the combination of these fundamental emotion. These fundamental emotions are present in any animal life form and is expressed in different forms.

Emotions are very strongly linked with our past experiences & our conscious and get reflected the strongest when one dwells upon his life and consciously thinks about it. I guess, for me the strongest feeling of emotion would be that of love, even though it sounds very mundane, I connect to it very very strongly. The quote below is the result of yet another past dwellings recently..

With every night's sleep, I guess its jus one of those few moments where I re-live a life perpetually yours..For these are the moments that are scarce & are running berserk, love & frenzy in their eyes...

Continued in Part 2: Transition of Emotions - A Taxonomy Project (Part 2)