Introduction:
Congratulations on animating the bouncing balls. Now, we are going to move up the animation hierarchy, by animating a drink box. You will be applying many of the same principles as the bouncing ball, such as squash and stretch, ease in and ease out, timing, but now add to this, anticipation and emotion. Emotion is achieved in the drinkbox through timing (how fast the box moves) and gesture (how the box is shaped). Trying to apply this to a simple drink box is ideal before moving on to more complex character rigs.
Anticipation refers to the action before the main action. Sometimes its characterized as the windup before the pitch, or the pull of a rubber band before it snaps. The fact that these actions occur, such as the pulling of a rubber band, or a baseball pitch windup, suggests to the viewer that an action is about to happen, preparing the viewer for what is to come next, making the animation easy to follow and see. In the drink box, see if you can apply an “anticipation” movement before the drink box gets into an animation pose.
In this assignment, you will also practice giving this animate drink box emotion. How do you say is this achieved? Simple, since it has no face, arms or legs, you will be creating emotion through timing and gesture. Remember that emotion is energy, and through the combination of timing and gesture, you are going to convey a particular emotion by matching that energy. For example a happy excited drink box, would not be slouching, the gesture would be upright, it would look confident. If it was sad, it gesture be slouchy, curving downward and the energy would be slow, and maybe even lifeless.
Assignment Description:
Use the drink box and animate it expressing two emotions. To begin, you may choose between the following emotions: Happy, sad, anger, fear, surprise, proud and or thinking. These emotions are the most common, they are easy to recognize, but each animator will treat each differently. If you are new, I would suggest you begin with the emotions happy and sad. Be sure each emotion is between 24 and 48 frames in length.
Good luck and have fun!
Competencies:
By the end of this exercise, the student should be able to:
- Demonstrate the animation principles: anticipation.
- Demonstrate how to achieve two simple emotions through the use of timing and gesture.
- Demonstrate the animation principle “anticipation”, applied before each emotion.
- Practice and implement proper staging and camera placement.
- Practice using the graph editor to create and adjust movement.
Animation Process:
1) Pre-Planning:
Decide which emotions you want to animate. For presentation purposes, its best if you choose two different emotions, so that its clear to the viewer which ones you are animating, this will be apparent especially in the shift between the two emotions.
Sketch out what these emotions would like in the drink box. This will serve as your guide and it’ll make posing easier.
2) Camera and Adding Frame Count:
2) Camera and Adding Frame Count:
Add your resolution gate and framerate count so you can adjust your animation faster.
In the main viewport click
View > Camera Settings > Resolution Gate.
Also, turn on the current frame counter. This is so that you can pinpoint the exact frame which needs fixing.
Display > UI Elements > Current Frame Rate
To animate the drinkbox, find the locator at the bottom of the drink box. It looks like a cross or little tail under the drink box. Click this to view the channels box. This is where you will find the controls to control the drink box’s forward and side roll, waste and head movement.
We will begin animating pose to pose style.
- Pose your drink box in the first emotion.
- Copy the keyframes corresponding to each control on the rig and paste them on frame 24. You want to hold the same pose for 24 frames.
- Afterwards, give yourself a 12 frame cushion before posing the second emotion.
- Set your first keyframe to hold this emotion, copy these and paste the exact keyframes another 24 frames down the timeline. Your second pose should now be held for 24 frames.
4) Add and Adjust Timing:
At this point, within the 24 frames available for each emotion, see if you can add movement that represents and or adds to that particular emotion.
Convert to “linear” animation and see how things are looking. Adjust your timing, squash and stretch, and arcs once you feel you are satisfied.
5) : Feedback
This would also be a good time to get feedback on your work.
Create a playblast and get feedback on your work. Getting feedback is the single most effective way to improve your animation. If no one is available however, ask yourself these questions:
- Are the emotions clear in this drinkbox?
- Does the movement look realistic?
- Do the two emotions look different from one another.
- Does my camera angle show these emotions clearly?
- If my character is walking, do I have sliding. Sliding is when the character moves without any movement in the feet or any body part that touches the floor?
6) : Add Anticipation:
Below is a recommended framecount for basic anticipation. Add “anticipation” before each emotion displayed by the drink box.
- Anticipation Movement: 5 - 8 frames
- Anticipation Hold: 2 frames
Tips:
In teaching this exercise and in sitting in classes where this basic exercise is critiqued, I found common mistakes among students, they are listed here so that you can watch out for them.
- If the drink box jumps, be sure to include rotation while up in the air.
- Follow through and overlapping action in the drink box.
- Exaggerate the contrast of the emotions so that the ideas are clear.
- Have strong posing to avoid "floaty" or "swimmy" movement.
- Reverse pose C curves in animation add to contrast. (Illustration Needed)
- Remember contrast in timing. Add pauses to break up the timing of the animation, this gives the illusion the character is thinking, it also gives us the viewer a chance to understand what's happening.
- Apply drag = approximately 6 frames. This is also called overlapping action.
