I've come to realize some time agothat when I talk to people that're not in the audio-visual background, they don't always get what I set. And sometimes it's just my accent.
SO, I've decided to give you this sort of guide for those who are interested
Every time I'll say something like inbetween or frame or anything from this little world that is animation in the blog, I'll put a definition at the end of the post and put it here.
And in alphabetic order please.
and it begins here and now.
The 12 principles of basic animation:
in animation there are 12 basics principles that if they're all well used, make really cool animations:
-Squash and stretch
-Anticipation
-Staging
-Straight ahead action/Pose to pose
-Overlapping action
-Slow in / Slow out
-Arcs
-Secondary action
-Timing/Spacing
-Exaggeration
-Solid posing
-Appeal
I'm not giving you a course but there is a pretty good article about it on wikipedia.
in animation there are 12 basics principles that if they're all well used, make really cool animations:
-Squash and stretch
-Anticipation
-Staging
-Straight ahead action/Pose to pose
-Overlapping action
-Slow in / Slow out
-Arcs
-Secondary action
-Timing/Spacing
-Exaggeration
-Solid posing
-Appeal
I'm not giving you a course but there is a pretty good article about it on wikipedia.
Autorig:
Rigging is a long process in CG animation and very repetitive.
but on maya (cg software) and probably others (I only learned this one), when you do something, it writes it down in what's called the "script editor".
exemple: I put the z translate of my cube from 0 to 3.5:
setAttr "pCube1.translate" 3.5;
And anything I write in the script editor (and it understands) the software will do.
So I rig as usual, except I take note of what maya writes. then with language trick I can make it do the same thing with the left arm that it did with the right one and all sort s of things like that.
it took me 2 month to make mine but now I need 1 day to make my character movable instead of 2 weeks.(on maya, the language is MEL or Maya Embeded Language and on 3D studio Max it's Maxscript).
IK and FK:
there are several modes of manipulation for the bones (cf rigging):
-FK or Forward Kinematic: it's the default mode to move the bones.
when you move one, all the others in the hierarchie wil follow.
it's mostly used on the arms, the spine or the leg when the character is falling.
-IK or Inverse Kinematic: when you use IKs, you create a tool that goes from one bone to an other and when you move one in space, the other one won't but all the others between them will rotate so the bone chain will stay coherent.it's often used on the legs or on the arms when the hand is attached or posed on something.
IK_FK matching tool:
when you create a rig with a switch to go from IK to FK or FK to IK, the targeted object will go back to it's last positionof the mode it's going back to.
so we can create a tool (IK_FK matching tool) so the arms, for exemple, will go to the other mode but won't move.
very usefull for the animator
IK Spline:
an IK spline puts a curve in the bone chain. then you can't wove the chain by moving the bones themselves but when you move and distort the curve, the bones will follow.
pretty cool for a spine.
an IK spline puts a curve in the bone chain. then you can't wove the chain by moving the bones themselves but when you move and distort the curve, the bones will follow.
pretty cool for a spine.
Inbetween artist:
When you watch a movie in a cinema, there are 24 images (frames) per second (24 fps).
on TV in Europe it's 25 fps and on TV in th USA it's 30 fps.
a key-animator will draw the key frames of the animation,the most importante so we can understand the movement and give it a timing.
the inbetween artist comes just behind him to draw the remaining frames so the animation will be 24, 25 or 30 fps and be fluid.
Modeling:
When you create a CG movie, you need to model your characters and environment.
it's like sculpting whatever you want from a simple shape created by the software and by adding it points (or vertices), edges (lines between vertices) and faces. there are many other ways but I learned with this one.
Model sheet:
a model sheet is document used to standardise the appearance of a character.
we can find poses, the whole turn around of a character and everything that would help the animators to have the character to stay the same if a new animator has to work on him.
when we model a character in CG, we need a model sheet with the face and the profile of the character.
Rotoscoping:
Rotoscoping is an animation method. the point is to draw over a live-action movie.
in english, it seems to have a more complexe definition so here it is, on wikipedia (yes, again).
Rotoscoping is an animation method. the point is to draw over a live-action movie.
in english, it seems to have a more complexe definition so here it is, on wikipedia (yes, again).
