Er uh let's see here....one, one, one....errrr...one!
Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnuYi-nzE90
According to the Disney "Animation Bible" there are twelve basic principles that define how effective an animation is at seeming lifelike. For the next part of my analysis I'm going to briefly describe the principles and see if the "Meet the Spy" trailer fits with any of them.
1. Squash and Stretch. The human body is malleable and can therefore change its shape in small ways as it moves, an animated character's ability to effectively do this creates the sense that there is truly something there in space. The animation of the trailer really doesn't show that much squash and stretch. While the characters' movements are fluid and realistic, their bodies do not change shape very much. However in the facial expressions of each character it is very apparent. The way the eyebrows condense and the way the mouth moving causes the jawline and chin to change shape and seem very flexible, very malleable.
2. Anticipation. Living creatures have very elegant muscles and movements that openly broadcast what they are doing before they actually do them. Another way to put it is that before someone performs an action, there is almost always some sort of minor action that alludes to the main one. A person's eyes will point in a direction before they tilt their head that way. Their arms will move back before moving up in a stretch. A small but significant example of how this applies to the trailer is around 0:27, the Scout has been knocked over and is reaching up to put is hand on the briefcase, but before he does his hand goes straight up, then moves down onto it. This allows a person to first acknowledge that the Scout is back in the scene (after being knocked out of it) and is about to do something else.
3. Staging. In terms of animation staging refers to placement of characters and objects so that the viewer has a clear idea of what is important and what is going on. Personally I feel that the trailer accomplishes this idea throughout its entirety, the main points of each scene are very well established in spacing and framing. I as a viewer never felt like I was looking at something unimportant.
4. Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose. These are two varying styles of animation, the first is editing an action from its beginning to its end, tweaking the characters frame by frame, while Pose to Pose has the animator setting up key frames where the character is in the most important poses of the action, and letting the computer fill in the rest, making minute changes where they're needed. I did a little research but could not find out whether the trailer was made in SAA or PtP. Because of the intricate actions each character made my assumption would be Straight Ahead Action, but I may be wrong.
5. Follow through and Overlapping action. Follow through can be best described by watching a baseball pitcher, after the ball leaves their hand they still have a large amount of motion in their body. In an animation, even though the ball being pitched is most likely the action the viewer is meant to see, obviously the pitcher can't just stop moving at that point. Follow through gives the viewer an idea of the amount of force a character put into a movement. As the Sniper swings his machete at the Red Spy, notice how his whole body flies into each swing due to the force he puts into them. Overlapping action isn't really seen much in more modern or realistic animations (And is rarely if at all seen in the trailer) But as a character moves their clothing, hair, jewelry etc will move with them. If a character makes an abrupt change in motion these items will tend to continue to move in the original direction. This kind of overlapping action happens a bit in the trailer with shirts, the Soldier's grenades, and the Scout's dogtags. Another version tends to appear in more comical animations where a character will move their legs off camera while their upper half remains in space, still attached to the legs by a constantly stretching torso.
6. Slow in and Slow out. As a character moves in an animation they may have a certain "floaty" attribute, this is the idea of Slow in and Slow out. More realistic movements are "snappy" they have definite beginnings and ends, a character who moves in a more flowing style appears mysterious when compared to others. In the trailer the Spy moved in a very flowy manner, making him very mysterious and clearly separated him from the other characters.
7. Arcs. Simply put, things naturally move in arc shapes, very rarely does anything move in a straight line or make corners. Animations should be gradual, when a character throws a ball, for example, the ball should arc, even if a little bit, as it rises up then slowly comes back down due to gravity. Obviously there are exceptions but this is the general rule. An excellent example of this shows up at 00:50 in the trailer. Notice how when the Spy throws the Sniper's body onto the table he arcs downward instead of just dropping straight down. This is due to the Spy's arms pushing the body up off of him, so naturally the Sniper's body moves up just a bit before falling back down in an arc.
8. Secondary Action. Think about how you or anyone you know walks, they swing their arms, maybe bob their head a certain way, or fiddle with something while they go. Secondary actions in animation are seemingly unnecessary movements used to give more definition to the main actions. They can be little quirks that allow a character to be better defined and realized. Due to the short cuts in the trailer there weren't really any full motions that I could tell Secondary Actions within.
9. Timing. Due to advances in animation technology, timing is much less an issue nowadays. The framerate multiplied by the time an animation is going to take gives you a good idea of how many frames you're going to need. I was not able to find any information regarding the framerate or the timing of the trailer.
10. Exaggeration. Because many animated characters only resemble humans (or not even that much) their emotions are a bit harder to communicate, to make up for this their actions tend to be overdone a bit, or exaggerated. This way the characters can better express themselves to the viewers. In the trailer each character's subtle actions are exaggerated to further show their personalities. The Spy acts just a little too "calm and cool." The Scout has just a little too much attitude, etc.
11. Solid Drawing. In terms of animation Solid Drawing simply means that the character's actions can be easily determined without much effort. In computer animation a great way to test this is to view only a character's silhouette and see if you can still tell what the character is doing. For the most part I believe that the modeling/drawing in the trailer was very solid. The only part that got a little hectic for me was the scene in which the Red Spy fought the Sniper.
12. Appeal. Simply put, in animation a character has to look nice, something or someone that the viewer will enjoy looking at or at least not be hideously repulsed by (unless that's what the animator is going for) Appeal can make a fairly bad animation look much better. I personally believe that the characters in the trailer, while not winning any beauty pageants, were very appealing in their design and very likable.
All in all I'd say the trailer pertained quite well to the twelve principles. Obviously every animation does not need to follow these ideas but they will definitely help an animation be realized and be truthful to its viewers.
No comments:
Post a Comment