ANI172 - Week 3

Session 1

• one of the most important principles is squash and stretch 

• defines volume/mass of an object, as well as the force of movement 

• also defines any rigidity e.g.  a bowling ball will move differently to a rubber ball 

  • objects with little flexibility will have less squash and stretch

• anything made of flesh will show a lot of flexibility e.g. when an arm bends, the bicep swells 

• the face is also full of flexibility and movement 

• squash and stretch is more effective if it involves the whole body rather than just one part 

• the most important rule is the volume remains the same 

• the same goes for characters - no matter the movement, volume must remain the same or the character will appear to grow/shrink 

• flour sack exercise 

• the greater the force acting on an object, the more squash and stretch occurs 

  • exaggeration is determined by style and character design

• the eye will smooth out frames when they overlap 

• even though less frames = faster animation, if frames do not overlap, the eye begins to see individual images which causes a 'strobing' effect 

• stretch is a good way of remedying this, without compromising timing 

• this leads into smear frames 

  • these are the equivalent of motion blur

  • they work best at one or two frames per movement - otherwise they become noticeable 

• however, deformity is not always necessary e.g. Pixar lamp, or more anatomically realistic characters 

Session 2

• a good warmup is to draw a circle 100 times on a new frame each time, as fast as possible 

• another good practice is to draw a bouncing ball every week 

• rasters are images made up of square pixels 

• vectors are not limited to a pixel image - i.e. not affected by zooming or resizing