Blocking：The part of animation design that determines movement and rhythm.
Breakdown: The part that enriches the animation to a nearly complete representation of the design state
Before animated, look for reference images and videos can help us design motion that fits the character, story, and especially to depict specific action.
The character can be regarded as a whole, such as a sphere, and the movement trend of the whole character can be made first, and then the movements of the parts of the body can be animated one by one.
This week，we animated the shift of weight from one foot to the other. The first step is to lower the center of gravity, with one leg providing support, but not full weight. The rest of the body needs to be adjusted for balance. Then the center of mass rises again, and gravity shifts to the other foot. Finally, with the weight between two feet, it return to the original standing pose.
The weight of the figure supports the upper body, sometimes on the left foot or to the left, sometimes on the right foot or to the right, sometimes on the center of the feet. Keep your center of gravity in line with your clavicular fossa to keep your whole body in balance.
During this week，we learned how bones and controllers work by animating floursack.
In the process of animation, we should pay attention to the influence of inertia and gravity. When the center of gravity changes, other parts of the flour bag should also move.
Therefore, the skeleton of the main part controls the other bones, and attention should be paid to the control relationship between bones during parent-child relationship and IK.
The authenticity of a documentary is ‘deeply linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images are linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images bear evidence of events that actually happened, by virtue of the indexical relationship between image and reality’
Horness Roe. A. (2013) Animated Documentary. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
According to Honess Roe (2013, Animated Documentary), There is an exponential relationship between the authenticity of documentaries and the concept of realism.
The film tells the story of Ryan, a famous Canadian animator, who is reduced to the streets and becomes a beggar after suffering from the blows of life and himself. He is determined to make an animated documentary about Ryan.
1 is about the world rather than a world wholly imagined by its creator.
Animation and documentary are both important ways for human beings to express their emotions, and both tend to explore the truth.
Ryan’s animated metamorphosis concretizes the artist’s life dilemma and mental state. Along with the dialogue, it shows the complete Ryan in his prime, as well as the girlfriend and producer of the two-dimensional animation that only exists in his memory. The design of the animated characters combined with the recording of the interview enhanced the presentation ability of the characters in the film, the different nodes of the timeline, the real relationship between the characters, and the fresh feeling brought by the dynamic memory. Abstract images show pain, madness, fear, kindness, shame, and other psychological and emotional images that are difficult to express. The gray and distorted space environment all reveal the inner world of Ryan to the audience.
2 Evocative Animated Documentary
Movies can engage audiences through the empathetic responses that our imaginations enable, It helps the audience understand other people’s mental states or mental experiences. For example, mental health issues that we’ve never experienced firsthand. In the animated mind documentary, the short film shows a new way of looking at the world through the following points, changing the boundaries of the content and the way we present reality.
1. Design of character modeling in animation
Role modeling is the animation director for the film aims to convey the important means of expression, of an animation film with real prototype characters, hero Ryan has a distinctive appearance characteristic, as well as the prime and come down in the different character and spirit, excellent design based on the character prototype and the creator of natural emotion, Around the background of the story and the trend of the plot layer upon layer deepen the character of the protagonist. The main character, Ryan, has an emaciated body with arms like two branches, a severed head under his glasses with only one eye, a nose and a mouth, and only a few nerve endings on half of his face. But these are the only features that can identify the original character. Inside his head, there is a screen flashing colorful pictures, symbolizing the main character’s thought activities. The broken shape gives the character features that are not available in reality with exaggerated techniques. When Wren felt love and warmth, the color of his head became bright, and the decadent colorful threads from boom to decline tightly eroded his brain, which is why Wren’s skull was broken. Character modeling reflects its uniqueness through visual impact.
Modeling design to the character’s fault visualization, visualization. “Record” reality more vividly. In the director’s attempt to encourage Ryan to cheer up, the director’s head lit up a ring light, the director likened himself to an “angel” to influence Ryan, but the attempt was aborted because Ryan was out of control, the director’s head of the “angel halo” also scrapped. The film also has two narrators, one is Lane once loved, once the producer. Ryan’s wife, pictured with him in the past, is trim, good-looking, and smiling. Thick yellow and pink lines outline the body and the facial texture fades in and out. The producer is also reduced to pencil sketching lines. In my opinion, purified character modeling has two functions. One is to enrich the expression techniques of the film, and two-dimensional character shaping makes the film more recognizable. The other two narrators have all left Wren. As a person who tells memories and lives in the memory of Wren in the past, the lines are weak and lack support. These two images have collapsed in Wren’s collapsing life. There’s real emotion and genuine sympathy for Ryan’s plight.
2. Action characteristics of characters in animation
Ryan’s mind is more broken than his body. Wren’s tone and expression are full of decadent, helpless, empty, and sad. Under the heavy blow of life and career, Wren completely refused to communicate with the outside world. When communicating with the director, his eyes are timid, and when he is out of control and angry, his head protrudes many spikes, the whole person is dangerous and full of aggression. The realistic three-dimensional texture makes the extreme Raine more fierce. In addition to the main character, there are several passers-by in the scene, with broken alien shapes, exaggerated walking movements, and grumpy temperaments. Such movement design brings people intense emotional reactions, making the film full of a sense of rhythm and expressiveness. Make the image more appealing, showing that all kinds of people are struggling in the environment. Make the whole atmosphere of the film tend to be consistent.
3. Use of color
The overall tone of the film is grey, reflecting the solemn appeal and the heavy atmosphere of the interview dialogue. The monochromatic color of black and white in memory represents the memory, while the expression form of black and white can better express the passing time and fading past, which is in line with the style of animation documentaries. In the film, the former lover is drawn by colored lines, and the strong contrast between the gray tone and the black, white, and gray tones constitutes the narrative tension and conflict. The negative meaning of red symbolizes aggression, vanity, recklessness, willfulness, rudeness, etc. When Ryan was angry, he used a red sharp thorn to indicate his irrationality controlled by emotions.
• Categorization: Genre & Sub-genre what is the work background / setting, mood / tone, theme or topic? How does it comment? Does it fit or is it unique?
John Whitney Sr. (1917-1995) was a mathematical structure visual animator in the mid-1960s. Whitney was first granted artist-in-residence status by the IBM Los Angeles Science Center in 1966. Whitney was commissioned to explore the expressive possibilities offered by the IBM Model 360 computer and the IBM 2250 graphical display console. By the 1970s, Whitney had abandoned analog computers in favor of faster digital processes. The pinnacle of his digital cinema was his 1975 work “Vine Pattern,” which featured psychedelic, blooming forms of color.
• Form and Function; interpreting meaning and relating it to the format, or presentational mode (What are the artist objectives and limitations?)
Whitney explores the methods of “harmonic events in audiovisual presentations” in this work, where musical progression can be simulated by the superposition of rhythms of multiple objects to create symmetries and counterpoints like notes and rhythms in music. “In the arrangement, each point moves at a different rate and in independent directions according to the laws of nature, their movements produce a phenomenon equivalent to musical harmony. When these points reach some numerical relation (harmonics) with the other parameters of the equation, they form the basic pattern.”
• Process: The techniques, materials and technologies applied within the work and the relationships between message and medium, (Does process, technique or tool become the message?)
In Arabesque, Whitney combines the use of a computer and an oscilloscope to create a series of transformed sine waves and parabolic curves to complement Manouchehr Sadeghi’s exotic Persian Santur soundtrack. Notably, Whitney was influenced by Islamic architectural patterns, their symmetry, and modulation resembling temporal patterns in complex musical motifs.
• Formal Elements; Use of space, composition, Light & colour, movement, rhythm, timing, pacing, transition and audio relationships. (does the work investigate these or other formal elements?)
Whitney focused on creating music-like structures in dynamic visual form, rather than mapping sound to image. Whitney summarized his model of trying to understand the structure of time in terms of computing periods and harmonic consistency of periodic functions. He wrote: Rhythm, beat, frequency, pitch, and intensity are periodic parameters of music. There is a set of similar parameters that make up the graph field; This is as effective and rich as its corresponding vocal domain. The visual domain is also defined by parameters that are periodic in nature.
The main character is Eggsy, a street gangster whose father died during a spy mission. His stepfather abused him and his mother.
Arc2. They want something
Eggsy had a run-in with her stepdad’s gang, and the stepdad was going to kill Eggsy. Eggsy’s father’s friend Harry is Kingsman, Harry saves Eggsy and invites him to join Kingsman
Arc3. They enter an unfamiliar situation
Eggsy must pass a series of challenging and dangerous tests to join the elite spy group
Arc4. Adapt to it
Eggsy, with his intelligence, bravery and dedication, successfully passes the test
Arc5. Get what they wanted
Eggsy gets the Kingsman gear, Eggsy becomes a gentleman, brave, and learns almost everything Kingsman can do.
Arc6. Pay a heavy price for it.
Science genius Valentine caused by the global threat is spreading, Harry alone to survey Valentine, Harry was killed by Valentine. But Eggsy finally prevents the disaster.
Arc7. Then return to their familiar situation
Eggsy returned home to find her mother abused by her father
Arc8.Having changed
Eggsy inherits Harry’s fortune, drives out his stepfather and leads a safe and quiet life with his mother
-Breakdown the characters into their archetypes：
1. Harry Hart
Archetypes: Mentor
Eggsy’s mentor, Kingsman secret agent organization of the core figure of the secret agent organization, Eggsy’s father died to save him, him recommend Eggsy as Kingsman, in order to collect information and was shot by Valentine.
2. Eggsy
Archetypes: Protagonist, Hero
A street punk, but he gets recommended by Harry Hart, goes through the dangerous test to join Kingsman and save the world.
3. Valentine
Archetypes: Antagonist, The Master Maind
He a crazed tech genius who plans to kill people as a solution to global population growth. He orchestrated a plan to exterminate the human racem.
-Create a timeline for the main character starting before the film start.
This week we learned some physics, for example, the law of conservation of energy can be applied to the movement of pendulum.This video is the pendulum animation I made by maya.
ues deformers and montion path to animate the shark
We learned to used motion path and deformers to move the shark.
find some reference
Next to make the teeth and eyes of the shark, I found some reference pictures. Through these pictures, I learned about the appearance of the shark with scars, the shape of the teeth, and the texture of the shark skin with subtle reflections.
use substance painter to make map
Imported the model to substance painter and drawing the normal map to make the uneven scar parts. Then drawing the diffuse color. Add reflective details at the end.
Assign the maps one by one to the Arnold ai material in maya
Import the textures one by one into the corresponding section in the Arnold material in maya.
After rendered
And then finally render，Rendered into images using Arnold and exported via Adobe Effect.
