2D and 3D animation

• Animation


  To animate is to give life
• Different animation techniques


  • Traditional Animation
  • Stop motion animation
  • Computer-assisted animation
  • Computer-generated animation
• Traditional Animation


  • Cel animation or hand-drawn animation
  • Each frame is drawn by hand
• Stop motion animation


  • Makes static objects appear to move
• Computer-assisted animation


  • Computerized the traditional animation (2D and 2 ½ computer animation)
• Computer-generated animation


  • 3D computer graphics
• Before Disney’s era:
• Historical milestones in animation

  • Egyptian wall decoration
  • Leonardo da Vinci drew limbs in different positions
  • The Japanese used scrolls to tell continuous stories
  • Giotto’s angels seem to fight in their perspective motions
  • 1826 discovered a fundamental principle of the human eye: the persistence of vision
  • Frenchman Paul Roget invented the thaumatrope
  • 1828 - Joseph Plateau invented the Phenakistoscope
  • 1860 - Pierre Desvignes inserted a strip of paper containing drawings on the inside of a drumlike cylinder
  • 1906, Stuart Blackton created the first short film “Humorous Phase of Funny Faces” after the motion camera was developed
  • 1910, John Bray introduced Cell animation
  • 1914, Winsor McCay created the first fully animated cartoon “Gertie the Dinosaur”
  • 1919, Otto Messmer created the first strong screen personality Felix the Cat
• Disney age:
• Walt Disney is the overpowering force in the history of animation
• Disney’s innovation


  • Storyboard to review the story
  • Pencil sketches to review motion
  • The multi-plane camera stand
  • The use of sound and color in animation
• 12 Principles of Animation

  • Squash and stretch
  • Timing
  • Anticipation
  • Staging
  • Straight Ahead Action & Pose to Pose
• Squash and stretch


  • When an object moves, its movement indicates the rigidity of the object
• Timing


  • Defines how well the idea behind the action will read to an audience
  • Reflects the weight and size of an object
  • More drawings between poses slow and smooth the action
• Anticipation


  • Preparation for the action, the action proper, and the termination of the action
• Staging


  • Readability - stage an idea clearly
  • Personality - use characteristics that clearly define the character
  • Mood - stage a mood to affect the audience
• Straight Ahead Action


  • You can lose size, volume, and continuity
• Leading the audience's eye


  Must be led to exactly where it needs to be at the right moment
• Personality


  • To use characteristics that clearly define the character
• Mood


  • A mood is staged so that it will affect the audience
• Straight Ahead Action & Pose to Pose

  1. Straight ahead Action: Motion has spontaneity and freshness, can lose size, volume, and proportions

  2. Pose to pose: More planned out and charted with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene, size, volumes, and proportions are controlled
• Follow through & Overlapping Action

  1. Follow Through: Is the termination of an action, nothing stops all at once

  2. Overlapping Action: Maintains a continual flow between whole phrases of actions, makes objects seem more natural
• Slow In & Slow Out

  Deals with spacing of the inbetween drawings between the extreme poses, slow ins and slow outs soften the action, making it more life-like
• Arcs


  • All actions follow an arc or slightly circular path, think of natural movements in terms of a pendulum swinging, in computer Animation, motion is usually represented in a timeline view using splines (arcs), the method used for calculating interpolated keyframe values determines the characteristics of the arc (motion)
• Secondary Action


  Adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, important in raising the interest and adding a realistic complexity to the animation
• Exaggeration


  • Like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes, and actions, if he is angry, make him furious
• Appeal


  • Live actor’s charisma = appeal of animated character, to create appealing pose avoid “twins”
• Animator: 'An animator is an actor with a pencil'
• Grease Pencil enables artists to draw in the 3D space. It’s good for traditional 2D animation, cut out animation, motion graphics or used it as a storyboard tool among other things
• Grease Pencil


  • Enables artists to draw in the 3D space
  • Good for traditional 2D animation, cut-out animation, motion graphics, or used as a storyboard tool among other things
  • Already being used by many studios in production
• Objects


  • 2D plane in a 3D environment
  • Can be affected by lights via object properties
  • Vector curves represented by points
  • Can react to 3D editing tools like sculpting, point editing, etc.
• Multi-frame


  • Draw, edit, sculpt, or weight painting on several frames at the same time
  • Extremely useful to avoid repeating a task one frame at a time when animating
• Onion Skinning


  • Can be toggled via viewport or via 2D layers
• Modifiers


  • Grease pencil supports modifiers
• Sequence Interpolation


  • Blender can interpolate grease pencil animations with ease
• Effects


  • Grease Pencil has a special set of viewport real-time visual effects that can be applied to the object
• Materials


  • Control the appearance of the Grease Pencil object
  • Define the base color and texture of the strokes and filled areas
  • Each material can also be added with texture
• Animation


  • Main goal is to offer a 2D animation tool fully immersed in a 3D environment
  • Respects traditional 2D animation methods but with superpowers
  • Grease Pencil objects can be animated in various ways
• Exercise


  1. Create a lightning animation using Grease Pencil

  2. Use Blender's color picker in Hex mode

  3. Start by drawing the clouds using fill and stroke

  4. Utilize the internal layer system in Grease Pencil

  5. Draw the individual lightning frames

  6. When the lightning hits the ground, add spark debris

  7. Add white highlights on the lightning sparks

  8. Finally, add a glow filter in the Grease Pencil object
• Inspirations


  • Team Miracles
  • Tuatea
  • Dédouze
  • Marco Bucci