Process of Animation

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Process of Animation
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Process of Animation
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Process of Animation

• 1 The first step involves a story board. A story
  board is a board to draw pictures to make an
  animated story.
• 2 In the second step, modeling is used to create
  three dimensional characters and people.
• 3 Then, animation is used to make the three
  dimensional characters move. Usually this is done
  with animation software on the computer.
• 4 Next, shading is applied to the image so it
  looks realistic.
• 5 Computer generated light is applied to the
  scene to make it  more realistic.
• 6  Finally, rendering puts all the elements
  together to make the final realistic product.

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Story

• The first thing you'll probably want to do is to
  sit down and make a few notes on the story you're
  trying to tell.
• Professional animators always have a story- even
  if it's a simple one- and knowing what's supposed
  to happen and who it happens to is very important
  in making a good movie.
• Who are the characters? Where are they located?
  What happens to them, and what do they do about
  it?
• Having these ideas clearly in mind is crucial to
  making an interesting movie.
• You might or might not need to write anything
  down at this point thinking it through is the
  key (although it helps to have notes at least, to
  help with the next step.)

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Scenes and Storyboards

• Once you have a story, it helps to break it down
  into scenes.
• Very few movies (at least of those longer than a
  minute or so) are filmed as one long scene, and
  although using multiple scenes presents certain
  complications, it also allows you to work with
  smaller files with shorter timelines, and render
  individual clips more quickly.
• For each scene, it can help to sketch out a
  storyboard- a sequence of simple drawings that
  show what the scene is supposed to look like.

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Scenes and Storyboards

• Don't try to put too much detail, or make
  everything look realistic- just sketch in the
  things that you'll show in that scene, in a few
  quick pictures.
• If you can't draw people use stick figures, but
  get something on paper- this helps you to
  visualize where people and things need to be on
  the 'set' and how the camera will see them.
• You can write down any dialogue or audio effects
  that'll be in the scene on the storyboard as
  well, and this will help with the next step

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Scenes and Storyboards

• A storyboard is made, all the animators and
  directors come together to discuss the entire
  film.
• The storyboards are presented as the story
• Storyboards are the blueprint for creating
  animation
• Each shot or scene in the animation is
  illustrated and described in a series of drawings
  that resemble a comic book
• Its easier to make changes at this stage than at
  any other point in the process
• So the key to creating storyboards is to just
  have fun and brainstorming

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Scenes and Storyboards

• Once the story is laid out, the dialogue is
  recorded. This is done before animation, so the
  animators know what the characters will say.
• After the dialogue is recorded, the animators can
  make rough sketches of just the characters.
  Usually these drawings are quite messy, there is
  still no color, or background. Some animated
  films have used over 50,000 individual drawings.
• Once the storyboards are approved, scan each of
  the drawings, load them into an editing program
  and synchronize them with the audio track

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Scenes and Storyboards

• At most animation studios, the best animators
  only sketched a few animation drawings, leaving
  gaps in between. Later on, a person called an
  "inbetweener" would finish the scenes, by drawing
  in between the areas that the animator had left.
• By putting some basic motion to the images,
  moving the camera, and editing the sequence to
  match the audio we can create an animatic,
  which gives a real good idea of the pacing of the
  sequence, and one final chance to make changes to
  the storyboard before going into production

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Scenes and Storyboards

• Storyboards are essential to keeping costs low
  and the production organized

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Sound

• Now that you have the dialogue noted down for
  each scene, you should record it and save out the
  sound files you'll need.
• At the same time, you can record any sound
  effects you'll want, and even add music if you
  like.
• Then mix it all down into a soundtrack for your
  scene.
• The idea is to have a unified audio file that has
  as much sound as you'll need to animate over- do
  the sound before you animate.

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Sound

• Regardless of which software you use, it's always
  easier to animate over the sound, rather than
  trying to synchronize the sound with the
  animation later on.
• Also, having a soundtrack with noises, dialogue,
  sound effects etc. will be a huge help with the
  timing of the animation you can get a good idea
  of which movements need to happen at what points
  by what the audio is doing.
• At this point, depending on how you'll be doing
  your dialog (if there is any) you'll want to also
  save separate copies of each character's audio
  files- just the things they're saying in the
  scene- to facilitate lip-synching later on.

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Modeling

• Computer models are virtual objects which are
  custom-built based on a storyboard concept
• Character models are usually created from simple
  drawings or character sheets as they are called
• Sometimes a traditional clay model is created and
  brought into the computer using a digitizing arm
  which records specific surface points which are
  then transformed into a 3D model
• In either case, the finished model is nothing
  more than a wireframe representation that defines
  the surface of the model

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Modeling

• The next step in modelling is to apply texture,
  which is what brings the wireframe representation
  to life
• Textures can be images mapped onto the surface
  like decals on a model car, or procedural based,
  which can mimic the organic look of natural
  objects.

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Modeling

• Each model can have hundreds of surface textures
  that describe colour, luminosity, diffusion,
  specularity, glossiness, reflection,
  transparency, refraction, bumpiness and many
  other attributes.
• It is essential to have a storyboard before you
  ca modelling.
• You really have to know how each character or
  object will be lit before the process of creating
  surface textures can be completed

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Modeling

• As you might imagine, modelling and texturing is
  extremely time consuming
• But, there is really no way to short-cut the
  process
• If you want the final animation to have that
  high-end look, you have to spend time on
  modelling and textures

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Preparations to Animate

• Here you make sure you've got everything you
  need- with the audio ready to go, you can
  generate lip-synch files, build or buy any props
  you'll need, prepare background video clips or
  special image files, etc.

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Preparations to Animate

• Users of any program will want to make sure that
  any image or video files they'll use as backdrops
  or image maps are ready to go, and that any other
  assets- 3D props, prepared figures, scripted
  actions or saved poses, etc.- are available and
  working properly.
• To bring animated characters to life, you need to
  create a series of controls that will allow you
  to add just the right amount of movement

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Rigging

• Animation controls are called rigs
• You pull the control and the arm moves, or the
  leg moves, or the character smiles
• Character rigs can involve hundreds of controls
• For instance, each finger can have 3 control
  points which means you will have 15 control
  points for each hand
• Each one of those control points keeps track of
  6DOF of motion 3 degrees of rotation (pitch,
  bank and yaw) and 3 degrees of movement in the X,
  Y and Z plane

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Rigging

• In addition to rigging that controls character
  motion,there is another layer of control applied
  to the face.
• These controls allow the animator to move the
  eyes, eyebrows, eyelids, general facial features,
  and mouth of the character
• The rigging process is very time consuming,
  however, once a character is successfully
  rigged, the process of bringing that character
  to life with all the subtleties necessary to
  create the illusion, is pretty straightforward.
• A proper rig simply makes the process of
  animating fun!

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Rigging

• Now, with everything in place, you can finally
  start animating.
• Animation is defined as the illusion of life
  imparting that illusion to a character takes a
  skilled eye, a clear vision of the illusion as a
  whole, and the ability to wade through a
  technical process that involves many layers
• By now the scene will be very familiar- you've
  worked out your story, drawn the storyboards and
  gone over the dialogue, you know the timing, you
  have all the pieces assembled and it's now time
  to put it all together and build the scene that
  you'll be rendering.

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Rigging

• One nice side effect of the process you've been
  following is that it tends to reveal story and
  dialogue elements that don't work before you
  spend a lot of time animating and rendering them.
  
• Properly done, animated features typically don't
  have much that winds up on the cutting room
  floor- the stuff that doesn't work gets left out
  long before any rendering takes place.
• As you animate, be sure to save frequently- and
  save copies too, if you think you might want to
  go back and redo anything later.
• Back up your work regularly- nothing spoils your
  day like having a hard-drive crash eat your last
  week's worth of work.

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Rendering

• Speaking of rendering, it's usually a really good
  idea to make sure the timing of your scene works
  properly, by doing preview renders periodically
  to check your work.
• You can save these or throw them out after
  viewing, but a fast preview-mode render is an
  excellent reality check for your work in
  progress.
• Rendering a sample still-frame image every now
  and then at full size and full quality can be a
  good way to check the effects, lighting and
  overall 'look' of the scene as well.

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Rendering

• Once you're happy with the scene and you think
  it's as good as it's going to get (did you check
  the lighting? Are all the textures and shades
  working properly? Is the timing right- are things
  moving naturally?) it's time to do the final
  render
• Once all of the shots are animated, each sequence
  is prepared for final rendering and compositing.
• This is where everything comes together to
  produce the animated sequence the audience will
  see.

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Rendering

• Turn on any features you deactivated for
  previews, choose the quality level and frame size
  you want, run any simulations you need to have,
  save your file one last time (and save a copy
  too, just in case) and then start the render.
• Make sure your computer won't be needed for a
  while- a full-size, full-quality render of a
  movie can take some time.
• It might also be a good idea to turn off any
  scheduled events- automatic shutdown, etc.- that
  you normally use, to avoid disrupting the render
  process.

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Rendering

• Once it's rendering, it's best to leave the
  computer strictly alone- there'll be a temptation
  to do other things on it while the render
  progresses, but doing this slows the render
  process and tends to be very frustrating since
  most of the computer's horsepower is used in
  rendering, leaving you with a very sluggish
  machine at best.
• Render at the largest resolution you'll be using,
  so you won't need to scale the video up in the
  editing process also, save the rendered file at
  the highest possible quality settings (save it
  uncompressed or as an image sequence if you have
  enough hard drive space.)

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Rendering

• To begin, each shot is broken down into
  components that can be layered and composited
• Layering the renders gives us the ability to have
  complete control over the look of each element
  and how they will interact in the sequence
• The amount of time it takes to render each frame
  is a function of 2 things the number of
  computer processors we throw at it and the
  complexity of the scene being rendered
• It can take anywhere from a few seconds to
  several minutes to render each frame

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Rendering

• Once we those elements, we bring them into a
  compositing program where we finesse each layer
  of each shot to get just the right look
• When we satisfied, we crank out the final digital
  composite
• In the end, its the smiles you get from
  audiences that makes the hundreds of hours that
  went into storyboards, modelling, texturing,
  rigging, animating, rendering, and compositing
  all worthwhile

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Editing

• Once the scene has been saved as a movie file,
  back up the scene file and the rendered movie to
  a secure location (an external hard drive or
  server, a CD, tape-drive, etc.)- then you can go
  back and do it all over with the next scene.
• When you have all your clips rendered, you can
  use a video editing program and edit them
  together.

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Editing

• This is also a good time to add any additional
  sounds you might want to use- music, other
  effects- or to replace the audio in the rendered
  files with higher-quality sound from the original
  audio files you made earlier.
• Remember to save early and often, and back up
  your work regularly
• Once your movie has been edited together at full
  size, you can export it out in the formats you'll
  want to distribute.
• For DVD or video, 640 or 720x480 is a good
  resolution for movies played back on the Web
  you'll be better off at 450x337 or smaller
  (320x240 works well also.)

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Case Study

• The production of an animated short takes quite a
  bit of preparation and planning (especially when
  operating within the confines of a seven-week
  project cycle). Below is an overview of the
  process by to create "I Wuz Here"

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Case Study

• Script - Artistic achievements and technical
  marvels while important to a film, must still
  rely on the foundation of good story.
• The original script for thisdigitally animated
  film was written by the ETC's own Matt Udvari.
• With the initial concept in-hand, the group next
  proceeded to refine and polish the pre-existing
  story.
• During this time, feedback and suggestions were
  elicited from a variety of sources including the
  faculty, staff, and students of the Entertainment
  Technology Center as well as outside sources such
  as Ron Tippe (the producer of Shrek).
• The resulting story elements were generated by
  the team and were an invaluable tool entering the
  project.

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Case Study

• Concepts - During this phase members of the group
  sketched concepts for the various characters and
  environments that might possibly exist in our
  world. Special attention was paid to the young
  boy, Carver, who was to become our main
  character. A gallery of concept art may be found
  by clicking on the image below

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Case Study
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Case Study

• Storyboards - With the story further locked down,
  the group was able to make hand-drawn storyboard
  that would later be useful in the setting up
  camera shots and animations. These images look
  very similar to a comic strip.

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Case Study

• Design -After review of the early concepts,
  decisions on the look of the character were made.
  These choices were later enhanced through use of
  schematic and detailed drawings. In addition,
  color sheets were produced to identify color
  choices of the wardrobe and skin tones

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Case Study

• Animatic - Once the storyboards were finalized,
  the group created an animatic. An animatic is a
  development tool in which the story is roughly
  filmed so that style, pace, and look can be
  analyzed. During the filming of the animatic, the
  group took steps to quickly show the basic
  structure of the story utilizing the available
  tools.

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Case Study

• Music - Because the animated short contains no
  dialogue, the need for a quality soundtrack and
  effective sound effects are crucial to convey the
  mood and tell the story in "I Wuz Here". During
  the initial planning phases of the project, the
  group realized that a very effective soundtrack
  would most likely begin the story with a low
  urban bass beat that would transform during the
  course of the score and eventually wind up as a
  more fantastical, melodic creation.

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Case Study

• Modeling - This is the first use of any computer
  animation tools. Modeling is simply the process
  of building three dimensional objects from two
  dimensional drawings inside the computer. For
  this process the group used Maya and 3D Studio
  Max 4.2.

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Case Study
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Case Study

• Layout - In parallel with the modeling of the
  characters, the environment was also being
  designed. Critical tasks in creating the
  environment included creating an atmosphere,
  scaling the world to the characters, and
  positioning objects of importance that would be
  necessary to the unfolding of the story.

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Case Study

• Articulation - With the characters fully modeled
  and textured they now needed to be given the
  ability to move. Motion capture, Inverse
  Kinematics (IK), and keyframing were all employed
  to move the character's. For motion capture the
  group enlisted the aid of Morgan, the 4-year old
  boy

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Case Study

• Texturing - Once the modeling phase was
  completed, the group assigned textures to the
  model's surfaces. For the application of textures
  Maya, Deep Paint 3D, and 3D Studio Max were used.
  In addition to flat textures bump maps were also
  used to provide layers of depth and detail.

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Case Study

• Animation - During this phase the characters were
  brought to life. Facial expresssions and
  movements were carefully laid out for each
  character in every scene. The resulting
  animations were tweaked many times to create the
  right feel and look.

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Case Study

• Lighting - In order to create the proper mood and
  detail in the characters, effective lighting
  within the 3-D environment was required. Proper
  lighting was crucial to the animation process and
  occurred directly before the rendering phase.

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Case Study

• Rendering - The process of the computer
  calculating all of the attributes assigned by the
  animator to a particular frame is known as
  rendering. The rendering time for the animated
  short was roughly as long as the processes
  before. Final render scenes were transferred from
  Maya to Renderman shadows added and rendering
  could begin.

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Case Study

• After rendering, the scenes will be assembled in
  Adobe Premiere and imported into AfterEffects for
  post-production. movie

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Summary

• Step 1 Story-boardsThe story-boards are
  sketches of the action in a film and serve as a
  reference for the creation and animation of each
  3D object in the shot sequence. Each story-board
  frame is scanned into the computer and a
  'scratch' (draft) soundtrack is synced up to make
  a digital movie. All of the timing can then be
  checked and exact frame counts for each scene can
  be identified. (An average feature film will have
  several thousand story-boards.)

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Summary

• Step 2 Character Modeling / Skeletonization
• Character Sketches As done in traditional
  animation sketches, a character is drawn from
  different angles to show the entire figure.
• Sometimes, the character model is constructed in
  the computer from scratch. Quite often, however,
  a model or exterior of the character is sculpted
  out of clay. Then, a grid is drawn on the model,
  the intersecting points are entered into the
  computer with a digitizing pen, and the model is
  rebuilt in the computer.

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• After that, the skeleton with its limits and
  joints are built inside the model. This
  three-dimensional wire model is created with
  embedded anchor points that the animators will
  use to animate (move) the object through the
  various shot sequences. You can think of it as
  starting with a skeleton that will be sculpted
  into a complete figure. For instance, muscles are
  often added to the wire frame models to provide
  muscle tone to characters.

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• Step 3 AnimationThe anchor points control the
  skeleton of the model. Placed at key points on
  the model, they control the movement of the body.
  The animator only needs to select the anchor
  point and move that part of the object into the
  desired position. The model is animated by
  applying several of the techniques/principles
  used in traditional character animation

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Summary

• The animator will create keyframes using the
  anchors created by the modeler to move parts of
  the object in the animation sequence. Keyframes
  mark the changes in the characteristics of the
  motion such as the changes in the direction of
  motion of an object or when the object comes in
  contact with another object. Interpolation, also
  called 'in-betweening', is then done by the
  software to generate a set of images between the
  keyframes

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• Step 4 Texture Mapping/MusculatureOften done
  concurrently with the animation, the surface
  characteristics of the animated objects are added
  once the animation has been completed. The
  skeleton is surrounded with a layer of muscle,
  fat and skin, all of which have properties
  related to the others. As the model moves, these
  layers will change form to give the object a
  natural motion. The final layer of 'skin' adds
  textures such as hair, skin, wood, or fabric to
  the object.

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• Step 5 LightingJust as real objects are lit on
  a motion picture stage, lighting is added around
  the object. Key (main lights), fill, and bounce
  lights define the atmosphere and the mood of the
  scene. Shading, tones, and highlights are added
  enhancing the three dimensional appearance of the
  object. This includes shaded areas and
  reflections on the object as well as shadows that
  fall on other objects.

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• Step 6 Effects AnimationEffects animators
  create the animation elements that often appear
  to be part of the live action. This includes
  elements such as lasers, explosions, fire, water,
  lightning, smoke, clouds and electricity.

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• Step 7 Rendering Software combines all of the
  previous elements into a completed object.
• Step 8 CompositingThis is where different
  objects in a shot sequence are brought together
  with the background. Depending on the film, this
  can include live-action footage as well. The
  compositor will work with the scene and may
  revise the lighting and effects to ensure that
  all of the objects work together.

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• Additional Effects RotoscopingRotoscopers
  create mattes of live action foreground elements
  (people and objects) so computer graphic elements
  can be placed behind them in the scene. They will
  also create mattes that remove unwanted objects
  in a scene such as support wires and model
  stands.

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• Pixar Animation Steps
• presenting

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Story Board Example
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Animation Steps
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
Step 1 Planning
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
Step 2 Implementation
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Pixars Animation Step for Monsters Inc.
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Tips for an interesting story

• When we plan our story, we must first consider
  what story we want to tell, and what is in the
  story that will hold the audience's attention.
• We must always keep in mind that keeping the
  audience in front of the show is always our first
  target.
• We must also consider how we want to start or end
  a story, since these are the moments that will
  make the most impression on our audience.
• When we plan our storyboard, we must always take
  note of the timing.

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Tips for an interesting story

• A few tips of making an effective animation is
  keep track of the suspense in the story.
• Even the simplest actions can keep the viewer in
  anticipation.
• Another is to make use of squashing and
  stretching of the elements in your animation.
• Keep in mind that this is a cartoon that you are
  creating, you can do whatever you want with it

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Tips for an interesting story

• Use as much exaggeration as possible! We should
  not rely on subtlety in an animation.
• Instead do as much as you can to put your point
  across, that means big and outrageous movements.
• In an animation, you may want to hint to the
  audience where they should pay attention to,
  therefore, we should minimize as much secondary
  actions as possible.