Flash Animation - Online Course

< Back to Part 1 (Tests 1-16)

Week 7
Test 17 | Lip Sync with Symbols (Ugly Guy) |
Sample:


  You will need your headphones for this assignment.

Test 18 | Lip Sync with Symbols (TDI) |
Sample:


Hand-drawn style lip sync can be a fun technique to do, see this tutorial about it:


Test 19 | Run Cycle |
> Creating a Run Cycle
> Running to Walking Transition

Practice drawing/posing the simple character model:

Run Samples:













Run cycles by Yoh Yoshinari:
















Flash has been used for many years as a blocking & pose-testing tool by Maya character animators. Usually by plotting out the character's actions to determine the action and timing as sort of a rehersal, then bringing that animation into Maya to be used as direct reference.

There's even a plugin that emulates a very simple Flash-style environment called Blue Pencil, and it provides Maya artists with the ability to draw and animate (in 2D) directly on the Maya viewport. With nice toolsets that allows for tracking arcs, rough sketch planning, thumbnailing, pressure-sensitive drawing, integrated keyframes and data that is stored directly in the Maya scene file. This makes it easy to adjust the timing of drawings, figure out the spacing and posing of the action first, quickly and efficiently in 2D before beginning the process in 3D. The keyframes are visible in the timeline/graph editor and can be retimed using the same methods as regular keys.



Flash and other similar software like Anime Studio; Flipbook; Pencil; TVPaint; or even the extra fancy Toonboom Harmony, can been used as a "2D pre-viz tool" for your Maya character animation exercises and 3DCG production scenes:
(C) Animation by Meaghan Peer



Week 8
Test 20 | Diving Board Jump |
Sample:

  



Spacing: Avoid even spacing, why? Looks too mechanical and dead. You're not trying to recreate accurate physics, we want cartoon physics. Spacing just like everything else should be exaggerated. The spacing of your animation is often more important than the number of frames used. There is more to arcs and spacing than just creating smooth animation. You can manipulate spacing to give motion a unique flavor and style as well as the illusion of velocity.

[ Animation Physics Lessons ]

Balance and Weight Shift

These tutorials cover basic character poses in steady balance, dynamic balance, and out of balance. How a character's pose is related to weight shift is described as well as how characters' movement causes them to gain gain or lose weight.




When you have lots of spare time, there's much to be learned from these videos about the animation process:
> Harry Partridge - Live Stream

There's lots of animation reference material online,
here's just another one of several you can find:

Finding reference and planning are not animation principles, but they are still two very important phases of animation. Researching the actions you are trying to animate will both make the process easier and improve the final product.

To determine the first set of key poses for any particularly complicated action, you will first need to examine some form of reference. This can be a combination of video or observation or capturing photos and videos of yourself performing the action or acting. The next step is to figure out the minimum number of poses necessary to make an action understandable. For example, it only takes about five key poses for a jump to read as a jump. These poses can then be drawn out on paper in the form of a planning sheet. Making a planning sheet is a very useful process, as at this stage you can quickly sketch out different ideas to see what looks and reads best. It can also be helpful in working out timing.

Video reference can be a usefull tool for complicated actions.


Rough Keys Poses:


Breakdown + Inbetween Drawings:


Clean-up:


Final color + shadow:


© Anita Gaughan



Test 21 | Character Animation Clean-up |
Sample:


Sample of a Flash scene - Progression from roughs to final color:




Week 9
Test 22 | Full Body Whip |
> Applying The Wave Principle
Sample:


Tips & Techniques:


Animation is all about spacing and arcs. The best timing will be ruined by animation that isn't smoothly following a path of action. Fortunately, it is incredibly easy to get smooth animation. Just follow these three easy steps!

1- Make sure EVERY body part is following an arc.
2- Make sure EVERY body part is either accelerating or slowing down.
3- Track all your shapes and joints - and don't just track one point.

Arcs are really neglected in Flash because of 'motion tweens'. Nothing, in nature, travels in a straight line. Everything should be moving in circles, swoops, figure-8s... It's more work, but do take the time to put them in your work, all animation (characters, objects, FX) follow these fundamentals.



Remember, an arc is a reflection of the underlying force, converting its strength into velocity and curvature. A successful arc allows viewers to feel this hidden sense of energy.

On the surface, an arc seems rather simple to understand and easily put into animated applications; but if without regards to its invisible side, the path of the arc might appear hollow and mechanical, lacking organic senses.

In common-sense physics, soft forces allow higher degree of curvature, creating lyrical and more complex series of unfolding arcs; stronger forces cause arc to be straighter and simpler, lesser in degrees of flexibility.



Timing: An important thing to keep in mind is contrast. There are a million ways to time your animation, depending on the effect you are going for. Vary the overall length and speed of your moves within a shot. Vary the timing of each part (antic, hit, settle...) within a move. Use a long antic for a short move, and a short antic for a long move.

When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, cape, tail or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. "DRAG," in animation, for example, would be when a character starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In animated feature films, this type of action is done more subtly. Example: When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner.



Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action. These are used in combination with each other. Follow-through is used for parts of the character like hair, clothing, a dress, ears. These are all things that usually hang on a character. The primary action comes from the character's body, then when the character comes to a stop, something like the long ears on a dog continue to move, then settle to a stop. Nothing on a character should ever come to a stop at the same time, if they did, the character would seem to suddenly freeze. There are lots of different ways to make this work.

Overlapping action is similar but can also be applied to primary actions like a character walking. The characters arms swinging back and forth are good place for some overlapping action. You could keep the arms stiff but by applying overlapping action, it gives a much more interesting and natural movement. The main idea behind overlapping action is the principle of successive breaking of joints; the "seaweed action".

Timing on follow through and overlapping actions are very important. If it's too slow, it becomes obvious and makes the primary action look awkward, too fast and you can't quite see it.

When you animate anything, the initial rough pass should be like thumbnailing; the difference is that not only does it allows you to work out the extreme positions, but it also helps you to find the right gestures and discover the sense of speed, direction and energy at play - all becoming visible through actual spacing of drawings.

By keeping drawings for your first pass of poses very loose, focusing on main essence of movement, one can rough through an action at a much faster pace, making possible to stay in touch with the intended feel of force and arcs of motion.

Don't be afraid to produce your own action analysis breakdown from live action and animated clips, you can learn so much from doing this research. Simply import any GIF or video into Flash, draw over it by make spacing charts, abd paths of action, and learn tons from other animators' techniques:













Test 23 | Weight Lift |

> Weight Lift Animation Tips
> Tutorial for Heavy Lifting in Character Animation

The most important point in weight lifting is the curvature of the spine. It's going from the " ) " shape to the " ( " . The torso shape HAS to change.



Pay attention to the balance of the body, as the character is lifting the heavy weight, the character's back transitions from C-curve to S-curve to a reverse C-Curve. All poses must show that his body is balanced. Pay attention how the character has to move his center of weight accordingly, based on where his feet are and the weight of the ball. Once he starts lifting the object the arms will be straight, until there might be a chance to recover. The heavier the object the straighter the arms will be.



Whatever the weight your character will be lifting (box, barbell, rock), make sure to thumbnail and plan out all your poses first.

The Principles of Movement

FORCE > Creates the principles of animation,
including physical, emotional, and psychological: Both External & Internal

Physical:
-- Squash and stretch - Compression and Extension
-- Slow in and slow out - natural (physics), character controlled or mechanical
-- Arcs - natural and controlled
-- Follow through / Overlapping action
-- Secondary action
-- Timing - The strength of the greater force dictates how fast something moves.

Skill and Methodology:
-- Straight-ahead animation
-- Pose-to-pose animation
-- Solid Drawing - a must for 'Traditional Animation'
and great for the planning of any other type of animaton.

Weight is all in the posture and the timing.
But then context plays a role in how (and why) the character moves.



So what are we timing? Are we timing effort or force? How much effort must the character exert to successfully accomplish the task at hand? For an animator, weight is a visual presentation of opposing forces (dictated in the main poses). Study a high jumper or long jumper.

FOR EXAMPLE; When a character jumps up, it is actually driving down against the ground. The faster it can drive down the higher it will jump. The character can enhance the power of the jump by thrusting shoulders and arms in the direction of the jump. Research is everything.



Once the force needed to jump is believably represented visually, the principles of movement are initiated. If the character is weak and heavy it takes more effort to jump, which influences timing which influences the principles.

The same principles apply to a weight lift. Gravity has a strong hold on the object, and the character lifting that object struggles against that opposing force.

Weight Lift Samples:






Week 10 - Final Assignment
Test 24 | Storyboard / Animatic |
> DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS

Samples of the first 'thumbnail' stage:








Comparison between thumbnail and final storyboard/animatic stage:


Here's a wonderful sample of a Storyboard-Animatic created to a piece of audio from a public domain (copyright-free) old-time radio play. Get audio clips like this here.



Color is not necessary, but tonal values and shadows should be implemented - this will help to add depth and separation between characters and BGs. In some cases, conveying light and shadow in your boards can be very important to amplify the mood of the scene, creating strong compositions, and allows you to direct the viewers attention in dramatic ways.

Tips for planning your shots and posing your characters:

Characterization - Phrasing - Asthetics

Characterization - The act of bringing to life and expressing the personality of a character.
This is done through the exposition of thought processes, mannerisms, actions, dialogue, timing and physical appearance. We must know the character that we place in this context, who they are, how they are specific and unique in their actions and personality. Determine what will give the action character and identification with an audience. When actions are motivated by the character's thought process, then a personality will come through, not just a generic action. Discover the right kinds of action for the character and act them out, feel them. Don't allow actions to appear routine.



Phrasing - Remember, most actions resolve into ANTICIPATION / ACTION / REACTION.
Keep this clearly in mind when working with dialogue.
The tendency is to create major action for each voice accent.
Accents are the parts of the soundtrack that are louder or more stressed,
which should be indicated in the poses. In dialogue, it is often the louder
parts of words or words that carry emotional stress.

Aesthetic - The composition of the shot can create an
emotional/psychological response in the audience:
> Staging
> Exaggeration
> Appeal: Character Design / Environment Design
> Posing: Focus on strong, clear poses that are
both aesthetically pleasing and tell the story.

Keep these in mind when designing your shots.
The position and posture of the characters in the scene can greatly effect the composition, in addition, it can help to place the characters within the situation, and improve the staging, making them part of their environment and the story.

Some ways to strengthen the pose of the character is to create a nice silhouette, this is the overall shape of a pose. This shape should read clearly even if the pose were filled in black you would still be able to tell what the character is doing.

The one thing that will always bring your poses to life is the line of action, that imaginary line that dictates the expressive body language and how the body will move. You can sometimes think of it as the back bone of a character. This line should always be used in setting up a pose, as you can see in the sample below, you can even get a wide range of emotions with no faces using only their bodies. When all else fails, get up and see how your body bends and shapes when trying to act out emotions.

Remember - Many character Read more about the importance of the Line of Action here.





Always remember, by understanding the intent or reason for the movement, expression and acting, the storyboard artist (and eventually the animator) can then decide the specific way the action is to be performed.

Ask yourself these questions:
PURPOSE - What is the purpose of this scene within the context?
ENTERTAINMENT - What is the entertainment value of this scene/ sequence/ phrase of action?
EMOTION - What is the core attitude of the character? What emotion is being communicated/ focused on? How is this emotion being revealed/played out?
ACTION - What should the character do in this scene to reveal intent/personality?
CHARACTERIZATION - This is one of the most important aspects of designing your action. When actions are motivated by the character's thought process then a personality will come through, not just generic action.

Tutorial on Character Design:


Tutorial on Using Audio & Tips for Posing:


TIPS:

- Strive for clarity in your posing and staging so that an audience can clearly understand both what the characters are doing and also what they are thinking and feeling.

- Make sure that the timing in your shot helps the character feel like it is thinking as well as doing.

- Give the eyes plenty of attention in your animation, because they can totally sell your character's internal process.

- Make sure that your acting choices feel real and not contrived. Avoid the cliches when possible. Acting can be cartoony or realistic, but the character needs to be believable in either scenario.

- Use video reference as a tool for planning your shot and as a reference for body mechanics.

- Be sure to enjoy yourself. Shots always turn out better when you have fun working on them.







Always review & study the Core Principles of 2D Animation

These are the foundation for creating realistic and appealing character animation:

1. Staging - Presenting an idea so that it is unmistakably clear by achieving strong composition through the proper placement of people and objects within the frame.

2. Timing and Motion - Spacing actions to define the velocity, weight and size of objects, and the personality of characters.

3. Squash and Stretch - Defining the volume and mass of an object by distorting its shape during an action.

4. Anticipation - The preparation for an action.

5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action - Follow through occurs when separate parts of a body will continue moving after the character has stopped. Overlapping action is the tendency for parts of the body to move at different rates. Another technique is "drag", where a character starts to move and parts of him take a few frames to catch up.

6. Slow In and Out - The spacing of the in-between frames to achieve subtlety of timing and movement by showing the character or object need time to accelerate and slowing down.

7. Arcs - The visual path of action for natural movement.

8. Exaggeration - Accentuating the essence of an idea via the design and the action.

9. Secondary Action - The action of an object resulting from another action.

10. Solid Drawing and Appeal - The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three-dimensional shape apply to animation as it does to academic drawing. This includes an easy to read composition, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audience's interest.

11. Straight-Ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose Action - The two contrasting approaches to the creation of movement, working from frame by frame vs. key drawings plus breakdowns & inbetweening. A combination of both techniques achieves a nice blend between creativity and consistency.

12. Pose and Mood - The attitude of the character, facial expression, posture, behaviors, and body language. The stronger the poses the more appealing and convincing the animation will be.

13. Shape and Form - The scale of the character compared to the others, avoiding tangents & twinning, using the characters mass and overall shape as part of its personality.

14. Line and Silhouette - Line of action and how well a pose can read with the use of positive and negative shapes, read all about it here.

15. Action and Reaction - To make the character seem alive it must interact with its environment and other characters.

16. Tension - Providing a good sense of weight and resistance to all things make any movement or action more believable.

17. Beat and Rhythm - Part of sensible timing is finding a rhythm to the character's actions.

18. Straights and Curves - A nice balance of curved and straight lines in a character's postures and actions must be achieved to compliment the acting intended.

19. Direction - Where is the character going? What is it doing? Make definite changes from one attitude to another in timing and expression. Let the body attitude echo the facial. Pay attention to a character's eyeline. The character's poses and behaviors must lead the audience to where they should look. The eye-line, where are the characters looking while they are thinking, when they are having a conversation, and the eye direction on screen.

20. Depth, Volume and Perspective - Avoid a character's posing and placement in a scene that appears too flat, or motion that appears too mechanical, a character's volume must be kept consistent. Perspective, foreshortening, various angles, and all other considerations in design and motion should be accounted for as objects and characters are interacting and are within certain proximity of each other. The physical space that every element on screen inhabits is important.



Additional tutorials on how to make your very own animated cartoons:











Quickest way to improvement? Practice. It's a simple bit of advice that rings with absolute truth. Articles, tips, mentors, and study will never get you as far as rolling up your sleeves and getting down to work, be it animation or any other skill. Here I've compiled a list of exercises, like animation push-ups, that will get your animation motion, timing, spacing skills buff and toned.

If you still need be to convinced of how important the "Art of Doing" is? Look no further than the early days of animation. At the Disney studios were a group of animators (before being an animator was even a thing) who HAD no books to read, or websites to visit, or even experienced animators to ask. They learned via the age old art of hands-on training, observation, experimenting and discovering as they went. And some would argue they created some of the greatest animation to ever be seen.

Some of these exercises you may have done or seen before; Consider doing each of them, even if you did once previously, because returning to an old exercise to see how much you've progressed is a very valuable experience.

Level 1 Exercises

Do not discount their simplicity! Here you have all the principles of animation being worked on, these fundamentals id what all other animation is built on. They are worth your time and effort to explore, experiment, practice and re-discover.

  1. Heavy Ball bouncing in place, no decay, straight up and down (loop)
  2. Heavy Ball bouncing and coming to a stop (bowling ball)
  3. Brick falling from a shelf onto the ground
  4. Leaf Drop
  5. Paper Drop
  6. Character head turn with anticipation
  7. Character thinking
  8. Flour Sack sneaking walk cycle
  9. Flour Sack jump up and down
  10. Flour Sack reaching for an object
  11. Flour Sack kicking a ball
See samples of some of these exercises here.
Level 2 Exercises
  1. Change in Character emotion (happy to sad, confused to angry, etc.)
  2. Character jumping over a gap
  3. Standing up (from a chair)
  4. Walk Cycle a slow and deleberate version (48 frame cycle)
  5. Character on a pogo stick (loop)
  6. Laughing
  7. Sneezing - Sample
  8. Reaching for an object on a shelf overhead
  9. Quick motion smear/blur (character doing a fast action) - Sample
  10. Taking a deep breath
  11. A tree falling
  12. Character being hit by something simple (ball, brick, book)
  13. Run Cycle (very fast - 8 frames)
Level 3 Exercises
  1. Close up of open hand closing into fist
  2. Close up of hand picking up a small object
  3. Character lifting a heavy box and placing it on a table
  4. Overlapping action (puffy hair, floppy ears, tail)
  5. Character painting
  6. Hammering a nail
  7. Stirring a soup pot and tasting from a spoon
  8. Character blowing up a balloon
  9. Character juggling (loop)
  10. Scared character peering around a corner
  11. Starting to say something but unsure of how to say it
  12. Having trouble zipping up a jacket
  13. Licking and sealing an envelope
  14. Standing up (from the ground)
  15. Pressing an elevator button and waiting for it
Level 4 Exercises
  1. Character eating a cupcake
  2. Object falling into a body of water - Sample
  3. Two child characters playing tug-of-war
  4. Character dealing a deck of cards out
  5. The full process of brushing one's teeth
  6. A single piece of paper dropping through the air
  7. Run across screen with change in direction
  8. Sleeping character startled by alarm then returning to sleepy state
  9. Opening a cupboard and removing something inside
  10. Quadruped (4-legged animal) walk cycle
  11. Opening a gift and reacting in horror
  12. Character delivering a knock-out punch to another character

Things to keep in mind:
  • Reading these exercises will do as much for you as reading about push-ups would do for your physical muscles: NOTHING. If you want to benefit from these, you must animate them. Take a deep breath and just do it.
  • Imagine doing all of these excercises, one per week, every week, it would take a year to do them all, but you will learn so much from practicing and discovering the best way to achieve each animation task. Exploration and experimentation is they key to learning about timing, spacing, and acting.
  • Do not forget the famous words of Ollie Johnston: "You're not supposed to animate drawings or 3D models. You're supposed to animate feelings." If a character isn't thinking, they aren't alive, and the animation has failed.
  • Keep it simple! There is no reason to over complicate any of these exercises. Going back to push-ups, would push-ups be harder if while doing them you also recited the Gettysburg Address? Yes. Would they be any more beneficial? No. Keep things nice and simple and clear.
  • Do your best. There is no reason to do these exercises poorly. Take your time. Give it your all. You don't have to show anyone, these are for you. You owe it to yourself to try your very best. Something not quite right? Take the time to fix it.
  • Push ups are not fun. Animation is supposed to be. So as always, have fun. But to get better at animation you must first train, train, train.

Read through these links, written by Pixar Animation Master Carlos Baena:

  • Acting & Non-Acting
  • On Feedback
  • Status & Comedy
  • Combining multiple ideas into shots
  • Editing
  • On Film Acting
  • Dramatic Choices
  • Motivation
  • Career Advice
  • On Schools
  • Priorities & Organization
  • Timing & Comedy
  • Eyes: Part 1
  • Eyes: Part 2
  • Texture
  • Simplicity in Planning
  • Details
  • Acting vs. Reality
  • Internal: Emotion vs. Expressions
  • Topic: Storytelling as animators
  • Track/Dolly/Steady shots
  • Snappy Animation
  • Topic: Life as a professional animator
  • After the Gag
  • Topic: Overcoming Shot Challenges
  • Internal vs. External Dialogue
  • Topic: Making it / Dream Jobs
  • Snapshots in animation
  • Weight & Materials
  • Composition is Composition
  • Storytellers
  • Film & Photography
  • Gesture Choices
  • On submitting Demo Reels
  • Expectations
  • Facial Expressions
  • Tex Avery & Gags
  • Simplicity in Animation


    • > Part 3 (Bonus Assignments & Tutorials)