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Author: Chongjiang Yu
The pre-production phase of animation is vital to ensure that the whole project moves forward smoothly. Firstly, make sure you have a clear and compelling story, as this is the soul of the animation. The script should contain compelling characters, a compelling plot, and a compelling ending. In terms of character design, each character should have a unique appearance and personality traits. Carefully mould their identities to ensure that their appearance and features match their backgrounds and personalities. In addition, design a comprehensive storyline that covers the events before and after the animation takes place. A storyboard is a blueprint for animation production, depicting the layout, shots, and action of each scene. Creating a storyboard helps to better control the pacing and plot development of the animation. Designing the scenes of the animation, including backgrounds and props, ensures consistency with the story and character styles to enhance audience immersion. Setting a reasonable budget and timeline is essential to ensure that the project is completed on time.
In the animation, time, space and the buffer are the three aspects that I currently consider to contribute to the aesthetic effect.
Creating engaging body movement animation requires an in-depth understanding of anatomy and a keen sense of observation. Animators must study the intricate details of human or creature movement and observe real movements in a variety of scenarios to inform their work. Reference films are an invaluable tool for dissecting specific movements and understanding the mechanisms behind them. By carefully planning key poses and breaking down movements, animators are able to establish the pacing and timing needed to bring a character to life. Attention to weight, balance, and exaggeration is critical when executing body movement animation. Animators must ensure that their characters have a realistic sense of physics, consider how gravity affects their movements, and emphasise the effect through exaggeration when required. Introducing overlaps and follow-throughs can make animations more realistic, as secondary movements will naturally follow from the primary movement. In addition, maintaining clear outlines and strong action lines enhances the readability and impact of the animation, ensuring that the audience can easily understand the character’s movements. Careful attention to detail is crucial in the refinement process, especially in adjusting the curves of body parts to ensure smooth and natural movements. Synchronising hip movements with the overall body animation maintains coherence and fluidity, resulting in a more realistic portrayal. Fading in and out of movements was essential to achieve realistic transitions, avoiding abruptness and improving the fluidity of the animation.
Plan the style of the final video as early as possible in the rendering. Determine the visual tone, color grading, and overall aesthetic ahead of time. Finding the right music for a rendered video can be very challenging, so it’s vital to have a dynamic storyboard from the start. This will help seamlessly combine visual and aural elements. For aesthetic references, choose clean samples. Focus on a few key references that embody the desired look and feel. Too many diverse references may result in a final product that lacks a consistent style. Create a mood board to visually guide the project and ensure consistency throughout the production process.
The first attempt at stylized animation. I feel there are endless possibilities. I also quite like this kind of animation-like feeling. Let’s keep learning!
At first, I wanted to create a cyberpunk style, but I felt it would be better to have a more monochromatic city background. Because I just wanted to highlight the animation of Spider-Man and didn’t want the environment to overshadow it.
The spider silk was created by learning from a video by an online blogger. A piece of fabric was used to simulate a line segment. Then both ends of the line segment were fixed. One end was fixed to the wall and the other end was fixed to the wrist. By adding keyframes, the effect of spider silk could be achieved.
What I find quite interesting is the texture of the ground. There are crayon-paint textures on it, which can change along with the camera. I will also continue to learn about the 3D-to-2D texture in the future because I have been fully devoted to animation during this period.
The materials of the building are all simple and plain colors.
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Week 8: Animation 04
respect!
The animation reference that was placed on the wall in the middle was basically left unchanged. I feel that there are still some flaws in what I did, and I need to keep improving.
This part of the spinning process really took me a lot of time. I felt that I couldn’t achieve the desired effect, or that some of the poses would be rather strange. So I kept modifying until I was satisfied.
I think the ending is pretty good. However, I think it could have ended a bit faster.
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Week 7: Animation 03
In the next shot, I already had a clear image in my mind of me flying as Spider-Man through the city. The scene would start by connecting with the previous one, with a short flight at low altitude.
My general idea was to create a sense of fluidity, so the curves were designed in a very free and unrestrained manner.
The buildings around didn’t take much time to build. I found the assets online and then slightly modified the materials myself.
The second shot is a gliding shot. I tried to bind the character to a certain trajectory to achieve a smooth effect. The overall sense of time and space was also good. That’s how it was done.
The problem I encountered was that after completing this gliding sequence and removing the character’s rigging and curve bindings, there would be a misalignment. I couldn’t solve this issue, so I had to create another scene to do the following animations.
Before this, there was the scene of Spider-Man releasing spider silk. This animation was inspired by a shot from a previous video. I thought it was extremely cool, and so I made it.
Time is tight. I feel that my blocking and spline might have been completed simultaneously.
The initial landing position is exactly what I wanted. It can directly draw the audience’s attention and also explain what I intend to do.
This animation might have taken a bit of time to handle the body movements. I still need to put in some more effort in the buffering aspect.
The falling motion is the classic scene in the movie where Miles leaps from a great height. I recreated it myself as a tribute to the original. The camera movement was done according to my own instincts.
The reason why I chose Blender is that I wanted to give it a try and experience the stylized effect.
As for why I chose to use Blender for this animation, it was because I wanted to try out a new software and explore the effects of stylized animation rendering.
In simpler terms, it is in a cartoon style like that of an animated film.
This is my first version of the world environment.