About Animation

Types of Animation

2017-07-19T21:10:00.001+07:00

Animation is a task that demands passion, skills and creativity. In fact, it’s the animators who bring unique ideas to life so people can enjoy the characters and stories that are pretty much unbelievable in real life. Animation techniques have been around the market for a couple of years now, with gaming companies and studios looking for talented and creative individuals with the capability to master them.

Here are the main types of animation that will help you make digital characters for your TV shows, television promos, app commercial, company logo, movies, explainer videos or environment for gaming.

Traditional animation.

2D vector-based animation.

3D computer animation.

Motion graphics.

Stop motion.

Traditional animation

Ever seen images that appear as if sketched on a transparent piece of paper infused on a peg by use of colored markers, one frame at a time? This is called traditional animation. Animators use this types of animation with rough characters so as to know the number of characters that they need to draw for action and be appropriately perceived.

Though the procedure can be costly and length, their production allow photographing of each frame, creating occasional faster actions animated at 24 frames/second speed. This technique is mainly used on personal computers, and tablets using special software programs with powerful drawing capabilities making it the best for frame Disney-style animation.

2D vector-based animation

Most frequently used animation style. It is a key-framed animation produced on a relatively flat surface. It is also a vector-based animation that adopts the traditional animations. In fact, it is the same as traditional Cel animation apart from the fact that when the animations and the in-betweens are complete, the frames are exposed to a process known as ink-and-paint.

During this process, animators place thin sheets of celluloid on a transparent paper containing the animated characters, after which they copy the frames on the celluloid. Eventually, the frames will overlay each other due to the higher transparency of the celluloid, allowing multiple props and character on top of the background.

3D computer animations

3D animation is entirely different from traditional and 2D animation. Though they both use the understanding of similar principles of composition and movement, their technical skill set for each task is not the same. 3D animation does not demand draftsmen to be a creative animator. It is more like playing with puppets than drawing.

Also called computer generated images (CGI), they occur when computers graphics create a stream of images that merge to form an animation. It is a consolidation of dynamic and static images using computer graphics. Characters created in 3D are digitally displayed on a screen, then fused with a skeleton that enables animators to animate the models for their specific uses.

You will perform animation by posing the models in particular key frames after which their computer perform ‘tweening’ animations interpreting it in each frame between the key frames. You will also spend a lot of time viewing curves that are a representation of the different body parts of an object over time. Unlike the 2D animations, all the characters that should be considered are always present.

The greatest difference between this type of animation and other types is that while traditional animations work on 2’s to draw a drawing in every 2 frames, 3D animations are always smooth, with a character stop that resembles a mistake. Even when the character stands still, there is always a gentle movement or a sign of life to keep the illusion of life.

But animations are often not enough, because to make an animation really perfect you will need the right music. In order to create proper digital music you should check out some midi controller reviews and choose a proper midi keyboard or controller.

Motion graphics

Ever thought of how explainer videos, television promos, animated logos, film opening titles and app commercial are created? This is through the art of moving graphic texts or elements or what I like to call motion graphics.

It is a process where you animate video clips, images and texts by using ‘tweened’ framing to generate smooth motion between frames. These framing programs support scripts that automatically changes the animation to preferences of choice while they use particles systems to create numerous effects. These effects are released with emitters that produce surfaces, disassembling animation and lights. As such, flat-based 3D images are generated giving the illusion of movement, accompanied with exceptional sound effects or music. This explains their usage in multimedia projects.

Stop motion

Stop motion animation is more like the traditional animation. All you need to do is take a photo of an object, and as you move the object for a relatively small distance, you take another photo. The procedure is repeatedly done, and when these images are played back one after the other, they give the impression of motion. There is many forms of stop motion animation including Cut-Outs, Claymation and Puppets, but the bottom line is, they are all animations that feature objects photographed sequentially to generate animation characters or actions.

souce : Calvin Pate

How to make your pictures COME TO LIFE using a CINEMAGRAPH

2017-07-19T16:00:00.001+07:00

Cinemagraphs are a great way to explore a new territory in both photo and cinema and how we can tie those two worlds together. Turn a dull photo into something visually stimulating or use some creativity to come up with incredible ways to tell a story through this super awesome medium.

Thesis : The Final Examination

2017-07-18T12:06:00.001+07:00

My frist short animation

Thesis : The Final Examination

At Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi, Thailand

How to create a Pixar-like 3D animation

2010-06-06T15:42:00.000+07:00

These days animated characters can be seen everywhere: advertising, movies, websites and even in corporate presentations. If you’ve seen any of Pixar’s 3D animation movies, like Up, Toy Story, Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo – you’ll know that Pixar has created some of the best 3D animation in the world.
This article outlines how the Pixar-like animation production process works.

Cartoon Character Design
Designing a cartoon character means not only sketching the look of the character but also figuring out all the character’s traits and personality. Various sketches are created in rough draft with the character’s personality in mind. It’s important to remember that good characters have clear attributes, are easily recognisable, likeable and unique.

Storyboarding
Storyboards are usually hand-drawn quick sketches, displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing the final animation. The storyboarding process was first developed at the Walt Disney Studio during the early 1930s. It’s the fastest and cheapest way to figure out if your story is going to work before any expensive and time consuming animation begins. It gives the creative team a chance to assess which parts of the story need to change before it’s too late or too expensive to do so.

3D Modeling
The first step on the computer in most 3D projects is creating the outer shell of the objects that will be used in the scene. There are different methods and tools to build a 3D model, but it ultimately ends in the creation of a connection of polygons to form the outer shape of your character or object. These polygons form an approximate outline and are later ‘smoothed-out’ into rounded-shapes using computer algorithms, sometimes called hyper-nurbs.

Character Rigging
This is the process that enables an Animator to turn a static 3D model into a life-like character. It's a technical, necessary step - vital for all good character animation. Rigging is like putting virtual skeletons and muscles within a virtual skin. 3d riggers use complex techniques such as joints, muscle simulations, IK and FK dynamics, morphs and weighting. The final rigged character can be passed on to the animators in order to bring the final story to life.

Texturing
Texturing is the part of the designers job that puts in the bumps, lumps, reflections, colouring, specular lighting and other bits of jiggery pokery that make the final render. A comprehensive material system is key to creating realistic and convincing 3D images. Texturing includes defining an object's colour, diffusion, luminance, transparency, reflection, environment, fog, bump, alpha, specular, glow, displacement and illumination properties.

Lighting
Lighting your scene is both an artistic and technical process, essential in creating the final look and mood of the finished render. Lighting is a very important aspect of any 3D render. Just like a poorly lit photograph, a 3D scene without proper lighting will fail to meet modern high expectations.
3D artists use lighting set-ups such as spot lights, tube lighting and global illumination. There are different kinds of shadow simulation such as soft, hard or realistic area shadows. The more realistic the shadow and lighting, the longer it will take to render the image.

Sound
Actors voices are recorded early on in the production process so animators can lip sync the characters to the recorded audio. Sound effects and music are usually added towards the end of the production, just like any other movie.

Animation
Animation is a highly time-consuming art form that has developed from techniques pioneered by the first Disney animators, classic 2D animators like Richard Williams, and modern 3D animation studios like Pixar and Dreamworks. Cartoon animation is entirely different from motion-capture animation as it takes advantage of exaggeration techniques, such as squash and stretch – creating poses and movements that aren’t actually possible in the real world.

Dynamics and Simulations
To create added realism, a cartoon animation may require dynamic simulations such as gravity, Wind, Collisions, Hair, Fur and Jiggle - to name a few. Sophisticated Hair and Cloth simulations add greatly to the final render times.

Rendering
A rendering is a particular view of a 3D model that has been converted into a realistic image. Final renders include lighting, shadows, reflection and refraction and the application of textures to surfaces. Movies show 24 frames per second and a single one of these frames can take anything from minutes to hours to render. By linking up several computers, or render farms, frames can be computed at a faster rate. It’s generally true that the more complex the scene, the longer the render.

Final Edit
At the end of the production process, there’s still some cutting and pasting of scenes needed in order to make the final edit. Lastly, all the sounds and music are carefully mixed in to create the final movie. It's then up to your audience to decide whether all that hard work was worth it!
Rocket your scenes into the fourth dimension with Flying 3D's animation studio.

copyright Jon Ireland 2009

3d animation, motion graphics and CGI for documentary films

2010-06-05T02:58:00.000+07:00

Animation and CGI in Documentary films

Things have come a long way since "Walking with Dinosaurs". 3d animation, motion graphics, CGI and visual effects are now a regular part of many documentary films. As well as historical reconstructions and informational motion graphics, computer animation and CGI is now routinely used in almost any situation where shot footage isn’t available.

What’s more, costs have come down and quality of visual effects has gone up in recent years, so even a documentary film with a modest budget can now afford to use compelling and stylish computer graphic animations.

But as a documentary filmmaker, how do you go about adding visual effects and 3d animation to your productions?

Motion graphics and animation tips

Don’t be afraid to approach a video animation design or visual effects artist early on in your production. They’ll be able to let you know immediately what’s possible and how to get your animation done in the most effective way.

Give your animators as much detail as you’ve got -. 3d animation studios are used to doing research, but if you can give them access to your research, experts or helpful interviewees, you’ll get a much more unified view of the subject.

Use animation shots that tell a story: animated sequences and visual effects shots tend to be some of the more expensive shots in your production, so choose them well. Nobody likes re-using shots, but with an impressive 3d animation for example, it often works well. If you have several visual effects shots that work together to tell a story, using them separately earlier on in the documentary can increase their impact.

Types of visual effects and 3d animations in documentary films

Explanation graphics: Motion graphics are a great way to explain a complex idea or present information, if shot video footage can’t do it. These can be 2d or 3d animated graphic representations and often include text, but equally consider presenting them as cartoon animations or sequences with animated characters. Whatever the style of your piece, the animation can fit in with it.

Animation for colour shots: Colour shots are general cut-aways that can be used almost anywhere you need them. They’re purposely generic but relevant. A 20 second 3d animation in which the camera rushes through the bloodstream of a patient as blood cells fly past can be used pretty much anywhere in a medical documentary without looking out of place. A couple of colour animations of this kind can save your skin in the edit when you run end up with more narration than shot footage.

Visual effects reconstructions: animated reconstructions are often the "hero" shots of a documentary. If you don’t have the footage of the most important events or moments in your documentary film, an animated reconstruction is often the way to go.

Title animations: An animated title sequence is a good way to open your documentary, and it will set the tone for your entire documentary film, so it’s worth dedicating a little time to making sure that tone is spot on for the style and content of what comes after.

How to reduce your documentary film’s motion graphics costs
The quickest way to reduce cost is to talk to the 3d animator or visual effects studio about how the production can be simplified without affecting its overall look. For example, to animate a camera flying through a static model takes a lot less time (possibly weeks less) than animating every detail of the model itself.

What if I really can’t afford animation and visual effects?
Go graphical: Reconstructing the siege of Troy with every soldier animated in authentic detail is going to be a big job. But animating the strategic turning points of the siege replacing battalions with chess piece style graphics on a stylised representation of the battlefield is within the budget of most productions. Thinking of a stylised motion graphics look rather than a realistic 3d animated one will you’re your documentary film tonnes of cash. Going for still illustrations rather than motion graphics will save still more.

Free Flash SWF Downloader, download Flash SWF files from Internet/Web Site for free

2010-05-29T03:50:00.003+07:00

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Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

The 12 Principles of Animation

2010-05-26T19:32:00.003+07:00

The 12 Principles of Animation Applied to 3D Animation

In the early 1930s, Walt Disney and company sat down to codify the hand-drawn animation process that had been informally evolving at Walt Disney studios. What emerged became known as the "12 Principles of Animation," and set the standard for hand-drawn animation.

At Saturday morning's "The 12 Principles of Animation applied to 3D Animation," Isaac Kerlow, Director of Digital Production at the Walt Disney Company, argued that the principles need to be adapted for the modern day. Using visual examples from well-known animated films, Kerlow reinterpreted the twelve principles as they would apply to 3D animation, and added a few new ones of his own.

The purpose of adapting the principles, Kerlow said, is to guide the development of 3D animation, a relatively new art form. Computer animation is very complex, and a well-understood framework can help artists and producers weave together the many separate aspects of character and scene creation, into an animated tapestry that will truly captivate an audience.

For each of the following twelve principles, Kerlow defined the intention of the principle, presented a visual example to back it up, and suggested a modern equivalent that would apply to character artists working in 3D.

1. Squash and Stretch

Original idea: In traditional animation, characters movements (particularly facial movements) had a very high degree of exaggerated, non-rigid deformation. (Imagine any Disney character whose face contorts wildly during a sneeze or a scream.)

Modern equivalent: The principle still holds in the 3D era, especially for cartoon-like animations. (Anime tends toward exaggerated subtlety.) Squashing and stretching happen within animation packages, using dynamics weighting or unusual IK systems.

2. Anticipation

Original idea: Anticipation is the technique by which the audience's eyes are drawn to where action will occur on-screen (e.g. a cartoon that begins making running motions before actually going anywhere). Anticipation announces the coming surprise and is a very useful technique for guiding expectation. (Again, Disney animation tends toward heavy anticipation, whereas in anime we see very little -- given anime a more etheric, fantastic feel.)

Modern equivalent: Anticipation can be created by the skillful use of motion curves, expanding or contracting pieces of animation to create the anticipatory effect.

3. Staging

Original idea: Staging refers to the way in which character motion and camera movements are set up to convey the mood and intent of a scene. (Example: in Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear's arrival in the bedroom is shown with a close-up that begins at his feet and pans dramatically upward to his helmet.)

Modern equivalent: In 3D, staging can be expanded to include more detail, hide points of interest, set up for chain reactions, and so on. Staging is also useful in animatics, which establish a scene's core movements before primary animation gets underway. Contemporary moving image techniques, such as 3-axis camera moves, slow motion, "bullet time," and so on, also add to 3D staging abilities.

4. "Straight Ahead" or "Pose-to-Pose"

Original idea: In traditional animation, character actions were either drawn from beginning to end, creating an unpredictable look and feel, or they were broken down into a more predictable set of key poses.

Modern equivalent: In 3D animation, straight ahead animation corresponds to procedural animation techniques (e.g. motion capture and 3D rotoscoping); pose-to-pose would correspond to keyframe animation. Modern artists can take advantage of layers or channels to intelligently mix both types of motion, or use non-linear motion curve editing to edit different aspects of a single character's motion.

5. Follow-Through and Overlapping

Original idea: Follow-through refers to the reactive animation that occurs after an action is completed, telling the audience how the character feels about that action. (Think of Donald Duck throwing a football, watching it for a moment, and then lowering his arm in disappointment.) Overlapping refers to the additional motions that overlap the main motion of a given character.

Modern equivalent: Follow-through can be done with dynamic simulation and scripts - especially for cloth and hair. Overlapping is achived by using layers and channels to blend different types of motion into a sequence.

6. Slow-in and Slow-out

Original idea: If you look closely at movies animated in the Disney style, you'll see that characters' motions tend to be quicker in the middle of an action than at the beginning and end. This slowing of the intro and extra sections of a movement creates a "snappy" effect.

Modern equivalent: Fine-tuning animations using time-editing tools, such as dope sheets, curves, and timelines. Motion capture performers can also be directed to do slow-ins and slow-outs.

7. Arcs

Original idea: Organic characters almost always move in motion arcs, as opposed to straight lines. Straight line motions make a character look sinister, robotic, or restricted in some way. (In The Iron Giant, the giant begins the movie with linear movements, and adopts arc-based motion as he becomes "more human" later on.)

Modern equivalent: In 3D packages, motion can easily be constrained to arcs. Motion capture performances can also be fine-tuned using arc editors.

8. Secondary Action

Original idea: These are small complementary motions that occur in a scene.

Modern equivalent: Using layers and channels to build up different aspects of secondary motion. Collision detection is another useful tool for generating secondary actions.

9. Timing

Original idea: Timing refers to the precise moment at which a given character motion occurs, and how long it continues for. (Humor is often created through the use of clever timing juxtapositions.)

Modern equivalent: In 3D animation, timing can be refined using the time-editing tools, and frames can be easily added or removed to make the timing work. Using different animation tracks for different character (and sub-tracks for parts of characters) also helps create precise timing.

10. Exaggeration

Original idea: The essence of an action is often enhanced by the exaggeration of a given motion - especially for cartoon-style animation. (Eyes bugging out, jaws dropping, etc.)

Modern equivalent: In 3D, this can be done at the performance level, using procedural techniques, and can also be worked into cinematography and editing.

11. Solid Drawing

Original idea: Originally, this principle referred to using appropriate weight, depth and balance to give drawings the desired look.

Modern equivalent: Kerlow suggested renaming this principle "Solid Modeling and Rigging," since the same principles now apply to the optimization of models and IK skeletons to create specific "animation personalities" for different characters.

12. Characters' Appeal

Original idea: The last of the twelve principles suggests that characters be well-developed, with interesting and distinct personalities.

Modern equivalent: In 3D animation, character complexity and consistency can be dramatically increased - and built in to a character's design - so that appeal is not being recreated from scratch with every set of drawings. Kerlow pointed out that in gaming, walk and run cycles are especially important aspects of a character's appeal. He showed a clip from Kingdom Hearts in which Sora, Donald, and Goofy are walking side by side, each with their own distinct style.

Some New Principles for the Digital Age

At this point in the talk, Kerlow indicated that the 3D animation industry may need some additional principles, for areas that weren't relevant in Walt Disney's time. He suggested the following:

13. Visual Styling

This refers to the importance of developing a look that is feasible to produce at all levels of production. Anime, for instance, makes heavy use of the "language of cinema" to tell its stories, with many visual FX and camera movement, but often little in the way of animation. Kerlow showed parts of The Ghost in the Shell to demonstrate.

14. Blending Cartoons w/ Real World

With modern technology, we can blending together many different sources of motion. The key, especially with motion capture, is to add intention to physical performances, so that a clear motion style emerges in the mocap data. Without intention, motion capture will make for characters that lack any defining style of movement - a problem that manifested in the static (non-action) scenes of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

15. Cinematography

With 3D animation packages, we now have absolute control over camera and lighting conditions in a scene. Mastering these two aspects of production can lead to scenes that are visually very powerful. (Example: the "roller coaster" scene from Monsters, Inc. The scene was largely effective because of skillful camera animation.)

16. Facial Animation

Animators must determine what level of facial control and facial animation styling will work for the various levels of production. Kerlow suggested building a reusable catalogue of facial morph target, similar to extant libraries of walk and run cycles, with particular attention paid to eye animation close-ups.

17. Interactive Control

Unique to the game industry, this principle refers to the effective integration of animation with interactivity. Important points to focus on are walk cycles, building of anticipation, creating built-in character intelligence, and setting up reaction shots.

Kerlow concluded by stating that using these animation principles will allow people in the industry to create increasingly believable characters, and increasingly believable situations in which to put them. As has been the case with traditional animtion for the past seventy years, planning and directing with the twelve (or seventeen) principles in mind will allow for efficient character creation at every level of production.

Techniques Animation Part 3

2010-05-24T23:13:00.001+07:00

Xerography

Applied to animation by Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney studio during the late 1950s, the electrostatic copying technique called xerography allowed the drawings to be copied directly onto the cels, eliminating much of the "inking" portion of the ink-and-paint process. This saved time and money, and it also made it possible to put in more details and to control the size of the xeroxed objects and characters (this replaced the little known, and seldom used, photographic lines technique at Disney, used to reduce the size of animation when needed). At first it resulted in a more sketchy look, but the technique was improved upon over time.

The xerographic method was first tested by Disney in a few scenes of Sleeping Beauty, and was first fully used in the short film Goliath II, while the first feature entirely using this process was One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). The graphic style of this film was strongly influenced by the process. Some hand inking was still used together with xerography in this and subsequent films when distinct colored lines were needed. Later, colored toners became available, and several distinct line colors could be used, even simultaneously. For instance, in The Rescuers the characters outlines are gray. White and blue toners were used for special effects, such as snow and water.

The APT process

Invented by Dave Spencer for the 1985 Disney film The Black Cauldron, the APT (Animation Photo Transfer) process was a technique for transferring the animators' art onto cels. Basically, the process was a modification of a repro-photographic process; the artists' work were photographed on high-contrast "litho" film, and the image on the resulting negative was then transferred to a cel covered with a layer of light sensitive dye. The cel was exposed through the negative. Chemicals were then used to remove the unexposed portion. Small and delicate details were still inked by hand if needed. Spencer received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for developing this process.

Cel overlay

A cel overlay is a cel with inanimate objects used to give the impression of a foreground when laid on top of a ready frame. This creates the illusion of depth, but not as much as a multiplane camera would. A special version of cel overlay is called line overlay, made to complete the background instead of making the foreground, and was invented to deal with the sketchy appearance of xeroxed drawings. The background was first painted as shapes and figures in flat colors, containing rather few details. Next, a cel with detailed black lines was laid directly over it, each line drawn to add more information to the underlying shape or figure and give the background the complexity it needed. In this way, the visual style of the background will match that of the xeroxed character cels. As the xerographic process evolved, line overlay was left behind.

Computers and traditional animation

The methods mentioned above describe the techniques of an animation process that originally depended on cels in its final stages, but painted cels are rare today as the computer moves into the animation studio, and the outline drawings are usually scanned into the computer and filled with digital paint instead of being transferred to cels and then colored by hand. The drawings are composited in a computer program on many transparent "layers" much the same way as they are with cels, and made into a sequence of images which may then be transferred onto film or converted to a digital video format.

It is now also possible for animators to draw directly into a computer using a graphics tablet, Cintiq or a similar device, where the outline drawings are done in a similar manner as they would be on paper. The Goofy short How To Hook Up Your Home Theater (2007) represented Disney's first project based on the paperless technology available today. Some of the advantages are the possibility and potential of controlling the size of the drawings while working on them, drawing directly on a multiplane background and eliminating the need of photographing line tests and scanning.

Though traditional animation is now commonly done with computers, it is important to differentiate computer-assisted traditional animation from 3D computer animation, such as Toy Story and ReBoot. However, often traditional animation and 3D computer animation will be used together, as in Don Bluth's Titan A.E. and Disney's Tarzan and Treasure Planet. Most anime still use traditional animation today. DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg coined the term "tradigital animation" to describe films produced by his studio which incorporated elements of traditional and computer animation equally, such as Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.

Interestingly, many modern video games such as Viewtiful Joe, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and others use "cel-shading" animation filters to make their full 3D animation appear as though it were drawn in a traditional cel style. This technique was also used in the animated movie Appleseed, and cel-shaded 3D animation is typically integrated with cel animation in Disney films and in many television shows, such as the Fox animated series Futurama.

Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping is a method of traditional animation invented by Max Fleischer in 1915, in which animation is "traced" over actual film footage of actors and scenery. Traditionally, the live action will be printed out frame by frame and registered. Another piece of paper is then placed over the live action printouts and the action is traced frame by frame using a lightbox. The end result still looks hand drawn but the motion will be remarkably lifelike. Waking Life is a full-length, rotoscoped animated movie, as is American Pop by Ralph Bakshi. The popular music video for A-ha's song "Take On Me" also featured rotoscoped animation, along with live action. In most cases, rotoscoping is mainly used to aid the animation of realistically rendered human beings, as in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan, and Sleeping Beauty.

A method related to conventional rotoscoping was later invented for the animation of solid inanimate objects, such as cars, boats, or doors. A small live action model of the required object was built and painted white, while the edges of the model were painted with thin black lines. The object was then filmed as required for the animated scene by moving the model, the camera, or a combination of both, in real time or using stop-motion animation. The film frames were then printed on paper, showing a model made up of the painted black lines. After the artists had added details to the object not present in the live-action photography of the model, it was xeroxed onto cels.

A notable example is Cruella de Vil's car in Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The process of transferring 3D objects to cels was greatly improved in the 1980s when computer graphics advanced enough to allow the creation of 3D computer generated objects that could be manipulated in any way the animators wanted, and then printed asoutlines on paper before being copied onto cels using Xerography or the APT process. This technique was used in Disney films such as Oliver and Company (1988) and The Little Mermaid (1989). This process has more or less been superseded by the use of cel-shading.

Related to rotoscoping are the methods of vectorizing live-action footage, in order to achieve a very graphical look, like in Richard Linklater's film A Scanner Darkly; and motion-capturing actor's movements to use the data in 3D-animation, as in Robert Zemeckis's 2004 film The Polar Express.

Live-action hybrids

Similar to the computer animation and traditional animation hybrids described above, occasionally a production will marry both live-action and animated footage. The live-action parts of these productions are usually filmed first, the actors pretending that they are interacting with the animated characters, props, or scenery; animation will then be added into the footage later to make it appear as if it has always been there. Like rotoscoping, this method is rarely used, but when it is, it can be done to terrific effect, immersing the audience in a fantasy world where humans and cartoons co-exist. Early examples include the silent Out of the Inkwell (begun in 1919) cartoons by Max Fleischer and Walt Disney's Alice Comedies (begun in 1923). Live-action and animation were later combined to successful effect in features such as The Three Caballeros (1944), Anchors Aweigh (1945), Song of the South (1946), Mary Poppins (1964), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), Heavy Traffic (1973), Coonskin (1975) Pete's Dragon (1977), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Rock-a-Doodle (1992), Cool World (1992), The Pagemaster (1994) Space Jam (1996), and Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003). Other significant live-action hybrids include the music video for Paula Abdul's hit song "Opposites Attract" and numerous television commercials, including those for cereals such as Honey Nut Cheerios, Trix, and Rice Krispies.

Special effects animation

Besides traditional animated characters, objects and backgrounds, many other techniques are used to create special elements such as smoke, lightning and "magic", and to give the animation in general a distinct visual appearance.

Notable examples can be found in movies such as Fantasia, Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, The Little Mermaid, The Secret of NIMH and The Thief and the Cobbler. Today the special effects are mostly done with computers, but earlier they had to be done by hand. To produce these effects, the animators used different techniques, such as drybrush, airbrush, charcoal, grease pencil, backlit animation or, during shooting, the cameraman used multiple exposures with diffusing screens, filters or gels. For instance, the Nutcracker Suite segment in Fantasia has a fairy sequence where stippled cels are used, creating a soft pastel look.

Techniques Animation Part 2

2010-05-23T14:36:00.002+07:00

The cel & limited animation
The cel is an important innovation to traditional animation, as it allows some parts of each frame to be repeated from frame to frame, thus saving labor. A simple example would be a scene with two characters on screen, one of which is talking and the other standing silently. Since the latter character is not moving, it can be displayed in this scene using only one drawing, on one cel, while multiple drawings on multiple cels will be used to animate the speaking character.

For a more complex example, consider a sequence in which a girl sets a plate upon a table. The table will stay still for the entire sequence, so it can be drawn as part of the background. The plate can be drawn along with the character as the character places it on the table. However, after the plate is on the table, the plate will no longer move, although the girl will continue to move as she draws her arm away from the plate. In this example, after the girl puts the plate down, the plate can then be drawn on a separate cel from the girl. Further frames will feature new cels of the girl, but the plate does not have to be redrawn as it is not moving; the same cel of the plate can be used in each remaining frame that it is still upon the table. The cel paints were actually manufactured in shaded versions of each color to compensate for the extra layer of cel added between the image and the camera, in this example the still plate would be painted slightly brighter to compensate for being moved one layer down.
In very early cartoons made before the use of the cel, such as Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), the entire frame, including the background and all characters and items, were drawn on a single sheet of paper, then photographed.

Everything had to be redrawn for each frame containing movements. This led to a "jittery" appearance; imagine seeing a sequence of drawings of a mountain, each one slightly different from the one preceding it. The pre-cel animation was later improved by using techniques like the slash and tear system invented by Raoul Barre; the background and the animated objects were drawn on separate papers. A frame was made by removing all the blank parts of the papers where the objects were drawn before being placed on top of the backgrounds and finally photographed. The cel animation process was invented by Earl Hurd and John Bray in 1915.
In lower-budget productions, this "shortcut" is used in a greater capacity. For example, in a scene in which a man is sitting in a chair and talking, the chair and the body of the man may be the same in every frame; only his head is redrawn, or perhaps even his head stays the same while only his mouth moves. This is known as limited animation. The process was popularized in theatrical cartoons by United Productions of America and used in most television animation, especially that of Hanna-Barbera. The end result does not look very lifelike, but is inexpensive to produce, and therefore allows cartoons to be made on small television budgets.

Shooting on twos
Moving characters are often shot "on twos", that is to say, one drawing is shown for every two frames of film (which usually runs at 24 frames per second), meaning there are only 12 drawings per second. Even though the image update rate is low, the fluidity is satisfactory for most subjects. However, when a character is required to perform a quick movement, it is usually necessary to revert to animating "on ones", as "twos" are too slow to convey the motion adequately. A blend of the two techniques keeps the eye fooled without unnecessary production cost.

Animation for television is usually produced on tight budgets. In addition to the use of limited animation techniques, television animation may be shot on "threes", or even "fours", i.e. three or four frames per drawing. This translates to only eight or six drawings per second.

Animation loops
Creating animation loops or animation cycles is a labor-saving technique for animating repetitive motions, such as a character walking or a breeze blowing through the trees. In the case of walking, the character is animated taking a step with his right foot, then a step with his left foot. The loop is created so that, when the sequence repeats, the motion is seamless. However, since an animation loop essentially uses the same bit of animation over and over again, it is easily detected and can in fact become distracting to an audience. In general, they are used only sparingly by productions with moderate or high budgets.

Ryan Larkin's 1969 Academy Award nominated National Film Board of Canada short Walking makes creative use of loops. In addition, a promotional music video featuring the Soul Coughing song "Circles" poked fun at animation loops as they are often seen in The Flintstones, in which Fred and Barney, supposedly walking in a house, wonder why they keep passing the same table and vase over and over again.

Multiplane camera
The multiplane camera is a tool used to add depth to scenes in 2D animated movies, called the multiplane effect or the parallax process. The art is placed on different layers of glass plates, and as the camera moves vertically towards or away from the artwork levels, the camera's viewpoint appears to move through the various layers of artwork in 3D space. The panorama views in Pinocchio are examples of the effects a multiplane camera can achieve. Different versions of the camera have been made through time, but the most famous is the one developed by the Walt Disney studio beginning with their 1937 short The Old Mill. Another one, the "Tabletop", was developed by Fleischer Studios. The Tabletop, first used in 1934's Poor Cinderella, used miniature sets made of paper cutouts placed in front of the camera on a rotating platform, with the cels between them. By rotating the entire setup one frame at a time in accordance with the cel animation, realistic panoramas could be created. Ub Iwerks and Don Bluth also built multiplane cameras for their studios.

Techniques Animation Part 1

2010-05-18T12:55:00.002+07:00

Traditional animation

Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera.

The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media such as digital video. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" to describe cel animation which makes extensive use of computer technology.

Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and Akira (Japan, 1988). Traditional animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994) Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), Treasure Planet (USA, 2002) and Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003).
Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films, which regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement. Fully animated films can be done in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works such as those produced by the Walt Disney studio (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King) to the more "cartoony" styles of those produced by the Warner Bros. animation studio (Iron Giant, Quest for Camelot, Cats Don't Dance). Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works such as The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982) and The Iron Giant (US, 1999), Nocturna (Spain, 2007)

Limited animation involves the use of less detailed and/or more stylized drawings and methods of movement. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and much of the anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media such as television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and other TV animation studios) and later the Internet (web cartoons). Some examples are; Spongebob Squarepants (USA, 1999–present), The Fairly OddParents (USA, 2001–present) and Invader Zim (USA, 2001–2006).

Rotoscoping is a technique, patented by Max Fleischer in 1917, where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), used as a basis and inspiration for character animation, as in most Disney films, or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are: Fire and Ice (USA, 1983) and Heavy Metal (1981).
Live-action/animation is a technique, when combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots. One of the earlier uses of it was Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live action footage. Other examples would include Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (USA, 1988), Space Jam (USA, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (USA, 2002).

About Animation

2010-05-15T12:51:00.001+07:00

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2D or 3D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is anoptical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although several other forms of presenting animation also exist.

Early examples

Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion drawing can be found in paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.

A 5,200 year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-i Sokhta has five images of a goat painted along the sides. This has been claimed to be an example of early animation. However, since no equipment existed to show the images in motion, such a series of images cannot be called animation in a true sense of the word.

The phenakistoscope, praxinoscope, as well as the common flip book were early popular animation devices invented during the 1800s, while a Chinese zoetrope-type device was invented already in 180 AD.These devices produced movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of cinematography.

There is no single person who can be considered the "creator" of the art of film animation, as there were several people doing several projects which could be considered various types of animation all around the same time.

Georges Méliès was a creator of special-effect films; he was generally one of the first people to use animation with his technique. He discovered a technique by accident which was to stop the camera rolling to change something in the scene, and then continue rolling the film. This idea was later known as stop-motion animation. Méliès discovered this technique accidentally when his camera broke down while shooting a bus driving by. When he had fixed the camera, a hearse happened to be passing by just as Méliès restarted rolling the film, his end result was that he had managed to make a bus transform into a hearse. This was just one of the great contributors to animation in the early years.

The earliest surviving stop-motion advertising film was an English short by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper called Matches: An Appeal (1899). Developed for the Bryant and May Matchsticks company, it involved stop-motion animation of wired-together matches writing a patriotic call to action on a blackboard.

J. Stuart Blackton was possibly the first American filmmaker to use the techniques of stop-motion and hand-drawn animation. Introduced to filmmaking by Edison, he pioneered these concepts at the turn of the 20th century, with his first copyrighted work dated 1900. Several of his films, among them The Enchanted Drawing (1900) and Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) were film versions of Blackton's "lightning artist" routine, and utilized modified versions of Méliès' early stop-motion techniques to make a series of blackboard drawings appear to move and reshape themselves. 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces' is regularly cited as the first true animated film, and Blackton is considered the first true animator.

Another French artist, Émile Cohl, began drawing cartoon strips and created a film in 1908 called Fantasmagorie.^[7] The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action where the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. This makes Fantasmagorie the first animated film created using what came to be known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation.

Following the successes of Blackton and Cohl, many other artists began experimenting with animation. One such artist was Winsor McCay, a successful newspaper cartoonist, who created detailed animations that required a team of artists and painstaking attention for detail. Each frame was drawn on paper; which invariably required backgrounds and characters to be redrawn and animated. Among McCay's most noted films are Little Nemo (1911), Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) and The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918).

The production of animated short films, typically referred to as "cartoons", became an industry of its own during the 1910s, and cartoon shorts were produced to be shown in movie theaters. The most successful early animation producer was John Randolph Bray, who, along withanimator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process which dominated the animation industry for the rest of the decade

ชีวิตก็เหมือนกับการเดินทาง

2010-05-14T14:28:00.000+07:00

ฉันคิด ฉันเข้าใจ และมั่นใจเช่นนั้น
ไม่มีการเดินทางที่ไหนไปสู่จุดหมายด้วยทางสายเดียว
แม้ว่าชีวิตคุณจะเรียบง่าย และอยู่ในกรอบเท่าใดก็ตาม
เมื่อเราเริ่มเติบโต
ชีวิตเริ่มที่จะเรียนรู้ และออกเดินทาง
ทางของชีวิตแต่ละคนแตกต่างกัน
เราอาจเดินทางมาเจอกันในวันหนึ่ง
และเดินไปด้วยกัน
เมื่อถึงจุด ๆ หนึ่ง
เราก็อาจจะจากกันตรงทางแยก
แยกกันไปตามหาฝัน ตามความปรารถนาของชีวิต
หากวันหนึ่งที่เราถึงทางแยก และต้องแยกจากกันไปคนละทาง
อาจจะไม่ได้พบกันอีก หรือเกิดอะไรขึ้นก็แล้วแต่

ห า ก คิ ด ถึ ง กั น ...
ขอให้เดินกลับมาตามถนนสายนี้
ถนนแห่งมิตรภาพ ที่ถนนสายนั้นจะมีฉันยืนอยู่เสมอ ...

การตกแต่งภาพที่ได้อารมณ์มากกว่าเดิม

2010-02-27T19:36:00.000+07:00

รูปแรก..รูปดิสเพลของเพื่อนสาวคนนึง สเก็ตแบบมั่วๆ ก็ดูปกติดี ไม่มีไรมากมาย
ยังดูเป็นผู้เป็นคนอยู่

รูปสอง..เป็นการแต่งรูปที่แคปเจอร์จากกล้อง webcam ด้วยอาการท่าทางของเธอแล้ว...
ตอนนั้นกำลังน้ำลายไหล เกิดอาการอยากกินของหวานที่ she ชอบ การแต่งภาพออกมาดูเกินจริงแต่สื่ออารม์ได้น๊านนนนนนน
ช่างสมจริงซะนี่กระไร

รูปสาม...สุดท้าย รูปถ่ายช่างดูปกติ แต่การแต่งภาพน๊านนนนนนนนนน ไม่ปกติ
ถ้าใครพบเห็นกรุณาอย่าเข้าใกล้นะเธอ... มันอันตราย เชือ้โรคอาจจะเข้าสู่ร่างกายไม่รู้ตัววว

เริ่มต้น

2009-02-11T11:27:00.000+07:00

เปิดใช้เวปบล็อกมานาน ยังไม่ได้มีโอกาสเข้ามาเขียนจริงๆจังๆสักที

เรื่องให้เขียนก็มากมาย แต่ไม่รู้จะเริ่มต้นยังไงดี

ช่วงนี้ก็มีแต่เรื่อง ใกล้จะสอบแล้ว ที่ฝึกงานก็ไม่รู้จะยังไง

งานก็เยอะ สุขภาพก็แย่

สรุปแล้วมีแต่เรื่อง - -*

ใกล้วาเลนไทน์แบบนี้ ไปที่ไหนมีแต่กลิ่นอายของความรัก

โลกสีชมพู ดอกไม้ละลานตา ดูแล้วสดชื่นดี สำหรับคนมีความรัก

แล้วคนไม่มีความรักจะเป็นยังไงละเนี่ย

แอบเศร้าแทน

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ป.ล. รักใครก็รักกันได้ แต่อย่าลืมดูแลใส่ใจพ่อแม่เราให้มากๆหล่ะ