Digital character animation

Table of contents :
Introduction ..... 1
1 Basic Character Design ..... 8

Approaching Design as an Artist ..... 10
Categories of Design ..... 11
Realistic Designs ..... 11
Stylized Designs ..... 12
Understanding Anatomy ..... 13
Designing a Character ..... 14
Head and Body Proportions ..... 14
Eyes ..... 15
Feet ..... 16
Hands ..... 17
Clothing and Other Accessories ..... 17
Exercise #1: Character Design ..... 18

Deciding on the Correct Geometry ..... 22
Polygons ..... 22
Splines ..... 24
Creating Segmented Characters ..... 26
Pivots and Joint Rotation ..... 28
Using Hierarchies to Glue Things Together ..... 28
Exercise #1: Creating a Simple Segmented Character ..... 29
Forward Kinematics ..... 32
Inverse Kinematics ..... 33
Creating Seamless Characters ..... 34
Skinning Between Segments ..... 35
Using Metaballs to Create Seamless Characters ..... 36
Exercise #2: Building a Body from Metaballs ..... 39
Animating a Metaballs-Based Character ..... 41
Using Polygons to Create Seamless Characters ..... 42
Exercise #3: Modeling a Simple Character from Polygons ..... 44
Exercise #4: Making Cartoon Shoes ..... 50
Creating Seamless Characters from Splines ..... 54
Exercise #5: Building a Simple Character from Splines ..... 55
Advanced Seaming Techniques for Spline Modelers ..... 62
Creating Skeletal Deformations ..... 67
Getting Bones to Behave ..... 69
Exercise #6: Boning a Body ..... 70
Using Bones to Create Bulging Muscles ..... 76

Examining the Hand's Structure ..... 82
Flexibility of the Hand and Fingers ..... 83
The Fingers ..... 83
The Thumb ..... 84
Modeling Methods for Hands ..... 85
Modeling Hands from Polygons ..... 86
Exercise #1: Making Cartoon Gloves from Polygons ..... 86
Shaping Hands from Metaballs ..... 90
Exercise #2: Making a Realistic Hand from Metaballs ..... 90
Building a Hand with Splines ..... 93
Exercise #3: Making a Realistic Hand from Splines ..... 94
Preparing to Animate Your Hand ..... 98
Boning a Hand ..... 98
Connecting the Hands to the Body ..... 100

Understanding the Structure of the Head and Face ..... 104
The Muscles of the Face ..... 104
Basic Head-Modeling Methods ..... 106
Paste-On Features ..... 106
Faces with Flexible Skin ..... 107
Exercise #1: Modeling a Simple Face ..... 108
Spherical Heads ..... 113
Exercise #2: Modeling a Simple Face ..... 114
Other Methods for Creating Heads ..... 120
Skinning ..... 120
Exercise #3: Modeling a Simple Skinned Head ..... 121
Patches ..... 126
Scanned Heads ..... 126
Modeling Other Elements of the Face and Head ..... 127
Noses ..... 127
Exercise #4: Modeling a Realistic Nose ..... 129
Blending a Nose into a Face ..... 133
Eyes ..... 135
Internal Eyes ..... 135
External Eyes ..... 136
Exercise #5: Modeling Eyes ..... 137
Eyebrows ..... 141
Tongues ..... 141
Exercise #6: Modeling a Tongue ..... 142
Teeth ..... 144
Hair ..... 145
Connecting a Head to a Body ..... 147
Neck on the Body ..... 147
Neck on the Head ..... 148
Putting It All Together ..... 148

Methods for Animating Your Characters ..... 152
Posing Your Characters Naturally ..... 153
Balance ..... 154
Symmetry ..... 154
Exercise #1: Creating a Natural Pose ..... 156
Making Strong Silhouettes ..... 157
Exercise #2: Silhouetting ..... 159
Creating a Line of Action ..... 159
StagingYour Characters ..... 160
Staging Multiple Characters ..... 162
Working with the Camera ..... 162

Understanding the Importance of Timing ..... 170
One Thing at a Time ..... 170
Developing Good Timing ..... 171
Motion Graphs ..... 172
Paths ..... 175
Using Timing to Suggest Weight ..... 176
Exercise #1: Creating the Illusion of Weight Through Motion ..... 177
Understanding the Language of Movement ..... 178
Arcs ..... 178
Slow-Ins and Slow-Outs ..... 180
Exercise #2: Using Slow-In and Slow-Out ..... 181
Force and Drag ..... 182
Squash and Stretch ..... 184
Exercise #3: Squashing and Stretching a Ball ..... 188
Anticipation ..... 189
Exercise #4: Anticipation ..... 191
Overshoot ..... 191
Secondary Action ..... 192
Follow-Through and Overlap ..... 193
Exercise #5: Using Overshoot, Overlap, and Follow-Through ..... 194
Animating in Cycles ..... 196
Exercise #6: Using Cycles to Dribble a Basketball ..... 197
Moving Holds ..... 198
Exercise #7: Putting It All Together ..... 200

Understanding the Mechanics of Walking ..... 206
The Feet and Legs ..... 206
The Hips, Spine, and Shoulders ..... 206
The Arms ..... 208
The Head and Spine from the Side ..... 208
The Differences Between Walking and Running ..... 208
Animating a Walk ..... 209
Timing the Walk ..... 209
Keeping Your Feet on the Ground ..... 210
To Cycle or Not to Cycle ..... 213
Exercise #1: Animating a Walk Cycle Using Forward Kinematics ..... 214
Exercise #2: Animating a Walk Cycle with Inverse Kinematics ..... 222
Exercise #3: Animating a Walk Cycle Using Inverse or Broken Hierarchies ..... 227
Exercise #4: Animating the "No-Feet"Walk ..... 233
Animating Four-Legged Walks ..... 236

Types of Characters ..... 240
Static-Shaped or Jointed Characters ..... 240
Squishy Characters ..... 240
Conceiving Your Characters ..... 240
The Big Secret: Timing ..... 241
Animating a Jointed or Static-Shaped Character ..... 242
Exercise #1: Animating a Static-Shaped Robot Arm ..... 242
Animating Squishy Characters ..... 243
Using Simple Deformations: Scale, Bend, Twist, and Tapers ..... 244
Exercise #2: Animating a Box with Simple Deformations ..... 247
Using Lattice Deformations ..... 250
Bending Along a Spline ..... 251
Using Bones ...... 252
Exercise #3: Animating a Slice of Swiss Cheese ..... 252
Exercise #4: Bringing the Vacuum to Life ..... 254

Preparing a Face for Animation ..... 260
Using Shape Animation with Faces ..... 260
"Morphing" by Any Other Name ..... 260
Exercise #1: Reshaping a Spline Face ..... 261
Animating Faces with Bones ..... 264
Exercise #2: Boning a Face for Animation ..... 266
Lattices and Metamation ..... 270
Creating a Library of Poses ..... 272
Choosing the Right Poses for Your Library ..... 273
Upper- and Lower-Face Combinations ..... 275
Exercise #3: Building a Library of Facial Expressions ..... 276
Animating the Face ..... 277
Exercise #4: Animating the Face ..... 278
Animating Lip Sync ..... 279
Using the Body Effectively in Dialogue ..... 280
Recording Dialogue ..... 281
The Eight Basic Mouth Positions ..... 282
Exercise #5: Creating Mouth Shapes for Lip Sync ..... 283
Reading the Track ..... 284
Exercise #6: Reading a Track ..... 285
Animating the Dialogue ..... 288
Exercise #7 Putting It All Together ..... 288
Practice the Fundamentals ..... 290

Picking Up and Holding Things ..... 294
Animatable Locks and Pins ..... 294
Animating in Groups ..... 295
Segmenting the Shot ..... 296
Hiding and Unhiding Two Objects ..... 297
Doing It Frame by Frame ..... 298
Riding Things ..... 298
Keeping an Eye on Things ..... 299
"Look At" Functions ..... 300
Pointy Objects ..... 301
Takes and Double Takes ..... 303
Staggers ..... 304
Animating Laughter ..... 305
Breakdown of a Laugh ..... 306

The Importance of Art Direction ..... 310
Furniture and Props ..... 311
Walls and Floors ..... 314
Creating and Manipulating Textures ..... 316
Sky ..... 318
Ground ..... 319
Trees and Ground Cover ..... 320
When to Add Detail ..... 323
Lighting Your Sets and Characters ..... 323
Positioning Your Lights ..... 323
The Basic Three-Light Setup ..... 325
Volumetric Lighting ..... 326
Faking Radiosity ..... 327
Marrying 3D with Live Action ..... 328
Keep Records ..... 328
Motion Control ..... 329
Animating and Compositing ..... 330
Using Objects ..... 331
Shadows and Reflections ..... 333
Creating a Seamless Composite ..... 334

Why Make a Film? ..... 340
Creating Characters and a Story ..... 340
Exercise #1: Creating a Premise for a Short Film ..... 341
Developing Your Premise ..... 342
Exercise #2: Fleshing Out Your Premise ..... 343
Creating Storyboards ..... 344
Exercise #3: Creating a Storyboard ..... 345
Recording Dialogue ..... 346
Leica Reels ..... 346
Exercise #4: Creating a Leica Reel ..... 347
Exposure Sheets ..... 348
Animation ..... 349
Rendering and Output ..... 349
Adding Sound Effects ..... 351
A Final Word ..... 352