People often misunderstand animation as making characters move although proper translation of the word "animation" is "to give life".
Movement does not equal life.
We don't see life in characters that only behave as robots controlled by the animator. For us to interpret life in the character her movements need to be motivated by the character herself, her psychology, her emotions, wants and needs. Movements not motivated by the character herself is bad animation.
Good animation is a mix of physics (the characters body structure and external elements), characters psychology (what she wants to show and what see's really feeling/thinking) and the characters personal movement pattern. To animate a scene it is not enough to know what the character does, we most first understand why she does it and how she would do it.
The psychology of the characters actions is a mix of what the character wants to show outward (how the she wants to be perceived) and what she really is thinking and feeling. Generally these two things are not the same. If we would meet a person who says exactly what she's thinking and feeling we would probably perceive her as mentally retarded.
I think one of the clearest examples of the contrast in what a person wants and feels is when a person is drunk. When a person is drunk she tries to be perceived as sober and intelligent, and the more drunk she gets the more focused she is on trying to behave sober.
If we animate a character with a drunken wobbly walk (what the character is feeling) we end up only getting a funny walk. If we instead animate a character with a drunken wobbly walk and a face that is dead focused on looking sober (how she wants to be perceived) we end up with a walk that looks like the character is drunk.
This is almost always true, in fact one of the basic rules of dialogue animation is tho let the lips speak the words and the body speak the subtext, or with other words, the lips/dialogue say what the character wants to convey while her body language says what she's really thinking and feeling.
This is also true in non-verbal animation. But then you have to convey both what the character wants to show and what she's really feeling through the bodylanguage.
Generally people tend to be more in control of their facial expressions than their body language, they can smile and look happy although their body is heavy and sad.
A fairly simple tool to use for animating emotions is to think about what metaphors are used for that emotion. Often these metaphors are very visual. Feeling down or being depressed, someone being light on their feet, a person walking with his head in the clouds, in swedish a drunk person is round under his feet. There are many more examples, use them to your favor.
When we move we all have our own movement patterns and rhythm we move with. When even identical twins have different movement patterns, so should the characters you animate.
The characters movement pattern should reflect her personality. A good example is the classical Disney characters (not as much anymore but from the olden days). If you would see Mickey, Donald and Goofy animated as stick-figures you could still identify who they are, and even if didn't know who they are you would be able to see their personality through how they move and walk.
The characters personality generally develops through the film as she experiences more through the challenges she meets. To better show this change the characters movement pattern should also change to reflect the character development.
So, how do you actually go about designing a characters movement pattern? Hayao Miyasaki, I believe, likes to base his characters on people he knows, basing how the character does the actions on how that "reference person" would do it.
Personally I like to base the characters movement pattern on an animal. If the character is an animal, I base the pattern on an other kind of an animal. For me, I find this the most intuitive, I look for an animal that I feel reflect the characters personality and try to translate the essence of the animals movement to the character without making the character a caricature of an animal. As the character develops through the story I try to find a new animal or a new race of the same animal to help reflect the change.
It is also possible to use inanimate objects, like flowers, trees, mountains etc., or whether phenomenons or anything else as references as long as you feel that it has a "soul" that you can extract and us as an essence for your character.
Always do what works best for you. Do listen to others but never blindly follow, make the tools your own.
The physical aspects of animation tend to be the part most easy to understand, especially the external elements affecting the animation, like if the character is pushing or pulling on an object, or fighting against a hard wind etc. How the character body structure (her weight, proportions etc.) influences the animation is also fairly easy to understand but a bit harder to convey.
For novice animators (and at times for experienced animators to) the characters movements end up looking flowy and weightless, like the character is moving underwater. This generally happens when we only think about moving something from point A to point B and forget tho think about how it moves.
Always think about what forces, both external and internal, are influencing the character when animating her.
What is important is to think about what moves first. Generally our movements start from our hips and travel outward. Even when just lifting your hand what moves first is your hip, although the movement in the hip is so miniscule that you can't really see it. If you add more hip movement to the action it looks like it demands more effort (putting your hip in to it) and makes the action seem heavier (conveying that the character's feeling down).
At times, staring a movement from the end of the extremities before moving inward towards the hip, as in lifting your hand starting from your finger tips, may be the right choise. This creates very sneaky, almost reptilian type of movements.
All these factors, the physical, the psychological and personal, influence each other and should therefore not be seen as independent parts. These factors are only individual ingredients of what makes up the character. If one of the ingredients is forgotten or overshadow an other the recipe may and up creating character animation that is dry or bitter.
The question you now could ask is "What about effect animation and inanimate objects?". The short answer is that there is no difference. To quote Bill Plympton:
"When drawing a prop and inanimate objects, you must think of them as animate objects as if they're alive, they have a personality, they have a soul."
In a later article I will get more in to the technical aspects of animation.
Thank you for reading this article and hope you've learned something new,
Peter Hertzberg
Movement does not equal life.
We don't see life in characters that only behave as robots controlled by the animator. For us to interpret life in the character her movements need to be motivated by the character herself, her psychology, her emotions, wants and needs. Movements not motivated by the character herself is bad animation.
Good animation is a mix of physics (the characters body structure and external elements), characters psychology (what she wants to show and what see's really feeling/thinking) and the characters personal movement pattern. To animate a scene it is not enough to know what the character does, we most first understand why she does it and how she would do it.
The psychology of the characters actions is a mix of what the character wants to show outward (how the she wants to be perceived) and what she really is thinking and feeling. Generally these two things are not the same. If we would meet a person who says exactly what she's thinking and feeling we would probably perceive her as mentally retarded.
I think one of the clearest examples of the contrast in what a person wants and feels is when a person is drunk. When a person is drunk she tries to be perceived as sober and intelligent, and the more drunk she gets the more focused she is on trying to behave sober.
If we animate a character with a drunken wobbly walk (what the character is feeling) we end up only getting a funny walk. If we instead animate a character with a drunken wobbly walk and a face that is dead focused on looking sober (how she wants to be perceived) we end up with a walk that looks like the character is drunk.
This is almost always true, in fact one of the basic rules of dialogue animation is tho let the lips speak the words and the body speak the subtext, or with other words, the lips/dialogue say what the character wants to convey while her body language says what she's really thinking and feeling.
This is also true in non-verbal animation. But then you have to convey both what the character wants to show and what she's really feeling through the bodylanguage.
Generally people tend to be more in control of their facial expressions than their body language, they can smile and look happy although their body is heavy and sad.
A fairly simple tool to use for animating emotions is to think about what metaphors are used for that emotion. Often these metaphors are very visual. Feeling down or being depressed, someone being light on their feet, a person walking with his head in the clouds, in swedish a drunk person is round under his feet. There are many more examples, use them to your favor.
When we move we all have our own movement patterns and rhythm we move with. When even identical twins have different movement patterns, so should the characters you animate.
The characters movement pattern should reflect her personality. A good example is the classical Disney characters (not as much anymore but from the olden days). If you would see Mickey, Donald and Goofy animated as stick-figures you could still identify who they are, and even if didn't know who they are you would be able to see their personality through how they move and walk.
The characters personality generally develops through the film as she experiences more through the challenges she meets. To better show this change the characters movement pattern should also change to reflect the character development.
So, how do you actually go about designing a characters movement pattern? Hayao Miyasaki, I believe, likes to base his characters on people he knows, basing how the character does the actions on how that "reference person" would do it.
Personally I like to base the characters movement pattern on an animal. If the character is an animal, I base the pattern on an other kind of an animal. For me, I find this the most intuitive, I look for an animal that I feel reflect the characters personality and try to translate the essence of the animals movement to the character without making the character a caricature of an animal. As the character develops through the story I try to find a new animal or a new race of the same animal to help reflect the change.
It is also possible to use inanimate objects, like flowers, trees, mountains etc., or whether phenomenons or anything else as references as long as you feel that it has a "soul" that you can extract and us as an essence for your character.
Always do what works best for you. Do listen to others but never blindly follow, make the tools your own.
The physical aspects of animation tend to be the part most easy to understand, especially the external elements affecting the animation, like if the character is pushing or pulling on an object, or fighting against a hard wind etc. How the character body structure (her weight, proportions etc.) influences the animation is also fairly easy to understand but a bit harder to convey.
For novice animators (and at times for experienced animators to) the characters movements end up looking flowy and weightless, like the character is moving underwater. This generally happens when we only think about moving something from point A to point B and forget tho think about how it moves.
Always think about what forces, both external and internal, are influencing the character when animating her.
What is important is to think about what moves first. Generally our movements start from our hips and travel outward. Even when just lifting your hand what moves first is your hip, although the movement in the hip is so miniscule that you can't really see it. If you add more hip movement to the action it looks like it demands more effort (putting your hip in to it) and makes the action seem heavier (conveying that the character's feeling down).
At times, staring a movement from the end of the extremities before moving inward towards the hip, as in lifting your hand starting from your finger tips, may be the right choise. This creates very sneaky, almost reptilian type of movements.
All these factors, the physical, the psychological and personal, influence each other and should therefore not be seen as independent parts. These factors are only individual ingredients of what makes up the character. If one of the ingredients is forgotten or overshadow an other the recipe may and up creating character animation that is dry or bitter.
The question you now could ask is "What about effect animation and inanimate objects?". The short answer is that there is no difference. To quote Bill Plympton:
"When drawing a prop and inanimate objects, you must think of them as animate objects as if they're alive, they have a personality, they have a soul."
In a later article I will get more in to the technical aspects of animation.
Thank you for reading this article and hope you've learned something new,
Peter Hertzberg
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