Animation

Traditional
Traditional Animation
Animation
Keyframe
Keyframe Animation
Animation
Interpolating
Interpolating Rotation
Rotation
Forward/Inverse
Forward/Inverse Kinematics
Kinematics

Overview
Animation techniques
Performance-based (motion capture)
Traditional animation (frame-by-frame)
Keyframing
Physically based (dynamics)

Modeling issues
Rotations
Inverse kinematics

Overview
Animation techniques
Performance-based (motion capture)
Traditional animation (frame-by-frame)
Keyframing
Physically based (dynamics)

last class
today
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Modeling issues
Rotations
Forward / Inverse kinematics

today

Traditional Cel Animation

Each frame is drawn by hand

Film runs at 24 frames per second (fps)

Thats 1440 pictures to draw per minute

Artistic issues:
Artistic vision has to be converted into a sequence of still frames
Not enough to get the stills right--must look right at full speed
Hard to see the motion given the stills
Hard to see the motion at the wrong frame rate

Traditional Animation: The Process

Story board
Sequence of drawings with descriptions
Story-based description

Voice Recording
Preliminary soundtrack or "scratch track" is recorded
To synchronize animation later

Animatic or Story Reel

Pictures of the storyboard synchronized with the soundtrack
To work out timing issues

Design
Design and draw characters from different angles
Statues and maquettes can be produced
Animation

Traditional Animation: The Process

Turtle Hill Example
Story board
Animatic
Final Animation

Traditional Animation: The Process

Key Frames
Draw a few important frames in pencil
beginning of jump, end of jump and a frame in the air

Inbetweens
Draw the rest of the frames

Painting
Redraw onto clear sheet of plastic called a cel, color them in
- Use one layer for background, one for object
- Draw each separately
- Stack them together on a copy stand
- Transfer onto film by taking a photograph of the stack
- Can have multiple animators working simultaneously
on different layers, avoid re-drawing and flickering

Principles of Traditional Animation

[Lasseter, SIGGRAPH 1987]
Stylistic conventions followed by Disneys animators and
others
From experience built up over many years
Squash and stretch -- use distortions to convey flexibility
Timing -- speed conveys mass, personality
Anticipation -- prepare the audience for an action
Followthrough and overlapping action -- continuity with next action
Slow in and out -- speed of transitions conveys subtleties
Arcs -- motion is usually curved
Exaggeration -- emphasize emotional content
Secondary Action -- motion occurring as a consequence
Appeal -- audience must enjoy watching it

Principles of Traditional Animation

Squash and Stretch

Use distortions to convey flexibility
Defines the rigidity of the material
Gives the sense that the object is made out
of a soft, pliable material.

Elongating the drawings before and after

the bounce increases the sense of speed,
makes it easier to follow and gives
more snap to the action.

Squash and Stretch

Use distortions to convey flexibility

Timing & Motion

Speed conveys mass, personality
A heavier object takes a greater force and a longer time to accelerate and decelerate
A larger object moves more slowly than a smaller object and has greater inertia
Motion also can give the illusion of weight
For example, consider a ball hitting a box
http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/timing.htm

Timing & Motion

Timing can also indicate an emotional state
Consider a scenario with a head looking first over the right shoulder
and then over the left shoulder
No in-betweens - the character has been hit by a strong force and its head almost snappedd off
One in-betweens - the character has been hit by something substantial, .e.g., frying pan
Two in-betweens - the character has a nervous twitch
Three in-betweens - the character is dodging a flying object
Four in-betweens - the character is giving a crisp order
Six in-betweens - the character sees something inviting
Nine in-betweens - the character is thinking about something
Ten in-betweens - the character is stretching a sore muscle

Anticipation
Prepare the audience for an action

Dont surprise the audience

Direct their attention to whats important

Follow Through and Overlapping Action

The termination of an action and establishing its relationship to the next action

Audience likes to see resolution of action

Discontinuities are unsettling

Slow in and out

Speed of transitions conveys subtleties

http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/bouncing_ball_example_of_slow_in_out.htm

The ball on the left moves at a constant speed with no squash/stretch.

The ball in the center does slow in and out with a squash/stretch.
The ball on the right moves at a constant speed with squash/stretch.

Secondary Action
Motion occurring as a consequence

Computer Assisted Animation

Computerized Cel painting
Digitize the line drawing, color it using digital paint
Widely used in production (little hand painting any more)
e.g. Lion King

Graphics Tablet
For outline drawing

Cartoon Inbetweening
Automatically interpolate between two drawings to produce
inbetweens (a la morphing)
Hard to get right
inbetweens often dont look natural
what are the parameters to interpolate? Not clear...
not used very often

3D Computer Animation
Generate the images by rendering a 3-D model
Vary the parameters to produce the animation
Brute force
Manually set the parameters for each and every frame
For an n parameter model: 60 x 24 x n = 1440n values per minute

Traditional keyframing
Lead animators draw the important frames
Assistant animators draw the inbetweens

Computer keyframing
Lead animators create the important frames with 3-D computer models
Computers draw the inbetweens

Interpolation
Hard to interpolate hand-drawn keyframes
Computers dont help much

The situation is different in 3D computer animation:

Each keyframe is a defined by a bunch of parameters (state)
Sequence of keyframes = points in high-dimensional state space

Computer inbetweening interpolates these points

How?

splines

Keyframing Basics

Keyframing Basics

Keyframing Basics

Keyframing Basics

params

For each variable, specify its value at the important

frames. Not all variables need agree about which frames
are important.
Hence, key values rather than key frames
Create path for each parameter by interpolating key values
frames

key values

interpolated values

Keyframing: Issues
What should the key values be?
When should the key values occur?
How can the key values be specified?
How are the key values interpolated?
What kinds of BAD THINGS can occur from interpolation?
Invalid configurations (pass through objects)
Unnatural motions (painful twists/bends)
Jerky motion

How Do You Interpolate Between Keys?

What kind of spline might we want to use?
Hermite is good

What kind of continuity do we want?

How Do You Interpolate Between Keys?

Maya Demo

Maya Demo - Ball

Problems with Interpolation

Splines dont always do the right thing

Classic problems
Important constraints may break between keyframes
feet sink through the floor
hands pass through walls

3D rotations
Euler angles dont always interpolate in a natural way

Classic solutions:
More keyframes!
Quaternions help fix rotation problems

Interpolating Rotations

Euler angles

Q: What kind of compound

rotation do you get by

successively turning about
each of the 3 axes at a
constant rate?

A: Not the one you want

Euler Angles
Good for single-axis
rotations
Awkward for other
rotations

Gimbal Lock

(0, 90, 0)

(+/-e, 90, 0)

(0, 90, +/-e)

Gimbal Lock

Quaternion Rotation
A quaternion is a 4-D unit vector q = [x y z w]

It lies on the unit hypersphere x2+y2+z2+w2=1

For rotation about (unit) axis v by angle

vector part (sin /2) v
scalar part cos /2

= [x y z]
=w

The rotation matrix corresponding to a quaternion is

1-2y2-2z2 2xy+2wz 2xz-2wy
2xy-2wz 1-2x2-2z2 2yz+2wx
2xz+2wy 2yz-2wx 1-2x2-2y2

Quaternion Rotation
We can think of rotations as lying on an n-D unit sphere

Interpolating rotations means moving on 4-D sphere

Quaternion Interpolation
Interpolating quaternions produces better results
than Euler angles
Quaternion Interpolation
represent rotation as quaternion
SLERP: move with constant angular velocity along the
great circle between the two points
convert to rotation matrix to apply the rotation

Any rotation is given by 2 quaternions

pick the shortest SLERP
Further information: Ken Shoemake in the Siggraph '85 proceedings
(Computer Graphics, V. 19, No. 3, P.245)

Character Animation

Kinematics & Inverse Kinematics

We need help in positioning joints

Forward: A = f (,)

Backward: , = f -1(A)

Kinematics & Inverse Kinematics

We need help in positioning joints
Forward Kinematics
animator controls all joint angles

Kinematics & Inverse Kinematics

We need help in positioning joints
Forward Kinematics
animator controls all joint angles

Kinematics & Inverse Kinematics

Inverse kinematics
determine joint angles from positions
e.g. calculate the hip, knee and foot parameters in
order to put the foot here
better for interaction
sometimes underdetermined (i.e. many combinations of
joint angles to achieve a given end result)

Kinematics & Inverse Kinematics

Inverse kinematics
determine joint angles from positions
e.g. calculate the hip, knee and foot parameters in
order to put the foot here
better for interaction
sometimes underdetermined (i.e. many combinations of
joint angles to achieve a given end result)

Kinematics & Inverse Kinematics

Inverse kinematics
Closed form only for fairly simple mechanisms
P

Maya Demo

Maya Demo - Human