Meta:BSoD/2006/Proposals/Introduction to the Principles of Animation

Write about the Principles of Animation as detailed in Disney's Illusion of Life (and since then followed by other important animation book authors) tied to actual Blender tutorial examples of how to implement these principles with Blender tools. The aim is for a good mix of theory and practice, with focus on artistic aspects and not on recreating a manual. For the project the core part of this should be done, but after that there's a huge potential for adding more documentation or linking to existing one, hopefully making this text a good starting and guiding point.

Project Scope

The Principles of Animation from The Illusion of Life:

• Squash and Stretch (volume preservation)
• Anticipation (physics, psychology, acting)
• Staging
• Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Action
• Follow Through and Overlapping Action
• Slow In and Slow Out (physics, psychology)
• Arcs
• Secondary Action (also animating in layers / steps)
• Timing
• Exaggeration
• Solid Drawing (silhouettes, twins, weight)
• Appeal

Some additions / highlights from [Digital] Character Animation 2 Volume 1:

The Motion Language: above Principles, plus a little more emphasis on:

• Force and Drag
• Overshoot (anticipation is before action, overshoot is after)
• Cycles (repeating animation seqs)
• Moving Holds

My aim is to explain in words and pictures each principle, give examples implemented in Blender and also tutorials on how these where done. I'll not try to recreate Blender's manual, that'd be foolish. If good documentation for some tool already exists I'll just link to it. The focus is on animation theory and art.

Deliverables

I plan to write all the theory (each principle in its section) and also have basic examples in Blender, both for the tutorials and to get the pictures for the document.

This will require some material I'll have to prepare in Blender. Due to time constraints and BSOD's focus on docs for newbies, the examples should be simple (like pro authors themselves use), classic ones, like bouncing balls, a boxhead, simple skeletons or characters, etc., with which I'll try to come up with good examples showcasing the principles.

Future (after BSOD's end)

I believe this is a good project with a lot of potential for improvements. I see it like a core from where we can "radiate" many tutorials and also link to existing info, from basic Blender Manual pages to more professional ones.

Example:

We can start with a simple boxhead like Osipa's or the one here: http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/PartIX/Driven_Shape_Keys

That's enough to demonstrate some principles. But it opens up three paths:

• tech: tutorial about how to build the model used;
• tech: tutorial about how to build a better model (a realistic rigged and skinned character with facial blend shapes and control setup);
• art: other examples demonstrating (other facets of) the same principle(s).

These can become new tutorials or links to existing (maybe adapted) ones. For this reason I guess this project can be a good starting and guiding point for Blender animation.

Bibliography

Disney's The Illusion of Life by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas

[Digital] Character Animation 2 Volumes 1 & 2 by George Maestri

Stop Staring: Facial Modelling and Animation Done Right by Jason Osipa

DVD: Learning 3d Character Animation with Jeff Lew: http://www.jefflew.com/DVD_content.html

About me

I've been one of the Blender developers since a little before Blender 2.26. Most of what I've coded is related to the Blender Python API and scripts.

For an example of written documentation, check Blender's README file, I've done most of it. The page on pydrivers in the current projects wiki, too.

Apart from that, here in Brazil last year I wrote with a friend documentation for a CG school: http://www.alphachannel.com.br (I've done some Realsoft 3D tutorials (argh), part of a book on modelling theory and a > 220 pages book on animation). Currently that same friend and I are writing a 5 modules Blender course for them.