Session 5 - Non-verbal Communication

Non-verbal communication is the act of conveying a message without speaking. Though the idea of this sounds difficult, most/nearly all actions are understandable through body language and posture. For example, if we nod our head up and down, we have interpreted this action as a way of saying ‘no’. This is one of the simplest ways of non-verbally communicating.

We can also express more advanced messages by using our body. We can point at something to get the attention of another person. Since we have associated pointing with an action that informs others that there is something there, we can further say that this action is more advanced than just nodding to answer simple yes/no questions.

Moving onto more advanced actions, we can use emotions to help display/convey messages to others. For example, if someone were to bang their foot against something hard, their primary action would be to hop around on one leg, holding their foot whilst giving a sad/angry expression on their face. From this, we can tell that this person is in pain from his actions and that sometimes, we can either relate to this persons unfortunate experience or we can understand his situation.

Session 4 - 12 Principles of Animation

The 12 principles of animation was originally introduced by Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. These are a set of ‘rules’ or ‘principles’ that should be followed/used when animating. Despite original Disney animations being “cartoony”, all of the principles can be applied to rea life/humanoid character animations as well. Many of these ideas were discovered from observing real life movement and experimenting with different techniques.

These 12 principles are very important to when it comes to animating. Not only does this apply to characters but also non-living objects for example vehicles. Not all principles can be applied here since mesh deformities are not commonly found in hard surface vehicles, but rules like secondary action, exaggeration and follow through actions can be considered useful.

It’s clear to see that animation is more valued and more important than presentation. The animation is essentially the storyline and without this, you can’t have the final piece completed. No matter how appealing or realistic the render can look, making sure that the animation is spot on is more considerable than just having a ‘fancy render’.

In conclusion, the 12 principles of animation is something that all animators should use from start to finish when animating. Making sure one understand what each principle does and its result is key to having an animation that looks professional and appealing.

Session 4 - Idea Generation & Storyboard

For this task, I decided to use a rig that wasn’t too simple nor too complex. So I did some research to find a rig that was suitable for my needs. I then found this free squirrel rig by the AnimationMentor.

Now that I had my rig, I had to decide on what animation I should do. I had to make sure that I followed the brief and it specifically states that the animation should not have any fancy render or appealing visuals. Instead, it should be a simple render of the animation which should demonstrate that we don't need fancy renders to make an animation look great. Ideally the animation had to be short and had to display a great use of the principles of animation.

I decided that since my main animation project was going to be conveying the anger emotion, I thought I should animate my squirrel based on this emotion as well. Once, I had a brief idea, we then had to create a small storyboard which shows the animation process.

I decided to use scene props to help exaggerate the emotion shown. These will end up playing a vital role to help express the characters/squirrels emotion. The props will be translated and rotated in conjunction with the squirrels actions, so for example the props will be flipped and and pushed. Both of the props will be manually key-framed instead of having rigid body dynamics since I retain alot of control when manually key-framing.