There are things you can do to your shot to really enhance it's fluidity and rhythm. Different types of movements can call for different types of arcs; for example faster movements usually benefit from more circularmovements (like tying a bow really fast for example). Figure 8 curves are another type of curve that enhance a movement to keep the motion alive.Gesturing with the hands for example in a figure 8 movement (the sides of the "8" don't have to be equal, in fact it may add more texture if you have a big loop and then a smaller one or vice versa) is a way to move movethe arms in one direction, then reverse the direction in a pleasing visual way.
Again, tying a bow or similar faster movements are examples of using a figure 8 curve to change direction quickly but fluidly.
11 comments:
Awesome! Our first Guest Blogger! Thanks, Keith!!
shawn :)
To be honest, I'm still not sure what all this means.
I've heard the term "arcs" and "figure 8 curves" before, but I've never really seen it in action, so I'm a little confused on what they are exactly.
By the way, I'm currently studying animation in my free time, since there aren't any classes I can take around here in high school... just so know I'm not an AM student who hasn't been paying attention in classes.
I'm also learning how to use Maya, but I read (I think it was in the Tips & Tricks eBook) that you should bury your computer in your back yard, learn animation, then dig it up and animate... so in a sense, I'm kind of doing that.
Great stuff! Is there anyway we could get some examples...ie. drawings or links?
Thanks
JP
Hey Keith!
It's great to see you here! Thank you for the tips and for everything! You are helping me so much as my mentor and I have so much fun in the Q&A :)
I'm glad I had the opportunity to meet you, because I really like your work!
As you know, I'm trying to improve the arcs in my animations so talk about figure 8 curves is very interesting to me.
Thanks!
Cin :*
Hello.. whether we could be friends and exchanged link?
Hey, great article Keith! Always good to rimind about arcs and figure 8's, even in fast actions you can apply them.
And just to answer Copper's question about arcs and figure 8's, you did see them in action in any good animation so far. They go like this, if you track the wrist for instance in every frame, from one pose (say, frame 10) to another pose (frame 25), the wrist doesn't go in a straight line from one point to another on screen, it describes an arc and if you go foward to that, in a walk for instance, the swing of your wrist is describing a figure 8, if you track it every frame during the entire loop (from the pose your wrist is in front of your body to this pose again).
Hope that helps Copper and of course, anyone including Keith here can add to this information.
Thanks a lot for the great info so far!
Artur
XD
This is a superb addition to the blog style. Nice job, Shawn. And thank you Kieth for the tip. Mike, you make some awesome observations that, I believe, deserve its own blog.
Hi, for Copper and JP and anyone else that is reading this, I just wanted to mention two books that, if you don't already have them, you should! Stop reading this and go immediately to your local bookstore or Amazon.com and order "The Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston; and "The Animator's Suvival Kit" by Richard Williams. Both of these books contain vast amounts of information regarding 'arcs' and the other 12 principles of animation.
Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were Disney animation gods, and you really can learn a lot about the 12 key principles of physical animation by visiting this page:
http://www.frankandollie.com/PhysicalAnimation.html
Good luck!
Keith Sintay (your guest Blogger for the month :) )
Hi Keith, thank you for the great tips. I remember you stress about this during q&a and this definitely helps alot with the animation.
Thanks Artur and Keith!
I actually do own Illusion of Life, but I haven't got around to that section on arcs yet. It pains me to think of finishing the book, so I take my time.
And I was planning on getting the other book sent to my library once I was finished with Illusion of Life. No point in cramming everything at once, I suppose.
Once I find a way to watch movies frame-by-frame, I'll try and look for these arcs.
- jonah
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