Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. Animations
While learning about animations, we were introduced to the 12 Principles of Animation, created by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston and presented in “The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation” book, first printed in 1981. These are known as the golden rules for creating and working with animations. Even latest, 3D computer generated motion sequences, so different from the traditional animations, are honouring these principles:
- Timing and Spacing.
- Squash and Stretch.
- Anticipation.
- Ease In and Ease Out.
- Follow Through and Overlapping Action:
- Arcs.
- Exaggeration.
- Solid Drawing.
- Appeal.
- Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose.
- Secondary Action.
- Staging1.
An example of the 12 principles being used in practice is the “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse” movie from 2018 (currently available on Netflix), which I have recently seen and really enjoyed. While watching it, I was focused not only on the plot but also on the animation techniques I have been introduced to.
The above rules are a starting point for creating animations. However, before we can begin the actual process, we need to have a plan and know the scenes, characters, objects and other elements we are about to incorporate animations to.
At that point, during the class we were introduced to Maya’s animation workspace. We had started with exploring tools and resetting setting, then moved to animating a basic model in a timeline and refining the motion in a graph editor. Other exercises included rigging a ball to create squash and stretch effect, but this action is yet to be explored by me as I experienced some technical issues with my laptop during that task.
Next, we worked with motion paths in Maya. The task was to model an object and to attach it the CV curve. As a result we had a rocket moving along that curve.
All the above exercises were to teach us how to animate assets (models and cameras) in our final projects. I have an idea of how I want to animate some of the elements I already placed in my Holiday scene. I still need to plan how I want the camera to move around to present the whole 3D destination in the best possible way.
1 Thomas, F., Johnston, O. (1981). The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. New York. Walt Disney Editions.