20 Common Animation Terms #3

Third group of 20 COMMON ANIMATION TERMS! Another new series a quick introduction to the most used animation terms you’ll hear in production…so…if you’re new to this world… don’t get caught unprepared!😛

1. BALANCE
2. CONSTRAINT
3. ACTING
4. DYNAMIC SIMULATION
5. ASYMMETRY
6. FOCAL LENGTH
7. BREAKDOWN
8. PASSING POSITION
9. GIMBAL LOCK
10. GREEN SCREEN / CHROMA KEY
11. IDLE
12. LOCATOR
13. STAGGER
14. BACKGROUND
15. SILHOUETTE
16. REFERENCE
17. CHANNEL BOX
18. RETAKE
19. POSE TO POSE
20. POLISHING / REFINE

#iWantToBeAnAnimator #Animation #Terms #Beginner

-ANIMATION TERMS-

---

BALANCE never forget to check the distribution of the weight in your poses to don’t lose credibility in your animation

---

CONSTRAINT a subordinate connection between two objects or parts of the body, the target object drags and leads the constrained object in all the axes or just the ones we select

---

ACTING a piece of animation where the character performs a dialogue or expresses feelings through the body language

---

DYNAMIC SIMULATION simulation of a movement created by the software based on physic rules! Often used for hairs, cloths or other body parts and inanimate elements

---

ASYMMETRY to make your poses and expressions more appealing… use asymmetries to enhance and make them more convincingly

---

FOCAL LENGTH is the angle view of the camera, by changing the camera focus we can manage the size of the elements in the shot, that will result smaller or larger in the frame, and the perspective deformations!

---

BREAKDOWN an important pose between two key poses that helps to define the timing, the spacing, the path of action…how the character reaches the following pose

---

PASSING POSITION in a walk or run animation are the poses where one leg passes the other one moving forward

---

GIMBAL LOCK an issues that can occur in your animation when a rotation axis is placed over another causing a wrong rotation effect

---

GREEN SCREEN or CHROMA KEY is a technique used to isolate an image from the background using a color key

---

IDLE Mostly used in games, is a cycle where a character just stands and breathes!
We can use any type of pose we need (a neutral pose or an action pose)
and is conceived to be shown as an infinite loop!

---

LOCATOR we can create locators in the software to control other objects by parenting them to the locator that will be use as a remote control

---

STAGGER Is a motion added to give the idea of shaking, vibrating or trembling.
A character trembling for cold or fear or the little movements
up and down of shoulders , chest and head during a laugh!

---

BACKGROUND – the elements in the frame that appear furthest to the camera

---

SILHOUETTE a dark shadow that shows just the black flat image of the character and it’s used in animation to check the readability of a pose

---

REFERENCE is the use of live action video shooting that helps us to study the body mechanics and acting ideas, timing, poses and to find inspiration for our shot!

---

CHANNEL BOX in the 3D software is a panel that you can find in the right screen where you can manage and animate the rig’s attributes values

---

RETAKE is a correction request from the animation supervisor or the director on your animation shot

---

POSE TO POSE is another animation approach that differs from straight ahead by the the tangents in stepped mode, the low numbers of key poses and breakdowns
and the random time order

---

POLISHING / REFINE The final process for an animator is to polish AND REFINE the shot: cleaning the tangents, checking arcs, compenetrations, smoothness and fluidity of the movements…pushing the quality of the final result!

---

This is all for this 20 Animation Terms and I invite you to write me in the comments if you have some Terms to suggest so that I can increase my list! Subscribe to the channel if you like and support my project of free Animation Lessons and Tutorials by leaving a LIKE and SHARE my videos! see you for the next one!

20 Common Animation Terms #2

Second group of 20 COMMON ANIMATION TERMS! Another new series a quick introduction to the most used animation terms you’ll hear in production…so…if you’re new to this world… don’t get caught unprepared!😛

 

1. ATTITUDE
2. FRAME RATE (FPS)
3. BODY MECHANICS
4. MOMENTUM
5. PHONEMES
6. HOOK UP or CONTINUITY
7. ANIMATIC
8. AMBIENT OCCLUSION
9. BLEND SHAPES
10. PAN-PANNING (CAMERA)
11. DEMO REEL
12. FOREGROUND
13. KEY POSES
14. LINE OF ACTION
15. CAMERA SHAKE
16. GRAPH EDITOR
17. LIVE ACTION
18. MOVING HOLD
19. RHYTHM
20. SMEAR FRAMES

#iWantToBeAnAnimator #Animation #Terms #Beginner

 

-ANIMATION TERMS-

---

ATTITUDE the feelings and thoughts of your character! When you animate you should always have clear in mind the type of attitude he/she has to better perform the scene!

---

FRAME RATE (FPS) the number of Frames Per Second (FPS) we set to compose a second of animation. Common fps: Movies 24fps – Tv 25 fps – Games 30/60 fps

---

BODY MECHANICS the way we move when we walk, run, take the stairs and so on… How the body reacts and moves during this actions!

---

MOMENTUM is a physics principle based on the character’s motion depending on its mass and velocity. Is the impulse, the boost, the power of the movement!

---

PHONEMES all the mouth shapes that characterized a particular sound associated to each vowels and consonants

---

HOOK UP or CONTINUITY the consistency between the character poses, camera movements or other elements between a shot and an other

---

ANIMATIC a preliminary editing with all the shots in sequence order, usually created with the storyboard images and will be used as reference for the layouts

---

AMBIENT OCCLUSION is the algorithm in the 3D software that calculates how an objects is exposed to ambient light and helps to add realism to the scene

---

BLEND SHAPES pre-defined shapes and expressions you can find in your rig! Animating them you are able to switch between poses and expressions!

---

PAN-PANNING (CAMERA) rotate your camera from a point to another following the character, to show a landscape or for a storytelling purpose

 

---

DEMO REEL any animator has his own demo reel, a video collecting our best animations that we use as portfolio when we want to show our skills and experiences

---

FOREGROUND the elements in the frame that appears nearest to the camera

---

KEY POSES the main poses that compose your animation. During a blocking we use just the keyposes showed in stepped to make the performance perfectly readable even in a rough phase.

---

LINE OF ACTION an imaginary line that passes through the character and shows the energy flow direction of the action and the dynamism of the pose, it helps us to create appealing and convincing poses!

---

CAMERA SHAKE movements added to a camera to give a handy cam effects or to simulate a camera trembling during an impact and other cases

---

GRAPH EDITOR is the best friend or the worst enemy of an animator! 😀 Is the fundamental tool where you can manage your curves and control your animation!

---

LIVE ACTION the movies made by real actors and sets, Some live action movies can include CGI elements

---

MOVING HOLD Keep your characters alive! Use moving hold adding a slight bit of motion of your characters when they are keeping a pose

---

RHYTHM is the flow of your animation! An action or acting performance must have a nice rhythm. Timing, spacing, intensity of your actions/gestures determinate the rhythm of your shot

---

SMEAR FRAMES is an exaggerated use of the motion blur principle, the mesh is duplicated or extremely stretched to give a blurred effect that is usually shown for just 1 frame

---

This is all for this 20 Animation Terms and I invite you to write me in the comments if you have some Terms to suggest so that I can increase my list! Subscribe to the channel if you like and support my project of free Animation Lessons and Tutorials by leaving a LIKE and SHARE my videos! see you for the next one!

20 Common Animation Terms #1

First group of 20 COMMON ANIMATION TERMS! Another new series a quick introduction to the most used animation terms you’ll hear in production…so…if you’re new to this world… don’t get caught unprepared! 😛

1. ACCENTS
2. MODEL SHEET
3. INBETWEEN/TWEENING
4. GHOSTING
5. PLACEHOLDER
6. SETTLE
7. OVERSHOOT
8. ANIMATION LAYER
9. STRAIGHT AHEAD
10. BREAKING JOINTS
11. CYCLE/LOOP
12. FISH EYES (in posing)
13. SAFE ACTION/AREA
14. OVERLAPPING ACTION
15. MOTION BLUR
16. SNAPPY ANIMATION
17. MOTION CAPTURE – MOCAP
18. FK – IK (FORWARD AND INVERSE KINEMATICS)
19. FADE IN / FADE OUT
20. EXTREMES

#iWantToBeAnAnimator #Animation #Terms #Beginner

-ANIMATION TERMS-

This is part of a long series! Is a quick overview of the main ANIMATION TERMS you’ll get used to hear in production and is important to know what we are talking about! Let’s start this first group of 20 COMMON ANIMATION TERMS!

---

ACCENTS during an acting we have some accents on some moments that we have to emphasize with the expressions and body movements! This are the strongest part of the animation!

 

---

MODEL SHEET Is a final collection of guidelines for a character design.
They show the structure, appearance, proportions, poses and attitude of the character and works as guide for all the artists!

---

INBETWEEN/TWEENING in 3D is the generation of the interpolation created by the software between two poses. The software creates this morphing between poses that the animator can modify adjust if needed!

---

GHOSTING you can use some tools to create a visualization of your animation through the scene, showing all the poses frame by frame

 

---

PLACEHOLDER In animation we use to add placeholders in the scene for the assets that are not finished or still need to be totally designed and they will be substitute in a second time!

---

SETTLE Add a settle to avoid an abrupt stop! When you finish an action you can use the following frames to add a settle in order to smooth the transition to a resting pose!

 

---

OVERSHOOT A settle is usually anticipated by an overshoot, an animation that exceed the end value. In maya we can also achieve this effects with the spline tangent that automatically overshoots the neighboring keyframe value!

---

ANIMATION LAYER You can create multiple layers for your animation:
the primary movement is in the base animation layer and you can create a new layers for secondary movements!

---

STRAIGHT AHEAD One of the possible workflow when we approach animation, is when you create the key poses of your animation forward in the timeline, one after the other following the sequence order!

---

BREAKING JOINTS break and bend joints to add flexibility, to make the movement more appealing and creates nice arcs… going out from the limits of the realism!

---

CYCLE/LOOP An animation that repeats as an infinite loop, often used in walks and runs animations! To properly work the first and last key poses must be exactly the same!

---

FISH EYES (in posing) when we position the eyes too far apart, creating this fish like look that it’s not really expressive, except if this is required for a specifyc character or situation

---

SAFE ACTION/AREA Is a guideline you can turn on in your view settings to keep all the actions clearly visible within this area when they will be displayed on TV screen

---

OVERLAPPING ACTION Some parts lead the movement and others follow the action, the leading part moves with a specific timing and other moves in a different one!

---

MOTION BLUR Is the effect of blurring objects during a movement, more is the change between positions, more is the blurred effects! In Maya you can automatically add this effect and enable it from the Render Settings!

---

SNAPPY ANIMATION is an animation style characterized by strong contrast between slow/fast movements, the character “snaps” from a very appealing pose to another in a fast transition!

---

MOTION CAPTURE – MOCAP Is the registration of the movements created by a real actor and transferred to the digital character through markers placed on the actor’s suit!

---

FK – IK (FORWARD AND INVERSE KINEMATICS) FK is a chain of joints where a parent moves the other ones following the hierarchy. With IK the child in the hierarchy is not influenced by the parents!

---

FADE IN / FADE OUT A transition at the beginning of a scene from a black image that gradually brighten or gradually darkens at the end

 

---

EXTREMES The more important keys/poses during an animation,
Examples: the starting and the ending keys/poses of a WALK, or the extreme positions of a movement!

---

This is all for this first 20 Animation Terms and I invite you to write me in the comments if you have some Terms to suggest so that I can increase my list! Subscribe to the channel if you like and support my project of free Animation Lessons and Tutorials by leaving a LIKE and SHARE my videos! see you for the next one!