Traditional Animation Techniques Research Articles

Design and Development of Improvised Pivotal Animation Board

This research project aimed to create and refine an innovative tool for animators called the Improvised Pivotal Animation Board (IPAB). The IPAB differs from existing Light-emitting Diode (LED) tracing boards in terms of its unique functionality. The researchers employed the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation (ADDIE) model, adapting it to suit the specific requirements of the study. During the analysis phase, the researchers examined the features of commonly used lightboxes in the animation industry and academic settings. They focused on traditional animation techniques to identify key aspects to incorporate into the IPAB. Additionally, the researchers considered the overall cost of developing the IPAB, ensuring an economically feasible design. Moreover, the design of the IPAB was aligned with the Harmonized Gender & Development Guidelines, guaranteeing inclusivity. The development phase followed a Gantt chart, serving as a roadmap for the researchers. They used this framework to guide the creation and testing of the IPAB. The results of the study indicated that the IPAB was successfully developed and exhibited optimal functionality. The device's stability was verified, and it demonstrated the ability to pivot in both left and right directions. Furthermore, the IPAB was designed to be rechargeable, enhancing its convenience and usability.

Interactive Physically Based Simulation of Roadheader Robot

Roadheader is an engineering robot widely used in underground engineering and mining industry. Interactive dynamics simulation of roadheader is a fundamental problem in unmanned excavation and virtual reality training. However, current research is only based on traditional animation techniques or commercial game engines. There are few studies that apply real-time physical simulation of computer graphics to the field of roadheader robot. This paper aims to present an interactive physically-based simulation system of roadheader robot. To this end, an improved multibody simulation method based on generalized coordinates is proposed. First, our simulation method describes robot dynamics based on generalized coordinates. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, our method is more stable and accurate. Numerical simulation results showed that our method has significantly less error than the game engine in the same number of iterations. Second, we adopt the symplectic Euler integrator instead of the conventional fourth-order Runge-Kutta (RK4) method for dynamics iteration. Compared with other integrators, our method is more stable in energy drift during long-term simulation. The test results showed that our system achieved real-time interaction performance of 60 frames per second (fps). Furthermore, we propose a model format for geometric and robotics modeling of roadheaders to implement the system. Our interactive simulation system of roadheader meets the requirements of interactivity, accuracy and stability.

Analysis of short animated documentary films programmed in key UK festivals: 2016–20

This study of 144 short UK animated documentaries, exhibited between 2016 and 2020, identifies frequently occurring characteristics in the films’ content and production contexts. Analysis of the films shows that the majority of these films are made by directors from an animation background, rather than from a documentary background, and also shows a high occurrence of films made by female and disabled filmmakers. It also shows that self-funding is frequently adopted in the production of these films, and that the films in the study favour 2D digital and traditional animation techniques over 3D animation. Funding and finance contexts are shown to be broad, and to correlate with trends in theme, for example social issues, health and mental health were more common in films supported by trusts, charities and foundations than those made in other finance contexts. In general, the findings support many of the suggestions and observations that have been made about animated documentary by scholars such as Annabelle Honess Roe, Paul Wells and others. However, they also raise questions, for example the high rate of self-funding, often alongside other sources of funding, suggests potential barriers to entry for those from diverse social-economic backgrounds. This study suggests areas for future research that can be taken up in the field of animated documentary, and contributes to an increased focus on quantitative research alongside qualitative analysis in the study of animated documentary, of short-form film and of films made outside of commercial contexts.

JOINT AND SEGMENTATION DESIGN ON PAPER PUPPETS FOR CAT CHARACTERS IN CUT OUT STOP MOTION ANIMATION


 
 
 Stop motion, particularly paper cut out animation, is one of the oldest yet surviving animation techniques to date. Similar to other traditional animation techniques, it offers appealing looks unique to its nature. With the development of new technologies, stop motion continues to evolve. Paper puppet act as actor, therefore it’s the most essential element in production of paper cut out animation. Careful designs have to be made to ensure movements can be performed well by animators. The biggest question when designing puppets are how do we divide the parts (segmentation) and what kind of mechanism should we use to connect these parts (joint)? Several factors are to be considered when deciding the right approach for the answer. This qualitative research will use both observation and experiment method. Observation is conducted by studying existing paper puppets from other paper cut out animation shorts, tutorials, commercials, and behind the scenes videos from the filmmaker. Following the observation is an experiment where the author will use the data to explore paper puppets making, comparing benefits and weaknesses, and adjust the final method to comply the needs of the short animation project titled “Spay & Neuter” where the final design of the cat puppets will be applied. 
 
 

광고영상의 형식으로서 전통적 애니메이션기법의 유용성에 관한 연구 : 스태시 미디어(Stash Media)의 사례를 중심으로

광고영상은 매우 짧은 시간에 소비자의 마음을 사로잡아야 한다. 강한 시각적 소구로 강렬한 인상을 전달하기 위해서는 주목성과 차별화가 무엇보다도 중요하다. 따라서 광고영상 제작에서 다양하고 새로운 시각이미지의 창조가 절실히 요구된다. 하지만 안타깝게도 우리나라의 광고영상은 해외의 사례와 비교했을 때 실사 이미지와 유명 배우 의존도가 지나치게 높은 경향이 있다. 이렇게 광고영상의 형식이 획일화되어 있는 점은 아쉬운 점으로서 개선을 위한 사고의 전환과 창조적인 실험이 필요한 상황이라고 할 수 있다. 본 연구는 종이, 픽실레이션, 오브제 등의 전통적 애니메이션 기법이 갖고 있는 신선함과 예술적 가치에 주목하여 광고영상의 차별화된 제작 기법으로서 활용 가능성에 대해 살펴보고자, 해외에서 제작되고 있는 광고 영상들의 제작 기법에 대한 사례들을 분석하였다. 다수의 작품과 광고의 다양한 장르에서 전통 애니메이션 기법으로 제작된 사례들을 찾아 볼 수 있었으며, 전통적 애니메이션 기법을 상업적인 관점과 현대적으로 해석한다면 광고영상의 시각적 차별화를 유도할 수 있는 매우 유용한 표현의 형식이 될 수 있다는 점을 확인하였다.

Full Skeleton-based Virtual Human Animation: An Improved Design for SL Avatars

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a novel skeleton design for avatar animation. This design includes new bones, whose purpose is to meet the requirements of sign language (SL) synthesis. SL synthesis presents particular challenges regarding the processing of phonetic descriptions of signs to create animations. Although traditional animation techniques have solved the synthesis of signs, the proposed skeleton design allows for the simplification of the phonetic processing, the inverse kinematics calculations, and the collision avoidance processes. The proposed design has been tested to demonstrate that the generated animations have the same quality as the ones produced with state-of-the-art techniques. Importantly, the proposed structure reduces the time required for generating an animation by 52% compared to existing solutions and requires less storage resources.

USAGE OF 12 ANIMATION PRINCIPLES IN THE WAYANG KULIT PERFORMANCES

Wayang Kulit has been known as one of the oldestanimation; however, there is no definitive methodology thatsupports the development process of these animation performancesthat we know nowadays. This paper aims to give an overview ofusing the famous 12 principles of animation in the Wayang Kulitperformance. A qualitative study of the Wayang KulitPerformances is described, aiming at finding the similaritiesbetween the traditional animation techniques and those techniquesused in this shadow puppet shows.

Physically Based Animation of Fluid Movement in a Periodic Domain

A physically based approach for simulating fluid movement is proposed. Realistic animation and real time simulation are two objectives. Traditional animation technique can obtain virtual movement, but it has difficulty for realistic movement. Compared with the traditional animation technique, physically based animation can represent realistic movement better. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are used in our model, and the operator splitting method including semi-Lagrangian scheme and fast Fourier transform is employed to split the model into external force term, advection term, diffusion term and projection term. Every step is stable , so the whole process is also stable. Thus, the big time step can be taken to ensure real time simulation. Compared with the traditional technique, this method can be taken for realistic animation and real time simulation of fluid movement in computer graphics applications.

A kinect-based interface to animate virtual characters

Most virtual characters’ animations are based on armatures to manipulate the characters’ body parts (rigging). Armatures behave as the characters’ skeletons, and their segments are referred to as bones. Each bone of the skeleton is associated with a well defined set of vertices defining the character’ mesh (skinning), thus allowing animators to control movements and deformations of the character itself. This paper presents a natural and intuitive interface, which uses the Microsoft Kinect, to interactively control an armature by tracking body poses. Animators can animate virtual characters in real-time by their own body poses, thus obtaining realistic and smooth animations. Moreover, the proposed interface allows animators to save time with respect to the traditional animation technique based on keyframing. Different examples are used to compare the Kinect-based interface with the keyframing approach, thus obtaining both an objective and a subjective assessment.

키 프레임과 모션캡처 애니메이션의 캐릭터 움직임 비교

애니메이션에서 캐릭터 움직임은 과장되고 코믹하게 표현되어 진다. 전통적인 키 프레임 애니메이션 기법은 과장성과 코믹성이 애니메이터의 의향대로 조절 가능하지만, 근래에 도입된 모션캡처 기법은 대상의 자연스러운 모습을 담아내어 편리하다는 장점이 있지만 과장성과 코믹성의 표현에는 제약점이 있다고 알려져 있다. 본 논문은 키 프레임과 모션캡처를 사용한 애니메이션 작품 중 두 작품을 선정하여 캐릭터의 움직임과 동작을 분석하여 과장성과 코믹성이 어떻게 표현되고 있는지 살펴보고자 한다. 기본적인 동작요소인 달리기, 점프, 제스처, 걷기와 그 외의 움직임으로 분류하여 두 가지 작품에서 캐릭터의 동작을 비교하여 보고 그 표현 방식을 분석한다. 각각의 작품에서 보이는 움직임의 유사성과 차이성을 살펴보면서 키 프레임과 모션캡처 애니메이션 제작 기법의 장단점을 내재된 과장성과 코믹성 측면에서 논의한다. 그리고 이 두 가지의 애니메이션 제작 기법을 이용한 캐릭터들의 움직임의 차이점을 분석한 결과, 각각 움직임에 공통적인 차이점이 존재한다는 것을 알 수 있다. In animation films, the movements of characters are exaggerated and comical. Traditional key-frame animation techniques allow to control exaggeration and comicality of characters at animators' wills. But, recently introduced motion capture techniques have limits on representing comicality and exaggeration although it is convenient to capture subjects' natural looks. This paper chooses two animations from key-frame and motion capture techniques and looks into comicality and exaggeration of characters by analyzing movements and motion of them Movements are classified as four fundamental motion elements - running, jump, gesture and walking - and are analyzed to compare the way of representation from two films. By studying similarity and differentiation of movements of two films, this paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of key-frame and motion capture techniques in terms of exaggeration and comicality. Comparison of the character movements from two techniques shows that there are common differentiations of those movements.

Video motion analysis for the synthesis of dynamic cues and Futurist art

This paper presents new methods for stylising video to produce cartoon motion emphasis cues and modern art. Specifically, we introduce “dynamic cues” as a class of motion emphasis cue, encompassing traditional animation techniques such as anticipation and motion exaggeration. We describe methods for automatically synthesising such cues within video premised upon the recovery of articulated figures, and the subsequent manipulation of the recovered pose trajectories. Additionally, we show how our motion emphasis framework may be applied to emulate artwork in the Futurist style, popularised by Duchamp.

Interactive Construction and Animation of Layered Elastically Deformable Characters

An interactive system is described for creating and animating deformable 3D characters. By using a hybrid layered model of kinematic and physics‐based components together with an immersive 3D direct manipulation interface, it is possible to quickly construct characters that deform naturally when animated and whose behavior can be controlled interactively using intuitive parameters. In this layered construction technique, called the elastic surface layer model, a simulated elastically deformable skin surface is wrapped around a kinematic articulated figure. Unlike previous layered models, the skin is free to slide along the underlying surface layers constrained by geometric constraints which push the surface out and spring forces which pull the surface in to the underlying layers. By tuning the parameters of the physics‐based model, a variety of surface shapes and behaviors can be obtained such as more realistic‐looking skin deformation at the joints, skin sliding over muscles, and dynamic effects such as squash‐and‐stretch and follow‐through. Since the elastic model derives all of its input forces from the underlying articulated figure, the animator may specify all of the physical properties of the character once, during the initial character design process, after which a complete animation sequence can be created using a traditional skeleton animation technique. Character construction and animation are done using a 3D user interface based on two‐handed manipulation registered with head‐tracked stereo viewing. In our configuration, a six degree‐of‐freedom head‐tracker and CrystalEyes shutter glasses are used to display stereo images on a workstation monitor that dynamically follow the user head motion. 3D virtual objects can be made to appear at a fixed location in physical space which the user may view from different angles by moving his head. To construct 3D animated characters, the user interacts with the simulated environment using both hands simultaneously: the left hand, controlling a Spaceball, is used for 3D navigation and object movement, while the right hand, holding a 3D mouse, is used to manipulate through a virtual tool metaphor the objects appearing in front of the screen. Hand‐eye coordination is made possible by registering virtual space to physical space, allowing a variety of complex 3D tasks necessary for constructing 3D animated characters to be performed more easily and more rapidly than is possible using traditional interactive techniques.

Using Advanced Driving Simulator as Design Tool in Road Tunnel Design

To obtain more information for tunnel design problems, a virtual model of some proposed tunnel designs was developed to demonstrate the design in advance and to be used as a platform for future tunnel research projects. By combining this model with an advanced driving simulator, the designers can virtually drive through their drawings before construction work is started. In comparison with traditional animation techniques, an interactive virtual model combined with a driving simulator has proved to be useful in many aspects. It is an excellent tool for testing proposed positions of road signs in the tunnel. It is easier to compare alternative sign positions with the three-dimensional virtual tunnel model than with ordinary drawings. Some visual traps not foreseen in the original sign-position design were corrected after detection in the simulator. Traffic engineers reported that they became involved in the tunnel design process at an earlier stage than before, enabling them to work in the final tunnel environment long before the actual tunnel was built. The ability to work early in the design process makes it possible for traffic engineers, architects, and safety engineers to evaluate their designs while other solutions still can be considered.

Animations to Represent Multivariate Data

AbstractBuilding animations is a current practice to study problems in the computational and experimental sciences. There are several classes of applications which generate descriptions of complex phenomena, based on a large variety of variables. In this paper, we discuss the application of traditional animation techniques, such as interpolation and kinematics animation, and of visualization techniques, like mapping, to the production of animation of multivariate data. Some examples of animation are illustrated from simulated bio‐physical models of a sea basin.

A Computer Model For Pinscreen Simulation: A New Animation Paradigm

Actual computer image and motion synthesis paradigms are presented in order to introduce a new computer animation paradigm that simulates the traditional pinscreen animation technique. Pinscreen is a very particular and difficult device that enables a “chiaroscuro” approach to image synthesis. The paper describes the traditional pinscreen technique, the way it is operated, results and related difficulties. An extended computer model, including colour and time extensions, to simulate the pinscreen is presented. Results achieved with vector and raster approaches are discussed. Advantages and possibilities of the method when compared with the traditional method and the problems that arise from this technique will also be explained. Finally current and future work is referenced.