Functionalities of Motion/Animation

Maria and I met last Tuesday and discussed some of my progress and ideas that I gained from some sources that I am reviewing. I will hopefully be updating my blog and expressing some of my thoughts upon the review of the sources that I gathered and mentioned before.

Maria encouraged me to think about my curiosity as a designer and student. She reminded me that one of my biggest strengths has been recognizing new information and possible connections between subjects through acts of making and curious investigation. We agreed that it would be beneficial to review and reflect upon my personal process of becoming curious about something and engaging in creative making/investigation. I plan to think about my process and document my thoughts soon. Part of this process is the set of skills that I rely on, like analyzing visual artwork, and some of my technical skills in the practice of 3D media and animation. She also gave me a book titled: “Learning with Animation,” which talks about how we can take a more research-guided approach to designing animation rather than follow our assumptions and intuition. The preface really resonated with me and I’m looking forward to seeing what the book can offer my perspective. This is something we talked about also: the use of animation as an active research and learning tool versus passive. A passive use of animation is practically glorified visual communication. It can be seen in simple educational videos, something I have actually produced before. But animation can be more than just passive communication, and that is what I hope to learn more about through this new book and my research this summer.

Thoughts on Caesar Reflection

Maria encouraged me to think about what made the Caesar head animation so different. Remembering back to the first year proposal, I showed a short clip of the still Caesar head model and then he moved his head around and expressed pain. The room had a slight buzz when seeing this and I keep thinking “Okay something is working, something is happening with this, what is it?” I figured I would write my thoughts on this from my perspective and think about some different areas it could bring me to.

I think one the biggest “Awe” moments when seeing the Caesar head move is the fact that it is “coming alive.” Sometime just the simple fact that something is moving in a similar manner that represents how we would perceive it in real life (how a human head moves around) excites us and creates a stronger connection. These thoughts are very hypothetical, but something that I have gathered from my own observations. Take animated characters for example. There is a reason why so many of them are anthropomorphized. Seeing inanimate objects, like a clock, move around as if they had a human soul and mind, creates this sort of magic and connection that an audience can relate to. It is a pretty old approach and nothing new to animation, but it is still fascinating. Even animal characters, living creatures that already have their own motion and existence in life, are anthropomorphized. Granted, they maintain a lot of the quality of how they move as animals, but facial expressions, body gestures and other movements are created to have qualities similar to humans. Again, being able to pick up on those gestures and motions that we are so familiar with creates a deep connection and understanding. There is a goal of bringing the content, the message, the story, whatever is communicated, closer and more meaningful to the viewer. One of those ways is to infuse the content with human qualities, and motion is one of them.

So if the Caesar head is already a human, why is it still special to see it move? Wouldn’t we expect a human head to move as such? I think this aspect comes down to the form and material. Even though the model is virtual and does not exist in physical form, the render can still suggest what it is made of, and the form can tell us what the object is. The form of the model may seem like a human head, but the pedestal and cutoff crop of the neck tells us it is a sculpture. There is some strange Renee Magritte ideas bouncing around here, especially with his “Treachery of Images” painting. Indeed the object depicted is a pipe, but the physical object is a canvas painting. Similarly, my depicted object is the head of Julius Caesar, but the “physical” object is a marble statue, which is, as we all know, inanimate. It is my hypothesis that the depiction, physical form, and material (we know marble is rock solid) contrast with the natural and humanistic movements that come as a pleasant surprise. The result becomes an unexpected visual experience of an object that disrupts or contradicts with its qualities that we initially perceive.

I would imagine that if I created a Caesar head that appeared simply cropped in the frame at the neck, so as to imply a connected body, and then construct a material that simulated skin, the animation may not have as much impact. The physical object is that which is depicted on screen, and moves as expected. This is the power of 3D animation: the ability to breath life into believable form and material; form and material that we perceive as having no life. Being able to make rock solid objects move with the flexibility and grace of a living being is very special and explains in part why the room buzzed when seeing the animation.

There is also some thoughts I am having about our primal nature to pay attention to motion as a survival instinct. This is a topic I am looking into later.

So where does this lead me into paintings? The people depicted there are already rendered as humans. Can I get that magic and special buzz when animation is added in this scenario? It is hard to tell due to the translation of painted scenes into 3D. This is a wow factor in itself. This topic is one that I will look into more and draw connections between the Caesar and paintings.

New Sources Found on Motion

I found some new sources on renaissance, mannerism, and animation. I checked out 4 books from the fine arts library which were:

Renaissance and Mannerism

How to Read Italian Renaissance Paintings

Understanding Animation

Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism

I think these sources will help me identify some of the areas I am connecting with animation/motion and painting. I have just started to dig into the books and marking areas that are of particular interest. I will be updating the category with blogs about important information that I find and any connections I can make with my work.

I am in the process of selecting a painting for a final project, which I planned to pitch to Maria tomorrow. I am not sure if now is the best time yet to choose a project because I am still gathering important information that might influence the result. I have some pieces in mind that have high potential and will continue to build my collection.

 

I visited the Columbus Museum of Art last Sunday and was really amazed by the wonderful historical paintings they possess. I will be doing a blog soon about some of my impressions and the gallery environment.

 

Poses and Motion

After looking through some of the book “Illusion of Life,” that Maria lent to me, I started to think about the communication of action through single frame poses. This dates back to mark making and drawn/painted images which supports this connection I am making with animation and historical painting. Many of the examples in the book are obviously still drawings or a sequence of drawings that communicate a moving action. I still had a clear sense of the action that was taking place and the motion of the form just through the sequence of poses.

Here is an example from the title page. We can get a sense of the action and motion that pinocchio is expression just through these series of drawings (juxoposition helps ie: they read left to right and we can compare size, proximity, ect). So if we can read the action and motion at some level here, why do we need to fully animate these actions?

I think the answer lies in time. Another book called “Timing for Animation,” focuses on the concept of the moving image through time. For example, we can read the above motion of skipping with the posed sequence of drawings.. but what we DONT get is a sense of time. Time is essentially non-existent in this series of poses and open to interpretation from any viewer. Pinocchio could be skipping very fast or very quickly, or perhaps has a specific pattern and tempo to his paces. I want to do some more digging into this official explanation of how time works and perception, but for now I want to explain how I am interpreting timing and poses just from my own thoughts. The following is the process of how I would break down and interpret an image and the suggested illusions of motion accompanying.

 

Motion From Pose

The motion depicted in still images and even time based media is just an illusion, we all know that. Our mind craves completion and is very good at filling in gaps. Naturally, when we are presented with even just two images, we want to form a relationship between them and from this relationship, we can interpret movement.

This is evident in the pinocchio sequence:

It’s discernible that the character is in the middle of a springy stride in the left pose. This is because his trailing foot is off the ground a bit, his leading foot is very bent in pointed in a direction parallel to this trailing foot, suggesting that his leading foot is the source of momentum aka, his line of action communicates his movement and momentum carrying him up and forward.

On the next pose we can interpret that he is landing. However, we need the previous left post to create this conclusion. Here’s what is looks like if we have just the right frame:

Does’t it sort of look like he is throwing a punch? Comical but surprising how this pose is read completely differently just by isolating it. Without the previous pose to reference, it is very difficult to read any motion or action correctly. The power of the “gap fill” by the mind is very evident here.

 

Now with the comparison again:

 

The line of action (green) changes from swooping up to curving down into the foot that is touching the ground and holding his weight now. Another thing that I compare in poses is the direction of displacement. This is marked in red, and you can see how his trailing foot moves up a bit, and his arms swing. It is interesting to see how the green line of action shows his current state of balance and pose, while the red lines of displacement reference the momentum and actions that come before and possibly after this pose, which in this case is carying through in a potential sideways direction and upward direction.

Quality from Time

This pair of drawings can give us a decent understanding of the verb, the action that the character is performing. However, there is not enough information to tell us the adjective, how the action is being carried out. Is Pinocchio skipping quickly? Slowly and defying normal gravity? Is his hang time in the air significantly more than ground time? As poses describe the type of action and motion, its really the timing that describes the quality of the motion. Granted, we can get some sense of different physical attributes that may effect the quality of motion like, for example, his head. In the second pose, even though Pinocchio has reached the ground and his body is more crunched and bound with potential energy ready to pounce back up, his head is trailing behind. It is trailing even in both poses. An experienced viewer would most likely interpret this as a heavy part of the body, and expressed through the overlapping and follow through principle. If Pinocchio’s head is very heavy it would be trailing, trying to keep up with the motion of the rest of the body because it is involved with more momentum. I would anticipate the head really snapping down and forward in a following pose as the rest of the body is projected forward and up. The head is delayed because its weight is just now reacting from the body’s downward motion.

So even though we know what action Pinocchio is expressing, we aren’t entirely sure of how he is expressing it. Time is the deciding factor in that aspect. If we had enough drawings side by side, we could probably get a decent idea of time. Even though, as mentioned before, some may read over the drawings at a different rate and time is ultimately decided by the viewer, our mind can still interpret time through space. If there is a ball bouncing, we can interpret the spacial relationship as a depiction of speed and time.

This velocity/displacement relationship is basically just the foundation for time based media. Displayed as single frames, more displacement between frames equals greater velocity. Knowing this, I think our minds notice this pattern and repetition and naturally want to read each interval as an equal unit of time. So after all this rambling and animation jargon what does this mean?

I am starting to form some relationships with still-frame poses and renaissance paintings. Both make use of poses and gestures to communicate some type of action, but it is essentially time that communicates the quality. As I explained above, to provide any sense of time there needs to be more poses giving context and comparison to one another. Motion really seems like an observation and comparison of the displacement of the visual. If there is no displacement or even comparison, there is no motion. Perhaps the use of motion and timing isn’t so much used to explain “the statue is moving slowly” or “fiercely.” I think its more of making that initial action more clear. Before motion and time can be introduced, I need to take the next step from poses to sequences. Right now, a painting is in the stage of the still frame Pinocchio that could be mistakenly interpreted as punching… The next step isn’t really a full fledged animation, its an image sequence to provide comparative views of action poses.

Next, I’m going to be performing a brief analysis on a painting that implies motion to apply this loose concept acquired from the interpreted text.

Independent Study Summer 2016

I am starting an individual study with Maria this summer where I am taking the topic of motion and looking more into that and its relationship with paintings. I had a meeting with Maria and we talked about some areas to look into and the worked I planned to do. I started a new category called “Motion Research SM16.” This will be where I blog about my progress and work during this course. I am doing more secondary research on motion and also the medium of animation. Maria encouraged me to look into the qualities of animation and artificial motion as a way to uncover some related threads that could lead into and/or connect the painting topics.

I am also looking at more case studies to reevaluate current and new ones to gain to apply some of these concepts I find. Along with the secondary, I am making conceptual designs and also 1 creative project during the course.

I chose motion because I want to have more knowledge about it. When I worked with motion in the design studio course, I used the Caesar head sculpture, and I want to be working with paintings. I am focusing on motion with 2D paintings, but also how the motion can have both a relationship with the flat image, and the virtual 3D space when it is extrapolate. I mentioned before this struggle of making motion on just 2D, but I feel there are other case studies that have done this where I can learn from or apply information rather than creating my own. I am most interested in both the application of 3D environments AND motion when it comes to paintings.