Now expanding on your knowledge, recognize that the illusion of weight in animation starts with the key poses you give your character. For example, here are two illustrations of a character holding a weight. One pose suggests a heavy weight while the other does not.
Note that on the heavier pose the character’s legs are bent to support the weight better and his hands are under the box, giving him as much support in holding it as possible. He is also leaning backward to counter the additional weight at the front of his body.
The reason the second drawing looks like the character really is carrying a heavy weight is because his pose and posture support it, quite literally. In the above fi gure, look how the body is adjusted to imply the character is carrying a real weight, as opposed to the other drawing that does not give this impression. Recognize that on the weightier action, the knees are bent to better absorb the downward pressure of the weight and the body is positioned beneath the weight as much as possible to support it. In every way this pose is so much more convincing. Now consider another pose that also implies that a character is really dealing with weight.
This time the character’s whole body mass is beneath the weight, implying that it is heavy and needs maximum support to carry it. Again, the knees are bent to take the weight better.
The objective of any animator is to maximize the eff ect of what is required through dynamic poses, long before the animation is even created. The following poses therefore suggest a believable series of weighty poses that support the illusion that real weight is involved… or do not!
Here the whole of the character’s body is directly beneath the weight, suggesting that balance is important. If this balance was not drawn into the pose it would not look like the weight needs to be taken seriously.
Next, consider another pose, where a similar object is being carried but without the dynamic posture that suggests weight is involved.
Here the box is clearly not heavy because no part of the character’s body, except an ineff ective hand, is beneath to control it. Note too the legs are straight, suggesting that there is no downward pressure on the body at all.
Consequently, it is extremely important that you, as an accomplished animator, understand your responsibility here — to always maximize the eff ect that pose and posture communicate to your audience in any animation you present to them (whether this is dealing with the issue of weight or not). That said, there are a number of other things you can do that will create the illusion of weight.
Tips
Here are a few tips that will help you create weight in your animation: 1. When posing a character who is dealing with weight, remember that the
strongest parts of the human body are the legs, therefore, they need to bend to cushion the impact of any weight placed on them.
3. The heavier an object is, the slower it moves or can be moved. Therefore, if your character is carrying a great deal of weight, or is very heavily built, then be prepared to slow the action down with extra inbetweens to communicate this fact.
I repeat this image to emphasize the point that the legs must bend when a character is holding something of weight .
2. Where there is an absence of weight, however, or even the opposite of weight — for example, a character with a helium balloon strapped to his or her back — the poses can imply the opposite.
See how an immediate sense of weightlessness is created by having the character dangling listlessly from the balloon. The legs, arms, and feet point downward, suggesting they have no work to do.
This clearly shows a lumbering character who has no sense of speed or dynamism.
4. Lifting a weight from the ground will initially be diffi cult for a character to do. Therefore, employ some preparatory action to communicate that the character is fi nding it hard to achieve the task, then use slowing-out chart timing for the initial raising of the weight so that it slowly accelerates upward until the character can gain leg thrust to achieve the added momentum required for the lift.
5. If a character has a heavy build, or at least has a certain amount of weight around his or her stomach, butt, or breasts, remember to employ some overlapping action on these areas to indicate that there is indeed weight there responding to ups and downs and changing velocity of the overall body.
Notice the excess body mass sinks down when the body is up and it is up when the body is down, creating the moving overlap.
6. Because of gravity, weight always tends to drop downward. Consequently, characters carrying weight or characters who have weight in their physical makeup, will always suggest a downward sag to their pose, especially in the fl esh of their body.
7. In seeking to lift a heavy weight, a character has a much stronger base to work from if he or she spaces out his or her feet and applies the lift over a greater area for the pulling-up action.
I tried to straddle the feet as far apart on either side of the weight as possible and then keep the character’s back straight (as we all should do when lifting a heavy weight!). For the lift, I would animate the character rocking backward on his heels, drawing the weight closer to his body, before fi nally pushing up on the legs to aff ect the lift.
8. When characters walk while carrying a weight, or are very heavily built, their balance and movement will be signifi cantly modifi ed. Also, a character carrying a substantially heavy weight cannot possibly take as large of strides as a character not carrying anything.
9. Very heavy people will not be able to walk the same way as thin people because they have to overcompensate their side-to-side lean on each step to enable them to better move their free leg around the contact leg due to the excessively heavy nature of their thighs.
There are many ways you can achieve this kind of action but basically the body mass will need to shift onto the contact foot more than usual as the free leg arcs around, knee pointing outward.
10. In order for a character to move while carrying a very heavy weight, he or she will fi rst have to use a certain amount of a swing in the opposite direction to get some kind of momentum going. For example, as I illustrated in Animation from Pencils to Pixels , if a character is attempting to throw a fl our sack forward, he or she will fi nd it easier to swing the fl our sack back fi rst, then swing it forward to gain extra momentum for the release.
View fi rst the central, static pose. Then the character swings the sack away from the direction of the throw before fi nally tossing it in that direction.
Suggested Reading
White , T. The Animator’s Workbook . New York : Watson-Guptill , 1988 , pp. 76 – 79. White , T. Animation from Pencils to Pixels: Classical Techniques for Digital
Animators . Boston : Focal Press , 2006 , pp. 227 – 231.
Assignment 7
Taking all this into consideration, demonstrate how you can execute a character action that communicates a greater sense of weight. Let us have our character moving the location of two boxes.
Note
This is called anticipation , but we deal with that specifi cally in the next lesson.
Here the character is closer to the center of the picture. However, for your animation assignment, don’t forget to have as much free space to the right of the screen as possible to enable your character to move across the screen and place the boxes down.
From this illustration, create the keys to have the character pick up the fi rst (lighter) box and place it down on the other side of the screen.
This is the kind of arrangement you have to establish on your paper for the scene. The character does not need to walk far from the left to the right side of the screen, perhaps just a few short steps.
Once you have completed this, animate the character returning to pick up a much heavier box, carry it over to the fi rst, and carefully place it down on top of it, fi nally stepping back to appreciate the eff ort.
A few things to work toward:
● The use of good pose and leg drive to assist the lift.
● The use of grip under the box (rather than at the sides) to carry the extra weight of the second box.
● A modifi ed walk and pose to imply the character is carrying real weight.
● The use of pose and slow-ins/slow-outs to communicate the character
struggling with the weight, especially when carefully picking up and placing down the boxes.
Animate and shoot this scene on two’s. If it looks good, then continue to the next lesson. If not, go back and fi x what needs to be fi xed.
Class objective: To better prepare the audience for a major action and to give more impact with the action being attempted.
Equipment required: Lightbox, pencil, and paper.
M
ost students know that Newton’s third law is that for every actionthere is an equal and opposite reaction. We might use a little artistic liberty with this and say that animators ’ fi rst law is “ for every action there is a subtle and opposite anticipation. ” The ancient tradition of Tai Chi also refl ects this understanding by suggesting that before any major movement in one direction there is a slight and subtle movement in the opposite direction fi rst.
Simply put, anticipation demands that if you have to animate a character’s action in one particular direction, then you should fi rst have a little back movement in the opposite direction to make it more dynamic. We hinted at this in our previous lesson on weight, where the character fi rst swings the fl our sack backward before fi nally swinging and throwing it forward.