Adding Cartoon-Like Motion to Realistic Animations

The Visual Computer, 1996

Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

Figure : With our animation interface, users can edit the shape and opacity of automatically generated silhouette curves in a temporally consistent manner. In this case, a user changed the shape of the character's hand lines through editing and redrawing the curves to emphasize the movement. Towards the beginning and end frames, the user also added laugh lines under the character's eye and around the mouth.

Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 1999

Animation is the production of consecutive images, which, when displayed, convey a feeling of motion. Animated images are almost magical in their ability to capture our imagination. By telling a compelling story, astounding with special e ects, or mesmerizing with abstract motion, animation can infuse a sequence of inert images with the illusion of motion and life. Creating this illusion, either by hand or with the assistance of computer software, is not easy. Each individual image, or frame, in the animated sequence must blend seamlessly with the other images to create smooth and continuous motion that ows through time. Traditionally, animation was created by drawing images of the characters for each frame in the action. At the start of the production, the animator is given storyboards, which are sketches depicting the sequence of major actions and illustrating the expressions of the characters. The animator also works from a nished soundtrack, which determines the timing of the piece. In older animations, the background scenery was often stationary and the characters were painted on cels, pieces of clear celluloid that could be stacked on top of the background. Most hand animation is created with keyframing where a lead animator creates the key, or most important frames, and a second animator creates the in between frames. Regardless of the medium, the challenge for the animator is to create images that impart expressiveness and life to the character. The most basic computer animation tools assist the process of traditional animation by automatically generating some of the frames of animation. Animation tools have also been developed to composite together multiple layers of a scene in much the same way that layers of cels are used in hand animation. Other more powerful techniques make use of algorithms that render an image from a geometric description of the scene. These techniques change the task from drawing sequences of images to using computer tools to e ectively specify how images should change over time. In addition to providing tools that give the animator new capabilities, the computer also creates new applications for animation. Computer animations can be generated in real-time for use in video games and other An earlier version of this article was published in the Encyclopedia of Computer Science, Thomson Press.

2020

In this paper we discuss a novel multidisciplinary method for computer animation, using motion capture ('mocap') as reference, combining techniques from 2D and 3D animation, and digital sculpting. Our method develops a process to create animation based on mocap data, without being restricted by standard practices that depend on existing rigged 3D models, allowing for visual expression and improvisation while taking advantage of naturalistic motion and interaction within a 3D environment. The standard mocap methodology for creating animation consists of retargeting (transferring) the recorded data from actors and performers to existing digital characters, providing them with movement. The motion is then polished and tweaked by animators, until the final result is achieved. The character's animation is the result of the captured performance and the original character design, but they are not created at the same time, as they are put together later on. Something similar happens with 3D computer animation: in order for animators to articulate characters into poses that are interpolated by the computer, a model of a character has to be built first. Here, the animators fully control the performance, but the design of the character pre-dates this process, and can only be modified within certain constraints. Mocap is bound by physics and naturalistic movements, animation can be exaggerated, weight and force have to be conveyed, rather than imposed. Both differ aesthetically but none of the approaches takes full advantage of 2D animation methods, where drawings dictate shape, form and motion at the same time. The characters here can be designed for the movement they perform in particular shots. This opens possibilities for a more experimental approach, where abstraction can exist. Our method combines the different disciplines and allows form to be created for each key pose, using digital sculpting tools for development and mocap as reference. Then, poses can be interpolated so the method is still interactive, allowing for experimentation. Using drawing as the starting point from the mocap data allows for greater understanding of the poses by studying the human figure in motion. This creates new opportunities for designing the animation, regarding shapes, forms and movement.

2013 IEEE 2nd International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health (SeGAH), 2013

: Palco makes use of Microsoft Kinect or Asus/Primesense WAVI Xtion sensor for simultaneous capture of both body and facial expression, introduces a cartoonification transform applied to the actor captured movements to reproduce exaggerated animations in cartoon characters and combines these factors into a real-time production software.

2014

Three-dimensional animation is an area in vast expansion due to, continuous research in the field has enabled an increasing number of users access to powerful tools with intuitive interfaces. We present our work-in-progress methodology by which artists can manipulate existing animation segments using intuitive characteristics instead of manually changing keyframes' values and interpolations. To achieve this goal, motion capture is used to create a database in which actors perform the same movement with different characteristics; keyframes from those movements are analyzed and used to create a transformation of animation curves that describe differences of values and times in keyframes of neutral and a movement with a specific characteristic. This transformation can be used to change a large set of keyframes, embedding a desired characteristic into the segment. To test our methodology, we used as a proof of concept a character performing a walk, represented by 59 joints with 172 ...

Computer Animation, 1999. Proceedings, 1999

The Visual Computer, 2013

Quick creation of 3D character animations is an important task in game design, simulations, forensic animation, education, training, and more. We present a framework for creating 3D animated characters using a simple sketching interface coupled with a large, unannotated motion database that is used to find the appropriate motion sequences corresponding to the input sketches. Contrary to the previous work that deals with static sketches, our input sketches can be enhanced by motion and rotation curves that improve matching in the context of the existing animation sequences. Our framework uses animated sequences as the basic building blocks of the final animated scenes, and allows for various operations with them such as trimming, resampling, or connecting by use of blending and interpolation. A database of significant and unique poses, together with a two-pass search running on the GPU, allows for interactive matching even for large amounts of poses in a template database. The system provides intuitive interfaces, an immediate feedback, and poses very small requirements on the user. A user study showed that the system can be used by novice users with no animation experience or artistic talent, as well as by users with an animation background. Both groups were able to create animated scenes consisting of complex and varied actions in less than 20 minutes.

2016

Animation as a technology is generic and as a discipline it has been growing leaps and bounds. Application of animation tools extends even to industry, education, trade and entertainment. In depth understanding of the concept needs a chronological development studies including the history and technological innovations. An attempt to trace the metamorphosis of animation from the stone-age till date so as to get a comprehensive knowledge and thereby analyze the difference between traditional and modern animation techniques is part of the research work, which is underway. Essentially this is an effort to pose a research question as to weigh the relative importance of traditional vis a vis computer-aided animation techniques. The process of finding an answer is central to this paper besides looking at the contours of animation and its application to various fields

The Rise of the Creative Economy. The 23th Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference, 2013

The current paper develops a researching line connecting arts, new technologies and animation, as part of a wider project that delves into disrupting languages and Theory of Animation, focusing on artistic and experimental animation. This paper is indebted to the invaluable contribution of numerous animation artists, who shared with us via an open survey their experiences and opinions concerning the newly available technologies, and how they have influenced — or not — the evolution of their animation style: new resources and possibilities of digital production, advantages have they discovered, and which disadvantages they endure, ultimately providing innovative ideas to achieve better results.