The objective for this week was to understand & explain the differences between straight ahead action / pose to pose action. The writer of this blog has found out that the concept of straight ahead action can be perceived as a constant movement through the entire animation in other words stop motion animation.Where as pose to pose animations would have key frames with no frames in between & this would weaken any animation as they would appear to be rather jumpy , unprofessional.
In order to understand the difference between the two conventions you will have to observe them from a visual perspective .When we look at the first animation we get a basic understanding of the story portrayed to us which is a lamp attempting to sneak up to a wall as it is curious to see what is on the other side. In order to achieve an accurate picture of the overall animation the animator is using the same principles used in Adobe Flash where onion skinning is present . This method allows the animator to see the last movement in order to create the next movement for the primary action/ secondary action of the animation for an example walk cycle.
In order to understand the difference between the two conventions you will have to observe them from a visual perspective .When we look at the first animation we get a basic understanding of the story portrayed to us which is a lamp attempting to sneak up to a wall as it is curious to see what is on the other side. In order to achieve an accurate picture of the overall animation the animator is using the same principles used in Adobe Flash where onion skinning is present . This method allows the animator to see the last movement in order to create the next movement for the primary action/ secondary action of the animation for an example walk cycle.
This exercise was a treat as it allowed the animator to use their creativity & imagination . The object resembled the lamp from Disney's PIXAR studio . The brief was to come up with a funny idea the object could do as it meets the wall which is the second most important element in this animation.
The hardest part of the animation was creating the sneaky walk as the animator had to mimc the movements of a person who is sneaking up to see what is going on behind those closed doors. The other difficult part was to figure out how to the next movement using the straight ahead action which is similar to stop motion animation. Stop motion animation is when you key one movement then use it as a reference point for the next key frame.
The hardest part of the animation was creating the sneaky walk as the animator had to mimc the movements of a person who is sneaking up to see what is going on behind those closed doors. The other difficult part was to figure out how to the next movement using the straight ahead action which is similar to stop motion animation. Stop motion animation is when you key one movement then use it as a reference point for the next key frame.
The next animation had the same concept but the only aspect that changed was the fact that they focus on key poses . This animator decided to plan out every single stage for the character this way if his animation appears to be odd then he can go through his key frames to see where he went wrong . The first animation used Pose to Pose techniques in the first animation walk cycles as they enabled the animator to plot the key parts of the story down then focus on the in betweens later.
The second animation was a very unique experiment as it was time consuming making little adjustment to the objects in every single frame during the animation process. After the animator finished this method of animating he found some advantages / dis advantages with the straight ahead actions. The main disadvantages has been mentioned already however the advantage is that if you were to make a very detailed animation for a client. Then you would be able to exaggerate certain elements with creative licenses.
When we look at Professional examples of straight ahead action / pose to pose action then the first animation that would automatically come to our minds would be the dreams works animation introduction scene.
There many classic examples which display this convention but the animator chose to mention one of the scenes from the classic animation known a Pinky & The Brain. In this scene Pose to pose would be Pinky standing clueless which is evident in his body language, shrugged shoulders, lost expression in his eyes. Brain always has a strong dominate pose where ever he is within the environment giving pinky orders. Once the animator knows the nature of the character as well as their roles in the story it is easier for them to create the straight ahead actions for the rest of the animations.
