Introduction to the Art of Digital Animation

1. Introduction

Fundamentals in the discipline of animation.

Visual perception

  • Rapid Eye Movement: scanning reality in rapid succession, sending signals to the brain
  • Simplified mechanical technique; Zoetrope1, Zoetrope2

Story telling and acting out the story

  • Illustration: telling a part of the story through an image combined with the written word
  • Story board: telling the story through a series of illustrations

Today’s visual media

  • Film : 24 frames per second
  • Broadcast
  • Video tape: 30 frames per second (NTSC)
  • DVD

2. Instruction

Maya

  • Modeling
  • Animation
  • Dynamics
  • Rendering

Animation; the illusion of bringing inanimate objects to life

  • Keyframe positions
  • In-betweening
  • Anticipation
  • Overlapping
  • Stretch
  • Squash

Compositing

3. Conclusion

Student samples; Spring & Fall sessions, 1999 - Mt. San Antonio College, CA
zeppalin | zebra | light-shaft | space-racer1 | butterflies | bird in flight
animation credit-list