Lamp Hop [Locomotion and Mechanics for Animation - Unit 01]
Lamp Hop
02/10/24
Introduction
This animation exercise explores bringing a lamp to life through creating a simple jump using an inanimate object. The goal with this animation is understand the core locomotive theory that makes this lamp move and the variety of poses it goes through to make it jump. The challenge is to add emotion and a simple story to this animation so that the lamp has appeal and a reason to be jumping. This is a great 'back to basics' animation, which will kick of this module well!
Theory Lecture 'Making a Lamp Hop' Reflection
Pixar's Luxo Jr. is an iconic animation and as discussed in the THEORY LECTURE was a pivotal point for what 3D animation was capable for. In the animation we see the interactions between two inanimate objects that have been brought to life and given distinct personalities. Whilst the characters are inanimate objects their various parts have been animating in an almost human-like manner.
- The head of the lamp acts identically to a a human's head. You can clearly see where the lamp is looking through the direction the lamp head is facing. The animators use this to so emotion through shaking the head to show disappointment and despair; hanging the head low to show sadness and holding it high to show hope and positive emotions.
- The stem of the lamp acts as the upper and lower body with the hinge acting as the hips. This helps give a 'body' to the character and enables the animators to simply pose the character in a variety of poses. It also enables them to squash and stretch the characters to further convey emotion.
- The base of the lamp acts as the foot to add dexterity to the character that enables them to apply force to perform various locomotion movements such as walks, hops and jumps.
Whilst the way the 'anatomy' of these lamp characters has been animated to perform actions is impressive, the way their personalities have been brought to life is more impressive! There is a clear parent and child relationship between these two characters. The larger lamp is the parent which you can tell from its slower and more controlled motions. The smaller lamp is the child who has much faster and erratic movements. This is reiterated through their character designs with one being larger and the other much smaller to further suggest this parent child relationship. It is particularly interesting how the larger lamp is very much rooted throughout the animation, whereas the smaller one moves all around the available space. This reflects the level of energy a child and a parent might have where parents have a much wider array of responsibilities that tire them out and children being very carefree, which is what the animators have captured here.
Furthermore, at the beginning we see some beautiful interaction between the parent and child playing ball together. As the animation develops we see the smaller lamp try different things as if it is learning through experimentation. The larger lamp humors the curiosity of the smaller lamp and almost teaches it a lesson when the ball is popped. All of this is achieved primarily through timing to create clear contrast between the character's personalities and drive their appeal. This contrast between the two characters is something that could be applied to any animation to help distinguish two characters through their emotions to develop distinct characters.
This photo shows an inanimate folding chair. This could be brought to life through the hinging mechanism acting as a 4 legged creature like a dog or horse. The chair could gallop across the ground through compressing and stretching out with some overall forward and backward rotation to really help add the power. The top 'bar' of the chair could act as the head and it would need to pivot on its front legs to look at things. With it needing to balance on its front legs to look around this could be quite a clumsy character that almost trips over itself as it moves around and interacts with the world!
The above image shows a couple of thumbnails of what this chair might look like as it gallops across the floor. This is shows the compression and extension as it forces itself across the ground. It looks like a lot of effort to physically leap the entire body as it gallops across the ground so it is likely to show signs of exhaustion when it stops. It is a flimsy chair where the parts rattle so this would filter into its clumsy, uncoordinated character!
Research
Developing a lamp jump animation that incorporates some elements of parkour would work particularly well. The videos below show a range of people traversing and clearing a variety of gaps at various vertical heights. Throughout all these you can clear see how the body anticipates to build power and how it compresses, bends and flexes throughout the locomotion. Incorporating elements of this in to a lamp jump animation would help with momentum, timing and poses to help create believable animation. This could potentially result in a small obstacle course where the lamp jumps across a couple of gaps as it builds momentum and transfers its weight from one pose to the next.
Thumbnails and Concept Development
The below thumbnails created by INSERT CITATION show the core theory and poses behind a jumping animation. These will be used to inform the key poses throughout the jumps in the animation.
The below annotated image shows the concept planned for this lamp jump animation. The idea is that the first half keeps the lamp in continuous motion until the larger gap where it comes to a sliding halt. At this point the lamp will then compress itself with a big anticipation pose to clear the larger gap. It will clear the gap and land on the very edge of the next building. Upon landing it will give a sigh of relief before happily hopping off screen. A nice touch with this animation could be to make it loop so that as it leaves screen right it enters on screen left. In order to achieve this 2 lamps will need to be present and mirror each others movements at the beginning and end but in different locations.
Set Development and Render Setup
This set below by INSERT CITATION will be useful for the parkour style lamp jump animation because it includes an array of different buildings at different heights and widths. These can then be arranged in a fashion that challenges the lamp to jump across a couple of them.
Low poly City Assets - Download Free 3D model by Paulina Sroka (@Paulisia) [3bb6c7a] (sketchfab.com)
In order to achieve some realistic lighting with an aiSkydome Arnold light the below HDRI from INSERT CITATION was used. This helps pull colour into the lighting to help make the render more realistic. It also features in the reflections on the lamp character to make it look metallic. This HDRI is particularly useful as it features the multi-colour umbrellas which will make the lighting reflect the brightly coloured buildings from the set.
This image shows the render setup using depth of field to focus the viewer on the middle ground. This is done by reducing the noise of the busy city scene whilst keeping some blurred information to give the scene depth. The materials of the lamp were altered to create a dark blue metallic colour to create further contrast between the lamp and then background.
This next render shows the lamp in motion within the scene to confirm that the motions are readable and that the lamp isn't getting lost. The depth of field blur works well to clearly make the lamp stand out.
Animation
04/10/24
Animation Blocking
Animation Polish
Final Render
Conclusion
This was a great animation exercise to go back to basics and start this module with! The parkour story element of this works well to give context and purpose to the lamp's actions. There is a good contrast between the slightly nervous look prior to the big jump and then the happy spin as the lamp clears the gap. This gives the lamp a lot of appeal to define it's character by showing that it is confident and brave but recognises the challenges it faces. The timing carries the momentum of the lamp well through as it makes its initial descent through a series of hops. The timing varies from the core thumbnails to account for the varying distances, however, they served as a good starting point. The path also varies slightly from the planned route in the thumbnails due to the screen space available for the side on long shot camera angle used. Arcs remain strong throughout to create fluid motions. The overall render quality is good and helps presents the animation in a stylised manner.
The learning outcomes have been met because :
- There have been a range of animation principles used to produce a visually appealing animation. In particular timing and arcs have been used to control the locomotion throughout the animation abiding by the laws of physics.
- Maya, Arnold and Premiere Pro have been used to produce the animation and render it to a polished quality and visually pleasing aesthetic.
- The lamp has been brought to life through its locomotion as it behaves as a parkour free-runner! The lamp appears confident yet cautious when it tackles more risky maneuvers. Many free-runners will assess their challenges before they attempt them so that they can gather information and assess the danger - this has been incorporated to this animation. The happy spin it produces replicates the cheers many free-runners will do after they land a challenging maneuver.
- The movement is dynamic through the obstacle course of rooftops that has been set up with the lamp character leaping across a range of distances and heights.
Learning Outcomes
- Understand basic animation principles
- Use animation software tools
- Animate non-traditional characters
- Replicate dynamic motion
- Create expression through animation
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