ENGLISH VERSION

First lesson

This first lesson

is just a quick introduction to the animation world!
I will quickly explain
what's the role of an animator
and the different animation techniques!
Be a character animator means...
bringing to life a fictional character!
This is enough for me to make this job awesome!
I mean you take an inanimate 3D mesh
and you add movement,
the expressions...
and this character starts to have a personality,
to have feelings and...
yeah, this is what I mean!
I always say that animation
is not about move a character...
but it's the capacity to bring it to life!
It's pretty easy to learn how to move a rig,
but what you should be able to do,
to became a good animator,
is to GIVE LIFE to this character!
As animators we move
and let's speak this characters,
in practice we control their movements like actors
and in this way we create the illusion of life!
So the animation is an illusion, yes...
but can be so real
that you became part of the character that you animated!
Putting in him something of yourself,
of your feelings and emotions,
of your style...
and these emotions and feelings
will be transferred to the users!
Let's start saying that...
to be a 3D animator you don't have to be a good drawer!
Of course, it's a plus if you are...
but it's really not necessary!
I have no great skills in drawing at all!
I mean... I draw a lot
but I can't say that I'm a good drawer!
So we must dispel this fake myth!
NO! You don't need to be a good drawer
to became a good 3D animator!
In my lesson I will talk about 3D animation,
but let's quickly talk about
all the main animation techniques!
Now let's see in details
how these different techniques work!
This technique was the most well known
and common used
starting from the beginning of this 20th century
until the advent of computer animation!
It's composed by a sequence of hand drawings
created on a series of pages!
All the drawings are made on an animation desk,
or light table!
A light table has a translucent surface
illuminated from behind with the light
collocated into the table!
On this surface you put the sequence of papers!
When you draw the animation,
thanks to the light inside the desk,
you can see in transparence the drawings
of the previous and following pages!
An animation is composed by a sequence of frames,
each frame is represented by a drawing!
The frame rate, the number of frames per second,
can change depending on the type of project:
in movies we usually have 24 frames per second,
for TV series and commercials... 25 frames per second,
and for videogames we usually have 30 or 60 frames!
I said that the computer animation is split in 2 categories:
3D and 2D!
The 3D is the animation of objects
created in a three-dimensional space!
Using a 3D software, like Maya or 3DMax,
we animate a 3D object!
We start from a mesh, the model,
that is created by the modeler,
On this mesh the rigger will create the skeleton,
the RIG,
the series of bones, joints and the selectable controls
that the animator will use to move the character!
Selecting and moving this controls
we create the motion!
For 2D animation we still intend something generated on the computer
but the images are be-dimensional!
The result is more close to the traditional animation!
Some software for this type of animation are:
Toon Boom, Anime Studio, Flash...
With this technique we physically move a real object, a puppet!
Frame by frame, we pose the character
and we take a sequence of pictures!
For example is the favourite technique of Tim Burton,
that used it for all his animated movies!
The puppet usually has a structure inside,
like an iron skeleton,
that allows to easily pose him!
That was the very first lesson
and I'll wait for the next one!
Creation of a 3d project!