Tore Bahnson writes:
In my last animated short "Trapez" I experimented with what could be called "simulated stop motion". Instead of letting the software determine the inbetweening of any given motion, I did the animation manually frame by frame, limb by limb, moving the characters parts, as I would if it was a real puppet. Instead of taking a picture every 1/12 or 1/8 of a second (as in stop motion) the keyframes automatically set by the software, and I furthermore had the advantage over tradtional stop motion, that I could turn on "onion skinning", thus being able to look forward and backwards in time.
By using this technique, I wanted to achieve an organic feel very far from the bland slickness of normal computer animation. And the unavoidable jerkiness and roughness of the resulting animation was outweighed by the amount of life and personality in the animation.Having succesfully finished "Trapez", I am now taking the experiences gained with me to a new shortfilm project titled "Here", which will be made solely with free/open source software, and with Blender as the main 3D application.
"Here" is currently in early pre-production, but the deleopment can continuosly be followed on our blog.
16 Comments
Interesting story and the tecnique is very nice, it's been a lot of work, but it's worth of it!
Truly excellent technique I agree it does give the animation more depth and emotion than with normal computer animations. Inspiring!
Yep very cool style, if not a little creepy! But stop motion of this style, CGI or not has always made me feel a little uneasy. But still good job!
We really are coming full circle, aren't we? I mean, Freestyle making 2D out of 3D. And now puppets and stop motion being made with 3D modeling. Back where it all started, but not with the same technical tricks.
Quite impressive little clip.
Very well done! (Both animation and over visual style/tone.) I'm guessing you use "constant" interpolation in the graph editor?
I had recently been thinking about trying something like that (keying animation one frame at a time in order to simulate stop motion). Some day I'll have to really try that.
Like your blog about "Here" also!
Very deep and philosophic peace.
And this style greatly represents those old ideas.
Possibly Robbie Losee is somewhere right about this trick with Constant interpolation. You can use it and play with Noise generator which can give you those unpredictable "glitches". After success you'll save a pretty much of time without any noticeable difference.
P.S. After some moment (very early) I stopped to think that it's CG. Thus means you really achieved the feeling of old puppet movies.
Beautiful... and not just the animation, but the lighting, composition and painterly textures as well. Bravo!
The visuals are nicely done and I love the tone of the music. The only thing I say that needs some work is the audio needs a better mix. But other than that the video was great.
So you saved the time of rigging your characters to do a stop-motion-style animation? This time-save was worth it! (I don't like rigging, too...) Love the audio as well, I wish I could do so.
@thakubism: I'm pretty sure he rigged his characters. It would have been insanely hard to get this result by editing the mesh for every frame.
BTW. Beautiful work!
Thanks a lot for all the positive comments!
@thakubism: Yes, the characters were rigged, with a relatively simple IK/FK rig. It would have been posible though, to animate Trapez completely without a rig, without having to animate animate the mesh. By using grouping and parenting it would be possible (maybe even better) to pose the "puppets", which are completely hard surfaced. No bending/stretching at all.
@Robbie Losiee: Yes animation is done completely without the computer interpolating. All frames were keyframes and are posed and set by hand - even camera moves and lens settings. To make the task a bit easier (also to keep overall render time down) I animated Trapez with 8 fps.
But I must say, many things have become easier and especially faster to do, now that I have stepped up to using Blender/Sculptris for "Here" :-)
Very kafkaesque design :)
Fitting and well done :D
Your design decisions (chosen modelling style, stopmotion, colours and even sound) was perfect for the story you told. The ending was way perfect. Thank you for sharing and taking the time! A small gem.
Fantastic. I've always loved the jerky quality of stop-motion and sense of the physical puppet. Very well done.
Thanks for sharing. Very nice work and looking forward to seeing more!