Exaggeration in the context of CGI character animation: observing through world of animation

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 11-November-2014

1.0 Introduction

In any given research, the need to introduce the research in a vivid way is unquestionable because it is through such means that readers and other stakeholders will be able to get a glimpse of what the research is all about as well as expand their understanding of approaches adopted in the research. As such, this section of the research will focus on presenting the overall research objectives.

The development of character animation has been mainly focused on synthesizing realistic motions. Many approaches were proposed already for addressing the technical difficulties that one encounters when following this path. However, the interest in this paper is not toward too much of technical approach. The study would be focused into exploring the performance approach. In the context of character animation, the performance approach refers to the study of character in representing the essence of action and emotion. This is to say that performance approaches deals with understanding how characters are used either in their whole or supplementary virtues to express actual meaning that are encoded in the central virtue of human expression. This implies that performance approaches details how characters are used to express what people think, feel, do or want in the real world setting.

Through public discussion among the animators, it is said that successful performance in animations often implement the principles of animation which have already been accepted widely as the main factor in conveying the situation to the audiences more efficiently than physical realism, According to the book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, the exaggeration principle, which adopted from twelve principles of animation that makes character animation more expressive. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two pioneer animators from Disney animation studio summarized brilliantly their attitude to applying exaggeration; 'If a character was to be sad, make him sadder; bright, make him brighter; worried, more worried; wild, make him wilder' (1995. p.65). Through this statement, it seems that reality in character animation isn't realistic at all. It is reality exaggerated, that represents an expressive performance in stylizing character.  The implementation of exaggeration should be proven worthwhile, because as Kostas Terzidis (2003) suggests, the expressive has many advantages over the realistic and, whereas the computer-graphic quest for realism is essentially about completeness, 'notions of incompleteness, imperfection, and subjectivity' invite interactive participation and have an expressive value that can surpass this explicitness. As Michael Davis (1999), a specialist in Greek philosophy and translator of Aristotle sees it, mimesis should comprise ‘a stylizing of reality in which the ordinary features of our world are brought into focus by a certain exaggeration . . . like the relationship of dancing to walking’ (p. 3). The need for widely adopted animations to be implemented is based on the understanding they are easily understandable. Over the course of time, people must have been going through the visual and vocal messages presented by such animations, which implies that repetition of such animation will further increase memorization and overall adoption. This is more towards the cognitive reasoning theory in the human sense, which implies that the more people are exposed to the same message, they more they become familiar and accustomed with such messages.

 Today, looking at character animation industry in Malaysia, there is similarity to other character animation industries in the world, Malaysian character animation is very much influenced by American and Japanese animation. However, a decade ago, the effort by cartoonist Ujang and director Kamn Ismail under Kharisma Production was the starting point to the local animation titles that could be seen today with Upin & Ipin and Boboi Boy leading the way. ( Mohd Amir Mat Omar & MD Sidin Ahmad Ishak, 2011). Hassan (2004: 7–8) described how a number of student animation projects reflected the identity of Malaysia’s various races and heritage. According to him, there is no distinctive animation trend in Malaysia that can be considered unique or having a local identity (Hassan, 2008). Hassan also did not specifically mention the cultural characteristics contained within Malaysian animation. Hence, it would be a strong justification towards studying how culture is portrayed in Malaysian character animation. The issue in question here is whether or how a Malaysian culturally reflection and expressive performance could be plugged as a soul into the CGI character animation. The exaggeration principle as what have been discussed earlier are meant to be used for this purpose. This research is an attempt to explore exaggeration principle in-depth which intends to help Malaysian animators to create a guideline for an expressive CGI character animation that could portray the local historical personality.

One thing about animation as opposed to other forms of media entertainment is that it is very unique and easily understood by the people that are exposed to such animations. In essence, developing one unique animation can mean serving numerous and diverse audience across the globe because the language of animation is easily understood irrespective of the age bracket. However, while it is natural to standardize the animation process in order to ensure easy understandability, it is also important to note that inducing cultural features is very important because it can help to differentiate uniqueness as well as derive new formula for redefining new standards in the industry. Thus, the fact that the Malaysian animation industry has sort towards expanding its unique offering by differentiating its own animation from that of pioneering Americans and Japanese is very appropriate. In the view of the above discussions, this paper will focus on understanding as well as exploring how exaggeration principles used in animation are being recreated in the Malaysian animation industry and the overall benefit of such recreation.

1.1         Research background

Animation has been described as spatiotemporal art; and its center is the manipulation of spatial arrangements which can also come in the form of shapes of an objective obtain over time in order to create the illusion of motion. The objects can be simplified as simple as line drawn on pages or in the sand, or it can be complex like that of a computer generated virtual puppet. Irrespective of the form of objects or the adopted medium, animation can be described as necessarily a technologically formulated art that required the animator to manipulate how objects are represented in space and time in order to communicate with a given audience. The animator does have the role of creating motion, one frame after the other, which can be used as an indication of real life happening. This is to say that the main objective of the animator is to create the illusion of an authentic, living, cognitive being with movements that seem to come from an inbuilt motivational force (Thomas & O. Johnston 1995).

For long, this has been understood with the idea of guiding the process through which the creation of “illusion of life” are developed as early as the 1930s in the Disney studio. Before such developments, 2D animations lacked the needed sophistication used to represent character of actions that audience have become accustomed with. In essence, charters where often built to repeat movements, due to their limbs bending like hose instead of being made up of articulated joins and bones. There was always a tendency to move their body but instead of achieving success in that, their limbs would normally stretch to their destination, and they lacked the necessary physicality and appearance in terms of weight. The designed characters where not built to appear or think in accordance with their own inner forces. As such, it became obvious in the Disney world that if animation is every going to capture and hold the attention of audience for the full duration of featured lengthy movie, then there is a need to improve on the visualization of actions performed by the characters.

 Figure 1.1: Disney animation before incorporating the principles, the plowboy (1929)

As a result of such need, a new undertaking was performed in the early days of the Disney studio in order to study live creatures that also included humans, and this led to a new discovery in the form of what is presently known about the creation of illusion of life. Discussions made on some of the earliest use of live-action reference and anatomically study are famously available in the book written by the two leading animators in Disney, The Illusion of Life (Thomas & O. Johnston 1995) which has an indicated chapter used for the main purpose of discussing the process by which life actions are sued to reference and inform their major practices in Disney studio. In summary, Disney animation started to analyze the live actions in their films as an attempted to inform the audience on their understanding of what they think is hot to visualize the flow of action which are patterned from one frame to the other. Out of this research, a team of animators referred to as “the nine old men” began to develop a new form of animation that had the aspiration of creating an image system that is closely in line with the convention of live-action cinemas. Disney made reference to this style of animation as being “believably alive” (which is also known as the ‘plausible impossible); a kind of “trick of giving life to an inanimate object” (Walt Disney 1956). It is clearly evidenced from the above discussion that animation as we know it in the past has transformed into a new euphoria of understanding, applicability and appreciation. This new word of animation is what will be explored in this research in the context of the Malaysian animation industry.

This performance based research is to be focused in exploring the principles of animation, Exaggeration stands as a main principle here to give effects to many area in character animation. The critical studies of principles have to be looked into their influence toward the physical appearance of characters, action and emotions; and plot in animation.

John Lasseter, director of Toy Story among others (Pixar, 2010), explains that a scene has many components, including design, action and emotion, and exaggeration can be applied to any of these components, but not in isolation (1987, p.41). This means that the exaggeration is an important principle in character animation and effects many aspects in the animation production. It is not to be considered as a standalone principle by itself but it is meant to be applied mainly with other interrelated components of animation principles.

On the other hand, this research was also to explore some historical knowledge of Iban warrior, Panglima Bukit Sadok characteristics. However, it is important to be highlighted here that the research will not to be detailed on Iban culture phenomenon. The study toward Iban culture elements are only covered sufficiently for supporting the subject knowledge for Panglima Bukit Sadok character. Through this process, the exaggeration principle was expected to present more expressive performance in bringing character alive and as well as reflecting a clearer essence of the Iban warrior cultural identity. 

This research takes the readers to understand about CGI character animations from the world to Malaysia. It would be doing some comparison studies of CGI character animation works, analyzing few selective American, French, Japanese and Malaysian character animations. This studies intent to obtain some comparative result on how well  this  selective works use the exaggeration principle in creating expressive output which able to represent its style and identity of one particular culture personality.

1.2          Objectives of Research

The objectives of this research are:

1.2.1     General Objective

To understand the specific meaning of exaggeration in the context of CGI character animation, observing through world of animation. The whole research revolves around the understanding of CGI application in the animation setting wit reference to the global animation industry. However, it is important to understand that CGI settings are based purely on 3D animation which is not the only form of animation available. As such, the objective can be considered broad because it will expand beyond the advance setting in order to touch the traditional and grassroots settings in the form of 2D animation which while not widely used presently as before, is still in full operation as guided by advancements in technologies.

1.2.2     Specific Objective

1.      To discover the importance of exaggeration to be learned as a main principle by CGI animation students in Malaysia. Just as USA and Japan has demonstrated, culture does have a major influence on the uniqueness of animations because it aid in the creation needed identity and since animations are easy to understand, reshaping the design with cultural facets is a welcomed trend in the industry. Thus, this research will see to understand how CGI can help to create a Malaysian identity by designing animations that reflects Malaysian values.

2.      To explore the relationship of exaggeration principle with others components of animation principles. There are twelves principles that guide animation design in the industry, but the complex thing here is that each of these principles are applied in their individual way and both application and outcome can differ for each of these principles. As such, this research will also seek to understand the existing differences between exaggeration principles and other principles in animation design and such understanding will focus on their level of similarities and differences in terms of application and outcome.

3.      To discover the expressive performance to be achieved in CGI character animation that can reflect the style of one particular cultural identity through the implementation of exaggeration principle. Just like the first specific objective that is focused on cultural identity, this objective seeks to understand how CGI can be used to develop an advanced form of cultural identity with reference to Malaysia.  

4.      To propose an effective implementation of exaggeration principle as restructured guideline in creating an expressive CGI character animation of Panglima Bukit Sadok. Based on the understandings gained from the above analysis, this research will also develop a feasible approach for implementing the CGI effects in Malaysian based animation settings.

1.3          Statement of the Problem

In today's CGI animation industry, one of the most attractive element in CGI animation is the characters that could able to perform its expressive personality, acting the lifelike action and expression without any physical limitation. The success of CGI character animation relies on a set of principles that adopted from traditional 2D animation techniques which meant to be a guideline syllabus for lot of animation training courses.

Even this set of principles has been always the mainstream research field in character animation, but there is still lack of in-depth specific research on exaggeration principle as a main emphasis of principle among the 12 animation principles which previously introduced in the book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (1981). This research intents to help the animation students to see the important role of exaggeration principle in relating it to the others component of animation principles.

The exaggeration is potentially meant to be used as a main guideline to enhance the CGI character animation by judging at the expressive quality.  Thus, there is necessary to restructure the existing 12 animation principles guideline into clearer and more in-depth theoretical framework, emphasizing the main role of exaggeration principle and its relationship with the other components of animation principles.

Importantly, on the other hand, this research also see exaggeration as a potential way to be explored in developing CGI character animation that expressive enough to feature an Iban warrior, Panglima Bukit Sadok characteristic and identity. Basically, the above mentioned research problems could be summarized as below statement:

        i.            There is lack of specific in-depth research on exaggeration principle in CGI character animation field of study.

      ii.            There is lack of focus in exaggeration principle learned by CGI animation students in Malaysia.

    iii.            The existing literatures about 12 principles of animation do not give clear and in-depth theoretical framework which sufficient to explain the relationship of exaggeration principle with the other components of animation principles.

    iv.            There is lack of well-structured guideline to emphasize on the use of exaggeration principle in creating an expressive CGI character animation specifically for the historical Iban warrior, Panglima Bukit Sadok.

1.4.      Research Question

RQ:     What is a guideline in creating an expressive CGI character animation of Panglima Bukit Sadok through the implementation of exaggeration principle?

        i.            What are the approaches for implementing exaggeration principle?

      ii.            What are the necessary guidelines for creating an expressive CGI character animation?

    iii.            How can be these necessary guidelines be used to create an expressive CGI animation Panglima Bukit Sadok by adopting exaggeration principles?

RQ1:     What are the importance roles of exaggeration principle in CGI character animation?

    iv.            What are the important roles of exaggeration principles?

      v.            How important are these roles in CGI character animation?

RQ2:     How to implement exaggeration principle in CGI character animation?

    vi.            What are the approaches for implementing exaggeration principles?

  vii.            How are exaggeration principles implemented in CGI character animation?

RQ3:    What is the expressive performance to be achieved in CGI character animation that can reflect the identity of Panglima Bukit Sadok through the implementation of exaggeration principle?

1.5       Significance of study

There are decry in the area of animation as fewer and fewer students are becoming interested in the field. The reason can be attributed to a number of factors which can stream from personal reasons to field based reasons. As such, researches done in the area of animation are limited because the lack of interest in such related studies are high. On that accord, it becomes very fundamental that related researches in the area of animation are beneficial.  Thus, a number of benefits are expected to stream down from this research and such benefits include:

        i.            By developing this research, it will benefit animation lecturers by supplying a useful alternative guideline for the animation students in Malaysia who study about CGI character animation.

      ii.            The study is apparently one of the first attempt to explore exaggeration principle in-depth which intends to help Malaysian animators to create an expressive CGI character animation for the local historical contents such as Iban great warrior, Panglima Bukit Sadok. Therefore, this is a good attempt to fill up the gap of local culture preservation.  

    iii.            The research is considered more into performance based study rather than technical based study. Therefore, the structured guideline is believed to be helpful to the current or future trend of new media animators in practicing exaggeration principle in their CGI character animation work and judging their work performance through expressive quality.

    iv.            This research is also beneficial to the general public because it will help to expand the field of animation in both lectured and applicable context in order to further understand how animated characters are transformed into real-life objectives with set objectives of entertaining the audience.

1.6       Scope of study

The research of CGI character animation is involved the performance based and technical based studies. However this research is just to be focused on the performance based study. Due to the intention of researcher in targeting the CGI character animation of Panglima Bukit Sadok, some study in the aspect of Iban cultural characteristic is necessary to be conducted specifically the studies in some elements of character that should be portrayed in Panglima Bukit Sadok character based on the existing historical facts. Somehow, the researcher's study is decided not to be too much detailed on the issues of Iban cultural elements. The study would be emphasized on the implementation of exaggeration principle, its relationship with the others components of animation principles and the expressive performance that expected to be achieved.

Figure 1.2: The framework of performance and technical based studies in character animation.

1.7       Theoretical framework

As mentioned earlier, the Figure 1.1 indicated two aspects of studies, performance and technical based studies were commonly involved in character animation research. However, it is important to be highlighted here that the researcher would only explored the performance based studies. In performance based studies, the emphasis of 12 principles of animation could not be avoided. They are considered the most useful criteria to be analyzed through by  judging the performance quality of character animation.

Figure 1.3: Theoretical framework of the research phenomenon

As shown in Figure 1.2, the theoretical framework described how the performance based studies were conducted. The studies consisted the exploration to the role of exaggeration principle. The exaggeration principle was implemented into two separated elements which were character design, action and emotion. Within these elements, the researcher would explore the others components of animation principles and made an effort to link them with those related elements. On the other hand, this research was also required to study some identity of Iban warrior, Panglima Bukit Sadok character. While implementing the exaggeration principle, the researcher would have to consider to understand some elements of character that gives the identity to Panglima Bukit Sadok. Through this process, the exaggeration principle was expected to present more expressive performance in bringing the character alive and as well as reflecting a clearer essence of Panglima Bukit Sadok’s personality.  

In the early days of Disney studio, the call for solutions to develop a more emotional form of animated characters resulted in the development of twelve fundamental principles of animation, which Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston (1995, p.47) noted that they were taught to new animators in such a way that they were visualized to be the new rule of the animation trade. These twelve principles of animation which has been described by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston (1995, p.47) include:

1.      Squash and stretch – a change in shape which is made to place more emphasis on weight and volume.

2.      Anticipation – a movement meant to precede the major action.

3.      Staging – this is the presentation of action in such a way that it can be clearly communicated to the intended audience.

4.      Straight ahead action and pose to pose – this is the working method used in the creation of animation.

5.      Follow through and overlapping action – all the objectives are not forced into a complete stop at the same period of time. Some objectives are developed to lead while other follow the leading object.

6.      Slow in and slow out – this is used to reference the controlling of spacing of images developed to enhance how objective speeding up and slowing down appear.

7.      Arcs – natural movement normally travel through the space via an arc.

8.      Secondary actions – this is an action used to support the main action.

9.      Timing – this is used to give meaning and texture to the movement of animated characters.

10.  Exaggeration – this is a caricature of actions that ae used for punctuating and emphasizing motion.

11.  Slow drawing – these are the kinds of drawings made in such a way that they appear to have volume and depth.

12.  Appeal – the design and motions of characters are developed in such a way that they appeal to the audience.

With the aid of continued research and development, animation has eventually climbed up to the point at which principles have now become so refined in such a way that it is progressively becoming very difficult for animators to actually identity one another. In any case, those animation companies besides the Disney studio such as the Warner Brothers (WB) and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) has increased started applying the principles in such a way that it is being used as a vivid display of broad characters actions as a result of trained animators from Disney moving to other studios where they are given necessary opportunity and freedom to experiment with difference styles of movement which do not confirm with the ideology set by the Disney world. Other studios like the PIXAR has extended the legacy set by Disney, while other studios such as the Dreamwroks and Bluesky has reverted to using broader and even more liberal forms of application of such principles which are more aligned with the WB and MGM vocabulary of movements. Other animators such as John Kricfalusi (2008), has even expanded their discussion and views on the animation subject by suggesting that WB and MGM have been successful in developing a style of animation that seems to have a better application of the initial discoveries made by Disney animators. No matter where the argument extends to, it is evidently clear that principles developed by Disney studio still remain the basics of the animation practices through the creation of the illusion of motion and expanded credibility of characters that are used in the animation industry.

Furthermore, arguments can be made that the case discussed above still remains in relation to the relatively new medium of computer generated (CG) 3D animations. In a seminal paper with the title: Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation, John Lasseter (1987) made the argument that in order to understand the principles adopted in traditional animation, it is very important to produce and effective 3D animation, and that irrespective of the medium adopted, the application some of these principles do still remain the same. Following the presentation of his first 3D CG animated short film, Adventures of Andre and Wally B (1985), Lasseter addressed the question asked to explain which software that was used in the creation of such “believable character”, and the animator responded with the explanation that it is not a matter of the software because it wasn’t the software that “gave life” to the characters animated, but it was the principles that has been learned and applied as a traditional animator at the Disney studio that produce such a stunning transformational character. The animator further went on to explain that it was not that software that gave the life to characters, instead it was these principles of animation, which is the trade tricks that the animators have developed over the course of 50 years (Lasseter 2001). In accordance with Lasseter, traditional animations are developed to provide series of tricks which the animator can apply in the process of creating highly credible animation, and this should be more or less similar with such animation process are transferred into the computers.

In any case, one specific note needs to be understood and that is that Lasseter did say that the way in which squash and stretch, slow in and slow out, arcs, appeal straight had and pose-to-pose applications are made must change as a result of differences existing in the medium (Lasseter 1987). Vivid explanation to such views are presented in the understanding that at PIXAR, the animators made use of tricks, both old and new, in order to get what they desired to appear on the screen. This means that the combination of old and new tricks has been the main success factors behind making PIXAR animations very much convincing.

 Figure 1.4: The incredibles (Bird, 2004)

Since the 1987 paper written by lasserter, significant advancements have been made on technologies in and around the field of animation. The technology of animation has not only moved on, but the filed has also moved on as influenced by the developments made by Disney animators and the increased level of understanding of the principles. For instances, fields like acting photography, live-action films and the science of biology have all continued to develop new theories, principles and languages that continue to shape the animation industry. On that accord, Kerlow (2009, p.305) made the arguments that the universal challenge now faced by animators is to reintegrate and expand the foundational animation principles and also to add new principles that will be used to address the modern and present styles, techniques and possibilities in animation.

In recognition of the established link between traditional principles of animation and the past crafts and forms of expression, Kerlow has made a clustered view of the animation principles around “telling a story, acting of directing a performance, representing the reality, the actual process of crafting or representing or creating some level of credibility in the animation process, and editing the sequence of actions   (Kerlow 2009, p.305). As such, Kerlow has offered six added principles in the animation process and they include:

1.      Limited animation;

2.      Cinematography;

3.      Facial animation;

4.      Visual styling;

5.      Motion blending; and

6.      User-controlled animation.

In any case, it is important to understand that in their full details, these added principles see to be mainly based on the different forms, styles, and application of animation, and they are not completely new principles as they are generally perceived to be, instead they are the re-interpretation of expanded understanding of the basic principles developed in the early days of Disney studio. Take for instance, the case of cinematography is viewed in the basic principle as staging and it looks more like a stretch to attempt to present the suggestion of cinematography as a completely new form of principle in the way that Kerlow has done. Additionally, the entertainment industry has witnessed limited animation since the short time following the basic principles developed by Disney and while limited movement are very basic within this particular animation style, it is also important to note that the fundamental principles still prevail.

Outside of the new principled expanded as discussed above and the original twelve principles, four important production elements used in animated feature film-making where also used by Disney as the established guiding principles and they include:

1.      Character development – this involves the process of giving characters their personality in the animation industry.

2.      Story – stories are generally crafted to be well planned, well placed and interesting.

3.      Acting and emotions – this involves visualizing characters in the form of real actors in order to attach well established and common emotion to the scenes.

4.      Expression and dialogue – the feelings of characters used in this section must be expressed with the aid of animation and dialogue.

From the above theoretical background, it is evidence that animation process is well expanded and broad, and further discussion will be presented in preceding chapters.

Organization of research

Figure 1.5: organization of research

There is no doubting the fact that effective planning is necessary in order to deliver success in researches. This is because it will offer the researcher higher level of flexibility in understanding what is needed in the research process as well as executing the overall purpose of the research. This research is of no difference as this section will seek to expand an understanding on what will be done and how it will be done.

The research starts with the first chapter, which an introductory episode of the whole research. The purpose of this research is to highlight what will be done in the form of research objectives and how it will be done in the form of research questions that the whole research will seek to address. Additionally, overall background analysis is also developed in this section to give readers a glimpse and simplified understanding of what the research topic is all about.

The second section is a review of relevant literatures in line with the research topic. This review will look into condensing the whole animation industry into a simple to glance and understand material in which the past experiences are accounted for, present figurative come into play, and the future is flashed. This chapter will also define necessary variables in the area of the research topic.

The third chapter is the research methodology. It is the breakdown of how the whole research process will be executed in terms of the primary research design. In this section, the variables that will be loaded into the primary research will be brought into full focus by making them easier to understand and also discussing the purpose for loading such variables. Additionally, this section will also look into discussing the approach for research analysis.

The fourth and final chapters are results and conclusion. The focus of the result is to present detailed analysis of findings from the whole research process. In this chapter, findings will be individually analyzed in accordance with their level of correlation with existing understandings and their influence on future related applications. This is followed by the conclusion, which is a comprehensive analysis of findings from both the secondary and primary research, recommendations on application of findings and recommendations for future research.

Limitation of study

Once more, it should be recalled that this research is focused on understanding the influence of cultural facets in making the Malaysian animation industry unique when compared with the pioneer industries like USA and Japan. Additionally, this researches will present comprehensive analysis of the global animation industry and necessary insights on the influence of cultural dimensions on uniqueness of the animation industry. However, this research is limited irrespective of the above advantages because it focuses on one culture and animation industry in the form of Malaysian and the Malaysian animation industry. This it limits the potential of researcher to look into other cultures of readers to compare findings from this study with that of other cultures. However, this doesn’t make the research void in any form because the overall benefits as discussed above overweighs the limited disadvantages that this research is expected to have. In essence, the quality of findings to be made are expected to overshadow this limitations and further provider the general public with an expanded understanding of the Malaysian animation industry.

1.8   Definition of Terms

Traditional animation principles: these principles represents the rules of practice in animation that have been deployed since the beginning days of animation, that is to say the pre-computer periods. They form a set of guidelines that animators need to follow in order to gain necessary assistance on producing the most effectively possible animation. Based on the description offered by Thomas and Ollie Johnston (1981), who was opportune to work with Disney Studio in the early 30s and also took part in the development of the animation principles, twelve principles represent the traditional animation principles. These principles define the four major production elements in animation in the form of: development of character, story, acting and emotions, and expression and dialogue (Thomas and Johnston, 1981). Their definitions are still widely acknowledged and adhered to by modern animators including Richard Williams, who is the award-wining director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) (Williams, 2009). Another acknowledgement mad by Williams is that there is a relationship between the four production elements and the actual animation principles. Recognizing such studies, this research does include both the four production elements and 12 animation principles in this study for further investigation.

The traditional animation principles have been hopeful in the transformation of animation form just a novelty into a form of art. Through the application of these principles in their respective works, many of the world’s pioneering animators did successfully produce the numerous earliest animated feature films that became classics such as: Snow White in 1937 and Pinocchio in 1940. What the animation principles points at is the rules of physics and motion, which is used to dictate the movement of people and objects from space as well as how people react to physical forces. The principles also incorporates numerous acting an psychological theories that are built around human behavior which guides the way animators make use of facial expression, gestures, and postures in their development of animated characters (Thomas and Johnston, 1981). Thus, this study will also focus on the 12 animation principles and four production elements in the course of the study.

3D computer animation: this is normally referred to as Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) or CG Animation, and this is the form of animation that is entire produced with the aid of computer by making used of 3D animation software. A good example of such is the Toy Story produced by PIXAR in 1995 (Furniss, 1998). The animation process involves the creation of characters and objects through the method of constructed polygonal or NURBS meshes, which are developed through the form of virtual bones before being inserted into the mesh to make the animated object. The articulation process is the facilitated by the rotation of these bones, or through the movement of controllers that have links with the bones. This system of bones and controls is referred to as a “rig”, and the CGI animator takes advantage of such benefits by manipulating it into different positions or what is referred to ad poses. Inserting poses at different times over an allotted period will result to the movements between the poses which are automatically animated with the aid of the software (Clark, 2002).

2D traditional animation: this is a process for producing animation and it has dominated the animation method right from the early days of the animation. Before computers where introduced in the animation industry, this method was built around drawing the animation on paper and photocopying or tracing the drawn object into a transparent celluloid (cel), which will be then painted. Each of the traced cel will be then photographed with the aid of rostrum camera. Majority of the animations that were aired in films and TVs shows in the mid-90s were all produced with the aid of 2d traditional animation. In the modern setting, although traditional animations are still hand-drawn on paper, they are scanned into computer programs before being inked and painted digitally. The individual frames of animation directly rendered from the software, which removes the need to individually photography each cel. The Lion King by Disney in 1994 is a good example of modern 2D animation.

Animation expert: in accordance with the idea developed by Custers, Boshuizen and Schmidt in 1998, professional animation experts do possess necessary ability to the developed knowledge of generalized events rapidly in their sequences; which is a broader description of the things that the animator expects to occur in the situation that many people are familiar with in their natural state and such include events like going to restaurants, taking flights onboard air planes from one city to another or in essence producing some sequences of animations. This form of knowledge is referred to as “script” and it is made up of fixed and variable aspects. Naturally, animators are aware that when they intend to animate a character, the principles of stretch and squash can naturally be useful to employ even when the specific scenes are not yet known. As such, experts have the power to readily make needed identifications of the necessary procedures to employ and the best way to ensure that the desired character actions are made effective. Although the essence of understanding who is considered an expert is based purely on qualitative judgment that depends on the type, differences ad length of experience, one can experts in the field of animation make use of the same or at least similar approach when dealing with national design.

Exaggeration Principle: refers to a rule of action that used in animation to remain true to reality, just presenting it in a wilder, more extreme. (Thomas & Johnston, 1981). Instead of adopting traditional concepts that lacked the needed bone movements, the exaggeration principle focuses on ensuring that developed animations are enticing and realistic by inducing the whole process with needed bone movement and making the final animation look realistic as if to say it is a real-world experience.

Character animation: refers to a specialized area of the animation process, which involves bringing animated characters to life. This is an advanced form of formation which tries to give audience more than just drawing and cartooned networks by transferring animation into rea life in order to associate it with the same level of emotion that humans have.

Stylizing :  refers to an act of making a conform to characteristics or elements combined and expressed in a particular unique feature with consistent manner.

Expressive: refers to the contents of inner experience rather than solely realistic portrayal, seeking to depict not objective reality but the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in them.

The 12 Principles of Animation: refers to a set of principles of animation introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. The principles consist of Timing, arc, squash and stretch, slow in/slow out, Anticipation, follow through/Overlapping action, straight ahead/pose to pose, staging, appeal, personality, secondary action and exaggeration.

References

Bird, B., 2004. The Incredibles, Disney Pixar

Disney, W., 1935. Walt Disney productions inter office communication. Available at: http://www.animationmeat.com [Accessed April 20, 2011].

Furniss, M., 1998. Art in motion: animation aesthetics, United Kingdom: John Libbey.

Johnk, 2008. John K stuff: disney principles 1: of animation. John K Stuff. Available at: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com.au/2008/11/disneys-principles-of-animation.html [Accessed March 31, 2012].

Kerlow, I.V., 2009. The art of 3D computer animation and effects, San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

Lasseter, J., 2001. Tricks to animating characters with a computer. ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, 35(2), pp.45–47.

Lasseter, J., 2001. Tricks to animating characters with a computer. ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, 35(2), pp.45–47.

Thomas, F. & Johnston, O., 1995. The illusion of life: disney animation, Italy: Disney Editions.

Williams, R., 2009. The animator’s survival kit–revised edition: a manual of methods, principles and formulas for classical, computer, games, stop motion and internet animators, London: Faber & Faber, Inc.