I was wondering if there is a way in traditional animation to have a character run towards the camera (therefore getting bigger) without having to redraw each and every frame (meaning, use a run cycle). I figure that if the character is constantly getting bigger, I'm gonna have to draw each frame. But I wanted to know if in the professional animation world an animator could shoot a huge version of the run cycle and use computers to scale it up as the character approached the "camera", or if using computers like that in traditional animation is generally frowned upon or not practiced.
the reason I asked is because I don't want the computer to become a crutch for me when the professional world will be expecting more from me
yeah, I've already tried using the "crutch" to map out what I'd be doing if I were to fully animate it (I'm creating the animation in flash), and it looks fine, I've compensated for sliding.
The reason I don't just buckle down and do it is because when I plotted the midpoint in perspective, it is still very close to the vanishing point. In fact, he stays almost invisible until the last step of the run cycle, when he leaps from near invisibility to the immediate foreground. I've kept on subdividing the midpoints in perspective (he's now running in the back more than 100 frames), but I'm still not getting any real steps in the foreground.
... I get the feeling that this is a stupid question, and that I'm just being way too anal about being mathematically correct with the perspective....
apples : oranges ::
Sounds like you've forced your perspective too much. 100 steps before midway, then one or two past that? If your perspective's that forced, then don't be quite so literal in your scaling of the character. Animation isn't reality, so don't stick to reality if cheating gets you the result you're looking for.
If it looks right, it is right... ;)
Hmmmm......
Yes there is more precision with hand animating a forward run but in the past Camera tricks, Zooming in as in the Batman series opening (1966), mattes (I assume),
xeroxography and even having an enlrgement device called a "lacey lucy" (like a projector for your drawings and you'd hand trace the scaling) were used in the past. ...And guess what...when I worked on those d2vs I cleaned up a scene of an 8 drawing dog run and they (DIP?) just scaled it. So it's legit ...but you'l have to nail your perspective and layout.
The reason why in the past something like the xerox tricks looked crappy like on SuperFriends is that what ended up on the cel was a xerox of a xerox. If you didn't paste ( not to mention scale percentagewise) your xeroxes precisely then it jittered. AFter those were copied onto cel and if they weren't re-registered properly they'd jitter even more.
I'm all for tricks as long as you can't tell it's a trick.
I didn't say it wasn't legit... Just said that it is not ideal, and chances of making it look good were slim. I didn't imagine that the person who posted this has a Xox machine, or a high-end piece of software to be able to place every drawing and scale it.... Generally speaking, feet slide when making camera tricks like this...
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
So what you need , if I understand you, is like a benzier curve that changes the "slope" of the transition? Anyone who has used a 3d animation program should have an idea of what I'm saying.
Oh goodness! well it is doable in Flash if one knows how. Of course may require fudging and not relying on the computers 'tweened scaling.
I hear you, Wade.
Ok. Here's an e.g in Flash. I know the contact on one stride is lower than the other but it's just for demo of being done in flash. The run is in one spot as a symbol then scaled up in perspective at the last "key frame" and motion tweened. Those tweens are converted to keyframes, tweens remmoved and then adjusted to get rid of slippage. Of course I have it easy not working to a prescrbed time and built the perspective around the run.
http://www3.telus.net/drard/scalerun.html
I guess I didn't understand the example, it looks like the image just moves steadily in a diagonal direction. Maybe I am mistaken.
Running straight towards the camera would be a little easier to simulate I think.
well I ended up just using the run cycle as a guide and drew the whole thing, being a lot less rigid with the perspective and just going for what worked aesthetically, and it looks fine. thanks for the help guys. I'll keep your advice in mind in the future
apples : oranges ::
The example is about scaling rather than drawing each frame, not necessarily running towards the camera...More or less explaining the tangent I went off on.
What you are asking is going to do just that... Make your computer your crutch. Animation is a long, tedious (at times) process, and the only way to do a perspective run properly in 2D is to animate each frame. Sure, you COULD animate a run on the spot (cycle), and use an independant camera to zoom in on it while your main camera stays fixed on the BG (I am speaking of using animation compositing tools such as US Animation, or Flash), but the character's feet will slide (guaranteed), and you will have a very hard time (if not impossible) getting the timing right... The character appears to cover less distance the further he is from camera, and it appears to accelerate as he gets closer to cam.
So, my suggestion is... Buck up, sit down, put on some tunes, and animate that puppy fram by frame.
Cheers
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Give or take the tunes...
if it's a straightforward run thing-- no character acting, an even linear perspective, etc. if you're lucky, a simple enlarging of percentages in the ol Xerox machine would do it.
that's how we do it back then. and we could nail the feet to the bg too.
at worst, you now have a very handy size guide.
if it's more profitable for you to sweat it out and learn, do it.
a run is easier than a walk.
if it's more profitable for you to finish it, get all the crutches you can.
it takes some brains to use them properly, you know.
Don't worry. All shall be well.
For some reason, I imagine the Caped Crusader and what's-his-name running right at me! Right out of the stinkin' TV!!! ;)
Splatman :D
SPLAT digital
"Crutch" may be too harsh a term. After all, the animators at Disney used this same "crutch" to animate the elephants stomping off into the underbrush in The Jungle Book back in the 60's. So if it's a "crutch", it's an old and well-used one.
By the same token, you want to have the knowledge of how to do it by hand if you have to. I say blend the two: draw an in-place run cycle, but chart out where the footfalls will hit on the layout (to avoid skating), and then scale accordingly. If the shortcut doesn't produce the results you want, you can always take the long route.