Tricks to Animating Characters with a Computer

J o h n Lasseter Pixar
one complete pose, w e n t ahead a few frames, then w o r k e d on the n e x t pose. Well, the inbetweens produced by t h e c o m p u t e r w e r e c o m p l e t e l y useless. I e n d e d up h a v i n g a keyfr~me at every frame t o get the results I desired. With computer animation, I learned to w o r k d o w n the hierarchy of the model, and as I went, created separate keyframes for the different controls at each level o f t h e hierarchy. I found t h a t c o n t r o l s at s o m e levels needed only a few keyframes w h e r e some at o t h e r levels needed keyframes on practically every frame. I also found that I used far fewer keyframes overall and the in-be~Neen values t h a t the c o m p u t e r would interpolate for me w e r e far m o r e useful. The i m p o r t a n t thing with this approach is t o have a clear idea of t h e action you w a n t t o achieve before you s t a r t . Plan o u t t h e a c t i o n w i t h t h u m b n a i l sketches and p l o t timing ideas on an e x p o sure sheet. Have these n e x t t o you as you block o u t t h e basic animation. You will find that you will always refer back t o these. a n i m a t i o n t h a t gives an o b j e c t its physical properties. M o r e that anything else, the timing o f the m o v e m e n t o f an o b j e c t defines t h e weight of that object. Two objects, identical in size and shape, can appear to have t w o vastly different weights by m a n i p u l a t i n g t i m i n g alone. The h e a v i e r an object is, the greater its mass, and the m o r e force t h a t is required co change its m o t i o n . A heavy b o d y is s l o w e r t o accelerate than a l i g h t o n e . It takes a large f o r c e t o g e t a bowling ball moving; but once moving, it tends t o k e e p m o v i n g a t t h e s a m e speed and requires some force t o stop it. W h e n dealing w i t h heavy objects, one must allow plenty of time and force t o start, stop o r change their movements, in o r d e r t o make t h e i r w e i g h t l o o k convincing. Light objects have much less resistance t o change of movem e n t and thus r e q u i r e much less t i m e t o start moving.The flick of a finger is enough t o m a k e a b a l l o o n a c c e l e r a t e away. W h e n moving, it has little m o m e n t u m and even the friction of the air quickly slows it up. The way an object behaves on the screen, the effect o f w e i g h t t h a t it gives, d e p e n d mostly on the spacing of the poses and less on t h e poses themselves. Again, no m a t t e r h o w well rendered a bowling ball may be, it does n o t l o o k like a bowling ball if it doesn't behave like one when it is animated. The p r o p e r t i m i n g of a m o t i o n can also contribute greatly t o the feeling o f size and scale o f an object o r character. A giant has much m o r e weight, m o r e mass, m o r e inertia than a normal man; therefore he moves m o r e slowly. Like a bowling baLI, he takes m o r e t i m e t o get started and once moving, takes m o r e t i m e t o stop. Any changes of m o v e m e n t take place m o r e slowly. Conversely, a t i n y chara c t e r has less i n e r t i a t h a n n o r m a l , so his movements tend t o be quicker.

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Abstract W h e n I presented the first animation I had created w i t h a computer, The Adventures of Andr~ and Wally B., a t S I G G R A P H 84, a number of people asked me w h a t cool n e w soPcware I had used t o achieve such believable characters. I explained t o them that the software was a ke)rframe animation system, n o t much different in t h e o r y than o t h e r systems t h a t w e r e around then. W h a t was different was t h a t I was using basic animation principles t h a t I had l e a r n e d as a t r a d i t i o n a l animator. It was n o t the software t h a t gave life to the characters, it was these principles o f animation, these tricks o f the t r a d e t h a t animators had developed o v e r 50 years ago. I was s u r p r i s e d at h o w f e w p e o p l e in t h e c o m p u t e r animation c o m m u n i t y w e r e aware of these principles. Traditional animation is basically one t r i c k a f t e r a n o t h e r . W h a t e v e r it takes t o get it w o r k i n g right on the screen is fair game. It should be the same in c o m p u t e r animation.At Pixar, w e constantly use tricks, old and new, t o get w h a t we need on the screen. In this talk, I will give away a few trade secrets that will be useful to anyone attempting to animate characters w i t h computers, regardless of the software they are using. Keyframes H o s t commercially available c o m p u t e r animat i o n systems are based on a n i m a t i n g w i t h keyframes. A t first, this seems like the same thing as key~rames in traditional hand-drawn a n i m a t i o n , b u t it is s l i g h t l y d i f f e r e n t , and therefore, you should approach y o u r animation differently. In hand-drawn animation, you w o r k on the basic poses of t h e scene first, drawing poses of the entire character so the timing and acting can be w o r k e d o u t w i t h a minimum of drawings created. Once the poses are finalized, then the in-between drawings are created t o complete the action.With c o m p u t e r animation, keyframes are values at certain frames f o r the articulation controls of a model, which are usually set up in a hierarchy. T h e c o m p u t e r c a l c u l a t e s t h e inbetweens values based o n a spline c u r v e connecting the keyframe values. When I first began animating with a computer, I was used t o hand-drawn animation and thought a keyframe in one medium was the same as the other. So I w o r k e d on

2DVs. 3D O n e of the biggest differences between handdrawn animation and c o m p u t e r animation is t h e fact t h a t c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n is t r u l y t h r e e dimensional.The first run cycle I ever animated on the c o m p u t e r looked great f r o m the side view, but when I looked at it f r o m the front, the arms w e r e going through the body and the knees w e r e bending the w r o n g way. F r o m then on I always a n i m a t e d w i t h t w o views of my character always showing, so t h a t I could always tell if the animation was w o r k i n g f r o m all sides. Since c o m p u t e r animation is t r u l y 3D, you can reuse the animation of a scene o r parts o f t h e animation and n o t tell t h a t it is the exact same motion. Hany times, if you simply l o o k at a scene of animation f r o m a different camera angle, it will l o o k completely different. Sometimes, it may seem t o o similar, so just v a r y the timing of the m o t i o n o r change the m o t i o n of an arm o r head and it will cease t o resemble the original.This is great for crowd shots, w h e r e the reuse of animation is an easy way t o keep the c r o w d alive.
Wei~ht & Size T h e c o m p u t e r gives the a b i l i t y t o c r e a t e images t h a t l o o k absolutely real. Especially w i t h t h e l a t e s t t e c h n i q u e s in rendering, t e x t u r e mapping, ray tracing and radiosity, you can make an object l o o k just like it's made of marble o r rubber o r whatever you wish. But t o make it l o o k like marble o r rubber when it is in motion, has v e r y little t o do w i t h the way the object is rendered. It has everything t o do w i t h t h e w a y t h e o b j e c t is a n i m a t e d . It is

TheThinkin E Character W h e n animating characters, every movement, every action must exist for a reason. If a character w e r e t o move about in a series of unrelated actions, it would seem obvious that the a n i m a t o r was m o v i n g it, n o t t h e c h a r a c t e r itself.All the movements and actions of a character are the result of its thought process. In creating a "thinking character;' the a n i m a t o r gives life t o the character by connecting its actions w i t h a thought process. W a l t Disney said, "In m o s t instances, t h e driving forces behind the action is the mood, the personality, the attitude of the character - - o r all three. Therefore, the mind is the pilot. We think o f things before the body does them:" To convey the idea that the thoughts of a character are driving its actions, a simple t r i c k is in t h e anticipation; always lead w i t h the
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eyes or the head. If the character has eyes, the eyes should move first, locking the focus of its action a few frames before the head. The head should move next, followed a few frames later by his body and the main action. The eyes of a character are the windows to its thoughts; the character's thoughts are conveyed through the actions of its eyes. If the character has no eyes, such as an inanimate object like a Luxo lamp, it is even more important to lead with the head. The number of frames to lead the eyes and head depends on how much thought precedes the main action. The animator must first understand a character's thought process for any given action. Consider a character wanting to snatch some cheese from a mouse trap; the eyes w i l l lead the snatch by q u i t e a b i t because this is a big decision. The character needs t i m e t o think, "...Hmm...This looks tricky, is this cheese really w o r t h it o r is it just processed American cheese food?...Oh what the heck..." he decides, and snatches the cheese. Conversely, if the action is a character ducking to miss a low flying sheep, the anticipation of the eyes leading the action should be just a couple of frames."What the..." and the next thing, he is spitting wool out of his mouth. The only time that the eyes o r head would n o t lead the a c t i o n w o u l d be w h e n an external force is driving the character's movements, as opposed to his thought process. For example, if that character was hit in the back by the l o w flying sheep, the force of the impact would cause the body to move first, snapping the head back and dragging it behind the main action of the body.

of the realistic look of computer animation, an animator needs to be aware of how far to push the motion. The motion should match the design of the character and the world. Animating very cartoony motion with lots of squash and stretch on a realistic looking object may not look believable, as would realistic motion on a caricatured object. This is the pitfall of using motion capture devices t o create final animation. M o t i o n capture from human actors will always look realistic_for a human. But apply that motion to a chicken and it will look like a human in a chicken suit.You can use the motion capture data as a starting place, tweak the timing and poses to make it more caricatured, then apply it to the chicken and the motion will match the design of the character.

through). If too much time is spent on any of these, the audience's attention will wander. If too little time is spent, the movement may be finished before the audience notices it, thus wasting the idea. The faster the movement, the more critical it is t o make sure the audience can follow what is happening.The action must not be so fast that the audience cannot read it and understand the meaning of it. [4] To make sure an idea or action is unmistakably clear, the audience's eye must be led to exactly w h e r e it needs t o be at the right m o m e n t ; they must n o t miss the idea o r action.Timing, as well as staging and anticipation are all integral to directing the audience's eye.A well-staged anticipation will be wasted if it is not timed properly. [ I ] It is important that only one idea is seen by the audience at a time. If a lot of action is happening at once, the eye does not k n o w where to look and the main idea will be overlooked. The o b j e c t of i n t e r e s t should be significantly contrasted against the rest of the scene. In a still scene, the eye will be attracted to movement. In a very busy scene, the eye will be attracted t o something that is still. Each idea o r action must be timed and staged in the strongest and simplest way before going on t o the n e x t idea o r action. The animator is saying, in effect,"Look at this, now look at this and now look at this." [3] In m o s t cases, an action should not be brought to a complete stop before starting a n o t h e r action; the second action should overlap the first.This slight overlapping maintains a flow and continuity between w h o l e phrases of actions. In Luxo Jr., it was very important that the audience was looking in the right place at the right t i m e , because the story, acting and emotion was being put across with movement alone, in pantomime, and sometimes the movement was very subtle. If the audience missed an action, an emotion would be missed, and the story would suffer. So the action had to be timed and paced so that only Dad or Jr. was doing an i m p o r t a n t action at any one time, never both. In the beginning of the film, Dad is on-screen alone and your eye is on him. But as soon as Jr. hops on-screen, he is moving faster than Dad; therefore the audience's eye immediately goes to him and stays there. Most of the t i m e Jr. is on-screen, Dad's actions are timed to be very subtle, so the a t t e n t i o n of the audience is always on Jr. where most of the story was being told. If Dad's actions w e r e i m p o r t a n t , Jr.'s actions w e r e t o n e d d o w n and Dad's m o v e m e n t s were emphasized; then the attention of the audience would transfer to Dad. For example, when Jr. looks up to Dad after he's popped the ball and Dad shakes his head, all eyes are on Jr.[I]

Emotion
The personality of a character is conveyed through e m o t i o n and e m o t i o n is the best indicator as to how fast an action should be. A character would not do a particular action the same way in t w o different e m o t i o n a l states.When a character is happy, the timing of his movements will be faster. Conversely, w h e n sadness is upon the character, the movements will be slower.An example of this, in Luxo Jr., is the action of Jr. hopping. When he is chasing the ball, he is very excited and happy with all his thoughts on the ball. His head is up looking at the ball, the timing of his hops are fast as there is very little time spent on the ground between hops because he can't wait to get to the ball. A f t e r he pops the ball, however, his hop changes drastically, reflecting his sadness that the object of all his thoughts and energy just a moment ago is now dead.As he hops off, his head is d o w n , the t i m i n g of each hop is slower, with much more time on the ground between hops. Before, he had a direction and a purpose to his hop. N o w he is just hopping off to nowhere. [ I ] To make a character's personality seem real to an audience, he must be different than the other characters on the screen.A simple way t o distinguish the personalities of your characters is through contrast of movement. N o t w o characters would do the same action in the same way. For example, in Luxo Jr., both Dad and Jr. bat the ball with their heads.Yet Dad, w h o is larger and older, leans over the ball and uses only his shade t o bat it. Jr., h o w e v e r , is smaller, y o u n g e r and full o f energy; he whacks the ball w i t h his w h o l e shade, putting his whole body into it. [ I ]

Moving Holds
In hand-drawn animation, it is very common to animate an action, then slow into a pose and hold the drawing of that pose for several frames, then move into action again. Being two-dimensional animation, the action stays alive even with the use of held drawings. The same goes for puppet and clay animation. But in 3D computer animation, as soon as you go into a held pose, the action dies immediately. I've seen it happen with every animator that came out of traditional animation. It must be the combination of the dimensional, realistic look and the smooth motion (usually on "ones") that makes a hold cause the motion to die.The eye picks it up immediately; it begins to look like robotic motion. To combat this, use a "moving hold:' Instead of having every part of the character stop, have some part continue to move slightly in the same direction, like an arm, a head o r even have the whole body. Even the slightest movement will keep your character alive. Sometimes an action that feels believable in traditional animation, looks t o o cartoony in computer animation. Because 46 Computer Graphics

Readability of Actions
Proper timing is critical to making ideas readable. It is i m p o r t a n t t o spend enough time (but no more) preparing the audience for the anticipation of an action; the action itself; and t h e r e a c t i o n t o t h e a c t i o n (the f o l l o w

A StoryTrick In storytelling, the timing of ideas and actions is important to the audience's understanding of the story at any point in time. It is import a n t that the animation be t i m e d t o stay either slightly ahead of the audience's understanding of what's going on with the story, o r slightly behind. It makes the story much more interesting than staying even with the audience. If the animation is t o o far ahead, the audience will be confused; if the animation is t o o far behind, the audience will get bored; in either case, their attention will wander. Action timed t o be slightly ahead of the audience adds an element of suspense and surprise; it keeps them guessing about what will happen next.An example of this is at the beginning of/.uxo Jr. Dad is on-screen, alone and still; t h e audience believes t h e y are looking at a plain inanimate lamp. Unexpectedly, a ball comes rolling in from off-screen.At this point, both Dad and the audience are confused.The audience's interest is in what is t o come next_ W h e n the action is t i m e d t o be slightly behind the audience, a story point is revealed t o the audience before it is known t o the character.The entertainment comes in seeing the character discover w h a t the audience already knows. Another application of this is w i t h a d i m - w i t t e d character w h o is always behind; the audience figures it out before he does. Many o f t h e s e t r i c k s can be used in c o n c e r t in any given scene in o r d e r t o achieve the strongest impact on an audience. A t the end of the dream sequence in Red's Dream, Red juggles three balls and catches them w i t h a big finish; the c r o w d explodes into wild applause, and Red takes his bows. Slowly the circus ring dissolves t o the interior of the bike shop, the sound of the applause fades i n t o t h e s o u n d o f rain, and Red, unaware, continues t o take his bows. A t this point, the audiences has n o t caught on t o what is happening because the timing of the action is slightly ahead of the audience.As the room appears, so does the large "50% OFF" tag hanging from Red's seat.The animation of the tag is timed to be light in weight; it flops around more actively than anything else in the scene.This contrast of action directs the audience's attention t o the rag which is a subtle reminder that Red is still in the bike shop.The audience is now ahead of the character and watches Red discover w h e r e he really is. Red's actions were timed to be slow, accentuating his sad emotion.Timing made the story points clear, the e m o t i o n stronger and the c h a r a c t e r ' s actions w e r e a r e s u l t o f his thought process; thus, the scene has a strong impact on the audience.

AskWhy In every step of the p r o d u c t i o n of y o u r animation, the story, the design, the staging, the animation, the editing, the lighting, the sound, etc., ask yourself why? W h y is this here? Does it f u r t h e r the story? Does it s u p p o r t t h e whole? To create successful a n i m a t i o n , you m u s t u n d e r s t a n d w h y an object moves before you can figure out h o w it should move. Character animation isn't the fact that an object looks like a character o r has a face o r hands. Character animation is when an object moves like it is alive, when it looks like it is thinking and all of its movements are g e n e r a t e d by its o w n t h o u g h t process. It is the change of shape that shows that a character is thinking. It is the thinking that gives the illusion of life. It is the life that gives meaning to the expression. [3] As SaintExup6ry w r o t e , "It's n o t the eyes, but the glance - not the lips, bur the smile..:' [2] Every single movement of your character should be there for a purpose, to support the story and the personality of your character. It is animation after all and any kind of motion is possible, and in the w o r l d of your story any kind of rules can exist. But there must be rules f o r your w o r l d t o be believable. For example, if a character in your story can't fly and then all of a sudden he can fly for no reason, your w o r l d and story will lose credibility with your audience. The movement of your character and the w o r l d of your story should feel perfectly natural to the audience. As soon as something looks wrong o r out of place, y o u r audience will pop our of y o u r story and think about how weird that looked and you've lost them. The goal is to create a personality of a character and a storyline that will suck y o u r audience in and keep t h e m entertained for the length of your film.When a film achieves this goal, the audience will lose t r a c k of t i m e and f o r g e t a b o u t all t h e i r worldly cares. For all that any audience truly wants is to be entertained. References I. Lassecer, John. "Principles of Traditional A n i m a t i o n A p p l i e d t o 3D C o m p u t e r A n i m a t i o n , " SIGGRAPH B7, Computer Graphics, 21 (4), pp. 35-44,July 1987. 2. S a i n t - E x u p 6 r y . Wind, Sand and Stars, Harcourt, Brace and Co., NewYork, 1932. 3. Thomas, Frank and Ollie Johnston. Disney Animation-- The Illusion of Life, Abbeville Press, NewYork, 198 I. 4. Whitaker, Harold and John Halas. Timing far Animation, Focal Press, London, 198 I.

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