Before the actual research process I started with a small dump of questions that could further define my possible areas of interest. This first post is supposed to serve as an orientation session, finding ways to further develop my skills and reach for new content in different directions. While following my mental path of questions about character animation, I discovered another interesting topic: 3D shaders and different ways of stylisation. Here are the questions i came up with.
Animation:
State of the art analysis: Which animation studios are currently most present?
How do big animation studios animate? Do they have their own style?
What is the difference between 2D and 3D animation?
What are the main differences between character animation vs. facial animation practices?
What are the established workflows? Key poses, in-betweens, animation smears and stretches, dynamics
How can the animation principles be applied in character and facial animation?
What extra steps are needed to animate for video games? Animation loops / idle animation
How is work departmentalised / what is the pipeline in big studios?
Which tools does the industry use to animate?
How is such work possible as an individual? Which tools can be used, what helps facilitate the workflow?
How can motion capture be used to help get quicker results than with manual keyframe animation?
Shaders:
How do material shaders work in 3D?
In which style can a 3D piece be displayed?
How can shaders influence these styles? 3D vs 2D shaders
How can shaders be used to achieve certain styles? 90’s anime look / Arcane style / hand-painted look / watercolour / toon shader
Examples
Here I collected some example links, visualising what I thought of and found in this process.
https://80.lv/articles/an-unusual-method-of-creating-character-animations-for-games/
https://80.lv/articles/an-old-school-anime-style-animation-made-in-blender/
https://80.lv/articles/an-animator-shows-a-fun-way-to-work-with-dynamics-poses/
https://80.lv/articles/the-first-episode-of-the-behind-the-scenes-documentary-on-arcane/
https://80.lv/articles/work-in-progress-combat-animation-made-in-blender/
https://80.lv/articles/a-porco-rosso-inspired-animation-made-in-blender/
Possible Literature / References
This is a collection of works that can serve as a good foundation for research in the future.
Pallant, C. and Holliday, C. (2020) Snow White and the seven dwarfs. First edition..
Williams, R. (2009) The animator’s survival kit : [a manual of methods, principles and formulas, for classical, computer, games, stop motion and internet animators]. expanded ed.; 1. publ..
Primig, L. (2015) Rigging cartoony characters : am Beispiel des animierten Kurzfilms “The Rainbowmaker”
Schantl, D. (2013) Disney character animation : considering the example of Snow White and the seven dwarfs.
Wretschko, Bettina. 3D Character Animation : von der Idee bis zur Bewegung. 2015.