Category: Animation

A tiger encounters a strange new world…

Lessons in Animating Inanimate Objects

• Even without faces, personality can be communicated through sound and movement. Each cactus takes on a different character through the tinniness and large jumps of the purple-potted plant (Freddie) versus melodic quality and sliding motion of the orange-potted plant (Eddie).
• Timing is everything. Different types of movement should take different lengths of time. Moving Eddie slowly when scooting back in front of the mirror communicated hesitation whereas the quick jumping of Freddie expressed frustration.
• Not every action should be synchronized. When initially approaching the mirror, the swaying of Eddie’s individual “arms” happened slightly out of sink with its overall movement. I’d like to incorporate this idea of secondary action further, especially with subtle movements of the spores once they’ve fallen off Eddie and the cactus’ individual movements when they both scurry away at the end.
• “Sliding” is a bad default way of moving characters. Although this is still lingering in various parts of the piece, simply sliding a character from Point A to Point B lacks personality and doesn’t feel appropriate to cactuses. When moving horizontally is coupled with a change in the Y axis as well—as a big jump or a tiny scoot—the motion reads as much more deliberate and accurate. Even when “sliding”, having a change in rotation around the back edge of the pot out of sync with the actual horizontal translation gave a more nuanced form of movement.

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