Flipbooks and Stuff

Rune Brandt Bennicke animates straight ahead into flipbook and gets some amazing results. Just goes to show that there are so many ways to approach this medium. I was particularly impressed with this clips.

7 comments:

frank said...

This reminds me of the animating special effects post earlier this year. Where a splash was animated straight ahead as the blobs of water were breaking up and following different arcs.

It also reminds me of Dan (2nd year) animating an ocean wave for a community project assignment. Where he too animated straight ahead as the wave built and crashed down.

These forward progressing movements of wobbly masses seem to be good candidates for straight ahead animation.

But does the animator have a picture in their head where it will all end up? Or do they follow the flow dictated by the drawings to take them to the final frame?

Kristi said...

I haven't been able to watch the clip yet but yeah, IMO straight ahead is the only way to go, with organic FX. The FX animators I have watched do tend to work straight ahead, on fours or sixes or eights, but I doubt that they have a precise idea of where they want to end up - most organic FX dissipate (splashes, explosions) or stay kind of constant (fire) so I suspect that a plan isn't really needed, you just go with it without forgetting to keep it looking "designy".

With large props like the train, I think that a little forethought would be required (and perhaps a little keyframing) since that's the focus of the scene, and is what is causing all the other pretty stuff to react to it.

frank said...

It's amazing that Bennicke draws so detailed and hits some pretty good poses and gestures going straight ahead in that 3rd flipbook clip.

He seems to have many thousands of drawings under his belt, to be able to do the planning in his head, to animate straight ahead in that amount of detail.

He must've worked hard and long hours at the light box as a student and apprentice.

frank said...

My first comment was based on the train picture.

The flipbooks are character animations to dialogue tracks and are pretty amazing.

frank said...

The 'train ride' clip is @

http://flipbooksnstuff.blogspot.com/2007/04/train-ride.html

(testing the 'a' tag in the comments: train ride

frank said...

OK, ok. I get it now. Rune Bennicke is a high skilled, professional animator.

He worked on Brother Bear, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch , accordian to his web site: http://www.runebennicke.com

Kristi said...

O well, that's what I get for jumping in and commenting before actually viewing the clips. :D
I wouldn't recommend straight ahead for dialogue, but some people have a feel for it, and can just do it - even then I would wager that they have a few poses in mind that they intend to hit. I think I read that Bill Tytla animated Stromboli in "Pinocchio" straight ahead. Take another look at the motion and overlap in that... it's amazing to imagine that it could have been only sort-of planned.