Animating with Cages and Bars

[NanotechBeasts]

I have to clips animating a scene relating to Schrodinger's cat in a Sci-fi Fantasy Anime. It will likely be rated R so viewer discretion beware.

One clip is of the cat alive in a barred cage the next is of it dead in a barred cage. These clips are probably not of the actually event leading to the cat's 'death' but rather nightmares from another test subject animal for those wondering why the experiment will not be shown correctly in my teaser trailer.

The first clip is better. I haven't done the bar shadows yet: https://youtu.be/6n4hW3DPPjQ

The second clip just isn't working as the bars are heavily covering up the 'dead' cat's face. So I uploaded a clip showing how it looks with and without the bars. This clip was going to be a zoom in too: https://youtu.be/6J-f0DZeMeg

Anyway anyone have any tips on getting a more cinematic look with those cage bars. I know there is a look but can't really get it. The first clip used the zoom in and get the image further at the same time to create an unsettling effect.

[hayasidist]

you probably don't want zoom - track might work better.

take a look at this from about 20 seconds to 25 seconds in : https://youtu.be/Pi5IQEFhLz0?t=20 -- that's a tracking shot.

[slowtiger]

The cage and bar outlines are much fatter than the cat's outlines. If anything, they should be less prominent.

Shadow and highlights are essential to show the cylindrical shape of bars. Also there sould be stronger contrast in the shadows inside the cage.

In life action you'd film this with a long lens, capturing the cat in focus and the bars distinctively blurred.

[NanotechBeasts]

Hey Hayasidist, it's w3rew0lfgrl_99. How's everyone! How's Mike I can find his site anymore!
I think the effect I am going for is called a vertigo zoom effect? I use to be in film but life happened and it's been years. There is a going be a shot in the trailer on zooming in on the cat that "dies" and a shot zooming out of the canine who wants to save her cat friend and then a shot zooming in to the 'dead' cat in the cage and one more shot zooming out of the canine still stuck in her cage trying to save the cat
I also lost electricity to my place so just haven't been very active lately.
I was trying to go for that vertigo effect but maybe it was ineffective. I do need to learn tracking for over shots though. Your tracking is very pretty.

@SlowTiger I didn't even realize the line width was so big until you mentioned it. It seems like the bars are really in the way of the character instead of being an effective prop. I'll try making them smaller. I haven't really added shadows yet I struggled with the direction and placement. I'll try a smaller bar update.

[synthsin75]

Hey Hayasidist, it's w3rew0lfgrl_99. How's everyone! How's Mike I can find his site anymore!

Mike's moved on to 3D animation exclusively, as mo-cap makes it less work. Looks like he's still active on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQIIws ... ePF30hYrRA

[NanotechBeasts]

What's mo-cap? His scaniverse test shots look amazing! Thanks so much for sharing!

[hayasidist]

Hey Hayasidist, it's w3rew0lfgrl_99. How's everyone! How's Mike I can find his site anymore!
I think the effect I am going for is called a vertigo zoom effect? I use to be in film but life happened and it's been years. There is a going be a shot in the trailer on zooming in on the cat that "dies" and a shot zooming out of the canine who wants to save her cat friend and then a shot zooming in to the 'dead' cat in the cage and one more shot zooming out of the canine still stuck in her cage trying to save the cat
I also lost electricity to my place so just haven't been very active lately.
I was trying to go for that vertigo effect but maybe it was ineffective. I do need to learn tracking for over shots though. Your tracking is very pretty.

well hey! long time. Nice to have you back (with a new id!). As synthsin said, Mike has moved on from 2d -- a loss for us but a win for the 3d community. Mocap - motion capture - put tracking points on a live action person / object / animal and film them (or add tracking points to live action) - the motion of the tracking points is used to control how the rig moves.

vertigo effect: zoom in / track out or vice versa to hold the main subject at a fixed size in the frame whilst the bg either closes in or falls away (aka zolly = zoom + dolly) It relies on visual clues to have the bg appear to shift. (IOW a figure against a plain bg won't show any movement.) Maybe add something to the cage? move the cat back away from the bars?

[edit] I had a play with this in Moho.. It occurred to me that there's no need to mess with the camera -- you can just move the bg in z (which, ofc, in the real world you can't!)

[Greenlaw]

Hiya!

What's mo-cap?

Oh boy! Did somebody ask about 'mocap'?

Mocap or motion capture is a way of recording and transferring motions from the real world and applying them to subjects in the digital world. In other words, it's a digital form of puppetry. When most people say 'mocap,' they're usually talking about a human actor's motions applied to a digital character.

The most common methods are...

1.) ...attach sensors to the performer's body, head, and limbs to record their rotations, or...
2.) ...use a video or depth recording device to create a point cloud around the performer and then use that to animate the skeleton. There are many variations and combinations of these two techniques.

I've used mocap in some of my early personal animations (Happy Box (2011) and Excerpt: Brudders Music Video Project (2013)). These were created using two first-gen XBox Kinect IR sensors to record depth data from two angles. Later, I used the same technique with better depth sensors to create VFX for commercials and feature films. Nowadays, I use two MS Azure Kinect sensors to capture the body and limbs, and three Sony PS Move devices for the wrists and head rotation. The software I record with is iPi Mocap Studio, which recently added the option to use AI to help with pose interpolation.

Additionally, last spring, I purchased a Sony Mocopi, a cute 'pocket' system that uses six strap-on body sensors and an iPhone to capture motions. The range of motion is somewhat limited (Mocopi has trouble tracking arms straight up), but it's cool that I can go anywhere outdoors and start recording 'full-body' motions.

At my workplace, we have a couple of professional mocap suits with sensors, but this system is mainly for R%D and previs use only. The limited application is because even when mocap is good, it tends to look too realistic and isn't particularly appropriate for 'cartoon-style' animation. For example, I was recently asked to transfer dance motions we recorded to a character with a gigantic head and stumpy limbs, and this required so much editing that I essentially wound up re-animating much of the motions to suit the character's extreme body proportions. In this situation, it might have been more practical for me to visually reference the video footage from the sessions and hand keyframe the motions. That said, there are many situations where mocap works fine for cartoon characters, so I'm not dismissive of it. It's a tool, after all, and every tool has its special uses.

Mocap is generally used for 3D characters, but there are software packages that can 'flatten' 3D motion data for animating 2D character rigs. These systems typically use a webcam or an iPhone, and a keyboard to trigger animation events, but they can also involve gloves with sensors or a spatial capture device like Leap Motion. (I've got one of these things too...maybe I just like to collect gear.) I've dabbled with Reallusion Cartoon Animator and Adobe Character Animator for this. Both programs work as advertised, but as mentioned earlier, applying live-human motions to cartoon characters looks more like puppetry than traditional animation, so it has limited uses. A popular use of this tech is live performances and interactive events on social media. (For example, VTuber videos.)

Moho isn't built for using mocap data, and I probably wouldn't use it this way if it were, but Chucky shared some cool experiments here in the forums a few years ago where he applied mocap data to Moho puppets. And, of course, there's the clever .bvh import script by SimplSam mentioned earlier.

Sorry, this is probably way more info than you expected, but I couldn't help myself! I first got involved with 'homebrew' mocap 15 years ago, and the tech has come a long way since then. I may not be as passionate about mocap as I once was, but I still find it interesting and occasionally useful in my work.

And that's all I'll say about it...for now anyway.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, I almost forgot:

Procreate Dreams, the new iPad animation app from the developers of Procreate, has a neat feature that allows you to record puppeted motions directly on the screen using your fingers.

Moho has something similar: press Play and insert poses and animations using custom hotkeys; when you're done, press Stop. I'm not sure this system is practical, but it's fun to play with.

Moho also has a simple point tracker. I believe this is what Chucky used for his tests, and he pushed it way beyond its intended use.

[NanotechBeasts]

Thank you for all the help. I have missed everyone. I understand what mocap is now Working on an update but it is going so much slower than I hoped. Hopefully I can repost it soon. I made the bars smaller which is working better and am adapting the clip with the canine. I may wait on shadows since my main goal is just a fluid concept trailer thus some parts aren't done completely right.