યુસુફ મનાગોરી કોમર્સ ગ્રેજ્યુએટ છે. તેમના 10 + 2 ના અભ્યાસ અને સ્નાતકના શિક્ષણના સમયગાળા દરમિયાન તે સાઈડ બિઝનેસ તરીકે સાયબર કાફે ચલાવતા હતા. તેને વિડીયો ગેમ્સ રમવાનું પસંદ હતું અને વિવિધ શાળાના પ્રોજેક્ટ્સમાં કામ કરવાનું મેનેજ કર્યું હતું. આ પ્રથમ વખત હતો જ્યારે તેને ગ્રાફિક્સ અને એનિમેશન ઉદ્યોગમાં કામ કરવાની રુચિ અને જુસ્સો મળ્યો.
તેને પૂર્ણ-સમયની કારકિર્દી બનાવવા માટે તેણે વીએફએક્સ અને એનિમેશન નો અભ્યાસક્રમ કરવાનો નિર્ણય કર્યો. ભારતની શ્રેષ્ઠ એનિમેશન અને વીએફએક્સ સંસ્થાઓના શોધ દરમિયાન, તે Arena Animation ઇન્સ્ટિટ્યૂટ ની માહિતી મળી. સંપૂર્ણ સંશોધન અને પરામર્શ પછી, તે Arena Animation ની પસંદગી કરવામાં ખુશ હતો અને 2 વર્ષના એડવાન્સ એનિમેશન ઇન્ટરનેશનલ VFX પ્રોગ્રામ (AAIP) અભ્યાસક્રમમાં પ્રવેશ મેળવ્યો.
યુસુફ કહે છે કે, “મને Arena Animation ના VFX પ્રોગ્રામ ની તાલીમ દરમિયાન ઇન્સ્ટિટ્યૂટના પ્રતિભાશાળી શિક્ષક દ્વારા યોગ્ય કુશળતા અને માર્ગદર્શન મળ્યું છે. Arena Animation પાસે ગ્રીન રૂમ, રેકોર્ડિંગ સ્ટુડિયો અને વી આર ગેમિંગ ઝોન આવી અનેક સુવિધા છે, જેથી તે ગુજરાતની સૌથી મોટી VFX ઈન્ફ્રાસ્ટ્રક્ચર તરીકે જાણીતું છે. Arena Animation પિક્સેલ સ્ટુડિયો, શેમરૂ અને ટોરેસિડ જેવી ટોચની ભારતીય કંપનીઓને આમંત્રણ આપીને પ્લેસમેન્ટ ડ્રાઈવ કરે છે. VFX માં 4 વર્ષ કામ કરવાનો અનુભવ પૂર્ણ કર્યા સાથે, હવે હું ભારતના પ્રખ્યાત Online Learning Platform BYJU’S માટે મોશન ગ્રાફિકસ કલાકાર તરીકે કામ કરી રહ્યો છું. ”
તેમણે વધુમાં ઉમેર્યું કે, “ઉદ્યોગમાં સર્વશ્રેષ્ઠ લોકો પાસેથી શીખવા માટે હું આભારી છું, જેના કારણે મને BYJU’S માટે કામ કરવાની આ સૌથી મોટી તક મળી. હું હંમેશા મારા બધા સાથી ઉમેદવારોને Arena Animation ની ભલામણ કરું છુ. ”
યુસુફ મનાગોરી ના પ્રતિભાવથી અમે ખૂબ જ ગર્વ અનુભવ કરીએ છીએ. તેનું ઉદાહરણ આપતા કહી શકીએ કે, ‘એક સાચો નિર્ણય તમારું જીવન કાયમ માટે બનાવી શકે છે.’ યુસુફને તેની કારકિર્દી માટે અમારી વિશેષ શુભકામનાઓ!
Disney remains to be the most popular name in animation, and not without reasons. Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas (two of Disney’s Nine Old Men), in 1981, introduced animators to the 12 basic principles of animation in their book, The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. Although animation has evolved much over the years, these twelve concepts will not be outdated, and continue to be taught in popular animation institutes around the world.
Let us look at the first six principles in this first part.
Squash & Stretch
Squash and stretch remains to be the foundation of animation. It is the technique used to convey weight, emphasise movement, and enhance a character’s flexibility. From a person walking to a dog jumping, there are enough examples of squash & stretch in real life. However, in animation, these actions are exaggerated. The easiest way to understand how squash and stretch work is to look at a bouncing ball or a man walking at a regular pace.
Image courtesy: www.download.autodesk.com
Here is another excellent example of the use of this technique in 2D animation. The man in the front appears to be lighter and walking fast. With an accentuated squash and stretch, the character walking behind appears heavy and slow.
You may not have noticed it, but this technique is commonly used in your favourite 3D animation movies. Remember Murray from Hotel Transylvania? That is a lot of squash and stretch!
GIF courtesy: Sony Pictures Animation
Timing
Timing in animation refers to the number of drawings or frames that complete a given action. It determines the speed of the action. In simple terms, if there are more drawings between two poses, the action will be slow & smooth. But fewer drawings make the action fast. The below image will help you understand this better.
Image courtesy: www.evl.uic.edu
Anticipation
Anticipation is the preparation for an action. Some of the most common examples in real life include a golfer swinging his club backward before hitting the ball or a bowler waiting for a second before starting to run. In animation, humour is usually created when the movement of anticipation happens in the opposite direction of the main action. Any action that requires greater strength will have a bigger moment of anticipation. See Red smiling? Did you see this coming?
As any object or person starts to move, there will be acceleration. When they come to a halt there must be deceleration. Otherwise, the movements become robotic. Imagine that a car starts and reaches full speed in an instant or comes to a halt from 100km/hr in the blink of an eye. Such movements are unnatural. Slow in – Slow out or Ease in – ease out make such actions more life-like. In animation, the closer the drawings/frames are, the slower the animation will be. The farther apart they are, the faster the animation will be. A swinging pendulum is a classic example of this principle.
GIF Courtesy: Katie Bayman
Follow Through & Overlapping Action
These two closely related principles of animation help animators create realistic scenes. They simply follow the laws of physics. Follow-through is the idea that certain appendages and body parts continue to move even after the person/object stops moving. If a superhero character wearing a cape runs and stops abruptly, the cape will fly forward past the body, then fall back where the character stopped. If a car halts suddenly, the antenna on top of it will keep moving for another second.
Overlapping action explains the idea that different parts of a body will move at different rates. For example, when the superhero character walks, his arms will move at a different speed than his head.
GIF Courtesy: Dsource Ekalpa India via YouTube
Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose Animation
Have you ever created a stick-figure flipbook animation on the corners of your notebook? If yes, then chances are you didn’t plan it out with preparatory sketches. This is straight ahead animation, which involves creating frame-by-frame from start to finish. While most classic Disney movies were made using this technique, it is not much in use lately.
Most computerized animation uses the pose-to-pose animation. In this, you set the main poses first and insert the in-between poses later to get the timing right. In top animation studios, the key poses are often set by the lead animators while the rest of the frames are set by the newbies on the team.
Image courtesy: www.pluralsight.com
Now armed with these first six basic principles of animation, start practicing, and notice the difference in your animation, be it 2D or 3D. Bookmark this post and check back often so that you can brush up on the basics whenever required.
Watch this space for the remaining six basic principles of animation.
Interested in a career in animation? Click here and take a look at animation career courses that can help you get the right skill sets.
The 7 Best Animated Characters of All Time Who Never Speak
The most memorable animated characters on the screen are often the ones who say nothing at all. These characters have quite vivid emotions and you could easily tell what is going on with them emotionally.
Sometimes the character don’t have the ability to speak, such as animals like Snoopy and Pluto and sometimes they aren’t given vocals at all.
Here’s a list of impressive non-speaking animated characters.
Mr. Bean
The Mr. Bean series was broadcasted in about all the countries across the world. There doesn’t seem to be a person across the globe who cannot understand or enjoy his character and antics. Mr. Bean’s character was influenced by Jacques Tatia’s Monsieur Hulot, the infamous French silent comedy star.
Wall- E
Pixar’s garbage collecting robot has a modified Mac boot sound. His emotions and gestures were incredibly beautiful and made the character quite enjoyable.
Maggie Simpson
Despite her silent role, she has a distinct depth of character and is the main focus of a great number of episodes of The Simpsons. The baby often proves to be the most genius one in the family.
Shaun the Sheep
Mischievous sheep ‘Shaun’ was silent as creators didn’t want to waste time in lip syncing and voice acting. And that resulted in a global hit of a dialogue-free character.
Tom and Jerry
Silent comedy at its best. Their expressive faces and the physical quarrels are something that remains unmatched since decades.
Magic Carpet
The most unique in the list is the Magic Carpet from Aladdin. It not only stays silent but also doesn’t even have a face and still we get to know what it communicates with the Aladdin.
Abu
Remember the monkey from Aladdin?
Abu loyally accompanies the thief-turned-prince throughout his adventures and is in constant fight with his counterpart, the carpet.
Just because these characters are silent does not mean they don’t have anything to say. The silent animated characters communicates vividly through their gestures and expressions. To animate characters, especially the silent ones, you must not only be imaginative and creative, but also need the length and breadth of knowledge to make your creations come to life. With the right set of skills, you too can create such amazing characters! If you have the passion for animation, click here and check out this Animation Film Design course.
Who are your favourite characters who never speaks? Let us know in the comments below.
You’ve spent hours watching animation. You’re wonder by how digital art could create such jaw dropping visuals. Now, you can’t wait to learn it and start creating animations for your dream studio!
Now the dilemma arise, whether to learn animation all by yourself or join an institution.
These are the times when people have access to any information sitting on the couch. Be it learning the guitar or an introduction to quantum mechanics. There are tutorials for everything. But are they of any help for a long term career development? Here are a few points to consider when trying to answer this question.
Basic skills
The problem is that there is a sea of tutorials out there. Most of which are just ‘tips and tricks’ by professionals or at the best they teach you the use of software to achieve certain techniques. Of course they are helpful, but for those who already have some experience in the field. For a beginner, it is absolutely necessary to have the sound basics. It not only takes a huge amount of time but it also is quite frustrating to look up to several tutorials to texture a cube (hello blender users!).
Cost of learning
Let’s suppose that you found an entire course for free on YouTube. Why to pay a hefty fee to learn something that is already on the Internet then? Call it traditional style, but joining an institution in creative fields provides you real time experience of handling projects within a stipulated period of time. What it provides is a disciplined framework for the entire course of animation. And to talk about the fees, if someone decides to learn on there own, the overall cost of getting a high end laptop, a software and other stuff would amount to almost near the fees you’d be paying. Note that the educational institutes are always up to date with the latest version of animation software.
Additional skills
Keep in mind that it’s not just the practical experience you’re getting. There would be many like you with the same passion for animation but with different thought process. You would get to learn how to approach a solution by trying out many ideas and working as a team.
Team spirit is one of the major skills in demand for any job. Your batch mates would be the first people you would plan to make short animations with. Learning alongside fellow students is very necessary for a challenging mindset to develop. Sure there are forums and discussion sites, but as old fashioned it may sound – there can’t be a substitute for personal interaction!
Certification
Tutorials are doing a great job and one can still achieve proficiency. But only in certain aspects. Getting hired depends on the awesomeness of ones portfolio. Of course there are many self taught animators but given the rising demand of this career and the complexity of new age softwares in recent times. Truth be told; the number of studios or jobs demanding a certificate in related fields has become mandatory and not a preference anymore. An advanced certification improves your chances when applying for jobs.
Placement assistance
This might be the deal-breaker when considering online learning. Even if you manage to get the skills using online tutorials or a course, it doesn’t guarantee a job. You have to work on your portfolio creation, gain interview skills, and schedule interviews on your own. But when you join a reputed animation institute, placement assistance will be provided to you. Take Arena Animation sayajigunjfor instance. Every student gets hands-on training as a part of the curriculum. Students are given ample guidance to develop their professional portfolio. They are also given training on interview Cracking-communication and personality development and are given the opportunity to attend interviews with many top companies and studios at the institute.
Maybe a few decades from now, the concept of ‘offline teaching’ would either have evolved or dissolved for the better. But as of today, if you wish to learn animation, join the best institute with personal mentor which will sharpen ur creative skills to gain professional portfolio.
