Almost every day, we see animations in films, TV, ads, and games. However, the use of animation is not just restricted to the media and entertainment industry.
Here are some of the sectors that benefits from using animations for various purposes:
Animation in medical science
It’s a great challenge for medical students and for the doctors to visualize the complex systems of human body. You yourself may have come across animations showcasing the cure for a disease while browsing social media. Such animations are a way to educate an audience on a medical topic under discussion. These medical visualizations have proved itself extremely effective for pharmaceutical manufacturers to explain how medications work and also in forensic science in recreating crime scenes.
Animation in education
It is now noticeable that the interactive learning material is effective in improving people’s learning skills and understanding ability. Smart Classes are now being readily adopted by schools all across the world. With the advent of technologies like 3D, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, it is now possible for the education sector to upgrade its traditional teaching to high end interactive learning environments.
Animation in air force and military training
Flight simulators with advanced graphics and animations are used for more than just fun. They save lives, aircrafts and a lot of money by allowing the pilots to train efficiently on ground. Similarly, military forces often use animated simulations for testing possible confrontation scenarios and training.
Animation in architecture visualization
Architects and home builders are now moving on to 3D animations to showcase their upcoming projects. Apart from the fact that this technique is more innovative than the old method of using miniature models, graphic animations provide a realistic view of the projects and help the customers to grasp the elaborations of large projects. 3D animations also have opened up new opportunities for interior designers.
Animation in business
Companies today use animations for product presentations, business presentations, company introductions, and corporate slideshows. It helps in highlighting the key points and at the same time communicating highly complex ideas in an easy-to-digest manner.
The demand for high-end animation is increasing every day. This means the scope for trained animators too is on the rise. Take up a career course with Arena Animation and get ready for an interesting career in the animation industry.
Can you think of any other industry that use animation? Let us know in the comments.
There are certain elements in animation that the audience overlook unless it is imperfectly done. One of them is lip syncing. There’s something about the brain’s perception of timing that processes character motions with the movement of lips and the words being said.
In the era of hand drawn animation, animators and editors used to just slip the whole speech track by two frames. But now with the application of advanced technology, not only 3D software but also tools for 2D animation have seen great progress that eases the process of lip sync. For instance, in After Effects, there are free tools that allow you to easily synch audio tracks with the animation of the mouth.
Also there are many free, or small fee, generic tools that allow you to take a limited, free to use character, and sync it with audio or recorded dialogue.
There are lip sync plug-ins for 3D animation that create a muscle-like structure in the mouth area of a 3D character which can be made to deform according to an already set library of shapes.
Some techniques use a mocap system to capture facial movement. Face rig does a pretty good job for an inexpensive consumer tool.
The basis for lip syncing is that you will need to adjust the timing of the key shapes on a word by word basis.
Here are some tips to improvise lip syncing in your animations:
1. Match the key frames exactly
To start with pull the timing of the shapes around till it looks and feels right, phrase by phrase. It may otherwise end up with sound being slipped by a number of frames before it looks right. The simplest lip sync involves correctly timing the ‘mouth-open’ and ‘mouth-closed’ positions.
2. Add gestures and body language
To increase richness try adding gestures and body language to the animated character. Facial expressions usually go hand-to-hand with lip syncing. This can be done by adding small subtle expressions like raising eyebrows to a big wide smile.
3. Watch and learn
Use a mirror or shoot some reference footage of yourself speaking to figure out the motion of lower jaw. This leads to another trick called blending. There’s no need to animate the mouth for each syllable. Focus on the most important mouth shapes. The key mouth shapes can be re-cycled or blended in different combinations over and over again.
courtesy: Cartoon Brew
4. Focus on eyes
Eyes can speak a thousand words. People often watch the eyes, particularly during close-ups, so emphasis and accents and can be initiated here even before the rest of the face and mouth is considered. Even the act of thinking of words to speak can be expressed in the eyes.
5. Choose the perfect voice
Last but not the least the right voice is vital, as voice determines the personality of a character. Check out one of our earlier blog posts to know about some of the greatest voiceover performances in animation movies.
Have more tips and tricks of animation? Share with us in the comments below.
The present technological advancement in movies have proven that almost nothing is impossible in the visual effects industry. With the tremendous growth of technology, day by day, there are no limits in filmmaking. We are already at a point where digital animation and CGI can look exceedingly similar to reality.
So what does the future has in the stores for VFX?
1. VFX will be used even more throughout the development, pre-production and filming process of a film. That’s the pretty obvious one!
2. The current VFX technologies are not only time consuming but also expensive. So the companies would be focusing not just to improve the quality but also to reduce the average cost of delivering a single shot. Right now the goal is to make it profitable enough to stay in business.
3. The distinction between Visual Effects shots and real-life shots will fade, further. An incredible number of visual effects shots are not even being noticed today. They go undetected as they are amazing. This gives more opportunities for creativity and storytelling to the filmmakers. For example, TV shows like The Walking Dead and movies like Fast and Furious involving car chase scenes use green screens for driving sequences.
4. VFX may still not be able to do everything 100% perfectly. Like the holograms used in I, Robot and Captain America they still pose a challenge which will hopefully be conquered with advancing software. Traditionally, the most difficult things to simulate are dust, water, smoke, fire, and light distortions.
credits: Digital Trends
5. Optimised work flow can be expected. Fully rendered animations are not real time animations, but hopefully with the advent of faster processors and better technology it will get closer to real time animation which is visually as perfect as offline rendered animation is now.
Did that go over your head? Pardon us. To present in simpler terms – the offline rendering process is usually much less performance-critical, so you have the option to use very expensive rendering techniques for better performance.
6. India may get more VFX. More and more Hollywood studios and directors are willing to outsource their post-production VFX work to Indian studios and companies. This means, there will be more job opportunities for the trained professionals who have completed job-oriented courses in VFX.
Do you see any more advancements in the VFX industry in the near future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
