Walk cycle + Character + Multiplane effect
9. Multiplane Camera
I had already used this effect in my previous animation coined ‘Animal Cruelty’, but at the time I did not know that it was termed as such. I had used the tool to move the bus across the screen and the nymph as well. In the lesson where Mr. Ahmad touched on this tool, he showed us a clip of how traditional animators from Disney invented such a tool to create the effect of the background moving in a certain direction.
Cartoonists first drew the different layers of grounds on paper, before artists transfer these drawings onto glass sheets and colour them in as well. These planes of glass are then mounted on a contraption that had rotating handles to move the different layers (up to seven layers), and then shot under a vertical and moveable camera, hence creating a three dimensional effect due to an illusion of depth by having the layers of artwork moving at different speeds – the further away from the camera, the slower the speed. The multiplane effect is otherwise known as a parallax process.
Our subsequent task after mastering this effect was to put our character with its stationary walk cycle in, so that combined with the multiplane effect, it would give viewers an illusion that our character was actually walking across the screen. However, I experienced some troubles. Everytime I attempted to open the file that I had saved of my walk cycle, my tablet would hang, and even crash, countless times. Frustrated, I decided to redraw the entire walk cycle with a new character. After that, everything went quite smoothly and I managed to complete the multiplane with no further disruptions.
/reflections of -theKNEES.