If the whole process of making anime

For different people, the creative process and method of animation may be different, but its basic law is the same. The production process of traditional animation can be divided into four stages: general planning, design and production, specific creation and filming and production, and each stage has a number of steps:

1. General design stage

1) Script. The first step in the production of any movie is to create a script, but the script of an animated film is very different from the script of a live-action feature film. The dialog in a general film is very important to the performance of the actors, while in animated films should be avoided as much as possible complex dialog. The heaviest emphasis here is on representing visual action on screen, and the best animation is achieved through slapstick action in which there is no dialog, but rather visual creations that stimulate the imagination.

2) Storyboarding. Based on the script, the director creates a comic strip-like story sketch (split-screen drawing script) that brings out the action described in the script. The storyboard has a number of segments, each segment consists of a series of scenes, a scene is generally limited to a certain location and a group of characters, and the scene can be divided into a series of shots that are regarded as picture units, thus constructing the overall structure of an animated film. The storyboard, while drawing each sub-shot, should be accompanied by corresponding descriptions of the action, the timing of the dialog, the camera instructions, and the picture connections that are part of its content. General 30-minute animation script, if you set up about 400 sub-plot, will draw about 800 drawings of the picture script - storyboard.

3) shooting table. The shooting schedule is the director to prepare the entire film production schedule, to guide the animation creative collective parties to work in a unified and coordinated manner.

2, design and production stage

1) design. Design work is based on the storyboard, determine the background, foreground and props form and shape, complete the scene environment and background map design, production. Styling of characters or other roles, and draw a standard page with several different angles of each shape for reference by other animators.

2) Sound. Sound recording had to be done before animation production because the movements had to match the music. After the recording was completed, the editorial staff had to break down the recorded sound into precise detail for each frame position, i.e., at what second (or frame) did the talking begin, how long did the talking last, etc. The sound was recorded in the first frame, and then in the second frame, and then in the second frame, and then in the second frame. Finally, the entire sound history (or track) has to be broken down to a bar table corresponding to the sound in each picture position for the animators to refer to.

3, specific creation stage

1) original drawing creation. The original drawing is created by the animation designer to draw out some key images of the animation. Usually a designer is only responsible for a fixed character or other characters.

2) Intermediate illustration creation. Intermediate illustration is a drawing of two important positions or frame drawings, usually a drawing between two original drawings. Assistant animator to produce an intermediate painting, the rest of the art staff and then interpolated to draw the character action of the connecting painting. In the original drawings between the additional interpolation of the continuous action of the drawing, to comply with the specified action time, so that it can be expressed close to the natural action.

3) Honor clearing and tracing. The animation design completed in the first few stages are pencil sketches. After the completion of the sketches, the use of special electrostatic photocopiers will be reputational printing of sketches to acetate film and then. Then the lines of the picture printed on the film are inked by hand.

4) Coloring. Since cartoons are usually in color. This step is to color (or colorize) the film after tracing the lines.

4. Shooting and production stage

1) Inspection. Checking is the first step in the shooting stage. After all the coloring of each frame of each shot is completed, before shooting, the animation designer needs to make a detailed check of each action in each scene.

2) Shooting. Animation filming, the use of the center has several layers of glass layer, there is a camera on the top of the special studio. The background is placed on the bottom layer, and different characters or foregrounds are placed on the middle layers. You can move the layers to produce animation effects, and you can also utilize the camera's movement, zoom, rotation and other changes and fading in and out of special effects to generate a variety of animated special effects.

3) Editing. Editing is a piece of post-production. The editing process is mainly to complete the animation of each segment of the connection, sorting, editing and so on.

4) recording. After the editing is completed, the editor and the director begin to select sound effects to match the movement of the animation. After all the sound effects are selected and can be well synchronized with the action, the editor and director work together to make a copy of the music. Then the voices, dialog, music, and sound are all mixed onto one sound track and finally recorded on film or videotape.

Traditional animation production, especially the creation of large-scale animated films, is a collective labor, and the collective cooperation of the creative staff is a key factor in the efficiency of animation creation. The production of a feature-length animated film requires many personnel, there are directors, producers, animation designers and animation auxiliary production staff. Animation auxiliary production personnel are specialized in intermediate picture adding work, i.e., animation designers draw the two extreme pictures of an action, and animation auxiliary personnel draw the picture in the middle of them. The screen organizer organizes the sketches drawn, the tracer is responsible for tracing the characters on the screen after organizing, and the colorist colors the traced figure. Because of the long animation production cycle is long, also need full-time coloring personnel coloring, to ensure that a character in the cartoon coloring before and after the same. In addition to stunt people, editors, photographers and production staff and administrative staff.

4, two-dimensional computer animation

Generally speaking, according to the role of computer software in the production of animation classification, computer animation computer-assisted animation and modeling animation two kinds. Computer-assisted animation is two-dimensional animation, its main purpose is to assist the animator to produce traditional animation, while modeling animation is three-dimensional animation. Two-dimensional computer animation production, the same traditional animation production of four steps. However, the use of computers, greatly simplified the work process, convenient and efficient. This is mainly manifested in the following aspects.

-Key frames (original drawings) generated

Key frames as well as the background image, you can use the camera, scanner, digitizer to achieve digital input, (CCTV Animation Technology Department) is to use the scanner to enter the pencil original drawings, and then post-production with the computer production line) can also be drawn directly with the appropriate software. Animation software will provide a variety of tools to facilitate your drawing. This greatly improves the traditional animation picture production process, you can always store, retrieve, modify and delete any picture. Several steps in traditional animation production, such as character design and creation of original drawings, are completed in one step.

-Generation of intermediate frames

Using the computer to interpolate and calculate the two key frames to automatically generate intermediate frames is one of the main advantages of computer-assisted animation. This is not only precise and smooth, but also frees animators from tedious labor.

-Layered production synthesis

Traditional animation of a frame, by the multi-layer transparency film on the picture superimposed on the synthesis, which is to ensure the quality, improve efficiency of a method, but the production of the need for accurate alignment, and by the impact of the light transmission rate, the transparency of up to no more than four films. In the animation software, also used the same method of layering, but the alignment is very simple, the number of layers from the theory that there is no limit to the various controls on the layer, like moving, rotating, etc., is also very easy.

-Coloring

Animation coloring is a very important aspect. Computer animation-assisted coloring can relieve tedious and expensive hand coloring. With computer tracing coloring boundaries accurately, do not need to dry, will not tamper with the color, easy to change, and does not affect the color due to the number of layers, fast, not to mention the need for before and after the color change headaches. Animation software generally provides many painting pigment effects, such as airbrush and palette, which are also very close to traditional painting techniques.

- Preview

Before generating and producing special effects, you can demonstrate the sketch or original drawing directly on the computer screen to check the animation and time limit of the animation process in order to detect problems in time and make problems and make changes.

-The use of the library

A variety of character modeling in computer animation and their animation process, can exist in the gallery to be used repeatedly, and it is very easy to modify. Applying animation in animation can be done using the gallery.

1. Beginning script-director-subtitle

If the script is the soul of an animated film, the director's subtitle is like the skeleton of an animated film, where the approximate movements and expressions of the characters in the story are reflected in the subtitle.

When the reporter walked into the office of director Wang Shijia, Wang was working on the script of the animated movie "Warrior". The script didn't look very detailed, even a bit scribbled, much like a four-panel cartoon. Wang's paintbrush makes a few strokes inside the frame, and the image of a man in Mongolian costume pointing to the sky appears, while next to the frame, Wang makes some annotations. Wang explains that the materialization of the script is the next step, and he is only responsible for expressing the text in a rough image; the annotations are made so that his colleagues who are working on the original drawings can better understand the director's intention.

2, the attack on the original painting - painter - animation production

Original painting creation is to show the effect of the animated film and style of an important link, we see the animated film, the first impression is the character image is not beautiful, the outline of the five senses is clear, and these are all from the original painting staff of the painting of the fine carving.

It is understood that an ordinary 85-minute-long animated film to spend at least 10 million yuan, and one of the main costs is the original painting of the artificial creation of cost.

Creators of the original drawings work eight hours a day, or more than 10 hours if they are in a hurry, and a blockbuster movie usually has 50 to 100 people working on it at the same time. The animated blockbuster "Warriors", which is in production, began preparations in March this year and is expected to be completed by the end of next year. According to the investment of 10 million yuan, the director and screenwriter costs about 2 million yuan, excluding post-production costs of more than 2 million yuan, the original picture creators get nearly 6 million yuan.

The original drawing studio in the U.S. film studio is a "large" population, and Zhang Zhenhui is one of them, in front of his desk, pasted a lot of his previous participation in the creation of animated cartoons, such as "Iron Arm Astro Boy", "Shen Zhen Conan" and so on. Zhang Zhenhui's desk is also relatively special, in addition to the top and bottom of the left and right are large and small drawings, pencils, in the front of the table there is a piece of glass under the fluorescent lamp. When he draws, Zhang Zhenhui will overlap two sheets of drawing paper and lay them on the glass plate. The bottom sheet is the finished background, and the top sheet is the figure that Zhang Zhenhui needs to refine.

The original drawing of the characters is the most voluminous project and takes a lot of time. Zhang Zhenhui had to take care of the director's subplot as well as the character modeling provided by the studio. A scene of two people's conversation is so subtle that it is impeccable: whether the eyes are wide open, to what extent, whether the two eyes are large and small, whether the corners of the mouth are crooked, to what extent, whether the eyebrows are wrinkled, what kind of hair ...... have to be compared again and again. This is only to draw some static expression, if you meet the action scene, it is more complex. For example, a foot pedal bicycle action, that lift up, put down the dynamic must be broken down into five original paintings, after the acceptance of the director, but also need to break down the five original paintings into 10 original paintings, only to break down the action of the more, the better the effect of the shot, the action is also more fluent.

3, the production line shot - computer playback - review

For animation, "movement" is obviously its characteristics, to make a single frame of the original picture move, it must be through the line shot of this process. This is also where the director looks at the movie, and can make immediate changes if he finds something unsatisfactory in the line shot. Line shooting machine is like a large microscope, in the middle is a meter high upright ruler, near the top of the place is equipped with a camera, near the bottom of the place of a left and a right there are two lights. Will be completed under the lens of the original drawings, page by page to shoot down, and then connected to the camera with a computer will be just a page by page of drawings, continuous uninterrupted play out, that became more familiar with the animation.

Because some "action scenes" are designed to be very complex, sometimes more than 80 drawings are needed for a 5-second scene. The line shot is a step that the director must monitor, and if he has any comments on the character's expression or movement, he will make changes when he watches the line shot.

4, post-coloring - special effects processing - film

The birth of an animated film, the first three steps take the most time, line shooting through the director's review, there will be a set of final draft produced, from the screen, these drafts are complete, only coloring and light effects left.

At present, coloring and lighting effects are not very troublesome to deal with, and everything is left to the computer. The computer will be based on the color distribution of a set of costumes, and quickly get all the colors of the same type of clothing done. Lighting effects are also the same as the production of film and television, during which some of the director's intention will also be added, but it will not be a major revision of the bones, but just some of the tonal processing or special effects on the grasp of it