Datasheet

Basic Film Concepts  25
Weight in animation is a perception of mass. An object’s movement, how it reacts
in motion, and how it reacts to other objects together convey the feeling of weight.
Otherwise, the animation will look bogus—or, as they say, “cartoonish.”
Weight can be created with a variety of techniques developed by traditional animators
over the years. Each technique distorts the shape of the object or character in some way to
make it look as if it’s moving. Although it may seem strange to distort an object’s dimen-
sions, doing so makes its motion more realistic. Chapter 8 will touch more on creating
weight in animation. Here’s a quick preview.
Figure 1.8
In the first frame
of this sequence,
a keyframe is set
on the position,
rotation, and scale
of the cone. On
frame 30, the same
properties are
again keyframed.
Maya calculates all
the movement in
between.
Keyframe at frame 1
Frame 5
Frame 15
Frame 25
Frame 10
Frame 20
Keyframe at frame 30
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