BEFORE WE BEGIN

We need to establish exactly what we mean when we talk about design for animation. It would be a mistake to think that this is merely limited to designing funny cartoon characters. In the context covered by this chapter, we will be looking at the most obvious graphical design elements of character design, storyboards and backgrounds.

Design for animation does indeed involve character design, but beyond that it extends to backgrounds, sets, props, storyboards, animatics, cinematography and other non-graphic elements, such as sound, music, and scripting and characterization design, aspects that may be found in a writer s bible rather than an animator s bible. Each of these specific areas of design clearly contributes to the overall result. It can be argued that even animation timing can be classified and identified in terms of design. It is not only in the graphic quality of the animation that differentiates work such as Phil Malloy s and Erica Russell s. Design extends to the way in which each animator uses time as a design element, not simply using animation timing as a way of moving things around the screen but by creating an animation language. Animation timing as a design element is also clearly evident in computer games, where the playability of...