Module 5 : Physics of Animation

CONTENTS
1. Introduction to animation
2. Taxonomy of physics based animation methods
3. Frames & frames per Second
4. Size & Scale
5. Motion and timing in animations
6. Constant force and acceleration
7. The odd rule, motion graphs & numerical calculations based on odd rule
8. Examples of character animation
 Jumping
 Walking
9. Statistical physics for computing (Descriptive statistics and inferential
statistics)
 Poisson distribution
 Normal distributions (Bell Curves)
 Monte Carlo method

Books Referred:
1. Physics for Animators, Michele Bousquet with Alejandro Garcia, CRC Press,
Taylor & Francis, 2016.
2. Physics based animations by Kenny Erleben, Jon Sporring, Knud Henriksen.
3. Exploring physics with computer animation and PhysGL by T J Bensky
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Physics of Animation

1. Introduction to Animation

 Animation is a method of photographing successive drawings, models, or even

puppets, to create an illusion of movement in a sequence.
 Because our eyes can only retain an image for approximately 1/10th of a second, when
multiple images appear in fast succession, the brain blends them into a single moving
image.
 Animation is the process of displaying still images in a rapid sequence to create the
illusion of movement.

2. The Taxonomy of Physics-Based Animation Methods

 At the highest level, the field of physics-based animation and

simulation are divided into two large groups:

1. Kinematics is the study of motion without consideration of mass or forces.

2. Dynamics is the study of motion taking mass and forces into consideration.

 kinematics and dynamics come in two subgroups:

1. Inverse is the study of motion knowing the starting and ending points.

2. Forward is the study of motion solely given the starting point.

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3. Frames

 A frame is a single image in a sequence of pictures.

 A frame contains the image to be displayed at a unique time in the animation. In
general, one second of a video is comprised of 24 or 30 frames per second also
known as FPS.
 The frame is a combination of the image and the time of the image when exposed to
the view.
 An extract of frames in a row makes the animation.

The following are the most common types of frames used in animation,
 Key frame: Key frames signify the start and end points for actions in animation.
 Placeholder frames: Placeholder frames give where the events are taking place at
any given time.
 Regular frames: Regular frames decide how long that change will last.
 Twined frames: Twined frames contain two key frames and any number of frames
in between.

Frames per Second

 Frames per second (FPS) is a unit that measures display device performance in
video captures, playback, and video games. FPS is typically the frequency at
which consecutive images are captured or displayed.

 Different video formats have different FPS rates. Slower FPS rates produce
smaller computer files.

 There are two standard television images: 30 frames per second (National
Television Standards Committee) NTSC for the United States and 25 frames per
second (Phase Alternate Line) PAL for Europe.

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4. Size and Scale

 The size and scale of characters often play a central role in a story’s plot. What
would Superman be without his height and bulging biceps? Some characters, like the
Incredible Hulk, are even named after their body types.
 We often equate large characters with weight and strength, and smaller characters
with agility and speed.
 There is a reason for this. In real life, larger people and animals do have a larger
capacity for strength, while smaller critters can move faster than their large
counterparts.
 When designing characters, you can run into different situations having to do with
size and scale, such as:

1. Human or animal-based characters that is much larger than we see in our

everyday experience. Superheroes, Greek gods, monsters,
2. Human or animal-based characters that is much smaller than we are
accustomed to, such as fairies and elves.

3. Characters that need to be noticeably larger, smaller, older, heavier,

lighter, or more energetic than other characters.
4. Characters that are child versions of older characters.

Proportion and Scale

 Creating a larger or smaller character is not just a matter of scaling everything about
the character uniformly.

 To understand this, let’s look at a simple cube. When you scale a cube, its volume
changes much more dramatically than its surface area. Let us say each edge of the
cube is 1 unit length. The area of one side of the cube is 1 square unit, and the volume
of the cube is 1 cubed unit. If you double the size of the cube along each dimension,
its height increases by 2 times, the surface area increases by 4 times, and its volume
increases by 8 times. While the area increases by squares as you scale the object, the
volume changes by cubes.

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Weight and strength

 Body weight is proportional to volume. The abilities of your muscles and bones,
however, increase by area because their abilities depend more on cross-sectional area
than volume.

 To increase a muscle or bone’s strength, you need to increase its cross- sectional area. To
double a muscle’s strength, for example, you would multiply its width by √2. To triple
the strength, multiply the width by √3. Since strength increases by squares and weight
increases by cubes, the proportion of a character’s weight that it can lift does not scale
proportionally to its size.

 Let us look at an example of a somewhat average human man. At 6 feet tall, he weighs
180 pounds and can lift 90 pounds. In other words, he can lift half his body weight. If you
scale up the body size by a factor of 2, the weight increases by a factor of 8. Such a
character could then lift more weight. But since he weighs more than 8 times more than
he did before, he cannot lift his arms and legs as easily as a normal man. Such a giant
gains strength, but loses quickness.

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5. Motion and Timing in animations

a) Introduction to Motion

 Motion is an essential component in games and animations. The motion is governed

by the Newton’s laws and kinematic equations.
 The most common types of motion are,

1. Linear
2. Parabolic
3. Circular
4. Wave
 Motion and timing go hand in hand in animation.

b) Motion Lines and Paths

 Individual drawings or poses have a line of action, which indicates the visual flow of
action at that single image.
 Motion has a path of action, which indicates the path along which the object or
character moves. The path of action refers to the object’s motion in space. While it
can help show timing, its primary function is to see the direction and path of the
motion, and not necessarily its timing.

Line of Action

Path of Action

c) Timing

 Animators have the ability to move forward and backward in time to place objects
when and where they are to be.

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d) Timing Tools
 In animation, timing of action consists of placing objects or characters in particular
locations at specific frames to give the illusion of motion.
 Animators work with very small intervals of time; most motion sequences can be
measured in seconds or fractions of seconds.
 Frame intervals between keys are usually smaller than one second.

e) Linear Motion Timing

 Linear motion refers to motion in a straight line, always in the same direction. An
object moving with linear motion might speed up or slow down as it follows a linear
path.
 A heavy ball rolling on a table or incline is an example of linear motion. The ball is
rotating, but its center of gravity follows a linear path.

f) Uniform Motion Timing

 When uniform motion occurs, the net force on the object is zero. There might be
several forces acting on the object, but when both the magnitude and direction of the
forces are added up, they add up to zero.
 Uniform motion is the easiest to animate because the distance the object travels
between frames is always the same.
 Uniform motion is a type of linear motion with constant speed and no acceleration or
deceleration. The object moves the same distance between consecutive frames. The
longer the distance between frames, the higher the speed.

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g) Slow in and Slow out

 When motion is accelerating or decelerating, we refer to this type of motion as a slow

in or slow out.
 This type of motion is sometimes called ease in or ease out

1. Slow in (ease in) —The object is slowing down, often in preparation for stopping.

2. Slow out (ease out) —The object is speeding up, often from a still position.

 The term slow out can be confusing; since it essentially means “speed up.” one can
think of slow out as the same as ease out, as in easing out of a still position and
speeding up to full speed.
 For example, a ball rolling down an incline or dropping straight down is slowing out,
as it goes from a still position or slow speed to a fast speed. A ball rolling up an
incline is slowing in.

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6. Constant force and Acceleration

a) Constant Forces

 A constant force is a force that doesn’t vary over time.

 Examples, 1. Gravity pulling an object to the ground
2. Friction bringing an object to a stop

b) Constant force and Acceleration

 Constant forces result in constant acceleration so we can figure out the timing for
such sequences using a few principles of physics.
 The resulting acceleration depends on the direction of the force and motion,
1. When constant net force is applied to an unmoving object, the result is
acceleration.
2. When constant net force is applied to a moving object in the same direction as the
motion, the result is acceleration.
3. When constant net force is applied in the direction opposite the existing motion,
the result is deceleration

c) Forces Exerted by Characters

 For the purposes of animation, however, one can break the character motion into
short time segments and consider each of these segments to be responding to
constant net force. This will make it easier for one to calculate the timing for each
individual segment.
 As an example, let’s look at the push for a jump. The force a character exerts during
the push is somewhat constant, and the timing is very short (less than half a second).
In such a case the timing for a constant force is an excellent starting point.
 A character walking and pushing a rock is not exerting a constant force throughout
the entire sequence, but during each short part of the walk the net force could be a
different constant value.

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7. The Odd Rule

 When acceleration is constant, we can use the Odd Rule to time the frames.
 Using odd rule, we can calculate the distance of the object moves between frames
using a simple pattern of odd numbers.
 For consecutive frames, the distance of the object moves is a multiple of an odd
number.
 For acceleration, the distance between frames increases by multiples of 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.

 For deceleration, the multiples start at a higher odd number and decrease, for example
7, 5, 3, 1.

 The Odd Rule is a multiplying system based on the smallest distance traveled between
two frames in the sequence. For a slow-out, this is the distance between the first two
frames; for a slow-in, it’s the distance between the last two frames.

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a) Odd Rule Multipliers

We can instead calculate the distance from the first frame to the current frame and use
these distances to place the object on specific frames.
Multiply by base distance to get distance between
Frame No.
Consecutive Frames First to Current Frame
1 NA 0
2 1 1
3 3 4
4 5 9
5 7 16
6 9 25
7 11 36

b) Odd Rule Scenarios

 Base Distance - Speeding up
If the object is speeding up, the first frame distance is the base distance. If base
distance is known, just multiply the base distance by 3, 5, 7, etc. to get the distances
between consecutive frames.
 Base Distance - Slowing Down
If the object is slowing down in the opposite direction. The solution is working
backward, multiply the base distance by 3, 5, 7, etc. to get the distances between each
previous frame in the sequence.
 Total Distance and Number of Frames - Speeding Up
If one wants to know the total distance and the total number of frames, one can find
the base distance with this formula:

Suppose there is a jump push (takeoff) with constant acceleration over 5 frames, and
the total distance traveled is 0.4m. then

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c) First Key Distance - Slowing Down

If the moving object wants to slow down, and one must set the first frame of the slow-
in to give an idea of the pacing for the sequence.

One feature of the Odd Rule is that, the base distance is always half the difference
between any two adjacent distances.

Base distance =
To calculate the number of frames in the slow-in, divide the first distance by the base
distance to find out which odd number it corresponds to

This means the first distance corresponds to 7 in the 7, 5, 3, 1 sequence, making the
sequence four frames long.

d) Motion Graphs

A motion graph plots an object’s position against time. On a motion graph, the time
goes from left to right across the bottom of the graph, while the object’s position is
plotted vertically against the time. Each axis in 3-D space (X, Y, Z) has its own line
showing the object’s position along that axis.

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8. Examples of character animation

(i) Jumping
A jump is an action where the character’s entire body is in the air, and both the
character’s feet leave the ground at the same time. A jump action includes a
takeoff, free movement through the air, and a landing.

a) Parts of Jump

A jump can be divided into several distinct parts,

1. Crouch: A squatting pose is taken as preparation for jumping.

2. Takeoff: The character pushes up fast and straightens their legs with their feet still
on the ground.
3. In the air: The amount of time the character is in the air from takeoff to the apex is
called the jump time.
4. Landing: The distance from the character’s CG when her feet hit the ground to the
point where the character stops crouching is called the stop height.
b) Calculating Jump Actions
To calculate the timing for a jump, we need,
1. Jump height or jump time
2. Push height
3. Stop height
4. Horizontal distance the character will travel during Jump
c) Jump Magnification (JM) and Acceleration
Jump Magnification is the ratio that tells how much the character must accelerate
against gravity to get into the air.

The magnitude of jump acceleration is always equal to gravitational

acceleration, with deceleration as the characterrises and acceleration as it falls.

Stop Time:

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(ii) Walking

Walks feature consists of all the basics of mechanics while including personality. The
ability to animate walk feature is the most important skills a character animator needs
to master.

Strides and Steps

 A step is one step with one foot.

 A stride is two steps, one with each foot.

 Stride length is the distance in which character travels in a stride, measured from the
same part of the foot.

 Gait is the timing of the motion for each foot, including how long each foot is on the
ground or in the air.

 During a walk, the number of feet the character has on the ground changes from one
foot (single support) to two feet (double support) and then back to one foot.

 We can plot the time each foot is on the ground to see the single and double support
times over time. A normal walking gait ranges from 1/ 3 to 2/3 of a second per step,
with 1/2 second being average.

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9. Statistical physics for computing ((Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics)

(i) Poisson’s Distribution

If the probability p is so small that the function has significant value only for very
small k, then the distribution of events can be approximated by the Poisson distribution.
a) Probability mass function

A discrete Radom variable X is said to have a Poisson distribution then mass function
is given by,

Here k is the number of occurrences; e is Euler’s Number, K! is the factorial function. The
positive real number λ is equal to the expected value of X and also to its Variance.

b) Example of probability for Poisson distributions

On a particular river, overflow floods occur once in every 100 years on average.
Calculate the probability of k = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 overflow floods in a 100-year
interval, assuming the Poisson model is appropriate because the average event rate is
one overflow flood per 100 years, λ = 1

P (K overflow floods in 100 years) =

P (K=0 overflow floods in 100 years) =

P (K=1 overflow floods in 100 years) =

P (K=2 overflow floods in 100 years) =

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(ii) Normal Distribution and Bell Curves

 A bell curve is a common type of distribution for a variable, also known as the
normal distribution. The term "bell curve" originates from the fact that the graph used
to depict a Normal Distribution consists of a symmetrical bell-shaped curve.

 The highest point on the curve, or the top of the bell, represents the most probable
event in a series of data (its Mean, Mode and Median in this case), while all other
possible occurrences are symmetrically distributed around the mean, creating a
downward-sloping curve on each side of the peak. The width of the bell curve is
described by its Standard Deviation.

 The term "bell curve" is used to describe a graphical representation of a normal

probability distribution. On this basis, standard deviations from the mean create the
curved bell shape.

 Standard deviation is a measurement used to quantify the variability of data

dispersion in a set of given values around the mean. The refers to the average of all
data points in the data set or sequence and will be found at the highest point on the
bell curve.

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(iii) Monte-Carlo Method

 Monte-Carlo simulation is a process based on random distributions and iterative

realization of probabilities. Monte Carlo methods vary, but tend to follow a particular
pattern like,

1. Define a domain of possible inputs.

2. Generate inputs randomly from a probability distribution over the domain.
3. Perform a deterministic computation on the inputs.
4. Aggregate the results.

 Monte-Carlo method applied to approximating the value of . For example, consider

a quadrant inscribed in a unit square. Given that The ratio of their areas is , the
value of can be approximated using Monte-Carlo method.

1. Draw a square, then inscribe a quadrant within it.

2. Uniformly scatter a given number of points over the square
3. Count the number of points inside the quadrant.
4. The ratio of the inside-count and the total-sample-count is an estimate of the ratio of the
two areas, . Multiply the results by 4 to estimate .

 We generate random inputs by scattering grains over the square then perform a
computation on each input. Aggregating the results yields for the approximation of π.
 There are two important considerations:
1. If the points are not uniformly distributed, then the approximation will be
poor.
2. If there are many points and then the approximation is poor because few
points are randomly placed in the whole square. i.e. the approximation
improves as more points are placed.

 Uses of Monte Carlo methods require large amounts of random numbers and their
use benefited greatly from Pseudo random number generators, which were far
quicker to use than the tables of random numbers that had been previously used for
statistical sampling.

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4. Question Bank

Module 5: Physics of Animation

Q. No. Question Bank

01 What is animation and mention the taxonomy of physics based animation methods.
02 Write a note on frames in animations.
03 Write a role of size, scale and strength in making animation.
04 Explain the importance of motion and time in animation.
05 Explain the importance of constant force and acceleration in animation.
06 Explain the concept of the odd rule in animation.
07 Explain the jumping feature in character animation.
08 Explain the walking feature in character animation.
09 Explain the Poisson’s distribution.
10 Explain the Normal distribution and Bell curves.
11 Explain Monte-Carlo method

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