What do you think of the way the animation and physical anatomy of the ponies?

[GuillermoGage 246]

What do you think of the way the animation and physical anatomy of the ponies?

 

Something about this show that we must admit is that... it uses Flash animation and some pretty basic, large, soft designs for easier animation

 

There's quite a few animations, poses, facial expressions, things that the pony and equine characters do, but especially the pony characters do that... has variable aesthetic appeal visually.

 

Do you ever feel that you have trouble getting a feel for exactly where their limb joints are located? I imagine that the ponies have skeletons and bones, but sometimes, the actions they make with their hooves start to use cheap cartoony anatomical inconsistency and their front limbs in particular start acting like human arms with functioning elbows.

 

The picking up of things with hooves I don't mind, since it is depicted so blatantly that we have to just assume that their is some unspoken granular jamming or some suction mechanism at the bottom of their hooves, but there's quite a few other things with the animation and anatomy.

 

What bugs you, and what anatomical aspects. bodily design aspects do you like?

 

I do like it that she show bothers to animate their manes moving around and bouncing around realistically.

[Brock Obama 298]

How does a pony write with their mouth? They must have lots of muscles in their mouth. Like that one scene where Applejack was writing a letter to princess Celestia.

[Po-Nonimous 583]

Personally, I think the flash animation technique is vastly superior to the old cell-by-cell animation technique used when I was at Warners. Flash animation is a lot smoother and consistant with the actual physics of motion so that, right there, is a huge improvement.

 

Still, my problem with the animation is the laziness of the animators when it comes to putting together various layers in scenes. Often times I'll spot misplaced limbs, a hat in one scene then it's gone then it's back, again. On several occasions I've spotted ponies with multiple tails and, in S02E16 Read It And Weep Dash's hair completely disappears at one point and she's completely bald through a couple of frames!

 

Bad animation? No.

 

Bad animators? YES!

[[NULL] 906]

Something about this show that we must admit is that... it uses Flash animation and some pretty basic, large, soft designs for easier animation

Contrary to popular belief, Flash doesn't do the principles of animation for you. The only major shortcut flash provides is that it allows you to recycle assets such as body parts and objects. There isn't as much motion tweening that goes into character animation as many people think. (Many slower actions are aimimated on 2s.) They still have to draw rough key poses before animating the symbols over them.

 

 

Do you ever feel that you have trouble getting a feel for exactly where their limb joints are located? I imagine that the ponies have skeletons and bones, but sometimes, the actions they make with their hooves start to use cheap cartoony anatomical inconsistency and their front limbs in particular start acting like human arms with functioning elbows.

If they tried to animate without any squash and stretch, exaggeration, or any other principles of animation, the characters would look rigid and mechanical, and they wouldn't be as expressive.

 

That being said, I'm still wondering why they even chose to use Flash in the first place. When I tried using Flash for character animation, the constant going in and out of symbols seemed unnecessarily tedious, and if felt like it would be easier to just do hand drawn animation.

I don't know, maybe they just have a better workflow than I did.

Edited February 6, 2015 by SpaceOnion

[Dulset Tarn 441]

I just know it was really weird seeing Pinkie's ribs after she sang Evil Enchantress.

[GuillermoGage 246]

What many people seem to forget is that Flash doesn't do the principles of animation for you. The only major shortcut flash provides is that it allows you to recycle assets such as body parts and objects. There isn't as much motion tweening that goes into character animation as many people think. (Many slower actions are aimimated on 2s.) They still have to draw rough key poses before animating the symbols over them.

 

 

If they tried to animate without any squash and stretch, exaggeration, or any other principles of animation, the characters would look rigid and mechanical, and they wouldn't be as expressive.

 

That being said, I'm still wondering why they even chose to use Flash in the first place. When I tried using Flash for character animation, the constant going in and out of symbols seemed unnecessarily tedious, and if felt like it would be easier to just do hand drawn animation.

I don't know, maybe they just have a better workflow than I did.

Well, I can definitely tell that you have animation credentials, and that you took particular attention to the "animation" part of the topic title.

 

Indeed, MLPFiM is a cartoony cartoon, so I can understand things like limbs, faces, bodies compressing and stretching for visual impact, but I don't see how that should impact awareness or lack thereof of where their limbs are located unless they are moving their limbs and muscles around in exaggerations that definitely go farther than what this show usually does.

 

Rigid and mechanical, eh? Well.. well.. I like having a more tangible idea of how the ponies would exist in 3-dimensional space in real life.

 

Like, anatomically, biologically. are their front limbs basically just like human arms but with hooves instead of hands?

That pretty much seems to be the case, in that they can perform actions such has hugging, putting their front limbs around their backs, and the "putting up their dukes" action seen at the end of Dragon Quest.

 

http://4e7221.medialib.glogster.com/media/62823e9d406fb85b8aa52d8e2a61fed1f4222d8c9e3e3ff66d1465adbc468125/twilight-sparkle-by-kurosakisoarin-d4mol8q.png

 

 

The thing that confused me a lot... was me confusing the joint that RD bends backwards (on a real-life equine it is so close to their body as to not allow much room for movement; Imagine if your elbow and shoulder where right next to each other) as being the same joint that bends forwards when galloping(called the knee on an equine). That galloping joint, the equine knee, is actually slightly below the pony-joint-that-has-just-as-much-range-as-a-human's-elbow.

 

But their legs are so stout that it is hard to tell unless both of those joints are bent/folded, either in that cute kitty-like sitting position on the last link (it's the same pose Twi is in while reading when Rainbow Dash crashes onto her deck in Applebuck Season) or during galloping.

 

But the way the pose of Rainbow Dash doing pushups looks, it sure doesn't look like there's a whole 'nother joint below her "elbow" that can fold completely in as easily as we can close our hands. it looks too stubby and little to be able to for that length of limb to be able to fold in on itself, but that is exactly what it is capable of doing.

 

That GIF of Twilight on the bench (during Griffon the Brush-Off) shows off the bending a bit more, but it makes it look like it is no more than what humans can do with their wrists, or about how well we can pick things up off the ground by curling out toes.

 

and yes, indeed, curling their hooves that tiny bit (such as when applejack flips over in the cart and immediately falls asleep in Applebuck Season) is the lowermost joint that they appear to have; not sure if it officially a skeletal joint though or a tongue-like one-ended muscle or something.

 

So... yeah, it looks like the joints that they need to use the most appear to expand a bit and become longer or thinner/less stubby in the art to give them more range, and when they are flexing both, then they average out the lengths.

 

http://secret-pony.deviantart.com/art/Pony-Anatomy-Tutorial-legs-and-joints-308736058

Of these three distinctly colored areas, for many different poses, at least one of these areas has to be shortened. If all three of them were of sufficient length to bend at a full, swift range of motion, then the ponies would be rather lanky. So, they must have bones made out of some accordion-like material that prioritizes limb portion lengths on the fly.

 

That makes me want to look at pictures of taller ponies such as Princess Celestia sitting down and doing stuff.

 

Well, they also do produce granules at the bottom of their hooves for granular jamming, certainly they can have collapsing layered/accordion-like bones.

Edited February 6, 2015 by GuillermoGage

[luftschloss 831]

I know! I actually tried writing with my mouth once... it failed. Hard. Never again shall I try that.

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

Telescoping bones? Hmm... I want some of those.

[Pastel 7,630]

Except a few animation errors here and there, I think it's perfect (and sometimes cute).

I don't think we can compare the animation of the ponies in the show with actual ponies/horses from our world. If they decide to copy movements of real animals, I think that would look weird in the show.

[xlwpos 12]

Not to come off as crass but . . . when FiM came out and I saw the ponies (and even now) my mind thought:

 

Stripper Ponies

 

They are colorful with huge eyes and eyelashes. It is reminiscent of the wardrobe and make-up used for live theater. It has a quality that is very different from previous generations of MLP.