Technical anime question for any potential experts out there...

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mouser254

New member
This is an in-studio technique that I've seen used in anime quite commonly. But it's like magic to me. In terms of studio technique, I'm clueless as to how exactly this effect is achieved. Anyone who knows the answer feel free to respond...

It's what I like to call "The sliding overlap effect", and the name is pretty much self-explanatory, but I'll explain anyways. You know how you see in tons of anime, where the camera pans very slowly up and down, or to the right or to the left? Where you see part of the foreground sliding over the character as it overlaps him or her. What software do the crews use to achieve this effect? And what kind of software is it? Is it editing software, compositing software, or what? Does it have a specific name?

Thanks for any potential answers.
 
It sounds like you're describing a technique called multi-planing, and Disney has been doing it since the 1940's. No software necessary, just a long background painted on sequential plates to allow for a long, unbroken pan shot, then matching foreground painted on cels layered atop the ones on which the characters are painted, which are then moved to overlap the characters positioned in mid-ground, so that the characters appear to be moving behind the foreground. The technique was designed to imitate what was known as a "dolly shot" in live action, using a camera mounted on a wheeled platform to track actors as they moved through a shot. Both techniques were designed to creat the illusion of depth on a flat screen, showing the characters in the midst of scenery, instead of in front of it.

With today's technology, they probably have improved methods of timing the foreground/midground motion and using CGI overlapping the character motion to improve the sense of perspective, but it's really just variations of what animators used to do by hand and eye. Miyazaki even used it to animate the moving bodies of the Omu in Naussicaa in The Valley of the Wind, painting each segment of an Omu's body on a different cell and then moving them in different directions to create the image that each section of the creature's body was controlled by a different set of muscle, like a centipede.

Does that help?
 
This kind of shot is a piece of cake in Flash. It's just a bunch of layers motion tweened to move from one side.

In terms of how it's done in anime, I'm guessing it's done in After Effects or one of the many 2-D programs out there. Whatever program it is, it's the same basic idea; panning multiple layers. It's a lot easier now because you can see instant playback and tweak it's timing accordingly.
 
Alright! Yes, that does help. A LOT. I'll have to do a web search for that and see what I find.

Thanks also to Golgo for the other helpful post as well.

I just knew someone here would know what I was talking about. I've always seen it done in anime and whatnot, but I never knew Disney was the first to do it. What an influential technique. Doesn't really surprise me that Disney pioneered it, cuz back in the day, as history shows, Disney pioneered tons of modern animation techniques.

Are there any animation books that bring this technique up, by the way?
 
Not specifically, but I'd recommend checking out The Animator's Survival Guide and The Illusion of Life just for the heck of it.

If you really want to know about the multi-plane effect, I'd suggest seeking out The Fantasia Anthology DVD Set and Bambi Special Edition as there is some rare video in which Walt demonstrates the multi-plane camera. Back then, those things were mammoth-like for mutiple layer shots.
 
Depends on the age of the show. In a newer digital show I would think they just play around with how things are layered in the software afer the line art is inputed. In an older cell-based show, as Cri said, they would just load up the cameras in a specific sequence of cells and photograph the whole rig in sequence.
 
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