Sunday, 9 November 2014

Module Review

This is the first time I've ever experienced this type of learning format and schedule, so at the beginning it was slightly difficult for me to adjust. Even after settling in I found it difficult to do the Blog work required for the module, so I ended up putting it off and focusing on the artwork rather than the writing portion of my learning experience. I was never one for using words to display my ideas, that was the reason I started doing art in the first place. I found that drawing out what I meant was easier than explaining it. Even today I had trouble explaining one of my thought processes for our final animation project for the module, so I ended up showing him my sketchbook and the storyboards of the key frames I drew instead of taking the time to explain it in words. Writing has never been one of my favorite subjects and I don't think that will change any time soon.
Other than the writing, I have found my work to be very fulfilling, emotionally or otherwise. Even when I didn't have a set idea planned out for an animation I was certain I would find one out before time was up. I enjoy coming up with new ideas, usually I'm just struck with an idea that sounds nice so I try to hold onto it for later use.
Our first storyboard project I found was slightly difficult because it had been a while since i drew by pencil, almost 2 months, so I was a little rusty. But after I started I found it refreshing. I've never particularly enjoyed storyboarding as a part of animation but it was nice to try my hand at and I'm hoping i can get better at it in the near future.
For our second project we used flipbooks to create rudimentary ball animations to show our knowledge of how basic movement and reaction work. I tried adding secondary motion for my third fipbook by adding a tail to the ball. It came out rough but I think it was for the most part accurate.
Our third project covered a form of stop motion called pixellation. I had never heard the actual term of the stop motion before but I had seen it. I ended up finishing mine last after the rest of my class so I got to see my classmates work first. It helped me see different techniques that helped me when I was making mine.
Our fourth project was working with pinboards to make a pendulum animation. I'd never used a pinboard before so it was interesting to try it out. I tried to give my best shot on how to make the pendulum react in the most accurate way so I made the frames go by set intervals throughout the animation. It was tasking but I got it done without much of a fuss, which was nice.
Our fifth project as a short 5 second animation based on a certain word. I chose longing and decided to use a character I drew at the start of the year for my inspiration. I used Illustrator to make my animation look more clean cut and finished.
This module helped me get a good start into the world of animation, I'm looking forward to future projects and how I might get them finished.

Longing

Our brief this time asked us to make a short 5-10 second animation based around one of 7 subjects. Surprise, Lateness, Love, Hate, Longing, Happiness, or Fear. I decided to base mine on Longing. IT centers around my character Business Penguin and his long lost love of Snow Surfing. While he's drive-sledding in his Pengu Sedan, he spots a surfboard in the distance. He suddenly has a flashback to a younger Business Penguin in a snow-surf competition. It then flashes forward to his silhouette and a bottle of booze that he's crying into.
I'm choosing a colour scheme of red, orange, black, and white. I wanted to add a small amount of color to show the importance of some objects in the piece, and the monochrome portion of the colour scheme was to relate to him being a penguin.
When I started to make this project I had trouble coming up with an idea, so I looked into my sketchbook of various doodles I have made in the past and decided to use a sketch of a penguin in a business suit. Then I just needed to come up with a short story, so I decided to make it something relating to how he's been so consumed with his work that he doesn't have time for what he most enjoys in life. I tried making a general theme to it all basing it around the cold and I used penguin and arctic themes for many of the objects involved. I wanted to give it a clean cut so I decided to try my hand at making this digitally. I'm mainly using Adobe Illustrator to make vector images. I'm making 5 main key scenes for this piece. For movement I'm focusing on small subtle movements, to push forward the feeling of emptiness and longing. In the first scene when he's going down the road im going to have the main action be the moving road lines and red flags, along with the sedan moving slightly up and down, to signify the movement of the car itself. I will have the background moving slightly to the left as the car "progresses" down the road. For the next scene I'll have a shot of the main character inside his car while he goes down the road. Red flags will be going past outside the view of the window, and about half a second after the main character will turn his head and we'll get a shot of his bust looking out to the sunset. After this it'll fade out and show a shot of the main character in the past, and then fade out again. After he second fade out it will show up a silhouette of the main character with a glass of whiskey in his hand. It'll have a short swishing motion of the hand as the liquid moves around in the glass, and then fade to black.
Business Penguin longs for his Surfboard. He longs. Such longing.

Pendulum Animation

For this project we tried to find out how a pendulum works, and making things move in a consistent manner. We used a pinboard and vellum paper to be able to see what we did in the frame before and what we were going to do in the current frame. This is an example of Straight ahead action, or drawing an animation frame by frame from beginning to end, which is a useful technique in animation. After that we used the pinboards to make another straight ahead action animation. I drew a bird repeatedly falling on a dwarfs head, while the dwarf flinches every time the bird lands. It took a while but in the end the overall effect was nice and I learned how I could get a lot of drawings done in a short amount of time.

Animation Analysis 12

The Amby and Dexter series are shorts made by Paul Fierlinger in 1997, which depicts a very miniature girl and boy as they do various tasks but on a very large scale, at least for them. Why I think this shows a good deal of appeal is because, even though the characters are silent, they show a fair amount of personality and charisma. After all, if they didn't children wouldn't watch it, and this mainly aired on Nick Jr., a childrens' TV channel in The U.S.
I remember watching it as a child and being completely enthralled by it.

Animation Analysis 11

中 島 愛「Transfer」 is a music video from japan which I believe shows an excellent example of Solid Drawing. It depicts a base animation of a girl running and jumping, and then sends her through a multitude of different background animations. It's creative in a sense that, every different background is different which gives a completely different feel to the main animation. Its a nice example of how the main animation and background interact to give an overall feel to an animation. Every different scene has a different form to it, which is why I think its a good example of Solid Drawing.

Animation Analysis 10

The animation "The External World" would be a good example of exaggeration because the entire animation is surrealist in nature. I believe that the point of so much stark contrasts between parts of this animation is supposed to bring forth a message that we can and will be affected by animation even though a large population of the earth believes otherwise. The reason there was so many crazy things happening in this animation was to provoke a response, which many people believe is impossible with animation. There is one point in this animation where a man says "don't worry its just animation, it has no real effect on people." which i believe is to create a sense of irony within the piece itself. This animation truly is a great example of exaggeration within animation.

Animation Analysis 9

Mystery Skulls recently made a song called ghost, which was made into an animation by a fan of their music. It starts out with 3 people in a van and takes on a sort of scooby doo approach to the story. Throughout the entire animation, the beat goes along with the animation, like a metronome. So this entire animation is a good example of Timing because it has to adhere to a set beat for it to "move forward" in a sense. Every action has a set number of frames because it has to go along with a beat.

Animation Analysis 8

The Pipos Doll animation is a short made by Youtube user DollPaCa, and I believe it uses a secondary motion in a nice way. Throughout the short you see the cats tails or ears moving. When the girl begins to get sick you see her lurch when she coughs, which adds a sense of realism to the movement. Along with when she starts to seize on the hospital bed which, while violent, is incredibly realistic to the situation. The animation is incredibly grim, and it sort of twists the knife when happy music plays at the end. Still, its an amazingly well crafted piece of animation.

Animation Analysis 7

Adumu is a short animation film made by a student named Adam Temple. To me it shows a good way of how arcs can be used in an animation. At the beginning you see two guys on a motorbike going over a hill while shooting a gun, this is the first example of an arc used. Then they go over another hill and one of them fall off the bike and hit the ground. This is a second and third example of arcs. First, the bike going over the second hill, and second, the guy with the gun falling to the ground and bouncing before hitting it again due to his momentum. Another part of this short shows the lion as he pounces on the guy with the gun. This is a good example of how a living animal uses an arc to achieve something. Adumu is a nice animation that shows how both machines and living things can use arcs in a natural way.

Animation Analysis 6

Nameless World is an animated music video from the band Skip the Use which I believe shows a good example of slow in and slow out. Mainly focusing on the car as its moving. When it goes into the town it slows down to ask a couple of villagers where to go. When they disappear he asks the driver to get them out of here, and then the entire view frame stretches to give the implied view of rapid acceleration. Then they have to slow down after getting pulled over by the vampire cops. The entire animation shows how slow in and slow out can enhance an animation.
(I had to get a copied version because vevo videos dont link for some reason.

Animation Analysis 5

-Socket- is an short animation from japan that I believe shows a good amount of Follow through and overlapping action. You can see a good example of overlapping action near the start of the movie when you see the cat walking ahead of the girl. Immediately after you see her tackle the cat and her plug continues to move, she stretches out her hand to catch it. Her entire motion was dependent on her plug continuing to move after shes stop. Then you see the girl start to walk slowly again which is another good example of overlapping action. I particularly enjoy this animation which is why i decided to use it for my animation analyses'.

Animation Analysis 4

The Octocat Adventures by David O'Reilly, silly though it may be, is a good example of both pose to pose and straight ahead action can happen in one animation. At the beginning you can tell it looks terrible, and that it was probably done all at once. This would be an example of straight ahead action. Then a little after the middle of the video, it turns into a 3-D animation with a decent amount of polish on it. I believe this would have had to have some planning involved, probably a storyboard as well, which is why I chose this animation. Not because of the quality, but because I think it portrays both straight ahead action and post to pose animation in the same video.

Animation Analysis 3

When you start the Aladdin movie, the beginning scene with the merchant shows how staging can be done amazingly well. It starts to focus on the merchant and when the merchant begins to become less interesting, he pulls back the attention by bringing out the magic lamp from his sleeve. This is one of the most memorable scenes of Aladdin because of how it sets the stage for the entire movie. Also, when Robin Williams voice acted the merchant, it was completely made up on the spot, from what I've heard. This scene really is a pretty amazing piece of animation.

Animation Analysis 2

Balance is an Oscar award winning stop motion animation made in 1988. To me this animation is a good example of anticipation as a principle. The part where the fisherman cast their rods is apparent of this. Along with how they have to move to balance out the platform. It shows they have to prepare to be able to stay up on it without falling. Also how while bringing up the safe, the man arcs himself back for more leverage to bring it up. The animation itself is very nice, and it show how you can plan for something to happen but in the end it doesn't work out the way you want it to.

Animation Analysis 1

I believe Kristen Kempers short animation Called "High Tide" is a nice example of squash and stretch in the sense that the animation is fairly rough, but the character movement is fluid. You can see the merman character "squash" as he retreats back into the cave to hide from the girl. Afterwards he stretches forwards to try and get to the far edge of the pond. I chose this animation because It creates a nice sense of motion even though at times it's a little rough cut. But the overall animation is nice considering it was made by college students.
I hyperlinked it because I can't embed Vimeo videos

Pixellation

Pixellation is the use of the human body as stop motion animation. An example of this would be Peter Gabriel's music video "Sledgehammer". Stop motion as an art form allows you to do things with movement you probably wouldn't be able to do in real life. It's like animation for surrealists. At first I didn't really have an idea for my pixellation video, so I tried to come up with something simple. I went with the lost dog story as a beginning idea, but moved onto a lost cat, because finding cats can be much more difficult than finding dogs. I got two of my friends to look around my house for a nonexistant cat, only to have their hopes crushed when they can't find him.


12 Principles of Animation Pt.4

Exaggeration:
Exaggeration is the practice of embellishing a part of an animation to make it more visually interesting. Without the act of said embellishment it could be subject
Solid Drawing:
Solid Drawing is taking into account all of the forms in the three dimensional space, thereby giving said object form and weight. Something like a cannonball being heavier than a feather would be a good analogy
Appeal:
Appeal would be the quote on quote "charisma" of an animated character. Think a jolly old man. Would he have more credit of being jolly if he had a sullen face or full rosy cheeks?

12 Principles of Animation Pt.3

Arc:
This is the belief that the most natural action tends to follow an arced trajectory. Think of a lobbed basketball as someone shoots it.
Secondary Action:
Secondary action is the principle of adding reacting motion to a primary motion to give it more of a realistic effect. Think of a dog shaking to dry off. An example of secondary action would be the dogs ears flapping as he shakes.
Timing:
Timing is the number of frames applied to a part of animation to change the speed of said animation. Using less frames would equate to a faster moving animation, while using more frames would make a slower moving animation.

12 Principles of Animation Pt.2

Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose:
Straight ahead action is drawing out an entire animation frame by frame from beginning to end. I think it would be used if you want your piece to be more intuitive than story driven. Pose to pose is a form of preparing where you draw out key frames for your story and fill in the rest with interval animation.
Follow Through and Overlapping Action:
Follow through is the practice of having loosely tied body parts such as arms legs or tails moving after a force has been exerted on them. Overlapping action is the tendency of body parts to move toward a center of gravity.
Slow in and Slow out:
Slow in and Slow out is the principle that objects accelerate and decelerate according to how forces are being applied on it.

12 Principles of Animation Pt.1

Squash and Stretch:
Squash and Stretch happens when most of any movement is involved. We can use a ball for this analogy. A ball "stretches" as it's going through the air, falling to the earth due to gravity. When it hits a plane, this plane being the ground, it squashes onto it due to the force being applied to the ball.
Anticipation:
Anticipation is the preparation of an action, like a lion crouching before it pounces on its prey, or a golfer swinging back his club before he hits the golf ball.
Staging:
Staging is used to show what the main focus point should be at that time in the animation. Say for instance a pedestal holding a scroll under a spotlight. It shows emphasis on the scroll being important.

Flipbook Animations

We've been assigned with making 3 flipbook animations. It's a good beginning project for the year. We have to draw bouncing balls in 2 different ways, and then we get to choose our own third flipbook animation. I tried to emulate gravity as best I could without doing specific equations to plot out the path of the ball. I applied squashing and stretching due to gravity and the impact the ball has from hitting a plane. For my third flipbook I tried including secondary animation by adding a tail to the ball and making it hop around and then roll off the screen.


Peter Pumpkin Eater Storyboard

For our first project, we were assigned a project in which we make a storyboard based off of a nursery rhyme. Seeing as I'm the only American Citizen in my class, I opted to use the first half of an American nursery rhyme, Peter Pumpkin Eater:

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater

Had a wife but couldn't keep her

He put her in a pumpkin shell

And there he kept her very well.

It sounded fairly macabre, so I decided to make it a story of a man who's wife ran out on him, so he chased her down, killed her, ground her up and stuffed her in a pumpkin, then ate her. After doing all of that, he killed himself by hanging.

Animation in the Future

I believe in the future a lot of our focus on animation will be in making interactive screen animation, relating to Virtual Reality. Things like the viewscreen from Minority Report, or the Holodecks in Star Trek the Next Generation come to mind. 3-D animation will become more popular as a result, but I believe 2-D animation will still have a place in the arts. I look forward to the new frontiers that animation could possibly have, and hope that I will have a place in it somewhere.

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

Flash Tutorial

In Class today we learned how to use motion paths in flash. The Teacher showed us how to make shapes follow a set path over a period of time. We also got shown how to use eases on the set paths we make. It looks like an interesting way to animate, and i'm hopeful that I can use it for some of my animations in the future. The animation I made is a good example of how pose to pose: using key frames to make an animation, can be applied. I used four key frames in each of the shapes and used tweening and motion paths to make the movement between them more fluid. Using flash is an interesting experience to say the least.