week 2

 

week 3

 

week 4

 

week 5

 

Animation 1A Formative reflection week 6

  

Animation 1A Formative Reflection

Throughout the weeks I didn’t actually spend much time planning and researching and this showed in the early weeks as I just went frame by frame and I would realise after playing back my animation the movement was a bit off as well as the frames and I would have to keep making refinements. I realised on the latest week that storyboards and thumb nails do make the process much easier. I also discovered that more time was spent outlining that actually making the animation and how much more time consuming it is to animate on paper compared to digitally.

 

Something I found quite challenging was doing research for the tasks. At first I didn’t really think I needed to do much research because things such as making a ball bounce seemed fairly easy in my head but I realised the research into how to make it look ‘cartooney’ for example from exaggerating squash and stretch was actually really useful.

 

For my research I mainly watched youtube videos such as AlanBeckerTutorials 12 Principles of animation. I found his videos really useful as explained how we should be doing the tasks like squashing and stretching as well as secondary action. I also found Bardot Brush’s video on animating in procreate very useful as I haven’t really done much animation in the software so it was beneficial to learn how to use it solely for an animation. As well as these, I used the Animator’s survival kit book to help me. I found that seeing every frame next to each other as a picture was actually really useful as it made me realise how mine should look.  For my references I mainly took pictures and videos on my phone which I could then rewatch and slow down to see each frame which helped.

 

My favourite part was definitely the creating because I really enjoy drawing and it was definitely the most fun part of the process.I found the research was definitely beneficial but not as fun and I did find myself skipping it one week and going straight into animating but I found that this was a mistake because I then had to stop half way through to watch tutorials to help me. Producing was also quite exciting though because it allowed me to see how the frames all come together on the screen and I would’ve enjoyed it more if I’d had the animation kit sooner because I did struggle to try and take all the images on my phone just holding it and found that often the frames didn’t really line up.

 

For this project I had really wanted to try animating on paper which I did for one week. I realised that it’s a lot harder compared to animating digitally and requires a lot more time especially for photographing every single frame whereas, when you do it digitally it’s usually automatically put together depending on the software you use. I’m glad that I experimented with animating on paper because now I know that if I do it again I should manage my time more wisely because I found myself rushing to finish it in time for class and this definitely lowered the quality of work I could’ve produced if I’d given myself more time.

 

If I was to do the tasks again I would definitely plan my time better as I did find myself rushing to finish some the day before which would have definitely impacted the quality of the animations I made. I would also split my time better between my electives as I feel like my time spent between subjects wasn’t very fair. As well as this, I would revisit some of the animations and add more frames as in some the movement doesn’t really look right.

 

 This week we created a 3D model of a storm trooper. We used UVW unwrap to texture him with the cubeecraft picture we used for our physical model in real life. We then had to export it into sketchup and use geolocation to put him into google earth. below is an image of my model in 3dsmax and then also imported into google earth.

3D modelling 20/10/2020

20/10/2020

This week we explored 3DSMAX further and experimented with UV wrapping and also with the boolean. For the UV wrapping task we created a box then 'wrapped' it with an image of a die. I found this fairly easy because it was just a simple shape (a cube) however, if the shape was more complex It would be much more difficult so this may be something i experiment with in my own time. We also did a speed modelling task where we created some cheese using boolean. Below is an image of this. 

  

 

Above is an animation I created for Animation 1A week 4. I created it in Procreate on my iPad. The task this week was to do secondary action therefore, I added a tail to my bouncing ball. I did find this a little difficult because I felt like I couldn't get the movement of the tail just right and after receiving feedback i now know that if I revisit this piece I should shorten the tail and also add more frames when the ball is in the air as this could improve the movement.

BRAINFOOD

Above are two drawings i did after watching my favourite animated show Adeventure time.

week 1

 Creating a looped gif 

Researching animation skills and techniques

 https://youtu.be/uDqjIdI4bF4

Above is the link to a video about the principles of animation. This was really helpful as it explains the key things you should do whilst animating to make your animation better.

 In the video it explains 12 principles created by  “legendary animators” Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.

1. Squash and stretch- In the video I discovered this is how You show an objects mass because the less it can be squashed or stretched the ‘stiffer’ the object and the more it can be the ‘softer’ the object is. For example, a water balloon would be squashed more than a bowling ball.

2. anticipation- This shows viewers what a character is about to do before they do it. For example the character will lean back in anticipation before a punch to look like he is building energy to throw into it. “It helps communicate actions to the audience by preparing them for the next action” sad Alan Becker (creator of the video).

3. staging- You want to stage things in a scene carefully so the viewer can look at one thing then another to see what’s happening. You especially don’t want to stage everything to happen at once as this would confuse the viewer and make them overwhelmed.

4. straight ahead/ pose to pose- These are two ‘methods’ to animate. Straight ahead is where you animate as you going straight from one frame to the following one. Pose to pose is where you draw the “beginning and end of each main pose” (Alan Becker). These are key frames which you come back to do the inbetweens. For my animation I will be doing in pose to pose as it allows you to have more control and you will know where the animation will end up.

5. follow through and overlapping action- This is similar to squash and stretch if you have a character and they jump there hair would drag and then eventually follow through by flying upwards (assuming their hair was down).

This also depends on an objects mass.

6. slow in and slow out- similar to arcs 

7. arcs- Arcs are movements in a circular pattern to give things such as turns more “character”. Arcs make movements more realistic.

8. secondary action- An action used to show something. For example a primary action could be someone eating but secondary would be them licking their lips to show they are hungry.

9. timing- The standard for movies is 24fps. Doing Every frame would be drawing on ones but every other frame would be drawing on twos which is more common.

10. exaggeration- Exaggeration is where you make something more “convincing’. For example if a character is happy make them look more happy so you exaggerate this to the viewer so they can see clearly how they feel.

11. solid drawing- You can use shapes and boxes to draw characters this makes you more aware of how much space they take up and it can also simplify them so you can understand them better.

12. appeal- means good looking or interesting. Giving characters “dynamic designs can boost appeal”. Using lots of different shaped helps with this, proportions, having things simple.

For my animation I will use these to make it look more professional as these are the standards professional animators follow.