Animations

21st November lesson for animation

I have put different Christmas based images on my animation e.g. Santa with reindeer and a Christmas tree also. I have made drawn flashing lights on the plain Christmas trees to make it seem as if they're actually glowing. I showed Santa crashing into a Christmas tree and it getting knocked over.

Evaluate intentions and identify areas for improvement

Start By Evaluating Reading and Understanding the Brief:
A. Did you read through the brief and understand what was required?
Yes, I understood what to do and how to complete the tasks set on the brief. B. If you did not understand what was required, how did you seek clarification?
The things I did not understand I asked Steve such as the dates for each brief set C. When you had a clear understanding about the brief and work required, what were your first thoughts about it?
I thought it will be a challenge to do all of these tasks in the set time but thought it will be possible.

Getting Ideas and Coming up with Concepts for the Brief:
D. What were your initial ideas for the brief and how did you record the ideas?
I initially had ideas of a Christmas and Halloween themed animation sting and recorded these ideas via a brainstorm of different things related to each holiday season. E. What research did you do and where did you go to collect research for the brief to extend your initial ideas and concepts?
I did research through the internet to put more different ideas based on my two themes. I went on Google and typed in 'Christmas and Halloween based themes' and got my ideas from there and expanded from then on. F. What might you have done to get more ideas for your project work?
Spent more time on the brainstorm instead of finishing quick and having less ideas.
About Your Animation Proposal Sheet
G. Is your proposal sheet for your animation completed and understandable easily for others to know your intentions? 
Yes my proposal sheet is finished and is understandable for others. H. If it is not clear and understandable, what can you do to improve it?
Add more things to make it seem more filled with ideas.

About your Storyboard: 
i. Your storyboard should show clearly what is to happen in your animation with movement and timings indicated. Do you think you have achieved this? If so, how? If not, how will you achieve this?
j. Is your storyboard effective and understandable for someone else to follow if they wish to produce your animation? (Think about it from their point of view).
k. What can you do to make improvements to your storyboard?

Improving my animation storyboard by using 12 principles of animations:
Scene 1:
1: use timing perfectly to make the reindeers go on an average speed
Scene 2:
1: use the ease in and ease out method to make the lights which are appearing look more realistic
2: use Appeal for the tree to make it show off more to the viewer
scene 3: 
1: use timing for the lights which are popping up on the Christmas tree 
2:  squash and stretch the presents to make it seem more real to the audience 
Scene 4:
1: I could use the anticipation to prepare the audience for the tree falling and make it look more realistic at the same time
Scene 5: 
1: squash and stretch the child and Santa for more realism
2: Use staging to show the mood behind the use of the confetti's coming down 

Joker Hospital Scene

I added multiple sounds for my logic video including sounds of people screaming and explosions taking place to match what is happening in the scene. My chosen scene being the Joker hospital scene from Batman Dark Knight. I also used a building collapse sound along with a walking sound effect. I used YouTube to find all these sound effects after searching for specific sounds to do with explosions etc. I then converted these sounds on a YouTube converter site to download onto the computer and put in my work.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is taking someone else's idea and passing it off as your own. It is a word use for someone who is stealing or in some cases cheating.
If you want to use someone else's work for yourself then you take ideas from it to help yourself but you shouldn't copy everything without changing anything.
If you are caught plagiarising then you will get in trouble with your teacher or assessor. In some cases for famous singers who copy other artists' songs then they will be sued by the original artist unless they have take permission to do so.

Sting animation

A sting in film is a very short animation (= film using moving drawings) used as a form of advertising for a brand (= product name), TV channel, etc.

In the first sting I watched which was for comic relief on the BBC was based around informing people about something related to comic relief coming up soon on the channel and gives out information to the viewers. I chose to do describe this sting because of the meaning behind it (informing people) and also the spread of colour catches the eye of whoever is looking at this sting. The red nose on the lady to replace the O in BBC 'O'ne. 

The second sting I watched was for the upcoming FA Cup final at the time for Arsenal vs Chelsea. It was similar to the first sting as it had a football based sound in the background with people kicking the ball around and someone scoring a goal as you can hear the net rustle. This is the reason I chose to describe this FA Cup build up as my second sting. Another reason was because on screen it shows two scarfs which are waving which gives the viewer understanding of the two teams who are playing each other if they never knew beforehand, also to remind them that the final is coming up soon.

Bull Rotoscope

Original bull animation: 

Second attempt at bull animation:

Today we were told to rotoscope the bull which was given to us by Steve as a standard video. I found it very easy to draw around the bull and change the colour of the background to make it (the drawn bull) more visible. I think the quality of my bull animation was better than many animations I have done in the past in my personal opinion. The movement of the bull also does seem convincing as the animation looks like there was not a bull video which I drew over in the first place. I then added a tower to make it look like the bull running at speed tipped over the tower.

Red Car Animation

Squash and stretch video

Some of the things I found out whilst watching the squash and stretch video:
Squash and stretch describe how an object changes shape in response to the forces which are acting on it. Squash is when an object is compressed by an impact or an opposing force. Stretch however, is when an object is distended by something which is pulling on it or by moving quickly. One important way to use squash and stretch is to convey the material that a certain object is made of. Softer materials such as rubber will distort (pull or twist out of shape) more whereas rigid materials such as metal will distort less.
By watching this video I have learnt quite a bit and many new things like everything which I typed above.

Rocket Animation

After numerous attempts of trying to upload the video on this blog, the video was not uploading because of being greater than the limit of 100 MB.
To make this animation, the steps were very similar to making the animation for the bouncing ball e.g. using the timeline and moving the rocket and fire by itself. However the only difference is that we had to make two layers move to match each others movement and make it near to perfect so it looks right.

Animation Video

I think I did well on making the ball move up for the bounce and using the squash method when the ball hits the blue line. However it took me quite a while to perfect the ball bounce as I was not aware on how to use the timeline tools as best as I could.
To make it better I think I could add different types of movement in the bouncing ball video to make it go right and even have it continuously bouncing around. I also could make it bounce more than once and make sure the video isn't short.

Principles of Animation

Straight Ahead Action & Pose to Pose: Straight ahead action refers to the technique of drawing each pose, one right after another, which can yield a fluid animation style. Pose to pose refers to the animation technique where key frames are planned ahead of each other and then connected to each other afterwards. Pose to pose mainly leads to a more proportional animation that is convincing to the viewers eye.

Secondary Action:
In the physical world, we can view primary movement through the motion of a person walking or a bird flying. Secondary actions, such as a person swinging their arms as they walk/run or maybe even a birds’ feathers rippling in the wind, always help support primary movements. Even smaller actions, such as blinking, are also considered secondary actions. In any secondary animation, it is important that it doesn’t distract the audience from or dominate the main animation movement.

 

Layers disappeared and work was deleted so had to start all over again. I drew a rocket and used different layers in Photoshop to show exactly what I drew on my storyboard to make it accurate enough. I used the Pencil Tool to firstly draw the rocket and then the entrance used by the stickmen.

MAKING THE ANIMATION

1. Open the Timeline Panel

2. Select Create Video Timeline (not Create Frame Animation).

3. A five second duration timeline will automatically open.

4. If the layer is not named, Layer 1 is the default name. Click on Layer 1 name to open the panel further.

5. Click the Stopwatch Icon next to the word Transform to set the first Keyframe. This will place a yellow triangle beneath the Timeline.

6. Move the Current Time Indicator to the right-side of the Timeline. (It has a blue top with a red line).

7. Move the rocket to the right side of the screen.

8. An automatic Keyframe will be set. Play the animation. The rocket should move smoothly from one side of the screen to the other.

I found this hard to do because there were features of photoshop that I've never used before and as it was my first time I made mistakes until I figured out what to do and move the rocket from one side of the screen to the other by using the video timeline. Using the timeline meant we had to set specific keyframes to make sure everything was done properly and on time. They were showed as being little yellow diamonds. 

Photoshop

1. Launch programme.

2. Set up a New File. Go to File > New

3. The file is to be 788 pixels x 576 pixels.

(You will need the Layers Panel, the Tool Panel, the Options Panel to start. ALL panels can be found in the Window menu at the top of the screen.

4. Using the Brush Tool or Pencil Tool, draw a small rocket on one side of the screen/page. Make it simple, it does not have to be complicated.

I'm not good at drawing so me trying to draw this rocket freehand was hard and it also looks wonky not as straight as I would've liked.