Monday 31 December 2018

Reflection

This semester was very enriching for me. I had the chance to work with like-minded people and gain an insight on basic 2D animation. I realised that animation is not a simple thing to do. It requires lots of careful planning and good time management skills. Although I was busy at school, I tried to work on my project at least a couple of hours every week. I liked the lessons and presentations in this course. I acquired new knowledge that is useful in my career. I have started thinking about giving instructions to students in the form of animation. Adobe Flash CS6 was helpful for me to translate my storyboard into an amateur animation project. I am aware that there is a lot more to learn so I am happy to have at least touched the tip of the iceberg. I can confidently claim that I know the principles of animation and how tweening can be done. Aside my friends, both the lecturers were very approachable and friendly. I must particularly thank Dr. J and Dr. Shah for their patience and endless encouraging words throughout the course. They were very humble and helpful. It saddens me to bid goodbye to this semester as it marks the end of the Animation course but I am glad to have learned a lot and made good friends along the way. Animation was fun, engaging and a bit scary but I am glad I went through the whole cycle :) 

Visual Effects vs Special Effects

I had the opportunity to compare both, visual and special effects. My other friends presented on morphing, wrapping and advantages & disadvantages of Visual Effects. Here are the slides that we have compiled:
2. Morphing 
3. Wrapping 

Visual Effects

This week was on Visual Effects. There are many visual effects and I was assigned to research and present on Motion Capture. This is the slide that I have prepared. Please click here: Motion Capture

Here are some of the slides that my friends have shared with me:
1. To learn more about Matte Painting, please click here  
2. To learn more about CGI, please click here
3. To learn more about Compositing, please click here

I also found this website to be very useful: Visual Effects

Transition from Toon Boom Harmony to Flash

This week was spent by working on the animation project. During the pre-production stage, we did a lot of brainstorming to come up with a suitable story line. We finally agreed on the metamorphosis of a butterfly. 
This was one of the pre-production document that we (as a group) have agreed on.
Here's the initial presentation of the project: Part 4 

Although we have been introduced to Toon Boom Harmony, Dr. Shah mentioned that the cracked version might have lots of problems when we complete the project. Therefore, learning to animate using Adobe Flash CS6 was the proposed alternative. I have to admit that Flash was very challenging for me. Since I missed a class due to illness, I found it very difficult to catch up as I do not have any basic knowledge in animation. With the support of the lecturer and my friends, I managed to slowly improve.  




Week 5

I devoted this week to brainstorm and complete the storyboard. Here's the initial draft of the storyboard for the final part:
Part 4-Animation Project



I also looked up suitable images that would be useful for my animation project. I am happy to share a few here:


This could be the stream where the butterfly looks at its own reflection 

This could be a background

Another possible background 

Pupa hatching into a butterfly 

Butterfly sees its own reflection 

Possibly flying away?

An angle where the butterfly sits

Over the mountains 

A sample butterfly 

Butterfly (flight)

Butterfly with shadow

Butterfly on a leaf


Week 4


In Animation, there are 12 principles that need to be mastered. They are described as follows: 

1. SQUASH AND STRETCH
This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. Also squash and stretch is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions. How extreme the use of squash and stretch is, depends on what is required in animating the scene. Usually it's broader in a short style of picture and subtler in a feature. It is used in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking. This is the most important element you will be required to master and will be used often.


2. ANTICIPATION
This movement prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as, starting to run, jump or change expression. A dancer does not just leap off the floor. A backwards motion occurs before the forward action is executed. The backward motion is the anticipation. A comic effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that used anticipation. Almost all real action has major or minor anticipation such as a pitcher's wind-up or a golfers' back swing. Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless a scene requires it to develop a characters personality.


3. STAGING
A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line. The effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. There is a limited amount of time in a film, so each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story. Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once. Use one action clearly stated to get the idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion. Staging directs the audience's attention to the story or idea being told. Care must be taken in background design so it isn't obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation. Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene.


4. STRAIGHT AHEAD AND POSE TO POSE ANIMATION
Straight ahead animation starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a scene. You can lose size, volume, and proportions with this method, but it does have spontaneity and freshness. Fast, wild action scenes are done this way. Pose to Pose is more planned out and charted with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene. Size, volumes, and proportions are controlled better this way, as is the action. The lead animator will turn charting and keys over to his assistant. An assistant can be better used with this method so that the animator doesn't have to draw every drawing in a scene. An animator can do more scenes this way and concentrate on the planning of the animation. Many scenes use a bit of both methods of animation.


5. FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION
When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. "DRAG," in animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this type of action is done more subtly. Example: When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner. Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action.


6. SLOW-OUT AND SLOW-IN
As action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. For a gag action, we may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more snap to the scene. 


7. ARCS
All actions, with few exceptions (such as the animation of a mechanical device), follow an arc or slightly circular path. This is especially true of the human figure and the action of animals. Arcs give animation a more natural action and better flow. Think of natural movements in the terms of a pendulum swinging. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movements are executed on an arcs.


8. SECONDARY ACTION
This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action. Example: A character is angrily walking toward another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the walk. Also, the possibility of dialogue being delivered at the same time with tilts and turns of the head to accentuate the walk and dialogue, but not so much as to distract from the walk action. All of these actions should work together in support of one another. Think of the walk as the primary action and arm swings, head bounce and all other actions of the body as secondary or supporting action.


9. TIMING
Expertise in timing comes best with experience and personal experimentation, using the trial and error method in refining technique. The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement. Most animation is done on twos (one drawing photographed on two frames of film) or on ones (one drawing photographed on each frame of film). Twos are used most of the time, and ones are used during camera moves such as trucks, pans and occasionally for subtle and quick dialogue animation. Also, there is timing in the acting of a character to establish mood, emotion, and reaction to another character or to a situation. Studying movement of actors and performers on stage and in films is useful when animating human or animal characters. This frame by frame examination of film footage will aid you in understanding timing for animation. This is a great way to learn from the others.


10. EXAGGERATION
Exaggeration is not extreme distortion of a drawing or extremely broad, violent action all the time. Its like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Action traced from live action film can be accurate, but stiff and mechanical. In feature animation, a character must move more broadly to look natural. The same is true of facial expressions, but the action should not be as broad as in a short cartoon style. Exaggeration in a walk or an eye movement or even a head turn will give your film more appeal. Use good taste and common sense to keep from becoming too theatrical and excessively animated.


11. SOLID DRAWING
The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into color and movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time.


12. APPEAL
A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audience's interest. Early cartoons were basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of story telling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye.

Week 3


This week was important as I learnt what needs to be done before working on an animation project. An interesting script, well-thought storyboard and realistic animatic are essential prior to producing an animation.

Script
In any movie or game, the script is of utmost importance as a good storyline will leave a lasting impact on the audience. Therefore, as animators, it is important to come up with a good script to attract the target viewers. When drafting the script, the characters should be developed in a way that will be appealing to the audience. Emotions should be delivered accordingly. For example, Dr. J spoke about Thai-based advertisements that can evoke strong emotions with a good message. These stories will stick to our mind and therefore deemed as good animations.

Storyboard
After developing a good script or storyline, it is important to complete the storyboard. A storyboard is a graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. Well, Dr. J mentioned that it is very important to complete the storyboard before thinking about animation. The storyboard will be the main structure with all the information before attempting to create animation. Length of a frame, motion, direction, time taken and expression to be delivered will be annotated in the storyboard. Every little detail will help the animator to produce a good final product.  

Animatic
Animatic is essential before producing an animation. It can be very simple but must contain necessary information that will be featured in the animation later on. It does not need to be coloured fully because this will give a brief idea on how the final project might look like. In its simplest form, an animatic is essentially a rough draft of a film or sequence, consisting of simple storyboarded panels (sketchily drawn images of each shot in a sequence) that are timed out with a temporary soundtrack (voices, music and some sound effects). This then creates a crude draft of a film allowing the filmmaker to test timings and see if the intended meaning of the sequence is conveyed and if, visually, it flows.
By creating this draft, you can identify any issues within a sequence before the time consuming process of animation takes place. If a sequence of shots doesn’t work you can draw some new storyboards and tweak it very quickly. You may find that an entire sequence may be unnecessary, or, that to increase the emotional impact of a scene, altering the framing makes a greater impact. Within the animatic you can refine quickly and effectively the structure and content before the commencement of the animation itself.