Leanne
Stone
Learning animation
The Process
To create my animation i first had to look at a video of another mouth animation. I then read an article and looked at an article about the 8 basic mouth shapes and the sounds and letters each one makes. I then took photos of myself doing these eight mouth shapes to understand better what each shape actually was. I then designed my own little cartoon character i could quickly draw 8 times and draw a different facial expression on each. I first sketched these out with pencil, I then quickly rubbed out the pencil and went over it in fine line. I took pictures of all photos at each stage. I thought adding colour may make my animation better but i chose to stick with the simple outline style without colour for my video. I then downloaded imovie and inserted all the pictures i need and placed the audio in the background. I had to edit the automatic transitions and move and shorten the times each facial expression was exposed. After i was somewhat happy i then added a filter to give a more comicy style. I have attached one photo from each preparation stage below.
Evaluation
Overall for a first time trying to do any sort of animation I am happy. I feel that the drawing of my character went well as I was able to draw time efficiently and adapt depending on the facial expression. I also feel I quickly got the hang of judging what mouth positions would have to be used in order to represent the sounds that each word makes. Overall I had a good idea of what I wanted my final product to look like. However, I was faced many problems along the way. The main issue being that I struggled to figure out how iMovie works, I seemed to be unable to get photos to stay on for less time and things seemed to be very jumpy. I had tried watching a video on how to work iMovie however only answered a few struggles I was having. If I were to do this task again I would do a few things differently. First of all I would spend a little more time designing my character so I could adapt further the characters bodies to fit the emotion of the character and not just the mouth. I would also spend more time working with iMovie and finding ways to change the length photos appeared on screen as I am still unsure how to get the amount of photos to make smoother words in a smaller amount of time. Another thing I would do differently is also focus on the detail of the facial expressions more. I feel this would have a big impact on the emotion side of the animation.
I like this first animation because it not only includes the expressions to make each word but also when we watched the ‘Your face’ video, there was some abstract animation in there. Here, he has made the mouth spin around making the animation abstract and different from the rest andi like that touch.
I like this animation because it is simple but effective. The drawing includes colour but isn't trying to do anything too extreme and therefore the actual syncing to the words is very effective. Between words where nothing was being spoken there was a pause so you could see the mouth close and rest for that second which also made this very believable.
The Process
To create this animation I used a very similar process to that of the singing animation from the other week. I first had to figure out what style of character I wanted, the first picture is a couple of quick doodles I did to figure out what I wanted to do. I then decided to use a posed wooden man I had to do this project. I felt this would be better as it would help me in the future when having to draw people to animate, I could then move about the limbs and see exactly where they sit, this would be great for future drawings and good practice. I then decided what kind of dance moves I wanted my figure to be doing, I decided to add a jump in the end for more variety. I sketched this drawings quicker than my last animation as I wanted more time to focus on iMovie as I struggled with this last time. After I had drawn 8 or 9 different positions I started to put these into iMovie with the start of the song in the background. I had to carefully select the right drawings to go after each movement to try and make a smoother transition.
Evaluation
I feel many things well with this animation compared to my last animation. To begin with, I used a much simpler design of character which made it a lot easier to choose poses, it also will help get practice in for future tasks like these. I also found seeing the physical poses on the model easier for my me to know what positions would help make this smoother. I think adding some scribbles to almost portray grass also made this more effective as when i portray the character as jumping in the air, having the grass lower down the paper from the feet then the other drawings gives a good perspective, and makes this jump more effective. I then took photos of my drawing and had to start putting these onto imovie. I found putting the audio on first a lot more manageable this time and knew how to quickly import it. I feel the animation process of this animation a lot more smooth. I was able to easily visualise what frame i needed where and what would look good at each point in the animation. I think it is visible that i became more confident towards the end of the animation process as the the frames link better and are smoother and the timing is better. I was able to identify this time round how to stop imovie from panning and zooming into photos, this was very useful and after figuring out that turning of ‘key burns’ did this, I was able to make an animation that’s much easier for the eye, and actually stayed still. However, there were still somethings i struggled with and would do better next time. I would make my photos primarily or at least fit in a landscape fashion instead of portrait, as both animations i’ve ended up having to make sideways. I would also research more into how to make clips not last as long as i wasn't able to make the clips as short as i could to fit the fps we were challenged to make. After working with my wooden model i would also observe the videos of people dancing we watched more and observe how i can make these more advanced dance moves on my character. I would use the wooden model so that I wouldn't miss out no any of the limbs on the body of the person.
The reason I like this clip is because it is very different to all the other clips. It uses an animal instead of a person for one and also incorporates the physical features of that animal, animating them in such a way not just the body of the duck is doing the dance but the head and even the wings, making the attention to detail bigger. This is thinking outside of the box which i like.
This is the other clip I chose I liked. This is because of the extra detail and the colours. Whilst the animation remains quite basic and seems to be looped, I think the use of the background here really brings life to the animation. The small stage on the ground and the colour changing and the directional change in the lights really gives this short animation a disco feel. This has inspired me to start adding maybe some more to my backgrounds.
masking in after effects
The Process
Today, I got to start experimenting with more adobe software. After getting to use the cameras to film some footage of my classmates around the college, we started to learn how to add an animated character into the scene. We did this using adobe character animator. I loaded this up and selected the pre-made character I wanted in my scene. I chose Bongo a gorilla as in the future I could animate it in a humorous way. I used the animation of Bongo breathing and exported this video through the adobe media encounter. We then loaded in after effects, where I used the linear colour tool to get rid of the black background that Bongo's animation had been exported onto. I had selected to start a new composition using footage, so I had imported Bongo on top of the video I had selected from filming last Friday. I selected a clip where, there was places to practice still and motion masking on a live action character. I scaled Bongo to match the size I wanted and then first off duplicated a layer and masked out the door so Bongo appeared to be standing behind the door. I had to put this layer above Bongo so it was on top. I then duplicated the bottom layer again and went frame by frame masking out the shoulder of the love action character. I did this to get the most practice and the most accurate masking. I used keyframes each frame to map each mask. When this was done I added feathering to add a slight blur to the outline of my mask so that the overlap would look better between the live action and animated character. After exporting and uploading this video I decided I'd try and make it more realistic by adding a shadow. I used the drop shadow effect on Bongo and changed the softness and opacity. I had to make my mask bigger so the shadow wasn't on the live action character.
Evaluation
For my first masking attempt I am very happy with how this went. At first I struggled with the main interface of After Effects as the layout and controls were slightly different to Premiere Pro. I did struggle with getting everything originally set up, ready for me to mess around with. I also initially struggled getting my keyframes to work properly, as the mask seemed to changed even after putting in the keyframes, however was soon informed this was because I didn't have a certain effect on with the clock icon ticked. However I did grasp how to move around the mask and use the pen tool to create the mask shape I needed quite well. I was also able to get to grips with the different tools and now feel very confident if I were needed to do this similar thing again. Furthermore I am happy that I got to start experimenting with other effects as even seeing this menu and the different types of tings I could do with the one effect has widened my knowledge of the application. However, there are things I would improve or do differently next time. One of these things is the type of shadowing effect I had used on my animated character. This is because in my clip I have now I used an effect which is mainly used on text, meaning the effect sticks around the characters feet and cannot be made a further distance from the character. This caused for a shadow that was more out of place and that I couldn't blur properly like other shadows. I had added an effect to the character rather than another layer which would have been the more realistic and appropriate way. If I were to go back into this edit I would clean it up as after watching the final product a few times I have noticed one frame where a little bit of the shadow leaks out onto the live action character as my mask is not big enough so I would work back into that frame so you cannot see a flicker of darker light on his back.
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Tracking in after effects
Example of one point tracking
Today we started learning how to tracking in after effects, we started with a simple one point motion track. I used footage I had filmed for my test chase scene task. I added a new tracker and scaled both of the boxes so that it gave enough space to track the door but didn't take too long to calculate. I had gone by key frames towards the end of the video as when the camera started jolting a bit it seemed to miss the point I was trying to track. After doing this I got a png of a smiley face and parented a null object with the smiley face and applied the null object as the tracking marker for the tracker. This worked fairly well however I had realized that this one point tracking did not track the scale of the sign, therefore I decided to use key frames to roughly edit the zoom that happens in the footage. I was reasonably happy with how this went as I feel the tracking went quite smoothly and I was able to work around any problems. I would be confident doing this kind of tracking again.
Example of two point tracking
Next we went on to learn how to do two point tracking, this includes not only the tracking of motion but also the rotation and scale of what we are tracking. To experiment with this we went out and filmed a quick video of myself walking towards the camera. I cropped this video so it was easier to see my eyes. I then created a new tracker and ticked rotation and scale, this created 2 tracking points which I positioned to follow my eyes. I went by the key frame with this one because there was a lot more to track and keep watch on. This took a while however was worth it as the tracking seemed smooth in the end. I then added a null object and imported some accessories. |I found it difficult trying to get items such as sunglasses and a hat to stay right on to fit with the tracking. I then decided to try and create a mask over my face. This worked a lot better however went wrong when I turned my head. Next time I would want to learn how more points will improve my tracking movement. To improve this I would've recorded a piece of footage in which my eyes are not turning completely off camera as this distorted the trackers a lot. I am overall happy with how my first attempt at 2 point tracking went.
12 principles of animation
Squash and Stretch
This is where animated objects will get longer, flatter or wider depending on the physics to emphasise their speed, momentum, weight and mass. The more, the softer. The less, the stiffer. It can also exaggerate facial expressions. You need to keep the volume consistent.
Anticipation
This is preparing the character to do an action to give clue as to what the animated character is about to do. It shows where the energy is built up before an action (eg- stepping back before a punch). Whatever is included in the action is made very obvious. There can be multiple levels of anticipation.
Staging
This is important because you want to be in control of the acting, timing, camera angle and position and setting so you dictate where the viewers attention is drawn. When characters compete for stage presence the viewer has little idea where to look. Close ups show expressions whereas far away is good for bigger action. The main focus should always be centre screen. Emphasise/ exaggerate the point through staging.
Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose
Straight ahead is animating as you go (good for unpredictable animation) whereas pose to pose is drawing the beginning and end pose and going back to animate and draw in the rest of the poses. Pose to pose is generally better as it gives the most control over your animation. Straight ahead could lead to odd proportions. These two animation techniques can be combined depending on the physics of an animation.
Follow Through and Overlapping Action
This describes when something drags behind the rest of the body and continues to move when the main body stops. The amount of draw says something about the mass of that object. For example hair will move after the main body have moved, the tip of whatever is using follow through will mostly be the one to settle last.
Slow In and Slow Out
This is the process of gradually prepping and bringing the movement to a stop. It feels realistic because slowing in and out is in our everyday. The only thing that can move at a constant rate is a robotic. You can do this by changing the amount of drawings you do closer to the extreme of a drawing. Drawings should be closer together at the beginning and end of the animation and more spread out in the middle.
Arc
Most human creates will move in a circular path. This can be achieved by giving the X-axis constant and the Y-axis a slow in and slow out. Arc's can give more character and help to keep proportion. This can also be used as a motion blur state.
Secondary Action
Gestures that support the main action to add more character to the animation. Doing other actions to support the main mood emphasises the emotion. (Eg- waving your fist when shouting at someone)
Timing
The personality and nature of an animation is determined by the amount of frames inserted between each main action. The more drawings the slower the action and the less drawings the faster the action therefore having the potential to change what is happening in the action. Drawing in two's = every 2 frames making half the work when drawing on one's.
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Exaggeration
Taking every expression or action to the next level to create realistic animation. This can always be added, making an animation more apparent and convincing.
Solid Drawing
Making a drawing feel like it is in the physical space with volume, weight and balance. You should be able to make the character appear in 3D dimensions. This can also be portrayed by avoiding twinning. Presenting your character in this way will give the better feel of weight.
Appeal
This is the process of making the character more interesting the viewer or audience. This can either be having a better overall aesthetic or if we are dealing with a villain like character, making it interesting for the viewer to watch. It can be useful to reduce the details, showing more character and making the animation easier. Another way is to exaggerate proportions, vary shapes and use simpler designs.