Agenda:
History of Animation-Early Disney, Golden Era of Hollywood Animation
Assignment: Select an early Disney animation from youtube and critique the animation using timecode to highlight the principles of animation evident in the video. You must identify at least 5 principles of animation.
-------------------
Read Preston Blair pdf linked to the right side of the blog.
Assignment: Draw in your sketchbook the 4 stages of a human walk cycle as demonstrated in Blair's book.
In your sketchbook draw a profile view of a character for which you would like to create a walk cycle. Your drawing should be well designed, use google images as reference if necessary. If you are stuck, look at how Preston Blair breaks down basic shapes of animals to create cartoons. Once your drawing is approved by Mrs. L, then scan it using the scanner in the back of the room. Save your art as a png or jpg file and mail to yourself, or save on a thumb drive. You will use this art as a basis for your walk cycle.
-------------------
Watch all Flash tutorial demos linked on the video demo page.
For each tutorial, you must answer the associated quiz below and submit your answers (this is graded).
When you have watched every Flash tutorial, have finished all quizzes, have an approved (signed off) piece of art for scanning as the basis for your walk, you are welcome to begin your own 4 frame walk cycle.
Assignment: watch tutorials and take quizzes, draw a profile view of a character, animate a walk cycle based on your drawing. You will export this as a Quicktime Movie, again in h.264 format.
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Saturday, 4 January 2014
Semester Recap
Welcome back! Happy 2014.
To recap what you have learned so far:
Infographics:
To recap what you have learned so far:
Infographics:
- Principles of Design and Composition
- Adobe Illustrator
- Application of Google Map
- Dataset and data visualization
- Infographic
- Clickable web infographic with embedded google map
- Collaborative groups
- Project based learning
Stop Motion Animation:
- 3 act story structure, story development, script
- History of Animation-early days (focus on Reiniger/McCay)
- Audio/Garage Band Software
- Development of fun pieces of movable art
- Motion capture, frame by frame
- Use of mobile software for camera capture
- Editing using Final Cut to assemble audio with animated video clips
- Collaborative groups
Principles of Animation and Photoshop Drawn Animation:
- Drawing principles, figure drawing, gestural drawing (sketchbook)
- Photoshop for drawing
- Use of pen stylus for visual design and drawing with Photoshop
- Photoshop animation capability for frame by frame development
- Principles of animation as defined by Disney and still applicable in contemporary animation
- Heavy drawing and design using Photoshop
- Ball Bounce, Brick Drop, Leaf Drop
Semester 2: What you are about to do:
Walk Cycles and figure drawing in animation:
- Flash CS4 animation
- Drawing with pencil/sketchbook of humans in walk movements
- Scanning artwork, dpi/ppi, resolution, quality
- Using scanned artwork on the computer as a guideline
- History of Animation-Art of Disney and Warner Bros
- Preston Blair drawings and cartoons
- Studies of walks/walk and run cycles
- Create a human or animal walk cycle
Elements of Art and Design in Animation
- Walk cycle within panning scene in Flash CS4
- Developing artwork and matte paintings for movie effects and animation
- Line/Shape/Form/Space/Value/Texture
- Creating visual hierarchy in a scene
- Compositional design and principles of design
- Creating dominance and incorporating scale
- Integrating Photoshop and Flash
- History of Animation (WWII, rise of Anime)-(Japan/Europe)
Flash Culminating Project: PSA for Youtube
Introduction to 3D Modeling and Animation
- Working in 3D space with 3D objects
- Careers for artists/animators in industry (gaming, film, web and mobile design)
- Create 3D models
- Lighting, shading, texturing 3D scenes
- Basic 3D animation
- Option for 3D printing from service bureau
- Overview of Blender 3D
- Create simple gingerbread man animation
- History of Animation-Television (Hanna Barbara, Warner Bros, others)-Current
Final Project-student choice. Students will determine a final project of their choice (PSA, short story or other approved idea) by selecting a topic of interest and the software and animation approach of their choice.
Sunday, 1 December 2013
Gravity, Weightless
This week we will continue to learn about the Principles of Animation and apply them in an animation exercise to be completed this week.
Please upload your completed project as a quicktime movie, converted using H.264 here.
12 Principles:
12. Personality-future lessons
Assignments for week of December 2nd
1. Falling leaf
Create a single leaf that loosens from its branch and falls to the ground. We will follow this leaf as if it is a character taking a journey, running into an obstacle, overcoming the obstacle, and finally, finding a place on the ground, either in a pile of leaves, or in a private spot on the ground.
You will demonstrate anticipation at the beginning of the animation as the leaf decides whether it will make the journey or not and at the point it decides to make its break! Remember, often we see anticipation played out as the character moves in the opposite direction of the action at first, like a baseball pitcher winding up to throw a pitch, he may step and lean backward before moving forward and releasing the ball to the batter.
In your Photoshop file, you will have a layer that plots the arc of movement or the path the leaf will follow. This should be a well thought out path that will provide you guidance for the action.
At some point during the pathway down, your leaf will confront an obstacle (natural forces such as wind, extreme heat, rain, breezes, windsheer) that will cause a reaction through which your leaf must propel forward using stretch and squash.
You will use slow in, slow out, meaning that your speed will start slow during the anticipation, speed up during the normal flow of the action, then decrease at the end. You will do this by making files with different frame rates. Normal action could be handled at 12fps, while you may wish to perform slow in and slow out at a reduced frame rate. You will then export these files, and edit them together in final cut (this should be 3 quicktime movie files-beginning, action, end).
Finally, your leaf will float to the ground and settle in its final position for the action. If your leaf drops into a pile of leaves, and some other leaves rattle up as a result, you could then animate the leaf bouncing a bit up from the pile, this would be a secondary action, or even follow through. But you do not have to take that final step, but if you have time, you should for more practice.
Total time: 16 seconds, 24fps for major pathway action, 12fps for anticipation and landing.
Must begin with sketchbook observational drawing of trees, branches, leaves, and scale of drawing.
Please upload your completed project as a quicktime movie, converted using H.264 here.
"It is not necessary for an animator to take a character to one point, complete that action completely, and then turn to the following action as if he had never given it a thought until after completing the first action. When a character knows what he is going to do he doesn't have to stop before each individual action and think to do it. He has it planned in advance in his mind."
-Walt Disney (describing follow through and overlapping action)
12 Principles:
1. Timing-have observed somewhat, will cover as we go on. We have selected frame rates, but somewhat arbitrarily. We will continue to learn that certain things work better under different frame rates. Frame rate is related to speed and spacing. It is also important to consider in terms of production time. For this week's exercise, you will work with 2 different frame rates, 12fps and 24 fps in 3 separate files you will edit together at the end. At 12fps, your action will appear more slow, which is desirable in this animation at the beginning and end, as you will see. During the actual action itself, 24fps will be used to achieve smooth animated results.
2. Ease In and Out (or Slow In and Out) - The concept that an action can have varying speeds at beginning and end of an action, often used in conjunction with anticipation and other principles, we will cover in this week's assignment. Most important is to know when and how to use it. For this week's assignment, you will use slow in/out at the beginning and end of your animation by using different frame rates. 12fps/24fps.
3. Arcs-will cover in this week's assignment (somewhat observed this in bouncing ball arcs). The idea that arcs provide a guide for realistic movement. You will create a path as a guide for your animation this week. You may use arcs to simulate smooth back and forth flow.
4. Anticipation-will apply in this week's assignment, have discussed. This week you will apply anticipation at the beginning of your animation. You will apply the anticipation during the slow-in process, at a frame rate of 12fps, to slow the action. The spacing of your object will be further apart at the beginning as well, as we will see.
5. Exaggeration-will cover in future lessons
6. Squash and Stretch-covered with ball and character, you should now apply whenever you can! You are required to apply stretch and squash in this week's assignment as your object reacts to gravity on the upward and downward swings.
7. Secondary Action-will cover in walk/run future lessons
8. Follow Through and Overlapping Action-will apply in this week's assignment. Follow through is normally seen at the end of an action, may be thought of as the opposite of anticipation. The idea is that an object may go beyond its final resting point at the end of the action, and then loop or snap back to its intended final resting point, resolving the action. Overlapping action is when a character's parts react independently throughout an action, but come together at the end, often using follow through. For example, an animal's ears may move at a different rate, the animal may come to an abrupt stop, the ears might continue to move forward and then snap back.
9. Straight Ahead Action and Pose-To-Pose Action-concept introduced this week. You will decide of these two processes, which to use for your work this week. Most animators agree that it is a combination that yields the best results.
10. Staging-future lessons
11. Appeal-future lessons
12. Personality-future lessons
Assignments for week of December 2nd
1. Falling leaf
Create a single leaf that loosens from its branch and falls to the ground. We will follow this leaf as if it is a character taking a journey, running into an obstacle, overcoming the obstacle, and finally, finding a place on the ground, either in a pile of leaves, or in a private spot on the ground.
You will demonstrate anticipation at the beginning of the animation as the leaf decides whether it will make the journey or not and at the point it decides to make its break! Remember, often we see anticipation played out as the character moves in the opposite direction of the action at first, like a baseball pitcher winding up to throw a pitch, he may step and lean backward before moving forward and releasing the ball to the batter.
In your Photoshop file, you will have a layer that plots the arc of movement or the path the leaf will follow. This should be a well thought out path that will provide you guidance for the action.
At some point during the pathway down, your leaf will confront an obstacle (natural forces such as wind, extreme heat, rain, breezes, windsheer) that will cause a reaction through which your leaf must propel forward using stretch and squash.
You will use slow in, slow out, meaning that your speed will start slow during the anticipation, speed up during the normal flow of the action, then decrease at the end. You will do this by making files with different frame rates. Normal action could be handled at 12fps, while you may wish to perform slow in and slow out at a reduced frame rate. You will then export these files, and edit them together in final cut (this should be 3 quicktime movie files-beginning, action, end).
Finally, your leaf will float to the ground and settle in its final position for the action. If your leaf drops into a pile of leaves, and some other leaves rattle up as a result, you could then animate the leaf bouncing a bit up from the pile, this would be a secondary action, or even follow through. But you do not have to take that final step, but if you have time, you should for more practice.
Total time: 16 seconds, 24fps for major pathway action, 12fps for anticipation and landing.
Must begin with sketchbook observational drawing of trees, branches, leaves, and scale of drawing.
Tuesday, 26 November 2013
Nov 26, 2013
Projects due:
- Fairy Tale (Final as a .mov or mpg4 file, uploaded to google drive in fairytale folder)
- Stretch and Squash Animation exercise-ball bounce
- Stretch/Squash/Anticipation exercise-simple character
Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, 17 November 2013
Animation Exercises, Principles of Animation
Principles of Animation
See this link for a visual representation of the twelve principles of animation.
We will focus this week on the first principle of animation, Stretch and Squash. Stretch and Squash is the concept that objects have weight (light or heavy), and that weight shifts through movement. It is essential to understand this principle in terms of applying it to character animation.
Look at the 3 images below. They start with an example of the bouncing ball, which is a foundational exercise for all new animators. It lets animators explore motion, timing, spacing and weight.
The second image demonstrates the principle in a character animation.
Lastly, we see the principle in frames from a sack exercise, another foundational exercise in animation.
Assignments (Nov 18th week):
For this, and other animation exercises of the next two weeks, please upload to the Animation Exercises shared google drive.
See this link for a visual representation of the twelve principles of animation.
We will focus this week on the first principle of animation, Stretch and Squash. Stretch and Squash is the concept that objects have weight (light or heavy), and that weight shifts through movement. It is essential to understand this principle in terms of applying it to character animation.
Look at the 3 images below. They start with an example of the bouncing ball, which is a foundational exercise for all new animators. It lets animators explore motion, timing, spacing and weight.
The second image demonstrates the principle in a character animation.
Lastly, we see the principle in frames from a sack exercise, another foundational exercise in animation.
Assignments (Nov 18th week):
- Using Photoshop animation (frame by frame), you will create a bouncing ball with 3 bounces, and an eventual roll off the screen. This will be exported as a quicktime movie using QuickTime conversion, h.264 video compression.
- Using Photoshop apply the concept of stretch and squash to the simple jumping of a character such as person, animal, insect, fish, bird, inanimate object that you personify. You must show stretch and squash in this simple animation. In a jump we will assume your character is joyous, happy, excited, etc. Show this emotion through a simple jump. This can be accomplished at 12fps, and the jump can be 3-4 seconds. So 45-60 total frames meets the requirement for time. You must show squash when your character comes down, and stretch as it jumps up, a full jump starting with feet/paws/bottom on the ground to highest point in the air, and back to ground. Show the shifting of weight through this movement. This will be exported as a quicktime movie using Quicktime conversion, h.264 video compression.
For this, and other animation exercises of the next two weeks, please upload to the Animation Exercises shared google drive.
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Thursday, 24 October 2013
Friday October 25th
Hello wonderful animation class!
One person from each group must leave a comment below at the end of the day and tell me what each group accomplished. I have notes from Wednesday's class indicating next steps and where you were. So let me know the following:
One person from each group must leave a comment below at the end of the day and tell me what each group accomplished. I have notes from Wednesday's class indicating next steps and where you were. So let me know the following:
- Status of audio (complete, 90% complete, still need specific items such as ...)
- Tracks include in audio (such as voice narration, X amount of sound effects, music...)
- Status of artwork (complete, out of 5 characters X amount complete)
- Background is (complete, almost complete)
- Quality of art (characters/background) is representative of advanced high school, proficient high school, 6th grader, 3rd grader.
- Have you rehearsed your animation yet? Yes/No.
- Are you ready to shoot your animation next week?
- What problems are you having or concerns?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)