This friday, our quarter project is due. We had three options to choose from this quarter. I chose to finish my idle animation because I didn't want to have to work with anybody else and it was already started and I could pick up where I left off. I thought that this would be the easiest project to complete but I ran into a few problems on the way.
The first problem I found was the moving paw. I realized that I had to make the paw come from behind the head and nose, overlap the nose, and go back behind the head. I thought I could make the head a clipping mask but I didn't remember how to do that so I traced over each frame with the pen tool. The second problem was the color. When I was making the lines, I was focused more on the animation than the colors I had to add. I figured I could just color the frames individually in a layer under the lines. This ended up being a time consuming and tedious process. Also, with the way I placed the layers, I had to carefully paint the brown colors in order for it to not noticeably cover the other lines under the layer. I had to do this for the tail and the moving paw. Another problem I had was with the time. I didn't know the time requirements for the project until Wednesday. This wasn't that big of a problem because I could just loop the animation 2 or 3 times. In conclusion:
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Recently, we had an assignment to create a looping animation of a monster eating something that was flying into its mouth. We were given a four part tutorial to follow that basically took us through the steps of making each part of the animation. The process of the animation wasn't hard at all but it did take a lot of time to complete.
The tutorial itself was alright but I didn't really like the guy who made them. He would always make these weird sounds during the video especially when he was working on the mouth. He also could have edited one of the videos better. In the third video, you can hear some sort of shifting noise and then he starts the video. It just bothered me a little. My monster turned out fine. Some parts of it weren't animated the best but I really just wanted to finish the assignment as soon as possible so I didn't make it better. But I do have to say that the eyebrows on my monster were the favorite thing to do because they turned out the best. I thought I really conveying a lot of emotion through them. If you look at my creation, then you can tell that I definitely could have improved some parts of it. One part includes the hairs. I think I messed up the position of all of them. I think the places they move to don't fit the motion of the body. Some of them don't really move as far as they should. Also, one of hairs near the bottom twitches in the animation. In conclusion:
Idle animations are animations that characters perform in video games when players do not move their characters in a while. They can be seen in platforming and combat games. I think these types of animation are really interesting. They add a little bit of personality into a small, subtle place in a game. I also really like how creative some of them are.
I don't really play video games that feature idle animations in them so I had to do some research for examples. After reading a couple articles on them, I found a few that caught my eye. One of them is the animation in Sonic CD. When you first leave him alone, he just impatiently taps his foot on the ground. Then, if you continue to wait, he gives up on you and jumps off the screen to meet you with a game over. First of all, that's pretty extreme but if you think about, that's something he would totally do. The whole point of the game is to make it through the level the fastest you can. He clearly does not want to wait for you because you should be at least trying to go fast. One reason I like this idle animation is because it ends the game. Sonic's whole existence is to go fast. It's even his catchphrase. I like that it shows he doesn't want to be anywhere or with anyone that stops he from being fast. He's basically telling us, “You're too slow!” In conclusion:
Animation is one of the thing that everyone now has grown up with. As time has gone on, new, cheaper types of animation have been created. Today cartoons are mainly 3D animations and 2D animations. Traditional animation is rarely seen today in cartoons but it's where animation started. 2D animation and traditional animation can look very similar but are very different.
Both traditional and 2D animation are two-dimensional. Both are made to look flat and are not in a three-dimensional plane with a z-axis. Both animation techniques can be done on a computer. Traditional animation can be drawn on the computer with a drawing tablet. The individual parts of 2D animation are made on computers to begin with.They require the same pre-production steps. All animation first starts with a storyboard, that is usually drawn on paper. Next, the animatic is edited together. It usually just the storyboard but with the sound effects and voices edited in. There are many differences between these two types of animation. One difference between them is the way the types of animation can be made. Traditional animation can be made on paper and painted onto cels or drawn in a computer software. 2D animation can only be made on computers. Also the type of software used on each animation is different. Traditional animation would use bitmap programs to animate while 2D animation would have to use vector based software. Some traditional animation software include Adobe Photoshop and 2D animation programs include Adobe Animate and Adobe After Effects. In conclusion:
Morr. “The 5 Types of Animation - A Beginner's Guide.” Bloop Animation, Bloop Animation, 13 Jan. 2019, www.bloopanimation.com/types-of-animation/. Mendoza, Rey, and Jr. “Design Talk.” 2D Animation, Blogger, 23 Feb. 2012, http://reymendoza.blogspot.com/p/2d-animation.html?m=1 Traditional animation requires an animator to hand-draw each individual frame in an animation. Traditional animation can be done on paper or on a computer with a drawing tablet.
Doing animation on paper will require an animator to have non-photo blue pencils for sketching, drawing pencils, 3-hole punched paper, a light box, a peg bar, an art gum eraser for line art, and cels, paints, brushes, and colored pencils for coloring. Animators place the hole punched paper into a peg bar to keep it in place. They'll usually put this on the bottom or the top of light box. The animator will sketch with the non-photo blue pencil because it shows up light but is still visible. They'll then do their line art with a pencil over the sketch. After that, the animator will paint a cel on top of the paper and create a background on another paper. Traditional animation on a computer requires a drawing tablet and an animation software such as TVPaint and ToonBoom Harmony. I chose this technique because it was the one technique that I wanted to learn how to do. I always thought that this technique made the animations look more realistic and fluid. Traditional animation takes a lot of time to make. If you animate with 12 fps (frames per second) then you would have to draw 720 different frames for a single minute! Managing your time will be very important for completing your work on time. If you are working on an animation team, you will need to communicate with your teammates. You would have to talk to the storyboard artists and get the voices from the voice actors in order to make an animatic. In conclusion:
The Beauty of Animation. “Keys and In-Betweens: The Traditional Animation Process.” SiOWfa15 Science in Our World Certainty and Controversy, 20 Mar. 2018, sites.psu.edu/thebeautyofanimation/2018/03/20/keys-and-in-betweens-the-traditional-animation-process/. Morr. “The 5 Types of Animation - A Beginner's Guide.” Bloop Animation, Bloop Animation, 12 Jan. 2019, www.bloopanimation.com/types-of-animation/. Sanders, Adrien-Luc. “10 Art Supplies No Traditional Animator Should Be Without.” Lifewire, Lifewire, 29 Oct. 2018, www.lifewire.com/art-supplies-for-the-traditional-animator-141011. |
AuthorI plan on learning the skills of Digital Design and Animation this year. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Archives
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