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:
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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:
Plants vs. Zombies is a mobile game where you defend your house from a herd of zombies with plants. This game has been around since 2009 and I grew up playing it with my brother and some friends. The game takes strategy and planning but is really fun when you get the hang of it.
The main goal of the game is to beat adventure mode but there are other things you can do in the game. There are achievements that you can take the challenge to do. There are also mini games that you can complete for money. The currency in the game can be used to buy things in the shop. Some items you can stock up on such as rakes to knock out the first zombie of the round and the fertilizer and bug spray for the zen garden. You can buy new plants for adventure mode, plants for your zen garden, and new mini games to play. Adventure mode has five different settings that you play can in. Each setting has plants and zombies that are customized for it, for example, lily pads are for placing in the pool to plant ground plants on them and lanterns allow players to see through fog. There is an almanac on plants and zombies that can be viewed in the game. This helps players to know information on the zombies like their toughness, speed, weaknesses, and their specials. It also gives information on plants such as their damage, range, recharge speed, and their specials. 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. I have recently made another blog post about my first time using Adobe Illustrator. Those thoughts are old and no longer apply to me at the moment. I have gotten used to how Illustrator works and can used most of the learned tool pretty well.
Some tools I have enjoyed using are the mesh tool and the shape tool. The mesh tool can make small highlights on images. We used it to place yellow and brown highlights onto the hamburger buns. We also used it to highlight other images like the lettuce and cheese. I like that it make you look your doing some incredible work of art but, in reality you're just clicking a few buttons on a screen. It also makes it look more appealing and detailed to me. I have previously expressed my frustrations with the shape tool in other blog post, I now have an understanding of how to use it properly. I now know how to merge spaces and get rid of overlapping lines. I just needed so more practice with is all. I guess one thing I was struggling with eas with the gradient tool. I was used to using it in Adobe Photoshop as I thought is would similar to how it is used in Illustrator. I was very wrong. Or maybe I just didn't lioknin the right places. I don't think I look at the properties while I was using it. I wanted to make the gradient into a circle but I didn't know how. I think if I look back it on Tuesday or Wednesday I figure it out. In summary:
Plague Inc. is a mobile game that allows players to name, create and design a pathogen to then kill every human on earth with it. The game has things that can slow down your progress. These things include political news, climates, cures, and much more. The game overall is very fun and engaging.
The color choices for the game are very understandable. The main colors used is red. The thumbnail of the app, the background of the setup, and the upgrades you can buy are all red. They all make sense. The color red is often associated with warning signs. It also symbolizes danger. The goal is to destroy humanity so danger is a well related feeling. In the game, you can choose from many different types of pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Each type has a special ability. Viruses can mutate symptoms more frequently. Fungi can release spores to infect a new, uninfected country. This is makes sense because these pathogen behave differently compared to one another. The game has things that can slow your progress to the goal. There is a cure that is started when the disease starts to become dangerous or life-threatening. It is usually led by the country you started the disease in. Other countries begin to shut down their outside transportation such as boats, airplanes and their border. This can lead to this country not being infected at all and ruin your game. There are also natural setbacks such as climate. If you start out in a cold country, such as Iceland, then it will be harder for your disease to spread to hotter countries, like Saudi Arabia, without dying. In summary:
Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based drawing program that allows users to create logos, cartoons, etc. This week, we started to use this program for the first time. It's going to take me so time for me to get used to using but I'll soon enough get the hang of it.
The first time opening up the program was overwhelming. There are so many tools on the toolbar. Also the thumbnails for the tools are very small so I couldn't really see them. I also had trouble using the shape building tool. It's so easy to use which led to me accidentally making shapes over and over again. I found it hard to find certain things. I did not know where to find the color swatches but I did end up finding it on my own. Sometimes I think I need to go explore the program to find some new tools and techniques. I still don't how to make line intersect or overlap. That part is confusing to me and I don't know what to do. All the things you can do with text in the program are amazing. I wish I could have been able to do them in Photoshop. You can make the text go in a spiral or around a rounded rectangle. It is a lot easier to size the text in this program that in Photoshop. In Photoshop, you have to highlight the text and type in the size number but here you can just click and drag a corner to you liking. In conclusion:
Adobe Photoshop has a large variety of tools available for use in its program. We have learned how to use a few of them in class in recent days. Some of them were highly used and incredibly useful while the others were less favorable in my opinion. My favorite tool to use is the spot healing brush. The tool is very simple and extremely easy to use. It makes it look like you doing very intense work but in reality you are simply clicking over a spot to remove it. It is also very useful for editing pictures. You can save someone from embarrassment by editing out their disgusting acne. The use of the tool, if done correctly, is very unnoticeable even when you zoom in very closely. In the photos below, you can the changes I have made to the photo using the spot healing brush. I believe that the most useful technique we learned is how to fix the exposure of an image. I have least five photos that I have taken that have bad exposure. Sometimes, we don't have to time or skills to fix the lighting in area we are in. It is easier to be able to take a photo anywhere and not worry about it being too dark or too light. The photoshop program can take your worries away and fix your photos so you can post them. The two images below so the magic Photoshop has done to the original picture (I also used the spot healing brush on these pictures as well). In conclusion:
Recently, we learned about the elements and principles of design. They are used in every design, directly or indirectly. They are especially used in video games. Two examples of this are from the games, Solitaire and Plants vs. Zombies. This screenshot is from the game, Solitaire. Some elements I can point out are shape, color, space, texture, and line. The shapes outline where the cards go. The colors provide the player with a sense of coolness and relaxation while also allowing the cards to be differentiated. The space represents the table where one would play cards on. The texture shows how that table would feel, which would be soft. The lines form a border for the card placement and create the letter “A”, standing for the ace. The screenshot above is from the game, Plants vs. Zombies. Some elements of design that I can recognize are line, shape, color, texture, space, and scale. The lines define the edges of the shapes, the thicker the line, the more important it is in the game. The shapes make up the characters and add to the details. The color makes it look more like night and is made of mostly cool colors. The textures add to the details. You can see the rough stone cracks and the soft, fluffy grass. The space in the screenshot is obviously in a backyard. The space in cut into a grid so the player can see where they can place their plants. The scale tells us that the plant are really huge. The plants bigger than the lawnmowers and are about the same size as the gravestones.
In summary:
Solitaire. MobitityWare, 2018. Version 1.1 MobitityWare. www.mobilityware.com Plants vs. Zombies FREE. ELECTRONIC ARTS, 2018. Version 1.1 EA. www.ea.com |
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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