Dynamic Animation

BA1a: Fundamentals { C M George - Animation Yr1 - NUA }

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Week 8 Summary

Finally, hand-in week I was getting very scared whether I will finish this project, but I just scraped it all in. I did start to get bored of this project at which point I had given up as mentioned in week 7. I hope the next project will not be going at snail pace, this is something I really can’t stand, start to go crazy (inside my head), if I say I’m OK, I actually mean that I’m not OK. Please help me out.

Finally finished this project. Yes!!!!! 

I felt the project was dragging along too much because I felt that the first few weeks were going very slow then when we reached week 4 onward it was going too fast. I wish were had more work to do in the first 3 weeks so that I would have better time management.

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Week 7 Summary

This week I am just finishing of work. we had group tutorials and I said I was fine but I’m actually freaking out right now. I am really starting to lose my interest in this project it is taking forever to finish. I start off enjoying it, but I really have hit rock-bottom with this exercise. Now all I could think of is how to finish this project.

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Week 6 Summary

This week I started on my Dynamic Animation Exercise. I still need to finish my storyboard for this exercise. I hopefully I will finish this storyboard this week and have the actual exercise started as well the work with the character design and this is really driving me crazy, but I will perceive till I finish these projects. I have a habit of keeping everything to myself even if I have my head steaming like a kettle I won’t say anything about it. I know this will make it difficult for the tutors, I am trying to change this habit, hopefully I will be able to do this soon. I will only ask for help if i really can’t do anything which is very rarely. This project is fun but time wise went from slow motion to super fast in the span of a few days. This maybe because we started a new project in week 5.

I am just wondering whether I will be able to complete this project on time.

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Week 5 Summary

This week was better than last week I still needed to clean up the drawings for my anticipation and follow through exercise. I will trying to finish my storyboard this week for my dynamic exercise. Hopefully, if I finish it I will be able to make a start on this exercise. I wish I had an idea more simplistic so I could animate it nicer after all we are currently learning about the movement in Animation rather than the story of it. 

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Week 4 Summary

This week was quite hectic in terms of work load. I wanted to finish my nicer walk cycle this week. We looked at Anticipation and Follow-through. These are part of the Animation Principals. My first attempt at animating the jump cycle was very terrible, however, I did create a much better one. 

This week we also started our Dynamic Animation Exercise which will be 50-75 frames animation that will emphasis one of the following dynamics; weight and effort, squash and stretch, speed and acceleration, or impact and reaction. I have chosen impact and reaction. This animation will take place in the form of a water balloon popping in slow motion. I just did something stupid because I don’t actually know how I will create an animation of this idea. I have seen videos of people doing things in slow motion, I will watch videos regarding water balloon popping and also make video of my version of doing a water balloon pop. I will have my brother assist me with this procedure.

Overall this week flew past so quickly.

Water balloon popping in slow motion at different fps’. It’s so beautiful. It’s sad to think that you can’t see this amazing thing at it’s normal speed as it pops so fast.

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Week 3 Summary

This week was alright, but at the same time it was quite confusing I really had some trouble starting the walk cycle task, mine was just terrible. It looked so stupid. The problem was that my figure was a humanoid and the proportions didn’t really work out well so I decided to do a stick-man like figure. This made life so much easier but now the problem was getting the actual walk correct. I did figure it out in the end. This was all done during our lesson on Monday.

Wednesday, we had Robert Morgan come in to give a talk about his work, the materials and software he uses and advice on improving our work etc... All of his works were quite disturbing but they had their unique qualities as well. I think that Robert Morgan’s animations are very good at making you feel uneasy. My personal favourite was ‘The Separation’, it had a lot of sentimental values in it as well as the gory elements. The characters also had some sense of reality to it so it makes the animation even more life-like. I was somehow able to sleep peacefully after watch those animations.

On Thursday, we were introduced to the term Iteration. This was very great because it allowed me to create better versions of my animations. I recreated some of my animations and they were much better.

Overall this week was great. 

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Week 2 Summary

This week was more busier as we had more actual work to do. It also went very quickly and I tend to be someone who has trouble managing time. I will try my best to not to fall behind on my tasks. I am finding my blogging tasks alright however my drawing tasks are harder to complete. My Perfection Demon tries to meddle and messes everything. I know I just wrote something that contradicts what I said earlier, sadly I can’t help it sometimes. I have a big need of improvement.

Lesson 3: Monday, 1st October 2018

Today we were introduced to the Rostrum and Dragonframe in the morning. In the afternoon session we had our Dynamics workshop. This lesson we did the 2D Ball Bounce Exercise. We looked at the Art of Spacing and Timing.

The Animation Fundamentals used in this exercise are: Path of Action, Arcs, Momentum, Timing, Key Frame, In-Betweens, Weight and Speed.

We also did and exercise focusing on Squash and Stretch (An Animation Principle). When applied to the ball it will; elongate as it falls, flattens on impact, then returns to normal shape, and throughout the ball bounce the the volume of the ball stays constant.

Lesson 4: Thursday, 4th October 2018

Today we were introduced to the Secondary Action. This element gives the primary action more life. Too much secondary action will make the viewer confused on what the main action is.

The task today was to add a secondary action to our ball bounce. My secondary action task was of a ball with a face I’m still not so sure of whether it is a good secondary action. This task was quite difficult, I wish I thought of a better idea.

You might have noticed that I have changed my layout slightly, Well I have because I felt that posting on my blog everyday is too time consuming and I think I get more work done through this method of posting.

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Week 1 Summary

This went relatively slow as we were just getting to know our brief. We started our first project this year on Monday. This week in Dynamics we did the 2 pendulum tasks; task 1 was to create an animated pendulum with a ball/coin etc. on a string (this task was completed on Dragonframe), task 2 was to create an animated 2D pendulum using a peg bar and cel to do the drawing, then we used Dragonframe again to complete the animation process.

From this week’s experience I this this will be a very quick project. I found it quite hard to finish the tasks but I did complete them. I am the type of person who tend to seek perfection in my work, this is the main reason for taking a long time to complete the tasks. Although I am finding it hard to quickly do all the tasks I think that I will be able to better next week onward as I will try to do less perfecting and more rough work.

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Lesson 2: Thursday 27th September 2018

Week 1 - BA1a: Dynamics - 2D Pendulum

Today we did a lesson on Frames. We learned about Extremes, Passing Positions, and In-between. Extremes are also known as Key Frames. Passing Positions are also known as Breakdown Frame.

Looking back at one of my earlier post, it mentions the 12 Principles of Animation, the Extremes, Passing Positions and In-betweens come under some of the 12 principles. We didn’t really go into much detail on this today.

Our first task today was creating an animated pendulum using our new knowledge of Extremes, Breakdown Frames and In-betweens.

My first attempt on this was much better than my pendulum animating experience from the first workshop. I think this because the new animation was more believable as I applied my new knowledge of Frames. Although the new attempt was better, I still need to make the pendulum movement more flowing.

More importantly for the first time in my life, I used a peg bar a fascinating item, and cel sheets for doing the drawings for the animation. It was very exciting using this equipment for the first time. I feel a step closer to entering the world of animation.

We had a 2nd task to do as well as the first one. The second task was to make an animation that had the pendulum stopping. We could make it stop any creative way. I still haven’t gotten to this task yet because I was making a better version of the first task. I am sure I will be able to do it tomorrow.

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Lesson 1 - Monday 24th September 2018

Introducing BA Animation- Year 1 - Week 1

The units for this year are BA1a: Fundamentals (starting today), BA1b: Concepts and Contexts (starting November)

Brief

Start: 24/09/2018

Briefing: 24/09/2018

Submission: 16/11/2018

Tutors: Robin Fuller, Helen Piercy

Time Spend on Project: 8 Weeks

Overview: We will engage in a variety of activities in the basics of dynamics of animation. This will help to create a core understanding of the animation process which I will continue to build on throughout the course.

Brief in detail: This project will enable me to gain core knowledge of the subject area by introducing me to the medium of animation.

Within this project I will learn the fundamentals of movement, weight, timing and calibration, which can be applied to all forms of animation. I will work in 2D drawn animation for this project, however, what I learn here will carry on through and be built upon further in subsequent projects. I will explore both traditional processes and digital software programmes.

“Ambition is the first step to success. The second step is action”

12 Principles of Animation

-squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, straight ahead + poses to pose, follow through + overlapping action, slow-in and slow-out, arcs, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing, appeal.

Just looked at the Principles of Animation for some idea for Dynamics Project. Today we did some group work on Dragonframe on the pendulum dynamics. We used coin on string, tennis ball on string, golf ball on string and slime ball on string. My attempt of spacing and timing of the frames were terrible, but it was quite interesting testing out the different motions. I used the pink tennis ball for my turn on testing out the motion of the ball/coin. When I carried out the test, I started off with a quick drop of the ball, then it slows downs, but it didn’t really turn out the way I wanted it to be, as the motion looked quite fake and defies the laws of physics, slightly. I have now learned from my mistake so hopefully I won’t repeat the it.

Insert pendulum vid

Today’s task was to create short animations using the provided materials, of a swinging pendulum.

We used DragonFrame on the Line Tester in the Animation Base.

Images of the other group members on here.

Add images from sketchbook

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

(William Blake)