#and143

[freya-development]

The Take

This project was the final animation assignment of the semester, in which the character does a double take with anticipation and a distinctive, exaggerated change in expression. It also had to be fully coloured with added sound. I had a solid plan for this from the beginning and the final result only deviated from the original storyboard slightly.

I used timing charts drawn in my sketchbook to get an idea of how the leaf would move while travelling downwards, which I found worked well as a guideline. Timing charts were also used in some sections of the take in which I was struggling to get the movement right.

I didn't use keyframes or breakdowns for this animation as I wanted to try straight ahead. My reasoning for this is that the wind would make the leaf move in a more organic and spontaneous manner. As the leaf moved down, I wanted the camera to follow that movement, so I used keyframes on a camera layer to follow the movement. I also did this later in the animation during the character's double take. For the second half of the take, the background was drawn in photoshop and them imported into toon boom onto its own layer.

One of the main requirements of the animation was to have completed sound effects added alongside it. I found that I was really struggling to do this efficiently in toon boom and make it sound good, so I opted to make the sound in an external program (filmora) using royalty free sound effects as well as a couple of my own sound recordings. Once the sound was finished, I exported the file as an MP3 and imported it into toon boom. This allowed for the sounds to be well aligned with the animation as well as allowing for specifically adjusted volume levels.

Overall, I'm quite happy with this animation. Were I to redo certain sections, I'd like to adjust the final dive down to the second half of the animation, as I feel as though it could be redone better, though I'm not sure in what way specifically.

[freya-development]

Emotional Sack

This assignment included a combination of previously learned techniques as well as demonstrating understanding of body language and expression without a face. Initially, I'd storyboarded something very different for this assignment. I'd planned for the sack to knock over a table with a teacup on it, however I quickly drifted away from this idea as I found it wasn't really working and didn't have a discernable range of emotion.

I did some quick practices with various emotions or states that the sack could be in. Some inspiration was taken from here and here as I was struggling to figure out how the sack would express itself.

The rest of the animation wasn't storyboarded in my sketchbook, however I did something similar by starting with keys in toon boom.

I then added breakdowns, in-betweens and details, such as the blush and the flowers. Were I to redo this, I'd like to have the sack interact with the environment more.

[freya-development]

Head Turn Adjusted

Following some feedback, I made some adjustments to my head turn animation. The main criticism I recieved was that the movement on the jaw, whilst feasible for a more cartoonish character, didn't quite work due to the slightly more realistic proportions of the character's face. To fix this, I removed the squash and stretch element entirely and made the jaw follow the movement of the rest of the animation. It was also suggested that I add a more obvious expression at the end of the head turn, which I did, as well as adding slight movement in the eyes to make it seem more alive. If I were to redo this animation another time following this one, I would keep the shoulders in place while the head moves. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do this due to time constraints.

[freya-development]

Head Turn

For week 4, we were instructed to animate a head turn to demonstrate understanding of follow-through.

To do this, I started out by drawing in some key frames.

I had in mind that I wanted the character to be surprised by something and turn to look at it, so I added in some breakdowns that might suggest that.

I then added in-betweens to smooth out the animation

There were several parts to this animation that moved, so I decided to break them into layers and animate them separately. The head, face, headband, shirt collar and hair all had their own layers which allowed me to draw them without getting overwhelmed or confused.

One of the issues I encountered during this exercise was with using toon boom itself. I'd transformed a frame previously, and for some reason the frames adjusted, even with nothing on them, altered the brush to be an oval shape despite having a circular brush selected. I couldn't find a way to fix this, so I had to do part of the hair on another layer, leading to the sudden change in line thickness.

Suggestions that I was given included trying to keep the shoulders fixed in place next time. I also need to be careful of my usage regarding squash and stretch, as during the shock animation the jaw moves in a way that both doesn't make too much sense and also draws attention to it when the viewer's eyes should be on the facial expression.

[freya-development]

Skeleton Arm

For this task, we were instructed to animate a skeleton arm to demonstrate an understanding of physics and being able to break joints.

For this, I started out by sketching a few rough ideas for a path, as I wasn't sure how to approach things at first. I also quickly found myself having issues with breaking the joint and wrapping my head around the physics of what I was drawing, however redrawing it a few times eventually helped me get the hang.

Like the magic dot and bouncing ball, I proceeded to draw out a path first on animation paper and use this as the base layer on a light box. I opted not to draw the arm in, however, as I decided this would clutter things far too much and I'd struggle to draw over the top later on. I instead chose to draw the arms and joints in accordance to the previous frame, bearing in mind where on the path they were and how both gravity and speed would affect the movement of the arm.

The main issue that I ran into was that I'd used far too few frames for a speed of 24fps and as a result, movement was fast and looked stiff and robotic as there weren't enough frames for the follow-through to look organic. To fix this, I went back and added over 30 frames between the ones I'd already drawn to slow the movement down, which eventually worked.

The critique I was given was that the initial swing of the arm to the right looks slightly stiff and could be more organic in its movement. To fix this, more follow-through + slow in/out could be added to create the implication of drag.

[freya-development]

Magic Dot

For week two of our fundamentals module, we were tasked with animating a moving dot as well as a bouncing ball.

To start with, I drew out the path I wanted the dot to follow and plotted out where I wanted the dot to be on each frame, which ended up essentially being a bendy timing chart. I then used the same method as I did for the bouncing ball, where I traced each frame of the dot onto individual pieces of paper.

One of the issues I ran into with this task was the amount of frames I had by the end. As I wanted to animate at 24fps, I found that the animation was going far too fast and was unreadable as a result. To combat this, I went back through and added in extra frames to smooth things out. This also allowed me to to express a wider range of speed by exaggerating the slower sections to make the faster ones appear to move more quickly.

Overall, I like the path I chose for the dot, and I like the appearance of the dot moving closer and further away. I also like the spiral at the end of the path. Something I don't like is the section in which I tried to include squashing and stretching. I started what was intended to be a bounce far too high up the paper and the release after the squash was significantly hindered as a result. Had I done this further down the page, it likely would've worked better.

[freya-development]

Bouncing Ball

For week two of our fundamentals module, we were tasked with animating a moving dot as well as a bouncing ball.

The first of these that I did was the bouncing ball. To do this, I used a video reference from YouTube, which can be found here. I then used the arcs in which the ball bounced as a reference, however I exaggerated the squash and stretch of the ball as it fell and impacted the floor to make it look more dynamic.

When I first started planning for the bouncing ball, I first drew out the arcs based on the reference video and where I wanted the different frames to be along those arcs.

I also made some timing charts, which I didn't end up keeping to exactly, however they were still a good guideline to help visualise timings.

I then essentially repeated this process on a piece of animation paper and used that as a base for the full animation. I was able to trace each frame of the ball onto individual pieces of paper, then used Dragonframe to record them and put them all together.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the final result of this animation, however I know that there are a few things I could fix. The frames before and after the impact frame on the first bounce risk stretching too far and have a change in volume, which is something I need to be careful of. I also felt that the first full arc lasted in the air for too long, however this wasn't a critique I was given.