May 21, 2015
Progress is being made!!! Mour first automated tracking shot!
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Progress is being made!!! Mour first automated tracking shot!
Animated by Katie Low.
Since we haven’t updated in a while, here is a glimpse at some of the in process stop motion shots!
Animated by Katie Low
Miss Katie preparing the tables for set building!
Stop motion puppet mold making!!! - Katie Low
Katie Low’s sheep mold sculpt progress!
Katie Low’s ‘Hop Test’ - We are definitely still playing with the overall animation style, but I adore the cartoony-ness of Katie’s test! :D Stop Motion is magical.
Again, Katie included a wonderful explanation of her thinking and process.
Stop Motion Test:
The main object of these tests was for me to shake off the animation cobwebs from spring break and just start animating again. It's really easy for me to psych myself out and make everything so complicated that I don't start animating for a while (and instead spend days gathering reference, analyzing reference, etc.) so I forced myself just to set up the camera and mess around with no real prep. (I will admit that I looked at a video of Pepe Le Pew's trot to get inspiration for the bounding/hopping animations). I had vague ideas about wanting to explore secondary, playful, and "cute" animation but overall the tests really served to introduce me to animating sheep and to try to get more ideas about what to try in the future.
A few big takeaways: 1. Since the sheep is always floating and suspended by a rig, it is a lot harder to keep track of translate X, Y, Z, movements than it is if it were on the ground with tie-downs. I now know I need to track shadows and make sure they animate smoothly AND that I don't accidentally change the scale of the puppet. From this I also know I may need to develop a stronger and more sophisticated external rig. 2. I think the boil on the felting looks nice on camera. 3. I need to explore how much of a bend I want in the sheep legs, if any at all. 4. I need more practice with slow animation (I had to put the floating on 3's because the moves were too big). Next, as a group we want to explore a more floaty animation style so I'm hoping to test that soon. This time around I definitely want to gather video reference of balloons, plastic bags in the wind, that sort of thing, and see if I can incorporate some of those studies into the sheep movement.”
Katie Low’s ‘float test’ - Shot on 3′s, I believe. Miss Katie figured out that the rig she is using now is a little complicated for vertical motion. In the future we are definitely looking into a vertical rig (possibly using wing nuts). I’ll make sure to post more about that in the future.