My final character animation. I may go back and tweak it in places but I'm pretty happy with the final result. As it was my first time animating anything and my first time using Adobe Flash I'm happy with the progress I made. 

Problems whilst animating

My animation on the whole went very smoothly. It took me a while to get used to the process of animating and using Flash but once I was used to both these things my animation came on very well. The only part I had a real problem making it look convincing was a part involving the apple character running. It was really tricky to get my head round how to animate it.

I found the Animators Survival Guide really helpful as the book included lots of different types of walk/run and skip cycles. What I went for in the end was sort of half way between a run and a skip. It was really useful to see each part of the cycle on paper it helped me get my head around the movement and the realisation that the body moves up and down as well not just the legs. I think this was my major problem with the cycle I had tried to do, the apple's body didn't bob up and down like it should have done.

Example of a basic walk cycle.

Expressions

Just trying out a range of expressions for each character. I want to keep the style very simple and obvious. Exaggeration of expressions will help my animation be easy to understand. 

I think having very clear and exaggerated expression is important in animation, I found a lot of character expression sheets when doing research into convincing expressions.

This example is from Pixar film Up.

This sheet is for the character Flynn from Disney's new film Tangled

From looking at examples like this I have found that a lot of expression is conveyed through the eyes. Most of the time if you cover up the rest of the face you are still able to tell what expression is being conveyed. I even found this to be true in real life, if you look in a mirror and cover the bottom half of your face and make expressions it is still very clear what type of expressions they are.

Obviously the rest of the face can add to the expression, when creating the expressions for my characters I will start with the eyes and make them convincing and then accentuate the expression using the mouth and other body parts.

Storyboard:
This is my rough storyboard. Basically I split my sound clip into two parts, the first being the "Ooh Mr. Hoskins" and the second "It can't be very comfortable for him in there". The top line represents the first part and the bottom line is for the second part.
The basic idea is that Mrs.Apple will shake her head and run towards Mr.Hoskins and hug him then the camera will focus on the blender full of cherries then cut back to Mrs. Apple and Mr.Hoskins and their looks of terror and then finally back to the cherries. There are sounds in the clip which sound like they were probably footsteps but I am going to change that so it looks like the cherry is tapping on the glass of the blender for help.

Character Designs:

These are the designs for the three characters I'm going to have in my animation. I decided to use fruit because I thought it would be funny to personify fruit and I wanted my animation to have humour. I also thought they would be easy to animate and would fit well with the clip. From when I first heard the sound clip I decided I wanted to have one character in a position where they are stuck and two characters (Mr.Hoskins and the female character who is speaking.) are discussing the situation.

In the end I chose to have a cherry stuck in a blender with lots of other cherries about to be blended and a banana and an apple looking on in horror.

Changes to design:

In the end I decided not to give the banana sunglasses, I felt that it would take away a lot of the tools for expression during animation, Especially because you can't see his mouth underneath his moustache. I also decided to get rid of the glasses on the apple for a similar reason. I wanted to be able to make her eyes really big and with glasses in the way it proved difficult so I took them out.

Photoshop vs Flash

After trying to animate in Photoshop I found it really annoying and not really helpful for animating, probably because it wasn't designed for that purpose. I downloaded a trial of Adobe Flash CS5 and tried using that instead and I found it a lot easier to use and I got more animating done in a shorter amount of time so I definitely think I'll be using Flash to do my animation.
Although I've never used the program before I found it pretty simple to use thanks to a few online tutorials and books I've been able to teach myself how to use it.

I think I'm going to go back and redo my bouncing ball using Flash instead of Photoshop and see how it looks.

Character Design and Storyboarding.

I decided it would be best to keep my story and characters as simple as possible. When animating I don't really want to have to deal with too much detail.

I have chosen sound clip 1 because I feel like I could make an interesting scenario with it. I have chosen to use fruit as my characters but will be giving them human characteristics in order to allow them to have expressions and gestures. I am going to have the female character and the character of Mr.Hoskins discussing the situation of a less fortunate piece of fruit who has been put into the blender to make a smoothie.

I have started to make my storyboard by listening to the clip and working out when the key actions happen. If I work out when the key actions happen and what they will be in my animation I can then fill in the inbetween. My method is based on the pose to pose method we learnt about when researching the 12 principles.

I need to remember what I learnt about the 12 principles of animation and try and keep those things in mind when storyboarding and animating. If I can include as many of the 12 principles as possible I think my animation should be successful.

2D Research.

As I have decided to work in 2D I decided to do some research into successful 2D animation studios and how they work and differ from each other.

Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli was founded in Japan in 1985 by directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Since then Studio Ghibli have produced 17 feature length animated movies. What started as a very small studio has become the most successful animation studio in Japan and is now known worldwide. Spirited Away was the first non English language animation to receive an Oscar.

I really admire Studio Ghibli and their animations. In recent times the majority of animated film releases have been computer generated 3D movies. Because of trend and because computer generated films can be produced a lot more quickly and therefore more cheaply Studios like Disney and Dreamworks have released a lot more CG films. Studio Ghibli have stuck to making traditional 2D movies which I really admire, it seems like they care about the way they produce animations rather than simply making money. With every movie they produce you can really tell that a lot of effort has been but into the story and animation.

The following are extracts from the Spirited Away dvd that show behind the scenes at Studio Ghibli. It shows the high level of involvement that director Hayao Miyazaki had in the animation and drawing stages of making the film. It also shows that the Ghibli studio is a very small and intimate environment with quite a small team for a big time animation studio.

 

 

The Walt Disney Company

While Studio Ghibli would be considered the Japanese equivalent of Disney there are many differences between them. Although they are both really successful studios Disney seems to be a much more corporate company, Studio Ghibli gives the impression of being a much smaller, intimate and more focused on the actual animation rather than making money.

There is no denying Disney's impact on the world of animation though,  being responsible for so many of the firsts of animation. Since their first animation in 1923 Disney has created countless classic movies, won plenty of awards and made a great deal of money; The Walt Disney Company is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world financially. 

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was made in 1937 and was the first feature length cel animation ever made, as well as being the first animation produced in colour in America and the first to be Produced by Walt Disney. The feature took a long time to make and ended up costing $1,488,422 which was a huge sum of money to spend on a film at that time. At this time the number of animators working at Disney were very small especially in comparison to the amount that are employed there today.

After Snow White Disney continued to create classic animated movies, their style slightly changed over the years but the ideals and themes remained the same. When advancements in computer graphics meant that a lot more 3D and computer generated animated movies were being made Disney followed suit and now hardly ever release 2D movies. It seems that the Disney Company has greatly changed the way they produce movies to keep up with an ever changing industry whereas I think Studio Ghibli have kept to the way they have always produced animation, they do now use computer technology to produce some aspects of the animation but I would not envision them to ever produce a full 3D CG film.

After animating my ball bouncing in both 2D and 3D and trying out character animation in 3D using Maya I have decided that I would rather do my final animation in 2D. Mainly because I feel I will have more freedom. I did enjoy posing the character in 3D, animating was hard to get my head around. Although I will not be using 3D for my final animation I still wish to learn more about using Maya.

I have chosen clip 1 from the three available sound clips, I feel like it is the most interesting one and I think I could do a lot with it.

Life Drawing Session 2 + 3

3D ball bounce

This is my first attempt at making a 3D ball bounce in Maya. I learnt a lot about the software whilst doing this exercise and a lot about the process of making things look realistic in animation. In many ways this ways easier than making the 2D ball bounce as I didn't need to worry about keeping the ball looking the same whilst drawing each frame. However in some ways it was harder to make the 3D ball bounce as it was a very technical process.

Life Drawing - Session One.

Overall I am pleased with the results of life drawing, although I need to remember to plan out the drawing so I have enough room for the whole body. I think as the session went on I got more confident and accurate with proportions, I think you can see progression in the work (drawings are posted in the order they were completed.)

Here is my first attempt at the bouncing ball animation with arcs. I think the bounces are effective but the ball travels too quickly. This is because I changed the frame rate to 24fps from 12fps but still only made enough frames for one second of animation. I can solve this problem by extending the length of the video by adding more frames overall, this will create a slower and smoother bounce.

Types of Animation

Traditional:

Howl's Moving Castle

Belleville Rendevous

Beauty and the Beast

Also called Cel or 2D animation. Made by using a series of drawings (frames) which are transferred to sheets called Cels then played at a rate of 25/24 frames per second to create an illusion of movement.

Stop Motion:

Stop motion is made by manipulating real world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time so that when played back it will create the illusion of movement. There are several types of stop motion animation usually named after the object that is manipulated.

Clay Animation (also known as Claymation)

Wallace and Gromit

Puppet Animation

Corpse Bride

Cutout Animation

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Model Animation

Jason and the Argonauts

Go Motion 

Go motion is a type of model animation that uses various techniques and effects to create the illusion of motion blur. It was used by Industrial Light and Magic in the Star Wars movies and in films like Jurassic Park.

Star Wars

Computer Animation

Using similar ideas and techniques to traditional animation but using computers to generate the objects and the movement.

2 Dimensional

Like it's traditional counterpart except that the images are computer generated and not hand drawn per frame. Computer techniques such as tweening (using the computer to fill in movement) and onion skinning (being able to see previous frames while drawing) can make this process a lot quicker than doing it by hand.

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

3 Dimensional

Much the same as stop motion but using computer programs to fill in the information for you instead of having to create every single frame. 

Toy Story

Early forms of Animation

Zoetrope

A Zoetrope is a cylindrical device that creates the illusion of movement through rapid display of a series of images by rotating. The earliest Zoetrope dates back to around 180 AD in China, the version seen above that most people are aware of was developed in 1834 by a British mathematician.

Flip Books

Flip books are a very rudimentary version of traditional animation, instead of frames of film playing back to create movement the pages being turned quickly, each with a static image on, create the illusion of movement.

Making of the short film 'Day and Night'

Examples of the 12 Principles of Animation

To illustrate the twelve principles of animation I'm going to be using examples from the short animation by Pixar, 'Night and Day'. I thought a short film would be good to show examples, because it is shorter the principles will be more exaggerated as the animation has less time to get the narrative across to the audience.
The film features two characters who represent night and day. The idea is very different from any other animation I have seen because all of the action takes place on the characters bodies. It is an extremely innovative piece of short animation.

1.Squash and Stretch.

This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to objects or characters in animation. By showing the way the mass of the object changes during actions this gives more realism and the ability to show the properties of each object.

In the following stills you see the character slumping downwards. The body moves down and outwards, giving the illusion of its mass being displaced as it moves.

2. Anticipation

This prepares the audience for the action that is about to happen. For example before a character runs they would move backwards to accentuate the action that is about to happen.

Here you see the character preparing to run forward by raising its arms in the opposite direction.

3.Staging

Staging directs the audience to the story or idea being told. The importance is to make clear what is important in the scene whether it is an action, expression or mood. This can be the placement of the character within the frame, the use of light and shadow or the angle of the camera.

To begin with in the animation there is only one character on screen. The background is plain black in order to draw attention to the action and not confuse with what's happening on the characters. Each character represents night and day respectively and the way they interact with each other is the main focus of the film.

4.Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Animation.

There are two different approaches to the process of animation. 'Straight Ahead' is to draw out each frame one after the other from beginning to end, 'Pose to Pose' is to decide on key frames and draw those first then fill in the gaps between the key points. 'Straight Ahead' often results in a more fluid look but it is easier for the animation to go off model. 'Pose to Pose' can have less flow but is much better at staying on model and is useful for sequences involving a lot of tricky poses/actions.

5.Follow Through and Overlapping Action.

To give the illusion of realistic movement in animation these techniques are used. Follow through is when the character or object stops moving and other parts continue to catch up to them after they have stopped, for example long hair or coat tails. Overlapping action refers to when the character or object changes direction and parts continue moving forward then after a few frames change to the new direction of the character or object. 

Most of the secondary action in this animation takes place on the characters. As the characters are sort of see through and all the action happens on their bodies.

6.Slow In and Slow Out

The movement of characters and objects takes time to speed up and slow down. In a sequence and animation will often have more frames at the beginning and end.

In this sequence the characters fall off a cliff, the start of the sequence is slow with the character holding on and then slipping and at the end of the sequence when they hit the water the frame rate is increased to slow down the action.

7.Arcs

Human and animal actions occur on an arc instead of being linear. This can apply to a limb moving from a joint or a thrown object moving along a parabolic trajectory.

8.Secondary Action

This action adds to the main action, adding more dimension to the character.

The character is walking across the screen, the secondary action shown here is the exaggerated swinging of the arms. This is not necessary to the character walking but it adds depth and personality to the character and the action.

9,Timing

Timing refers to the number of frames used for an action, this changes the speed and timing of the action on film. Varied speed and timing of actions gives more personality to the characters and actions and also gives more realistic physics.

In this example the two characters have just dropped into water and float for a few minutes before travelling upwards. This shows the audience that they are under water and the physics would have changed.

10.Exaggeration

Exaggeration is the caricature of actions. Making them bigger and more emphasized on screen. This is useful in animation as just plain movements can look dull, it also helps add character to movements and actions.

Here the 'day' character is rubbing his eyes and shaking his head in disbelief. His movements are very exaggerated.

11.Solid Drawing

An animator needs to be skilled in the fundamentals of drawing and needs a solid understanding of the principles of weight,shape and form.

12.Appeal

Animated characters need to appeal to the audience. The important thing is that the audience feels the character is realistic and interesting.

I really enjoyed this animation and feel that is an excellent example of good and innovative animation and storytelling.

Bad Examples

The following videos show what happens when you don't follow the 12 principles effectively.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKThYgsveWI&feature=related

Kula World on PS1 is an example of bad ball bounce animation. The ball only has squash and stretch when it actually lands the shape doesn't distort on the way up and down and doesn't look convincing.