In this weeks session in Animation 101 we were showing animation work that we've done on both Maya and stop motion pro, and one thing that Johnny brought our attention to was how we may see something in our daily lives that maybe considered interesting that we may animate, one example of this was a flooded window on the bus that he was traveling on. Everything could be considered a phenomenon and this was something I could understand as I could see things differently such as the rocks in Cornwall that to me looked like islands from a movie or a story that I've seen or could be considered a possible element in one of my own creations as shown in this comic sketch below.
Observational material
Use of the photo and inspiration. artwork (c) A.Montgomery
Its these little things we consider for our stories, as animators or story artists. We then went on discussing portfolios and some of what the were looking for such as the more stuff the better or something that makes that work unique be it style or even execution or perhaps the way they tell the story. Surprising what most industries like Cosgrove hall seek is the small bits that associated with the industry such as movement like a little hand movement or even sketches be it life drawings or the environment itself. The weren't just looking for established animators but new elements for the industry making them as the production staff valuable. This really surprised me but this was to help us understand the principles of animation such as the timing and movement of the figure. We were told we could come in and use the facilities and given next week we may be doing a lot of this in the future.
The thing that stuck with me was that it was the little elements that helped in a portfolio even if the animation wasn't finished but rather the sketches and observations that we pick up this was something to consider when doing our exercises in animation principles this was considered to be highly valuable and our task was to be masters of observation and develop from these observation and define our understanding of these elements. This fitted to the outside of the box thinking element of the course and getting outside our normal comfort zones and start looking, observing as we always say observe, translate, animate.
Observation is a key element in animation and the very foundation of the experience itself, this was a simple reminder not to learn a piece of software.
We began showing our work to the group such as the A-B linear motion in both stop motion and maya, I even noticed how people had gotten ahead with the animation exercises such as the next phase of A-B and this was anticipation and followthrough. The idea of this was that of anticipation of action within the piece such as how we anticipate action in either the real world or in television series like we know that this person had murdered this person and we anticipate that the evidence will soon lead to the culprit. Anticipation is what prepares the view for what happens next hence the 25fps hold that we must have in our animation projects so that our eyes can adjust in anticipation. The idea of these exercises was that we needed to help understand the software and capabilities that we can do on this equipment.
The principle was the cube would lift up and then move following the cube tilting at the end of it showing the followthrough of the ending motion like Looney Tunes Wild. E. Coyote who is running after the Road runner but is tilting as he's about to fall off the cliff before falling and doing the comedy BANG on the ground. Another example of this would be from the car example we'd seen yesterday or as a student of our group pointed out security guards on segways which some could see a comedy story side of the character this fitted into observation. One exercise we would be doing in the future was the pendulum movement something that I'd read about in the Animation survival guide the movement of the object going side to side in a curve then stopping in the centre after slowing down in different places. The key to this movement was timing and positioning such as calculating how many times the cube would swing until stopping in the centre of the studio set.
This would be much like the movement of a pendulum in an old grandfather clock. When showing our work I'd seen that many people had gotten the focusing of the cube and the lighting in the stop motion studio, and in Maya some even got the linear movement correct, I had as well but given that I was still getting used to Maya, I realised that I would make a few mistakes, such as using the "S" key which whilst inserts keyframes it selects everything hence why the graph editor would be needed to correct the curve and give a more linear movement in the cube. The thing that we had to remember was that we would be working to a brief and from experience we had to fulfil the criteria otherwise we wouldn't meet the pass criteria of the module or course.
We were shown an example of an A-B anticipation and followthrough stop motion and how they created the animation where the cube stood up and then moved across the room which we found out could've been accomplished with blu tack or even using rigging which would be covered later in the course. The pendulum exercise was to aid in the movement of the human limbs in a figure as they are considered as pendulum movements in arms, legs or our heads. This wasn't just to show movement in the block we needed to visualise a string on the block holding it up and the key was momentum seeing it move back and forth until it comes to rest. Some past students produced a mechanical pendulum in some of their work, and because of the mechanics it had no similar reaction and the momentum didn't cease as it was driven mechanically.
In terms of the briefs next week we would be briefed on the Making of Media City course which means the 9am starts on Monday and Wednesday would begin which wouldn't leave time for doing animation work on our days off. So I had to consider the possibility of doing my stop motion work after this lesson on a Friday. I consulted with Johnny on this and he said it was fine so I booked the equipment on SISO and at lessons end I went to collect it. However before heading to collect the equipment I had to check what I would be working with in terms of the A-B anticipation and followthrough exercise.
So I consulted with Joe and he suggested that I act out the scene first and think how I could translate this to the cube be it recording or thinking about it in my mind. One element that was mentioned in the lecture was that by now we should be relying on the bar sheets on the black board system. The bar sheets were a visual way of calculating the timing of our animations we could either write or draw on it to show our movement. During the lesson I'd sketched out a plan for my animation in my note book and refined it into a possible script for my animation as shown below. The idea was actually suggested by Johnny as doing some animation work was a good idea whilst the knowledge was fresh in our minds and when they were quiet and free to use.
When in the animation studio after collecting my equipment, I switched on the lights and once again followed the health and safety rules in the studio. I then set up my camera but untangled the wires carefully, so as not to, damage them. The camera was then set up and then started using stop-motion pro to begin animating. However before I started I needed some blue tack for the cube so that I could do the rise and lower movement of the exercise, sadly there wasn't any present in the room, however I was able to find some plastercine in the studio and though some of it was cold and hard I did find some fresh pieces on the walls of the studio itself, whilst a bit wired you have to make do with what you had in these situations.
From past experiences in stop motion I knew that when doing the movement it had to follow the past position of the cube hence the onion skinning tool to show where an object has been to show a clean smooth motion of animation. To begin I had to put in the 25fps hold for the start of the process though sadly I didn't know the quickest method of doing this, so I had to annoyingly copy the beginning frame about four-twentyfive times to create the hold.
The next phase was doing the rising and lowering of the cube. To accomplish this I placed the Plastercine blob under the cube which was slightly raised to show the movement and when raising it the blob was placed further down the cubes base and when moving it side to side like a horse raising up before running around the blob was placed in the lower left corner of the cube. I wanted this to look realistic and show that the cube had a life of its own, so I tried to keep the blob out of sight as best as I could but if it was seen on the animation it would just look like a shadow which was overlapping it to show concealment. When moving the cube I decided to follow Joe's advice on using a rule to help straighten the linear movement of the cube when going across the set floor.
When reaching the follow through of the animation this was a tilting motion, to try and accomplish this I had to place the blob of plastercine under one of the cube edges and shifted it to tilt the cube side to side to show it close to the edge of the finishing point. I looked back at the animation to see if I hadn't made any mistakes or needed to add another hold slot on the beginning 25fps slots. When saving it to the pen drive I still had some time left on my booking time of 12:00pm-2:00pm, and an idea popped into my head, I decided to try the pendulum exercise out and when showing it to the group next week I could get some feedback on how to refine it for the next tryout piece next week. Before I started on the animation I decided to do some calculations and positioning, I began to remember what Johnny said about the pendulum and how a string in the pendulum was what helped to show the start and ending point of the swinging movement.
To help me with this I placed my rule in the middle of the table, then placing the cube at the end of it marking the stopping and crossing points of the pendulum swing even marking some of the ending points of each end of the swing. However it was hard to see when looking through the camera. In terms of the camera I altered the tripod so that it would show a raised angle of the animation shot so that the pendulum swing could be seen from above. I angled it slightly so that the camera would be in focus and show a clear image, of the cube. The difficult part of this was animating the cube moving as it needed to go in a curved motion, and how to look at the stopping point of the end swing, and whilst the thought of hunger and exhaustion was clouding some of my thoughts I worked through them and though the heat of the lamps was causing me to overheat it was going to take a lot more than that to stop me doing this exercise.
Whilst taking the frame shots, I played the film back to see how it was playing out in terms of film and the swing itself. There were a few misplaced frames and I wanted to see if I could replace the frames but it couldn't be done so they had to be deleted and there were some instances where I had to take another shot so that the onion skin tool could be used and when playing it back I couldn't see the ending point but I did mark all the slowdown points in the swing before stopping and added a small slow stopping motion in the near ending point of the swing. This is shown in the end result below and the end result of the anticipation and followthrough animations.
Out of this experience I would think that refinements could be made to the animation of the pendulum however the idea of this was to try out the exercise and with the given feedback refine it for a final piece, my next step will be to figure out how to do this exercise in Maya perhaps watch a few tutorials or look at the notes in blackboard to help me in the process of animation in Maya and help me get reacquainted with the software. Looking back on the experience I should've altered the camera lens to keep the block and the end points in focus to help me in the swinging motion of the pendulum movement and looking back at the animation for anticipation and follow through I possibly would've done more on the hold and tilting points as they seemed to be moving rather fast but unless this has something to do with the frames per second in the film I may consider revisiting this at a later date pending on the feedback that I get.
I was rather pleased with the inactive to work on my animation after my class whilst the information is fresh in my mind and it has reaped great rewards in terms of my progress in my work, and may consider doing this on either my days off or after the Friday lessons in future.
Its these little things we consider for our stories, as animators or story artists. We then went on discussing portfolios and some of what the were looking for such as the more stuff the better or something that makes that work unique be it style or even execution or perhaps the way they tell the story. Surprising what most industries like Cosgrove hall seek is the small bits that associated with the industry such as movement like a little hand movement or even sketches be it life drawings or the environment itself. The weren't just looking for established animators but new elements for the industry making them as the production staff valuable. This really surprised me but this was to help us understand the principles of animation such as the timing and movement of the figure. We were told we could come in and use the facilities and given next week we may be doing a lot of this in the future.
The thing that stuck with me was that it was the little elements that helped in a portfolio even if the animation wasn't finished but rather the sketches and observations that we pick up this was something to consider when doing our exercises in animation principles this was considered to be highly valuable and our task was to be masters of observation and develop from these observation and define our understanding of these elements. This fitted to the outside of the box thinking element of the course and getting outside our normal comfort zones and start looking, observing as we always say observe, translate, animate.
Observation is a key element in animation and the very foundation of the experience itself, this was a simple reminder not to learn a piece of software.
We began showing our work to the group such as the A-B linear motion in both stop motion and maya, I even noticed how people had gotten ahead with the animation exercises such as the next phase of A-B and this was anticipation and followthrough. The idea of this was that of anticipation of action within the piece such as how we anticipate action in either the real world or in television series like we know that this person had murdered this person and we anticipate that the evidence will soon lead to the culprit. Anticipation is what prepares the view for what happens next hence the 25fps hold that we must have in our animation projects so that our eyes can adjust in anticipation. The idea of these exercises was that we needed to help understand the software and capabilities that we can do on this equipment.
The principle was the cube would lift up and then move following the cube tilting at the end of it showing the followthrough of the ending motion like Looney Tunes Wild. E. Coyote who is running after the Road runner but is tilting as he's about to fall off the cliff before falling and doing the comedy BANG on the ground. Another example of this would be from the car example we'd seen yesterday or as a student of our group pointed out security guards on segways which some could see a comedy story side of the character this fitted into observation. One exercise we would be doing in the future was the pendulum movement something that I'd read about in the Animation survival guide the movement of the object going side to side in a curve then stopping in the centre after slowing down in different places. The key to this movement was timing and positioning such as calculating how many times the cube would swing until stopping in the centre of the studio set.
This would be much like the movement of a pendulum in an old grandfather clock. When showing our work I'd seen that many people had gotten the focusing of the cube and the lighting in the stop motion studio, and in Maya some even got the linear movement correct, I had as well but given that I was still getting used to Maya, I realised that I would make a few mistakes, such as using the "S" key which whilst inserts keyframes it selects everything hence why the graph editor would be needed to correct the curve and give a more linear movement in the cube. The thing that we had to remember was that we would be working to a brief and from experience we had to fulfil the criteria otherwise we wouldn't meet the pass criteria of the module or course.
We were shown an example of an A-B anticipation and followthrough stop motion and how they created the animation where the cube stood up and then moved across the room which we found out could've been accomplished with blu tack or even using rigging which would be covered later in the course. The pendulum exercise was to aid in the movement of the human limbs in a figure as they are considered as pendulum movements in arms, legs or our heads. This wasn't just to show movement in the block we needed to visualise a string on the block holding it up and the key was momentum seeing it move back and forth until it comes to rest. Some past students produced a mechanical pendulum in some of their work, and because of the mechanics it had no similar reaction and the momentum didn't cease as it was driven mechanically.
In terms of the briefs next week we would be briefed on the Making of Media City course which means the 9am starts on Monday and Wednesday would begin which wouldn't leave time for doing animation work on our days off. So I had to consider the possibility of doing my stop motion work after this lesson on a Friday. I consulted with Johnny on this and he said it was fine so I booked the equipment on SISO and at lessons end I went to collect it. However before heading to collect the equipment I had to check what I would be working with in terms of the A-B anticipation and followthrough exercise.
So I consulted with Joe and he suggested that I act out the scene first and think how I could translate this to the cube be it recording or thinking about it in my mind. One element that was mentioned in the lecture was that by now we should be relying on the bar sheets on the black board system. The bar sheets were a visual way of calculating the timing of our animations we could either write or draw on it to show our movement. During the lesson I'd sketched out a plan for my animation in my note book and refined it into a possible script for my animation as shown below. The idea was actually suggested by Johnny as doing some animation work was a good idea whilst the knowledge was fresh in our minds and when they were quiet and free to use.
When in the animation studio after collecting my equipment, I switched on the lights and once again followed the health and safety rules in the studio. I then set up my camera but untangled the wires carefully, so as not to, damage them. The camera was then set up and then started using stop-motion pro to begin animating. However before I started I needed some blue tack for the cube so that I could do the rise and lower movement of the exercise, sadly there wasn't any present in the room, however I was able to find some plastercine in the studio and though some of it was cold and hard I did find some fresh pieces on the walls of the studio itself, whilst a bit wired you have to make do with what you had in these situations.
From past experiences in stop motion I knew that when doing the movement it had to follow the past position of the cube hence the onion skinning tool to show where an object has been to show a clean smooth motion of animation. To begin I had to put in the 25fps hold for the start of the process though sadly I didn't know the quickest method of doing this, so I had to annoyingly copy the beginning frame about four-twentyfive times to create the hold.
When reaching the follow through of the animation this was a tilting motion, to try and accomplish this I had to place the blob of plastercine under one of the cube edges and shifted it to tilt the cube side to side to show it close to the edge of the finishing point. I looked back at the animation to see if I hadn't made any mistakes or needed to add another hold slot on the beginning 25fps slots. When saving it to the pen drive I still had some time left on my booking time of 12:00pm-2:00pm, and an idea popped into my head, I decided to try the pendulum exercise out and when showing it to the group next week I could get some feedback on how to refine it for the next tryout piece next week. Before I started on the animation I decided to do some calculations and positioning, I began to remember what Johnny said about the pendulum and how a string in the pendulum was what helped to show the start and ending point of the swinging movement.
Whilst taking the frame shots, I played the film back to see how it was playing out in terms of film and the swing itself. There were a few misplaced frames and I wanted to see if I could replace the frames but it couldn't be done so they had to be deleted and there were some instances where I had to take another shot so that the onion skin tool could be used and when playing it back I couldn't see the ending point but I did mark all the slowdown points in the swing before stopping and added a small slow stopping motion in the near ending point of the swing. This is shown in the end result below and the end result of the anticipation and followthrough animations.
I was rather pleased with the inactive to work on my animation after my class whilst the information is fresh in my mind and it has reaped great rewards in terms of my progress in my work, and may consider doing this on either my days off or after the Friday lessons in future.
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