The module of Animation 102 had begun and we were briefed over what would happen over the next few weeks of this module. The primary focus of the module would be animating our characters using a pose to pose animation method which meant focusing on the main actions in the animation such as the different positions of the walk. In elements like Maya and 2D the keyframes could be applied in an instance then using the in-betweens/extremes to make the animation walk whilst stopmotion is a more linear effect. This would also be a story based module as we needed to consider what's happening, this would help to consider what pose to pose we wish to achieve in the barsheets/storyboards. We were told that animating a character is considered "a right of passage" for an animator and could be of use in interviews for potential employers.
The concept of walking characters would be covered in week 4 of the module but the main thing that was clear was that there were to be no treadmills in this walking animation module as the character would be walking down the screen/stage. The key element was much like the ball bounces which was working from observation as Joe reminded us Observe, translate animate this meant taking recorded reference videos of us performing the animation ourselves to help with our bar sheets and when looking at the videos we would need to analyse them carefully and we can't be to literal with the translation.
Throughout the weeks we would be doing a series of animation exercises along with a short story by the end of the twelve weeks and in the submission guide lines it states as before 6 animations of our choosing which would be seventy percent of the our marks. For thirty percent of our marks we would need to submit a case book which could be in the form of an Indesign PDF or as a blog like we did in the past module along with an essay of 1500 words.
In this module there was one key element in doing figure animation and that is life drawing hence the use of the life drawings at the new adelphi building and was a requirement of animation especially in Character Design. I myself did life drawing in college and was familiar with the concept of life drawing and had been practicing with sketching and head heights. In terms of figures one thing that was made clear was that there were to be no facial expressions in the animation, which did make sense to me as we would only be focusing on movements and poses in the animation and the emotions in body language rather then facial expressions. However this did make me realise how difficult the process on communicating emotions through body language would be. Which then brought us to the matter of our tasks over this next week, and that was a pose to pose task.
This involved the use of sketching six body poses in different emotional states as was demonstrated to us in the power point slide that Johnny was showing us. He then brought our attention to a tool we would be using in Maya which was called bucket kid which was a figure out of shapes that would be used to communicate our animations with and was a zip file on black board for us to access and play around with to know how it would work. The following week we would be split into groups much like our first week of 101 and cover the walking aspects in Stop mo and Maya, this I knew was something I would need to know about in terms of Maya as I realised whilst it could be simple enough in stop mo or 2D animation Maya would be the more difficult as was proved with the ball movements.
The bottom line of the module was to do the exercises given to us and just have fun with them and like before refine and understand the first few attempts. In terms of the short story animations they would be between 4-10 seconds long any less would not be applicable for a final submission. We could use props if we wanted to for some of the stories but were advised not to spend too long on elements like set building. Which I brought to light after reading the brief and seeing a dental pain story line and wondered how it would be communicated in the walk/animation and if we could use sets.
Looking back upon the briefing it was clear that we had a long few weeks ahead of us and it wouldn't be an easy task. Whilst the pose to pose task would be simple to do in my opinion as I do body sketches in my journal it starts out that way until we go deep into the module and realise it wouldn't be as easy as first imagined. However I was looking forward to the challenges ahead as if they were easy they wouldn't be worth doing but thats the overall element of the course challenging ourselves and reaching outside our normal comfort zones.
The concept of walking characters would be covered in week 4 of the module but the main thing that was clear was that there were to be no treadmills in this walking animation module as the character would be walking down the screen/stage. The key element was much like the ball bounces which was working from observation as Joe reminded us Observe, translate animate this meant taking recorded reference videos of us performing the animation ourselves to help with our bar sheets and when looking at the videos we would need to analyse them carefully and we can't be to literal with the translation.
Throughout the weeks we would be doing a series of animation exercises along with a short story by the end of the twelve weeks and in the submission guide lines it states as before 6 animations of our choosing which would be seventy percent of the our marks. For thirty percent of our marks we would need to submit a case book which could be in the form of an Indesign PDF or as a blog like we did in the past module along with an essay of 1500 words.
In this module there was one key element in doing figure animation and that is life drawing hence the use of the life drawings at the new adelphi building and was a requirement of animation especially in Character Design. I myself did life drawing in college and was familiar with the concept of life drawing and had been practicing with sketching and head heights. In terms of figures one thing that was made clear was that there were to be no facial expressions in the animation, which did make sense to me as we would only be focusing on movements and poses in the animation and the emotions in body language rather then facial expressions. However this did make me realise how difficult the process on communicating emotions through body language would be. Which then brought us to the matter of our tasks over this next week, and that was a pose to pose task.
This involved the use of sketching six body poses in different emotional states as was demonstrated to us in the power point slide that Johnny was showing us. He then brought our attention to a tool we would be using in Maya which was called bucket kid which was a figure out of shapes that would be used to communicate our animations with and was a zip file on black board for us to access and play around with to know how it would work. The following week we would be split into groups much like our first week of 101 and cover the walking aspects in Stop mo and Maya, this I knew was something I would need to know about in terms of Maya as I realised whilst it could be simple enough in stop mo or 2D animation Maya would be the more difficult as was proved with the ball movements.
The bottom line of the module was to do the exercises given to us and just have fun with them and like before refine and understand the first few attempts. In terms of the short story animations they would be between 4-10 seconds long any less would not be applicable for a final submission. We could use props if we wanted to for some of the stories but were advised not to spend too long on elements like set building. Which I brought to light after reading the brief and seeing a dental pain story line and wondered how it would be communicated in the walk/animation and if we could use sets.
Looking back upon the briefing it was clear that we had a long few weeks ahead of us and it wouldn't be an easy task. Whilst the pose to pose task would be simple to do in my opinion as I do body sketches in my journal it starts out that way until we go deep into the module and realise it wouldn't be as easy as first imagined. However I was looking forward to the challenges ahead as if they were easy they wouldn't be worth doing but thats the overall element of the course challenging ourselves and reaching outside our normal comfort zones.
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