Pendulum clash #test1

I have decided to add an extra primary action to the pendulum, a wizard character which clashed with the main primary action.
A pendulum is supposed to have smooth and constant swing which is equalised, however in this I attempted to animate a force that would challenge and corrupt the pendulums swing and relationship with the force of gravity.
The frames did not fit as well with 12fp or 24fp, 12 frames was too slow, and 24fp was too fast for the action- meaning I had to use an un-traditional frame rate of 15fp; which made the action smoother for this animation. If I were to continue on this test I would create a suitable amount of frames that would fit the frame rates either 12fp or 24fp.

Weekly Summaries - Character research: Week one

Weekly Summaries- Character Research

Week 1:

What I learnt:

In the weekly session of character research, we covered: the importance of characters and research, essay tips and a little history of characters with in animation. We were told that our essays must consist focused but interesting to read, to take inspiration with an open mind. We should understand our influences, able to word the point ourselves and further develop and grow ideas.

Characters are highly important; characters are story and story is character. A character has particular combinations of distinctive qualities of a person or place, represented in a film or story. Characters whom are protagonists are given human qualities, because we the audience are humans, hence the use of anthropomorphism. Stories have the power to manipulate information to be more memorable, potential to make us see from different perceptive, they tend to have meanings that adapt us to have more empathetic qualities. Stories communicate teachings of the ‘human condition’, enabling us to connect with each other with the use of pathos. In the early 1900, animations tended to be focused ‘personality animation’, giving personal to characters to further create the illusion of life. Example of these animations:

-       ‘Gertie the dinosaur’- 1914- Dir Winsor Mccay

-       ‘Felix the cat’- 1922- the stone age

-       ‘Steam Boat Willie’

Animated Feature films were desired by Hollywood in the 30’s as animated shorts lost popularity.  Animations began to advance to more realism, characters needed to be more believable.

Progress this week:

This week, I decided to create a potential character list, which contained the characters; ‘Elsa’ from Frozen, ‘lapis Lazuli’- Steven Universe, Emily- Corpse Bride, Rapunzel –Tangled and lastly, Raven from Teen Titians. I evaluated the reasoning as to why they would be of interest to research about.   

Weekly Summaries- Dynamic Animation- week one

Weekly Summaries- Dynamic Animation

Week 1: (29.9.17)

What I learnt:

In this week’s sessions, we were introduced into the brief; we will be learning the fundamentals of 2d movement, beginning off with paper than using software. We will learn space, framing, movement and walk cycles. It’s important to refine by making further iterations and additional versions of exercises and extend our learning with research to truly understand the core skills. We will be focusing on weight/effort, speed/acceleration, stretch/ squash and impact/reaction. It is advised that we work quick and loosely, and to constantly refine yet learn from our mistakes. Some of the 12 Principles of animation that we were taught:

-exaggeration

-ease in/ ease out

-Follow through

- Squash & Stretch

- Anticipation

We were also given our first task, the pendulum swing. With this animation exercise, we had to focus on forces, for example gravity, resistance, centre mas. At first, we did a stop motion version of the pendulum swing on dragon frame, as a reference and practice. My first test was not as smooth as I would have hoped. After this, I created a diagram labelling when I should take the shot for each frame. And where the extremes, passing point and in-betweens were. When I worked out the frame rate, and when frames should begin to increased, I started my 2d pendulum swing on F12 paper. We learnt that adding more in-betweens decreased the speed of action. After creating the pendulum swing, we had to develop it further by creating a pendulum clash. My ideas first began off with having a spray can stop the pendulum swing by stopping it with foam, however I decided to go more imaginative and challenging by having a wizard character slowly ease himself into the frames and with his wand, attack the pendulum with a spell, causing it to clash down.

Progress this week:

 I later on decided to water colour in each frame for the pendulum clash test, however this consumed much time. Also, this week, we had a guest lecture from the animator Barry Jc Purves, he talked of using metaphors to create meaning with in animation and the importance of using artifice to reveal the truth. I decided to analyse his work on a PowerPoint to conduct information that will help me with my animations later on.

Characater List

charachter list by dc by Anonymous ie3AFEb on Scribd

Life Drawing Session #1

Today I had my first life drawing session, using charcoal I attempted to draw a female model. I enjoyed using the charcoal to thicken, thin and smooth out to highlight and cast shadows to create bodily shapes. However, trying to focus to much detail on each area, I lost track and had to rush certain parts. Also this lead to parts of the body being out of proportion.

Overall I enjoyed the experience; of being allowed to choose any medium, the set up of drawing on an A3 scale piece of paper attached to an aisle. There's an sense of vulnerability the way your drawings are on show, and there is a model in nudity- yet at the same time there's privacy in the way the bulky aisle blocks you, and despite being in a group of people, they're hidden behind their aisle. Allowing great focus yet losing the mind to drawing peacefully. However the time limits are discomforting, I know with in time it will develop good time management with in my drawings.

Drawing #1

In this drawing, I had more freedom to add details, being my first drawing I surprisingly preferred this one. However, "diving" straight in was foolish, as the head is massively out of proportion, being left rather tiny compared to the humongous size of the body.  

Drawing #2

For example in this drawing;  the face is rushed, the hands are out of proportion, the legs haven't been as worked on as the torso, and the head could have been brought down more. Other than this I am pleased with the shadows that I did make on the belly, but this is not very time convenient.

Pendulums test #2D

Experimentation of using F12 paper (and Dragon Frame) to create an illusion of an pendulum movement. I found using F12 paper easier to work out frames, in the context of the distance and amount. After pre-planning where frames begin to increase with decreased distance apart, F12 paper helped further develop my process of creating fluidness in the movement by its natural onion skin layering.  The onion skin helped me compare frames from the left and right of the swing, to balance the frames like a mirror reflection in the middle- which gives the dynamic movement of an pendulums continuous, smooth swing.   

Analysis And Reflection Of Barry JC Purves Presentation

Character research #sessionone

Charachter Research Session One by Anonymous ie3AFEb on Scribd

Pendulum diagram #keyframes

Today I learnt about the key frames in a pendulum swing, the extreme, in-betweens, passing point/break down. An extreme frame is when the movement changes direction, which should be the first frames plotted down. Then the breakdown. Add then in-between frames should be added between the two main action key frames, adding more will make the action slower.

Pendulums introduction

In today's session we learned the dynamic movement of a pendulum swing
.

More challenging than expected, the pendulum swing consisted of working out how many frames, and at which angle and height, to create the illusion of a heavy item losing its monumental and gaining protentional speed.  

I learned the way forces impact on a swinging object, the difficulties I found were trying to estimate the points at which angle, frames should begin to increase within shorter distance (and the space distance). What helped was pre-planning with a diagram, planning the amount on frames each side.

However understanding the movement and the diagram took several tries.

 What I found most successful was creating a rough plan  with no measurements, and just colour coding where frames would begin to decrease, increasing space. This diagram was most helpful because of the simplicity of the visual design. previous diagrams over complicated the movements.

Charting at which point, frames began to enclose space between, and when frames should become even closer was the only information I needed to understand the way to animate the pendulum movement.