Stop Motion Animation Self Evaluation

Stop Motion Animation Self Evaluation

For this assignment we were asked to plan and create a collection of stop motion animations that portray different techniques and understanding on how stop motion works.

Our first task was to use a wooden block and simply move it from point A to point B at a constant speed. I found this portion of the task very easy as I had developed skills in stop motion animation at college; therefore I was able to create this sequence easily. However, I didn’t read the brief correctly and had to redo the clip because I didn’t capture a twenty five-frame hold at the beginning and end of the sequence. I also made this mistake when making the ‘speed up, slow down’ animation, which again I had no trouble animating as my concept for speed when making stop frame was good. I know that the more you increase the distance of the character per frame, the faster it will appear to move, and the shorter the distance means it will appear to move slower.

I went away and re filmed both of these clips and also animated the next motion, which was the pendulum. I found this one slightly more difficult to plan, as you have to consider weight with this exercise. After I finished filming I went to a computer and attempted to upload the clips to vimeo, I then realised after uploading that for some reason they weren’t playing, so I checked their properties and saw that their size was only six kilo bytes which is microscopic. I realised that they had obviously corrupted during the export and where lost. This was very frustrating but it also taught me a lesson to make sure my work has exported properly and also to save everything in case of corruption. I re filmed for the third time and successfully created my animations, which I was able to upload to my Vimeo account.

The next task was to use two blocks and have them interact in a scene. I enjoyed making this animation because there weren’t any specifics to follow, they just had to interact. I made my two blocks dance as I believed I could create the best movement through having them look like they were dancing. I used a couple of balls of blue tack to re position the cubes as they moved. For example when one block twirled on its vertex, I was unable to balance it in the positions I needed, therefore I had to use the tack to keep it in place. This proved to be a very successful technique as it enabled me to create smooth, fluid motion and movements within my blocks.

I was then given a green disc for the next task and I had to animate it in four different ways. I had to give it the properties of a cannon ball, a bouncy ball, a balloon and a ball of clay. These animations proved to be fairly easy but also fascinating, because by just moving the disc at different distances, following different paths, you have the ability to create so many animation techniques, which will be very useful knowledge for my future animations. For the ball of clay animation I actually used a ball of clay. This was so that I could squash the ball when it impacts the bottom of the frame, making it look realistic and giving it the characteristics of a moving clay ball.

The last two animations were to create a bouncing ball animation using Maya. This proved to be very difficult as I hadn’t ever used this software before and didn’t have any idea where to start. After gaining some experience on our Friday sessions with James Russell and also watching a lot of tutorials on the Internet. I gained some knowledge on how to navigate and use Maya and I was able to create my animation. I really enjoyed using Maya because even though I believe stop motion is the more effective way to create animation, computer software capabilities give a huge contribution to the industry and can make things easier, less time consuming, and you can create a lot of effects that can be added to your stop motion animations. I decided to also create a version of the bouncing ball with sound edited onto it because I wanted to give it that extra touch of realism and believability, like you’re watching a clip of a real ball bouncing across the screen. It also gave me good practice to edit my animations for future projects that will require sound effects. This meant I grew my ability to edit to more of a professional standard.

Before creating any of these animations I first planned them out on paper so I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I find that its always better to plan first because if not you are going to try and create animations with no solid direction to move to, and it will also take you much longer to create because you are inevitably going to run into many issues and problems without planning. All in all I am very pleased with my work for this assignment and I believe that I have grasped the concept of stop motion animation very well, and I also feel a lot more comfortable with using animation software such as Maya and will definitely be using it a lot more to gain experience and build a portfolio of my work.

Composite Self Evaluation

Composite Self Evaluation

For this assignment we were asked to create an animation composite. We had to include different layers of media i.e. real life images, our own drawings/sketches etc., and we had to use a handful of different animating techniques to prove our ability.

I was fairly knowledgeable with using the editing software such as Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, so I felt quite happy with this assignment. However some students had little to no experience with them. This is where the core sessions became very useful. Although I was comfortable with using the Adobe software, it became apparent that my skill set would need to be improved if I wanted to make a successful composite. I found a lot of the sessions helpful and I was able to learn some techniques that I could implement into my composition. I also watched many ‘How to’ videos on the Internet for the specific techniques I wanted.

During this process I had to come up with an idea, which did prove to be a challenge in itself. In the brief it stated that the composite could be anything we wanted, as long as it was ten to thirty seconds long. I knew that the ten second boundary would be a problem for me as I always include masses of detail in my work, but that meant it would be hard to keep it around thirty seconds.

I finally came up with my idea. First of all I always knew I wanted it to be a dramatic sequence because I believe that’s the best way to attract an audience. I decided to create a cartoon animation of a military plane flying through the clouds. I originally wanted to use images I found online for the clouds and the plane, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any images that I wanted. Also there wasn’t enough images of the same plane at different angles so it would’ve looked really bad quality and unprofessional. This is where I used Adobe Photoshop. The clouds obviously took no time as they were very easy to create, but the plane was slightly trickier. I wanted it to be fairly detailed but not too much as it was only cartoon and I didn’t want to overcomplicate it. I was also planning to create my paratrooper characters on Photoshop, but then I wouldn’t have any input of ‘real life’ imagery that I needed. I took a selection of images from the Internet such as a male silhouette, cargo pants, a military vest, a gas mast, and a parachute. I then edited them together to create my own unique character.

I made various shots of the plane, which helped to set the scene and built tension. I then made a close up shot of the planes loading bay, and the door to slowly open revealing my paratrooper characters. This shot was the most time consuming as not only did I need to animate the clouds, the plane, and the door, I also had to animate my characters which was a first for me. It took me a few attempts to get the walking motion that I wanted. I watched tutorials to try and get the best technique I could, and I also watched clips from films of people walking to get a better understanding of how the characters should move. Even though they weren’t perfect, I feel that for my first time animating a character it was definitely a success, but I will be practicing to further improve my skill in this field. It wasn’t just the characters that made this shot the most difficult and time consuming, I also ran into the issue of animating the plane door to open. Every time I seemed to fix it, another issue arose. For example when I created the opening of the door, the characters body parts were brought forward which killed the effect completely, and then when I fixed that, the plane door would connect to the plane properly so they would drift apart. This was a problem I couldn’t ignore as it would ruin the effect of my whole composite and it would look unprofessional. However to solve this problem I didn’t resort to tutorials, I wanted to figure this out and correct it myself to prove that I am capable of working independently and can overcome mistakes.

I finally completed this shot and finished it off with a camera shake and zoom in effect, which, even though they’re very simple technique, they added a lot to my animation by giving you that extra edge of realism. I think spending most of my time on this part of the composite is what has made it my favourite section to work on. Its definitely the most detailed shot and it is by far my favourite.

For the rest of the animation I wanted to have the paratroopers jump out of the plane, skydive at high speed, and then deploy their parachutes where they would descend to the ground. However I had already reached twenty seconds and I was only half way through. After tweaking and editing my idea I decided I wanted to create a cliff-hanger because I thought it would be more effective and exciting. This was a successful idea. Not only did this add more suspense and tension to the composite, it also helped me to keep within the ten to thirty second boundaries, which made me even happier.

Overall I am very pleased with my work and believe that I have used my skill set, knowledge, and ability to the best that I could. That though doesn’t mean I wont revisit it, as I know in the future I am going to become a much better animator and I will want to improve it further to develop my portfolio.

Paratroopers Storyboard

Paratroopers Storyboard

Sketchbook Review-Dave Mckean

Dave Mckean Sketchbook

Looking through images from Mckean's sketchbook makes me think he mustve been a troubled child. Its all just so strange and creepy, but at the same time really interesting because these images are his thoughts and imagination that have been transferred onto paper. In a sense i really like his work because of its obscurity and also the immense amount of detail that he puts into his art is amazing.

Although i do think his work is fascinating, i wont be using it as inspiration as its far too abstract and strange for my liking and i couldnt relate my work to his for inspiration and reference.

Jurrassic World: Building the Apatosaurus

Jurassic World: Building the Apatosaurus

I absolutely love this clip!

animatronic builds and effects really give me 'goosebumps' and i connect with them more than anything because this is the reason i've chosen this career path. I cant express enough how much i love the building and 3D aspect of animation because you can actually interact and connect with the build which i believe helps toward making it more believable and lifelike, which is obviously key to a successful animation.

I also love how they went back to the old-school methods of creating the skin with old fashioned foam rubber and using a cable system for the mechanics instead of hydraulics. It just proves my point that we will always need materialistic (sculpted, painted, moulded etc) animation in our motion pictures because it makes everything feel 'real'.

The most important reason i feel for the use of effects builds is that the actors/actresses are able to touch, see and even hear the animated subject which helps them to fall deeper into their character and really make a connection to the scene. Even though they can still pull off the scenes with a chroma-keyed mould, there's always that sense of realism with an actual animatronic build.

Also for me i cant imagine a prouder and more exciting moment than having a moving, life like prop in front of you that you (and maybe your team) have spent countless hours making. Theres simply no better feeling than your build being successful and not only that but to have it feature in a film saga such as Jurassic Park would be insane!

My goal would to definitely be involved in this line of work because its 100% my passion, and who doesn't want to work doing something they love?

the Boxtrolls: 'Making of'

In this post i'm going to discuss my thoughts and views on the stop motion animation film, the Boxtrolls. 

Straight away from just watching the trailer i'm taken back by the sheer scale of detail tat has gone into the character design, the set builds and props etc. Being an enthusiastic and avid sculptor and modeller myself i love anything that has been made up by hand. Although i do enjoy 2D and software animation, 3D has always been a passion of mine as i love the feeling of creating a physical piece of work whether it be a sculpture, a set design, costume work etc.

I find it really interesting that the whole idea of this picture came from a minority of characters from a book by Alan Snow called 'Here Be Monsters'. Laika Animation Studios bought the rights of the book so that they could use these characters for their animation. After they bought these rights it then took Laika ten whole years before they actually made the film,  and i find that sort of dedication and patience really inspirational. Part of their planning process was to make masses and masses of storyboards. They had to create the whole motion picture on paper first before they could even think about any stop motion work, and then when they'd made the storyboards they could begin adding temporary voice acting before looking to their selected professional actors such as Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Sir Ben Kingsley.

I like the fact that the character builders had to come up with their own original ideas and techniques to mask all the mechanical elements of the characters in order for them to look and feel realistic and natural. Due to all the engineering that's hidden away inside the Boxtroll's boxes, it meant that when it came to the characters retracting into their box, only a fraction of their limbs and heads could hide away, forcing the designers to make shorter and shorter parts which would click onto the characters bodies. This gave the illusion of their body parts going inside the boxes. I really like this technique and will definitely be using it in my future projects.

Its amazing seeing how they animated the characters faces using 3D printings. They printed out thousands of different faces which were attachable and detachable from the characters, and the faces could also be taken apart and mixed up to create even more expressions. This is a very time saving, innovative and clever addition to the stop motion world and i think it will be a very popular and successful technique in future stop motion pictures. I also love the idea of having a 'data base' of faces, because they're are basically saved and recyclable which makes any 'redoes' or mistakes easy to correct.

Watching this has really opened my eyes to lots of different animating techniques which i know are going to be really useful in my own work. Also seeing the amount of passion that these animators have put into there production is really inspiring and gives me a huge drive to start making my own animations.

The Walking Dead SFX breakdown - Compositing

I absolutely love this video because it just shows you how much detail and depth you can add to a scene in the editing process by using layers and compositing. I also love the fact that before i saw this video i had no idea that most of the scenery and the 'walkers' that we see on-screen actually aren't there, and have been added using compositing. It has made me realize how helpful and effective this editing process is! After seeing this i had no choice but to share it as it's such a great example of compositing. Hope you enjoy!

Wooden Block Assignment-Animation 1

Wooden Block Assignment

For our first assignment we were asked to animate a wooden block in various ways. The first animation was to move the block from point A to Point B. The clip had to be 4 seconds long with a 25 frame hold at the beginning and end, and the cube had to move at a constant speed. My first attempt at this was pretty good however i had forgotten to add the 25 frame holds in which meant i had to redo it. My second attempt was very successful but unfortunately it corrupted during exportation and was lost. I finally got my animation filmed and uploaded successfullly, third times a charm! 

Cube A to B

The same thing happened with my cubes 'speed up, slow down' and 'pendulum' animation, but thankfully i was also able to make and upload these successfully too.

Cube Speed Up Slow Down

Cube Pendulum

The next exercise was to use two cubes and create an 'interaction' between them. My idea was originally to have the cubes in some sort of 'fighting' scene, but then i saw that most people had done this so decided to make my cubes dance.

Cube Interaction