Unit 53

Task 1 Research the history and techniques of animation

A Fox Tale - A short animation HD

CGI

Some well known people and companies are Pixar with examples like toy story and CARS.

One of the technique used for this animation is the motion capture.

a-ha - Take On Me (Official Video)

Rotoscoping

The Person who made Rotoscoping was Max Fleischer on which his first work of using this technique is called Out of the Inkwell. Rotoscoping was invented in 1915.

One of the techniques that people use or avoid is called "boil" in other words when the lines dont match up properly and there for looks like the lines are shaking and unnatural.

Traditional cel animation

Krazy Kat At The Circus 1916 Early Animation - George Herriman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sve3jdQCYfw

Some well known people and companies is Walt Disney with Disney with  examples like Micky Mouse and Donald Duck.

One of the techniques used for this animation is the animation loop. The animation loop makes repeating animations like walking a lot easier by using the same animation until it is no longer needed.

The first film to be made is called "fantasmograph" by a artist named Émile Cohl. The film was a very strange one which consist of a clown doing at sorts of odd things, this is most likely because this was the first film and Emile Cohi wanted to just so all out on this new media.

Animation started out just
as pictures made by cavemen and egyptians drawing what happens almost frame by frame. In the 17th century they had a "magic lantern" which was more like a prototype projector to light up small images to make bigger shadows for images. 







A few early examples of rotoscoping are

Betty Boop 1933 Cab Calloway "The Old Man Of the Mountain"

The thing I really like about this work is when the giant starts dancing with the use of rotoscoping, I can watch that all day. The thing i kinda dislike is only the fact that you don't see that dance till a bit in the video. I really liked his dancing. Watch it. Its great.

Alice in Wonderland (1951 film) and Superman (1940s cartoons)

The thing that I like about this work is the colours and the scene always matches the mood of what is happening within the video. What I don't like about the work is for how much money this would of cost to make years ago I feel like most of the colours was "washed out" and I wish I seen more bright colours within the work.

A Troll in Central Park Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUhrFgs5knU

The thing I like about this work is the colours "pop" out and makes it wonderful to look at with all the pretty colours and its very vibrant. What I don't like about this work is the looks of the characters them selfs. To me they don't feel like they fit in with the setting and places they visit.

There are also recent examples of the use of rotoscoping and they are:

Once upon a time in the woods

What I like about this video is the fact that its so simple yet not simple at the same time which gives the work a unique effect but what I don't like about it is that it puts me a bit in the "uncanny" area when the kid talks, it feels odd to me.

Fantasia 2000 - Disney

My opinion on rotoscoping is that it can really great in the right hands and done properly, i love the style of some of the work in the examples no matter how odd or strange it might be, in fact that what makes me like the uses of rotoscoping more because it can open the mind to make all kinds of strange and wonderful things that might not have been done before.

This is my story board for the Magic Paint Brush animation. I started my work with few ideas and was with a "writer's block" until i started to think of the idea of what I would like to call A "reference-a-ton"  which is the idea of doing as many references as I can while doing the animation, in my case almost all of my references are to video games in any manner, either in looks or sound or even adding people to reference the games. What I like about what I did is thanks to the reference-a-ton idea I have a large amount of ideas to place in my book but the downside is that I have too many ideas and I want to place as many as i can but i know some must be cut from the final project.

These are my characters designs for the protagonist Ma Liang, what I started to do was to draw a realistic human person but because i'm not the best at drawing the human form, it did not come out as well as I had hope so I started thinking of styles to give the protagonist and I started with a chibi-like style (a cute and innocent style) which was pretty nice to look at and I really liked the design but after a few designs I made a very Chinese inspired male with robes on and this became my final design because of the Chinese  inspiration and the fact that he was wearing robes does make him a bit easier to animate on my end.

This is my animation of a ball bouncing up and down and the first thing I want to say is wow its hard to tween but after some help and some time to get use to flash I did find a tiny bit easier to get it to look natural, and after some time I have done a ok animation of a bouncing ball. If I can change it i would say first thing first is to get rid of that frame with the two boxes and redo them to stop the boxes from appearing.

This is my first walking man animation and right off the bat I can say it was much easier to understand and I for once did have a bit of fun while doing my work and I felt like I have done well at this work. One thing I do like about this work is that he does look like he is walking normally and I have not messed it up that much. The thing I don't like about it is that for some resume he "flashes" when he moves his arms and its not very appealing to me and most likely not appealing to many other people as well.

This is my work of my character walking animation, first thing I need to say is that i'm having the worse time trying to upload my video and I have tried everything and i'm sorry if the all of the options don't work, I have tried very hard to upload and it don't work. On the brighter side I did do the work after another writers block because I did not really know how to make this guy walk look normal until it hit me, to make him "shuffle" instead and that worked so well for Ma Liang and the sound that goes with it works very well. (and for people who got where the sound came from you know your games very well)

This is my facial expressions for my Ma Liang character in flash. I found that at the start I had no clue what I was doing, but as I was playing around with the settings I was getting the hang of it and done it with quite a success. What I like about this is that the faces really show what feeling Im trying to give to Ma Liang. What I don't like about this work is that im missing out some detail like colours and eyebrows. (but I might leave them out anyways)

This is my legs movement using the bone tool. For my first try I feel as I did really well and even made it look a bit like a "dance". How I could of improved my work is to slow down the legs a bit to make it seem a bit more real.

This picture is of me testing if the animation has any flaws like miss placed sound or visuals. 

This picture is of me working on my animation.

This picture is me using the internet to get references as perfect as I can make them within flash.

This picture is me using sound editing software to give me the sounds that I need the most.

Interim comments

Wesley's comment: I like the monition tween and it have been used to a great outcome and the use of using a text like animation within dialogue is pretty nice. The thing that you may need to improve the placement of the sound itself.

Ben's comment: I really liked your use of sound within the animation (but you really need to change the placement of the sound within the animation) and the movement of your animation fits well with the kind of animation you are making.

I feel that the comments that I have received from the other students is honest and well justified with pretty useful information to me to help me get on with my animation work.

After a VERY LONG time working, this is my final animation for the magic paintbrush. This work was made by using illustrator to make the objects and flash to place it all together. What I love about this work is how well it has came out and how well a standard that I have made it (and I have put a lot of my soul and time into this work so my work might not look that good to others). If I had a chance to change my work, I really would give it a lot more polish and maybe more sound to places where I used the sound too many times. Overall the class loved my animation and had a lot of things that are positive to say about my work with only a few downsides which I will think about next time I do a animation.

Comments with class:

+ Excellent references to retro video games
+ Good character development.
+ Good use of sound effects
+ Good use of humour.
+ Worked really hard, included walk cycle.
+ A lot of different and varied techniques
+ Fluid animation.
+ True to the story and memorable references work well together.
+ Effective due to the humour aspect

- Some copyright issues
- Adding a soundtrack through the animation can help pace.

Unit 3

This is my mood board to start me off working towards my saul bass design. Instead of pictures of the project we are doing it on I.E Mario Kart 8, I found pictures that relates to Mario Kart 8 instead of the game itself. (I found Bottem Middle funny and thats why that is there)

This is the Title sequence for the movie "catch me if you can" and what I like about it is how it moves around in a slow and steady way to create a sense of stealth. I also really like the simple colours that gets used when the characters go to different places to give make them feel different. The detail yet lack of detail at the same time is really something I like about this video and I love the word placement within items to make it like it was always there. The shapes within the work really backs up the  simplicity of the work and it is very saul bass like and well made.

These are the Mario Kart 8 planning out works for the name itself. What I like about this work is that I have made some some of them very "out there" to capture what Mario Kart 8 is about. Chaos. What I did not like about this work is that some of the work became unreadable and became kind of a mess. The thing I would change about my work is I would make some of my work more readable.

These are my plans for the visal part of my Mario Kart 8 work. What I like about this work is that I had many ideas at the time and there for jotted A lot of them down and there for I had alot of ideas but the down side was that I did not make it Saul Bass like enough so I had too put abit more time in another lession to make it look more Saul Bass like.

This is my final words designs for Mario Kart 8. What I like about this work is the colours (or lack there of in one) because it seems to match the simple of Saul Bass designs. What I dont like about this work is some of the ideas do seem abit too complex for it to be considered Saul Bass like. What I would change about this work is tone down some of the complexaly within some of the work that i have made.

These are the perspective of my objects. What I like about what I have done is the parts of the work that makes it look like its coming towards you but what I dont like is that I have reused some of the panels of my work to "pad it out." If I could change my work I would give myself more thinking time so i dont reuse some of my ideas within each of my ideas.

This is my storyboard of Mario Kart 8 Saul Bass. What I like about this work is that it can really tell you what is happening by just looking at the pictures. What I don't like about this work is it kinda looks and feels "rushed" and there for looks a little sloppy. If I had the chance to change my work I would take my time more and finish it looking better.

This is my final story board work for Saul Bass. I have tried to keep my work as Saul Bass as I could and I can say that I have done pretty well with my work. The one thing I like is the fact that it does look like it was made by Saul Bass himself and that was pretty hard to do. The thing I dislike about this work is Mario himself is not really Saul Bass like and does stick out a bit because of this.

These are my mood boards for the making of the dead space posters. What I feel like that I have done well is that I have many good pictures and colours to think about for my own design and there for can become a better poster because of this.

This is my dead space typography for my dead space posters. I have numbered the 3 I like most within no order, they all suit the dead space feel well with there own reasons. For number one the reason that fits well is the dark and sketchy way I have made the type suits it well. For number two its the fact that the words are the veins of the monsters arm and for number three the ones and zeros suits it well because of the future aspect of dead space itself.

What I like about the type that been labeled 1 is the fact that the text almost looks like the limbs of the monsters in dead space. What I like about 2 is the breaking parts of the type to tell you that something is wrong and what I like about 3 is the type looks like blood is dripping down to create a sense of horror. 

These are horror movie posters for my dead space posters designs, these all show in there own ways on what kind of horror it may be without giving too much info away.

These are the saul bass inspired posters for my dead space posters. These all does a good job in showing what might be in the movies without giving away too much.

This is the research for dead space to make sure that ill do the posters within this style. The thing I like about these is the sense of horror in all most all the pictures.

This is my design ideas for the Dead Space trilogy posters. I have done this work over the half term and for something i have done out of the college I can say that I have done pretty well but I have made spelling errors and ill have to be more careful when using spellings in my work.

These are some of the work "tweaks" that I did to experiment what might be the best for this poster until i made the one below.

This is my reworked version of the first horror poster. I have added more textures and detail and even gave it a 3D effect. I think this improved over the last one because of the detail I have gave it.

This is the health bar used in the health bar for the Dead Space poster, this was made using simple shapes in illustrator then adding quite amount of detail to give it a  3D look. 

These are the typography for my health bar Dead Space poster, the top one is on dafon

t.com called "October crow" and the bottom two is in the illustrator program.

These are some of the work "tweaks" that I did to experiment what might be the best for this poster until i made the one below.

These are my final poster designs for the Dead Space Trilogy. I have made the both of my work in illustrator mostly using just basic shapes. I think that after all of the improving I have done (Thanks for the help Ramese) i have made them both look almost professional. What I like about my work is the space ship one that replaced the face one because of it not being well known, it looks so much better then what i thought it might look because of the shapes looking 3D. What I dont like about this work is the text might not be the most suited for my work and that is what I would change if i had more time.

This is my background for my ship Dead Space poster, I edited this in photoshop.

This is the ship of my ship Dead Space poster, I made this using shapes in Illustrator

These are the typography of the ship Dead Space poster, the top and left are on the Illustrator program and the one on right is called "oh no" on dafont.com