Definitions

I know - eewww, but I have to write this because Mr Andrew said so.

Definitions

Key Frames

Key frames are the important frames that define the start and end or major points of a small movement like heroically jumping from a broken bridge to the other side of the chasm to save the damsel in distress. probably a smaller movement than that, but I like my example. These frames are usually drawn by a key animator.

Tweens

Tweens are the in frames that go in between the key frames to create a fluid movement. without tweens the frames would just flash from one to the next without anything inbetween. The number of tweens drawn between the key frame dictate the length of time that the movement goes for, whether the movement is short of long. Tweens are usually drawn be teams of animationists.

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Wednesday 20th April

This lesson I continued working on my skipping man animation cycle. I decided I would add blinking eyes and a mouth to my character. I did this by repeating three different images of eyes: a full eye, a squinty eye, and a closed eye. For the mouth I created a loop with the same number of frame as the skip so that where the skip repeated, so would the mouth as I had simply copied and pasted the loop to make it longer. So now my little man is skipping on clouds while blinking and going: waaawallaoowalooalwaowlaowlaowomaalawaolaoaoalwowaalooowalwolao :) I will upload the animation to this post when I have it with me.

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Tuesday 19th April

This lesson was the most horrible and frustrating lesson I have ever had so far in Creative Media. Animation-ish crashed three times. I lost all my work twice. I had finished the skipping man cycle, which included touching him up, adding exposure three times to every frame so that he skipped at the right speed and erasing the little dot above his head, I had then coloured my little man, and was in the process of adding a background when it crashed the first time. And so I lost half a lessons work. So I did it all again. I was duplicating the animation loop to make the animation longer and adding key frames to the background so that it move when the spinning beach-ball of death appeared. I know my time was up. I was right - animation-ish crashed. again. Oh by the way we learnt about key frames and tween frames today, which are the important frames at the start and end of a movement that define the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. And the tween frames go in between. The number of tween frames dictates how log the movement goes for. Now back to the horrible lesson. So unfortunately I couldn't find where I had been saving my work, and I had to start again. I did everything again and was doing the exactly same thing when, for the third time, the spinning beach-ball of death appeared. No amount of yelling at the spinning beach-ball of death made it go away and the program crashed. This time I did find my work though because I decided to save it to the desk top so I got on with my work. I added key frames to my character so that he would get smaller and bigger and move about on the screen as he skipped around on clouds like he was going into the distance and coming back. By the way, I am officially terrified of saving my work, because every time I save it the spinning beach-ball of death appears. The program doesn't crash, but still. I am emotionally, mentally and psychologically scarred.

Wow thats a lot of writing. Hope you had fun reading it all.

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Monday 18th April

This lesson in Creative Media I learnt about animation cycles, which are frames that create a small movement that then form a loop, and can be repeated continuously. I then started creating a small loop of a skipping man by tracing a short and simple animation cycle I found on google on animation-ish. I did this by placing the image from google and then traced it in the foreground. Unfortunately I didn't get much done this lesson, but I will do more tomorrow :)

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Examples of Animation

Animation Styles

Traditional Animation

Traditional animation is the animation technique in which pictures are hand drawn in frames and then played in fast succession to create the illusion of movement, like in a flip book. There are a few variations of this, like limited animation. Limited animation, unlike full animation, doesn't fully animate its characters, choosing only to animate parts, like the legs, to give the appearance that the character is moving, thus saving time and money. Similar to traditional is Traditigital animation, in which the images are generated by using computer graphics.

Examples:

• DISNEY! (full animation) - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Winnie the Pooh, The Frog Princess, El Dorado etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQeTlxhhmEo

• Japanese Anime (limited animation) - Pokemon, Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball Z etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxmB0cn9qAo

Cut-Out Animation

Cut-out animation is an animation technique produced by using flat, 2D characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials like paper. Today this animation technique is often created by substituting scanned images and vector graphics for the paper images on the computer.

• Southpark, Charlie and Lola, Angela Anaconda - all computerised examples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Vfsk1TFFA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlWRwQ4dLfc

Stop-Motion

Stop-Motion is an animation technique created by capturing digital images as frames that are then played in fast succession to create the illusion of movement. This technique is most commonly used to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own.

Examples:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJzU3NjDikY - Tony vs. Paul

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqZfFztWLE4

Claymation

Claymation is one of the many forms of stop-motion, created using clay or some other malleable substance, and each character and background piece is 'deformable'.

Examples:

• Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVdlxwX6A7g

• Flushed Away is a CGI replication of claymation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLJxoJM_ZbY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diVqham5cKA

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Thursday 14th April

In our second lesson Mr Andrews taught us about key points, or important points, generally the start and end of a movement. Then we added a moving background to our bouncing ball animation so that it appeared to be bouncing along. Unfortunately, I did not save the original animation-ish file to my USB and so I had to start all over again. But it didn't take long and before i knew it I was up to speed and ready to add a background. For the background I found a picture of grass and a blue sky to use, added it, and used key points and the move tool to animate it. Even more unfortunately, just as I was about to save my work for the lesson, animation-ish crashed and I lost it all, so I'll have to start again next lesson.

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Term 2

In Creative Media this term we are learning about animation. In our first lesson Mr Andrews Introduced us to various types and examples of animation such as traditional (both full, such as Disney, and limited, such as Japanese Anime), Tradigital, claymation and others.

We also got to experiment in animation-ish, and create a short bouncing ball animation using tablets, which was pretty cool. I will add the animation to this post soonish as I don't have it with me right now. I am really looking forward to creating my own animation this term, its going to be heaps of fun!

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