mi5017abifiges

[mi5017abifiges]

The Animation

As I couldn'tt do the animation exactly how i wanted to do it and i didn’t have long at all to create this, i am proud of my work. 

I know that in usually circumstances I would have been able to create something so much better. 

I feel like the second part of the animation looks a lot better. I believe this is due to that part being exported/ pre-composed less. 

If I had more time i would have created my own sounds and they would have sounded alot better. 

[mi5017abifiges]

Production of the Animation.

Re-drawing my assets:

 I did this by opening the files of my already drawn assets in photoshop. I deleted the layer that had the black outline. I then changed the colours or added an effect. 

I did this process for quite a few of the assets.

I also did a different process for other assets. For the bench. I chose to completely redraw it. I used photoshop to trace over the orignal bench. I drew over each part in separate layers. I then edited the shape of the bench. I added legs and shading. 

I also completely re drew the cat. I did this by drawing an outline of a cat. I then added different shades of grey on different layers to help make the cat look more realistic. I then used the merge tool to merge these together, using a brush that made it look like fur. 

I re drew the backgrounds as well:

Animating in After Effects:

I used my animatic as a plan 

Part 1:

Imported all my assets into After Effects 

Added the first background to the timeline 

I then added the sofa and the women, (unlike my animatic i decided to only use 2 women)

I made each layer a 3D layer

I moved each object where i wanted it to be. 

I started moving the women, as I imported all my files as photoshop files and had the limbs all separate I was able to transform the arms separately. 

I made the women's arms move so that it looked like they were having a conversation. 

I used the puppet tool to key frame the women's chest, to make it look like they were breathing. I did this because wanted to make the women look more realistic and use squash and squeeze. 

I finished this and pre composed it. 

I then animated the pope in a simular way, apart from using the puppet tool to animate its arm and leg movements.  

I then added the scroll layers to the timeline. 

I attached the ‘back of scroll’ to the correct arm and edited the opacity so that it only appeared when i needed it to.  

I used the transform tools to make it look like the scroll was turned around. I added the ‘front of scroll’ to become visible at the correct time. 

I then pre composed the pope.

I then transformed the composed pope so that it “walked in”

I then added a camera and edited its movements so that it showed what i wanted it to

I then exported the video. 

Part 2- Parallax: 

I opened a new composition in after effects 

I added my photoshop files to the timeline and editing them so they were in the correct order. 

I made all the layers a 3D layer and edited the 3D world so that everything was in the correct order. 

I used the puppet tool to make the cats tails look like they were moving and then pre composed it.

I added a camera and edited its movements so that it looked like it was dolying backwards. 

I then exported this video. 

Finishing in Premiere Pro:

I chose to finish the animation in premiere pro:

I added both my finished videos to the timeline. 

I added a pre-made ‘fade to black’ transition

I downloaded sounds from Youtubes Audio library, (Walking sounds, Breathing sounds, sad, happy and angry music.)

I added the sounds to the timeline and editing them so that they fade in and out at the correct times. 

I edited the colour grading of the first part of the animation to make it look more vibrant, this helped make the contrast more extreme between the first part of the animation and the last part of the animation. 

I then exported the video. 

Differences between the Animatic and the Animation:

I made quite a few changes for alot of different reasons. Having the animatic to look at helped me see where i could change things. 

The biggest differenes:  2 women instead of 3 

I decided to do only 2 women rather than 3 as I worried I wouldn’t have enough time to animate both. I also felt the frames looked a bit too crowded with 3 women. 

Blue sofa instead of grey

I decided to change the colour of the sofa as I felt keeping the sofa grey would make the sofa look similar to the bench in the second half of my animation. The contrast between the two parts is the whole point of the animation so I felt it was essential to make the sofa a bright colour. I chose blue as it didn't clash with the other colours that were a part of the scene. 

Pope not writing on the scroll

I decided to not have the pope actually write on the scroll as I didn’t have time in my edit to fit that in. The other parts of the pope's movements took up more frames than I expected them to, so I had to cut out the writing. 

Pope's pocket is inside its jacket

I decided to get rid of the pocket on the outside of the Pope's jacket. I felt that the way I edited it so that the scroll gets pulled out from an inner pocket of the pope's jacket looked better. It looked more realistic and smoother. 

[mi5017abifiges]

Production Problems

14/01/2023

Over the Christmas break, I took a break from working on this module and planned to spend that time working on a different module. I decided this due to the fact that I was going to be at my family's house with just my laptop and my laptop doesn’t run the programs i need to do the animation. 

On December 27th I started getting pain in my left wrist, this pain got worse and worse and only 2 days later my left wrist was completely stiff. I could no longer use it at all. This has meant that I cannot continue my work as a lot of the work requires me to use both hands. 

I have my animatic along with all my planning for how my final piece was supposed to look. 

My hand started to get better a week before this project is due in. With this time I have left before the assignment is due in, I would like to spend it still being productive. 

I don’t believe I will have time to do the animation exactly how i wanted it but i plan to still have an animation to hand it. 

I plan to use my animatic and edit over it by:

Adding my detail to the drawings

Adding more movement 

Adding the elements of animation - such as squash and squeeze 

Adding sound 

[mi5017abifiges]

Animatic

Nov 29th

Today i started on my animatic. I am going to draw each of the items/people in my animation separately in Adobe Illustration and then colour them in Photoshop. Then using each separate drawing/asset and assembling them in After effects.

Here are some of the drawings I have done:

I used photoshop to add colour to my drawings, I chose to do this on photoshop, as photoshop gives me more freedom to work with patterns and possibly draw over any lines I decide I don't like. 

Here is an example of this:

Once i had finished colouring all my drawings I exported them as individual assets and then imported them into after effects. I exported them in individual layers . I then placed the layers in the correct order. I transformed each layer so that it was where I wanted it in the frame. I started by using key framing to make the simple movements. I used my storyboard to remind me what the movements were.

Then I realised that I needed to use parallax to do the final part, I added a camera and moved it so that I could make the environment appear 3D. 

I finished and exported it. 

Here is my finished animatic. I didn't add sound to is as i haven decided one the exact sounds i want to use. 

[mi5017abifiges]

Changing my plan

I showed my storyboard to the class and they had some feedback. They suggested that my current plan is a bit too elaborate and i should make it a bit simpler. I reflected on this and read back though my research, that is on mural and i decided to take a different approach. 

The church likened cats to women, saying they were both uncooperative to the churches rules:

Due to this uncooperative women were seen as witches and cats, especially black cats, were seen as a symbol of Satan. This pairing of witches and cats still exists today, in all forms of media.

So i am changing me story so that the pope turns the women into black cats. This change simplifies my plan as it means i don’t have to animate both the cats and the women at the same time. 

Storyboard:

As you can see i have simplified the storyboard, quite a bit but i have also still kept parts from the original plan i did. 

Storyboard

My plan to make the animation:

I plan to use ToonBoom to make my animation. 

I plan to animate my parts separately first:

Rig and Animating all 3 of the women together, then exporting without a background.

Rig and Animating the pope and scroll together, then exporting without a background.

Rig and animate the cats movement together, then exporting without a background.

Then taking all these finished animations into After effects (I will be using after effects to just place everything where I want it to go rather than actually animating in after effects)  

Then using the 3D layer option and movement options to place the backgrounds and static pieces and the animations. 

Then editing the motion of the pope walking, as i will already have the walkcycle I will just add the keyframes so the pope moves across the shot. 

I will add a camera to make the movements, such as, the scene starting facing the floor and rotating up to show the women on the sofa, possible. 

I will pre compose this and then start the rest of the animation.  

I will add the background, bench, cats and prison bars to the scene and i will edit them to be where i want them to be.

I will make them all 3D layers and place them far away from each other, in terms of depth. Placing the prison bars at the front. 

I will use a camera, placing it right in front of the cats, before making it slide backwards untill it reveals the prison bars.

I then will pre compose this and export the whole thing to Premire pro

In premire pro I will add the sound i want to add. 

[mi5017abifiges]

Animation Idea

Draft Plan

Storyboard Plan

Animation Sound Plan

Storyboard:

Concept art

[mi5017abifiges]

Feedback on my research - from hugo

Hugo looked at my mural and tumblr. He was happy with my research and how interested I was in my research. 

My research about how the church used their power to convince people that cats were a symbol of satan. The church only did this as they had a hatred for Pagans and the romans were considered pagans by the church. The reason they made cats a symbol of satan was due to romans worshiping cats. 

Hugo suggested that i look into the abuse of power and control from governments and communities. I could even step away from cats and look more into animating something that shows abuse of power. 

I like this idea. I think i might continue my research a little more to understand more about the history of the superstition of black cats before i move on to his suggestion as i don’t feel like my research is finished. I would like to also look more into the abuse/control of society that is being inflicted by the church. There are too many patriarchal rules/laws/practices that are currently in place due to the church. I wanna look more into this, but i need to be careful that i don’t lay into religion too much as this is a sensitive topic.

[mi5017abifiges]

Animating an inanimate object.

I chose to do this using maya. I decided to do a traffic cone as i felt it was a good challenge to model. I then animated it, i used the squash and squeeze principle, to make the cone almost life like. 

I animated this and rendered it and I wasnt happy with some of the render photos:

As you can see, i messed up the lighting and it left my animation with patches of black. I didnt have time to re render so i ended up just cropping it out. 

Here is my Traffic cone Animation:

The render came out in a bad quality. If i have time i will re-render and upload a better version of this. 

[mi5017abifiges]

Mural Link

https://app.mural.co/t/myths8855/m/myths8855/1664463496045/1c4347e7c80f1eb56a7002120a9614ec9ed3d6a2?sender=u6aad0ba25d620126a9c94537

[mi5017abifiges]

Toonboom

Today we tried using toonboom for the first time. I struggled using this, it worked differently to all of the video editing/animating softwares that i have used before.

We made a bouncing wall animation. 

Here is the one i made.

[mi5017abifiges]

Workshop Classes

Maya Refresh - 3D Walk cycle

04/10/22

Today we made walk cycles using maya. Last year i made a 2D/drawn walk cycle so i knew what the cycle was meant to look like.

We started by downloading a pre-made model which was already rigged and ready to move. 

I began this project by increasing the grid work space and positioning my model where i wanted it. 

I started animating the legs first, keying each new position every 4 frames.

After i finished the legs i also did the arms, moving the opposite arm forward. Once i finished i realised that i made a mistake by having my character walk across the screen instead of making a stationary walk cycle. 

I decided to fix this by rendering it and then taking the sequence into adobe after effects. I used after effects to remove the background, this meant that i could easily copy and paste the sequence and  place the model in the correct position that the last sequence ended in.

I ended up editing the walk cycle so that the model walks across the screen. 

As you can see in this video, The walk isnt perfect. The tradition between each sequence is rough. It almost looks like the model is going down some steps. In the future i will make my walk cycles stationary so i dont come across this problem again. 

=

Maya - Blocking

11/10/22

Today we tried blocking in maya. I hadn’t blocked anything I had animated before. We used the rigged body that we used for the walk cycle.

This was the blocking plan

We stated by changing the maya settings so that the software doesn’t animate for us in-between the keys.

We created a shape for our character to pick up. I made a spiky ball.

We then made key frames at every main position. I did one every 10 frames. 

We used the rigg to move the body. 

We did this until we had finished the planned sequence.

18/10/22

Today we continued on with the last workshop. I added another frame in between each of my frames. Making a key every 5 frames. I did this untill i finished the timeline. 

I then changed the speed of different parts of my animation, I did this by making parts that i want quicker only 2 keys apart instead of 5 and slowed parts by making them appear every 10 frames instead of 5. I then added frames in-between the parts where it is 10 keys, these were tiny movements. I did this to make the blocking smother so there was at least a key ever 5 frames.

Here is the blocking. I added colour to the objects:

[mi5017abifiges]

Animation Research

The Principles of Animation

I did some research on the 12 principles of animation, here are the most useful principles:

Squash and Stretch

Animated objects will get longer or flatter to show their speed, momentum and weight. The more squash and stretch an object has the softer the object is, meaning stiffer objects have less squash and stretch. When adding squash and stretch to an object you should make sure the volume of the object doesn’t change. 

Anticipation

This is the preparation an object does before an action. It is often used to show energy building up before the action. Anticipation makes an object or character’s action not seem random. Anticipation also adds more emphasis on the action itself, therefore making it easier for an audience to understand what is happening.

Staging

Having objects and ideas be presented clearly. The audience should know something exists before that thing performs an action. Staging is used best to help direct a viewers eyes to the parts of the scene that matter, when they matter. The main action of a scene should be clear and simple, not upstaged by other things going on in the scene.

Follow Through & Overlapping Action

Having parts of a character drag behind a moving character, while also having some parts of a character continue to move once the character is stationary. Using these actions will help make characters actions look more realistic. When a main body moves, the tip of an appendage should be the last to catch up.

Slow In & Slow Out

All movement should start slow, then build speed and then end slow. This helps movement seem more realistic and less robotic. This principal doesn’t apply to all animated actions but should be used for normal large movements. 

Arcs

Most living creatures work in circular motions, Arks. Having objects move in arks makes the movements more realistic and less robotic.

Secondary Action

Gestures that are added to the main action to support the main action. For example when animating a walk cycle, the main action is the legs moving, but adding the arm movements makes the walk cycle look more realistic. The secondary action can be used to give the character more personality. It is important to not let your secondary action look more important that the primary action. 

Exaggeration

Every action can be exaggerated to make a bigger impact on an audience. Exaggerating actions can help a characters emotions be more obvious. Using exaggeration should make a characters emotion, personality, action or intent more convincing.