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Dr Seuss Animation

For this project, we had to create an animation in After Effects of a Dr Seuss poem. For the animation I chose “The Zode in the Road”.

I chose “The Zode in the Road” because it seemed kind of quirky and I had already come up with an idea of how I wanted it to turn out.

I had done some research for Dr Seuss poems and I found some like “The Cat in the Hat”, “Green Eggs and Ham” and “Horton Hatches the Egg”.

Throughout the process of making this animation I feel like I did best at idea generation and creating the storyboard for the animation. Although I do feel like I did well in making the animation, I later noticed some mistakes that I made such as the flickering of the arrows, how the tongue tends to disconnect from the mouth entirely at the start of the video and how the hands sometimes disconnect from the wrist.

My favourite part of the project was designing the Zode character, I made him look rather dumb and silly because I imagined him being similar to Ed from Ed, Edd n Eddy because why would you scratch your pants if you’re in thought unless you were a goofy character?

At one point I had a small problem with rendering the animation because for some reason, even though it had made the video file, when I opened it up it  showed a blank video but still indicated that the video was being played. I pinned it down to just being my laptop having little space left so I later rendered it on one of the college computers.

If I was to re-do this project, I would make sure that limbs are attached and that the timing was better so it’s not as abrupt when changing to a different scene.

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Animation - Scenes and Location (Week 1)

Pictures are from Google

Kiki’s Delivery Service is an animation created by Studio Ghibli that was released in 1989. 

The main plot of the story is based around a 13 year old trainee witch named Kiki who lives in a small rural town with her mother. The film starts when Kiki is supposed to live on her own for a year and become a full witch. Kiki then settles in the seaside European city or Koriko, and, while initially having trouble trying to adjust to the new landscape and fast pace of the city, she finally makes some friends and moves in with a baker named Osono and her husband. Because Kiki felt that she was only good at flying, she starts her own delivery service that takes advantage of her ability to fly. 

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Project: Dr Seuss / Re-Imagine Module: Communication in Art and Design (Pass, Merit, Distinction)

In this project we have to research, design and animate a interpretation of a Dr Seuss rhyme. And we have to design the environments, characters and objects.

Theodore Seuss Geisel was born March 2nd 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA.

All four of his grandparents were German immigrants and his dad managed a family brewery until the prohibition in 1920 that banned alcohol until 1933.

He attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1925. At Dartmouth he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the humour magazine “Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern”, eventually rising to the rank of editor-in-chief until he got caught drinking gin with friends in a room and was told to resign from all extra curricular activities including the college humour magazine. However, he continued to work on it without the administration’s knowledge by signing his work with the pen name “Seuss”. Seuss was encouraged with his writing by professor of rhetoric W. Benfield Pressey, who he described was a “big inspiration for writing“ at Dartmouth.

Upon graduating for Dartmouth, he entered Lincoln College, Oxford intending to earn a PhD in English Literature. There he met Helen Palmer who encouraged to give up becoming an English teacher in order to pursue drawing as a career.

He then left Oxford without earning a degree and returned to the United States in February 1927, where he immediately began submitting his writings and drawings to magazines, book publishers and advertising agencies.

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Basic Character Rigging Part 2

This lesson I created my own character and then animated it in After Effects.

Firstly, I created my own character and sketch it out in my sketchbook, as well as doing a normal sketch of him, I also sketched what he would look like with the simple shapes that are available in Illustrator.

Next I recreated my character in Illustrator and I made sure that each piece was on a separate layer to make easier to animate.

Next I loaded the Illustrator file into After Effects so that I could start animating his features and make various expressions.

Before I started animating him, I first had to re-arrange his face so that he looked like how he did in Illustrator. This is because when I loaded the Illustrator file into After Effects, it put everything in the center of the stage.

Now that he was put back together, it was time to animate him. Firstly, I selected the layer for his left iris and then the “Transform” drop box so that I could change the position of his iris and make it look like he was moving it around.

I then did the same for his right iris and made sure that they moved at the same time so I made sure that both of the drop down boxes were open so that I could make sure that they were exact.

Next, I animated the mouth flap for my character so it looked like he was probably talking, I did this by again, opening the drop down box for that layer and selecting “Position” then I added a new key frame for each time it opened and closed his mouth.

I then decided that I wanted his movements to seem more natural so I went back and changed some of the key frames so that they were “Easy Ease” key frames, this slows it down a tiny bit and also curves the movement of whatever has been changed so that it looks more natural.

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Basic Character Rigging Part 1

This lesson, I animated a character that, was created by Irene.

Firstly, I loaded the Photoshop file into After effects and then re-arranged it to how it is supposed to be placed.

Next, I used the Anchor Point Tool to move the anchor point of both eye brows so that they were at the inner corner of the eyebrow, as opposed to the middle so that I could rotate the eyebrows around that point, this means that it will look more natural seeing as eyebrows don’t just spin around like a comedic mustache. I then animated the eyebrows of the onion character so that they would “wiggle”. I did this by selecting the drop down for the eyebrows layers and then “Position” and then arranged each keyframe so that the eyebrows moved up and down every second and at the same time.

Next, I animated the right eyelid to go up and down to make it look like it was twitching.

I then animated the mouth flap to make it look like the mouth is opening and closing repeatedly.

Because I wanted to make it look like the onion character was about to sneeze, I decided to make his nose move around slightly, this added to the illusion that he was about to sneeze. With his nose, I made the keyframes be closer together so that it was moving really quickly.

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Animating Weights and Simulating Different Heights

This lesson, I animated two shapes to show different weights and heights.

Firstly, I created a background for the animation.

Next, I created a floor for the square and circle to be on.

Afterwards, I created a square and put it outside the stage, this was so it would “walk” into frame.

Next, I did the same thing with the circle but on the other side of the stage so they can move towards each other later on.

Next I selected the drop box for transform and selected position for the square and created a new key frame for each movement that the square is to do. First had the square walk into shot.

I did the same thing for the circle and had it timed so that they would “walk” into frame at the same time.

I then animated it so that the two shapes would collide when they were roughly in the center.

Next, after the two shapes collided, I animated it so that the circle would fly off and out of frame but the square stayed put, this was to create the illusion that the square was heavier and stronger than the circle.

Lastly, I animated it so that the circle would land onto the square and then jumped on top of the square to then make the square go out of frame.

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Basic Shape Animation

This lesson I created a small animation to animate basic shapes

I animated a circle to look like a bouncing ball.

Firstly, I created a background for the animation.

Secondly, I created a new layer and then I created a “floor” for the ball to bounce on.

Then I created a circle and moved it to the top of the stage. This was to “drop” the circle, just like you would drop a ball from your hand to the ground.

Afterwards, I selected the drop down menu for the layer that the ball was on and then selected the drop down menu that is titled as “Transform” and selected “Position”. This is what I used to create each keyframe for the animation.

Next, I created a new keyframe and moved the circle to make it “bounce” and adjusted the keyframes times to make it look more real and to create that illusion of movement that the animation is supposed to create.

For some of the keyframes, I used the “Keyframe Assistant” to select “Easy Ease” to make the ball look more realistic with it’s bouncing. I used this because “Easy Ease” curves the movement for that key frame and from that curving, makes it look like a more natural movement and further enhances the illusion that the circle really is a bouncing ball.

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Q1: What is animation? Source: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/animation.html

Animation is a simulation of movement that is created by displaying a series of images of frames. Cartoons on television are an example of animation. Another example of animation are the old Walt Disney films and Max Fleischer cartoons that were drawn frame by frame. There are a variety of software applications that allow you to create animations that you can display on a computer.

Q2: What are the 12 Principles of animation? Source: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_principles.html

1.       Squash and Stretch By doing this, you give the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. It is also useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions. The extremity of the use of squash and stretch depends on what is required in animating the scene. This principle is used in all forms of character animation, from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking. This is the most important principle in animation and will be used often.

2.       Anticipation This movement prepares the audience for a major action that the character is about to perform, like, starting to run, jump or change expressions. A backwards motion occurs before the forward action is executed. The backwards animation is the anticipation.

3.       Staging A pose of action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the storyline. The effective use of various camera shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. There is a limited amount of time in a movie or cartoon, so each sequence, scene and frame must relate to the overall story. Staging directs the audience’s attention to the story being told.

4.       Straight ahead and pose to pose animation Straight ahead animation starts with the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a scene. While you can lose size, volume and proportions with this method, it has spontaneity and freshness. Fast, wild actions are done this way. Pose to pose animation is more planned out and charted with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene. Size, volumes and proportions are controlled better this way, as is the action.

5.       Follow through and overlapping action When the main body of the character stops, all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail. Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be later followed, a number of frames later by his clothes in the new direction. “DRAG” in animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this action is done more subtly. Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action. 

6.       Slow-out and slow-in As an action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle and more drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. For a gag action, we may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more snap to the scene.   Example of Slow-in and Slow-out animation

 7.       Arcs

All actions, with few exceptions (such as animating a mechanical device), follow an arc or slightly circular path. This is especially true of the human figure and the action of animals. Arcs give the animation a more natural action and a better flow. Think of natural movement in terms of the swinging of a pendulum. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movement are executed on an arc.

8.       Secondary Action This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the action. Example: A character is angrily towards another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the walk. Also, the possibility of dialogue being delivered at the same time with tilts and turns of the head to accentuate the walk and dialogue, but not so much as to distract from the walk action. All these actions should work together in support of one another.

9.       Timing Expertise in timing comes best with experience and personal experimentation, using the trial and error method in refining technique. The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the action, whereas, fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement. Most animation is done on twos (one drawing photographed on two frames of film) or on ones (one drawing photograph on each frame of film). Twos are used most of time and ones are used during camera moves such as trucks, pans and occasionally for subtle and quick dialogue animation. Also, there is timing in the acting of a character to establish mood, emotion and reaction to another character or to a situation.

10.   Exaggeration Exaggeration is not extreme distortion of a drawing or extremely broad, violent action all the time. It’s like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Action traced from live action film can be accurate, but stiff and mechanical. In feature animation, a character must move more broadly to look natural. The same is true of facial expressions, but the action should not be as broad as in a short cartoon style. Exaggeration in a walk or an eye movement or even a head turn will give the film more appeal. Use good taste and common sense to keep from becoming too theatrical and excessively animated.

11.   Solid Drawing The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animations as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into colour and movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and-four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time.

12.   Appeal A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing and personality development that will capture and involve the audience’s interest. Early cartoons were basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of storytelling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well to the eye.

Where did the 12 Principles of Animation originate from?

The 12 Principles of Animation were developed by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston of Walt Disney Studios during the 1930′s. These principles came as a result of reflection about their practice and through Disney’s desire to devise a way of animating that seemed more ‘real’ in terms of how things moved, and how that movement might be used to express character and personality.