Applied Animation: Final Critique

Today was the day of our final critique, and even though the rest of the class seems to be stressing out beyond belief, I was actually feeling okay with the progress me and my group had made. Oscar had slotted in our animated scenes into our animatic to show to the rest of the class for feedback, and the general response was that they liked where we were heading with our animation. Sara pointed out that the shot framing of the 'stamp scene' and the 'posting scene' involving the baby might be too similar, and that it might be a good idea to change this slightly so the cut isn't too jarring. However there was no background on either of the scenes so it was hard to get a sense of the camera angle, and when I tested the scenes previously with the backgrounds in place, I personally didn't have an issue with how the scenes cut. I think if this was something we were wanting to change it would have to be a consideration for another time, as there isn't enough time now to re-draw a scene, as deadline is approaching and we still have post-production to do. Other than this we didn't receive any other comments on how we could improve, so we are taking this as a sign to continue to plodding on with production.

Animatic With Slotted Footage

When we got together after the crit to discuss what our next line of action was, we realised that a lot of footage had been missed out from the animatic clip we showed as our work was not visible to Oscar on our shared Google Drive folder when he came to put the video together. We soon discovered that we don't have much left to do at all, and we think we could easily be finished by the end of the week. All we have to do is re-record sound, colour the odd scene, put them all together and add titles. This has made me feel much better about my current position with my work, as I feel like I can relax a bit more now, knowing that my workload isn't as big as what I thought it was. 

Animated Background Test

As I was able to finish all my animating within good time, this meant I could revisit some of the backgrounds. It was suggested before that I make the baby move as the stamp is being placed on him, but I left this until the end as it wasn't particularly a necessity. Martin suggested to me in the crit that I could help enhance the comical factor of this story by having the baby looking shocked as the stamp is being placed on him. I thought this was a good idea, but didn't just want to do this as I thought it would be inconsistent with the rest of the scene. Instead, I did animate the baby crying and squirming, but had him stop doing so once the stamp was placed to make it look like he was shocked.

I'm glad that I was able to find the time to revisit this scene as I think the addition of an animated background is a great improvement. I am unsure whether the baby pauses for too long at the beginning though, so I shall ask Wing and Oscar about their opinions to see whether I need to add in more frames at the start. Besides from this, I am now finished with drawing, and can now help out with post-production and any other tweaks that need to be carried out.

Applied Animation: Finished Animating

Today I finished the final second of my section of the animating, and once I had scanned it in I was able to put together all of my scenes. I'm really pleased with how its looking so far, and think it will look great once it is edited and placed alongside our audio and the rest of my group's work. 

All Unedited Scenes

I've actually surprised myself at how quickly I've managed to animate my scenes. The last time I did traditional animation, I remember taking a lot longer to draw out my frames and work out the keyframes, so I definitely think I've improved since then. I'm much more confident now with my line making, and I think it would benefit any future drawn animations if I animated traditionally, or at least drew out keyframes in this way so I'm not tempted to cut corners like I usually do when animating in Photoshop.

Applied Animation: Baby Transition

So far with the line transitions that I have animated, they have all originated from one point and lasted for 18 frames. However, for this scene I thought that the subject was too large to cover in this way, so I made the transition start from three separate points. 

Baby Transition

At first I was worried that this would look inconsistent, but I continued with it as it didn't take too long to draw out. I think it looks fine. The lines move in a similar fashion to how they have been moving before, and I think it looks consistent for this reason and because the easing on the lines is similar too. 

Applied Animation: Belly and Boy Scene

Whilst I have been animating, I have been referring to our animatic to make sure that each scene will line up once they are put altogether, but for this particular scene I found it really difficult to do so. There was a lot going on and everything seemed to more so quickly in the animatic, and it didn't follow our decided 18 frame transition rate. So what I decided to do for this scene is to animate each individual section separately, so that we can decide on how long certain frames should be held for when they're scanned in. For instance, I started with the belly forming, then the introduction of the boy and then the change in his expression. 

Belly and Boy Scene

In this test I have played around with holding on certain frames to make the sequence flow nicely. The frames seem to make a lot more sense to me now that I have been able to layer them up digitally, and on the whole I like how it looks, though I'm not too happy with the transition of the boy at the end. He moves out of frame as the camera follows the colours upwards, which I tried to draw traditionally. I may have to revisit this part of the animation depending on how quickly we want the colour to rise up/the camera to move, and it will either be a case of drawing more in-betweens, or creating a camera movement digitally in After Effects to match the transition of the colours' movements. I think this will be easier than drawing more in-betweens - especially as the colour will be drawn/created digitally - but it's a case of whether creating the camera movement this way will be consistent with the style we are aiming for.

Applied Animation: Animating The Posting Scene

Just like before, I wanted to collect reference material that I could work from whilst animating the posting scene, but there was nowhere online that featured someone pushing a baby into a postbox, funnily enough. This meant I had to improvise and use a bike helmet and a stool.

Reference Video

Although it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, the reference video was a massive help again, as I could look at how the arms extended and rotated as the baby was lifted into the 'post box'. 

Posting Scene

Again, I'm happy with how the animation has turned out. I made the boy come in slowly as he was lifting the child and then leave the frame quicker, to try to help show that the baby had weight. I also like the overlapping action of the baby's limbs as it falls into the postbox, which I exaggerated to emphasize the humor in this story. 

Whilst I was drawing the boy, it seemed to me that his arms grew and I was afraid that this was going to be an issue when I scanned in the frames. Now that I have put them together, they don't actually seem to grow at all, which is a bonus. 

Just like before, there still needs to be some editing carried out to make sure that the background doesn't show through the characters, but again, I shall revisit this once my other scenes are complete. 

Applied Animation: Making a Start on Animating

In our last meeting we had divided up the storyboard between the three of us, myself and Wing having three storyboard pages each out of the seven, as Oscar is going to take charge of post-production, or at least the majority of it. Because we were happy with how the work load had been divided, and because there were no immediate issues that were pointed out to us in our second interim critique, I could get started.

Stamp Scene

I chose to work on the stamp scene first as I thought this was going to be the hardest to draw, and it would have been nice to get it out of the way. To get started, I took a quick recording of myself extending my arm past the camera and placing down a square piece of paper on the table, so I could use it as reference. I found this extremely useful as it helped me to get the perspective right on the arm, and it allowed me to see how the arm would 'get smaller' as it got further away from the camera.

Using my reference as a guide, I marked out the path that the stamp was going to take on a frame that had a 16x9 frame marked out, and from there I was able to work out timings and draw out my keyframes. In the past, I've never really done this, instead I tended to mark out the timings and just animated straight-ahead. I found this process to be much easier and it is going to be something I continue to do; I don't know why I didn't do it before as this method allowed for me to add the necessary amount of in-betweens and it helped to keep volume consistent. 

I'm really happy with the start that I have made. I think the hand movements are smooth and I like that the easing helps create the illusion that the hand is getting further away. The background still needs to be animated, and it needs to be edited so that it doesn't show through the arm and components that lie on top of it, but I shall do this at a later date once my other scenes are completed as I figure this to be more important. 

Responsive: Project Report

For my project report, I could have simply uploaded my art boards to Issuu to create a publication, but I wanted to try and make my work look more professional by changing the layout and style so that it was more suited for a book. I also wanted my project report to include more information about my development and progress, and I didn't feel that my boards were designed in a way that would allow me to add this extra information.

I ended up making new content for the books, and went for a subtle design to keep the publication looking clean and professional. As I didn't want two different briefs to sit next to each other on a double page spread, it meant that my final outcomes would be sat on their own across a double page. I was unsure whether I wanted them to be aligned in the center of the two pages, or have a blank page with my simple decor design on it to break up the briefs.

Center Aligned Images

In the end, I opted for having them sit on just the one page, as I preferred how it looks. I then battled with whether I wanted this blank page to be white or purple. I went for purple as I thought it seemed less empty than the white, and I thought it broke up the different briefs nicely.

I'm happy that I chose to redo the art for the book rather than using my previous boards, as I am very happy with how my work now looks as a publication.