Reflection on My Animation from 2D Animation

Reflection on My Animation from 2D Animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbSbRu9wI5M

There are some things that I am proud of in this animation, for example my ‘trademark’ character drawing which consists of a detailed head and stick legs and arms. It was my intention to make the character have a detailed face with the correct proportions but to make the head large compared to the rest of the body. I thought that this would make the characters more comical and appeal to the audience.

However, there are a number of things I feel that I could have added to this animation or improved on. For example overall, I could have improved on the easing in and out of character walk and run cycles as I think some of them were of poor quality which may have lost me some marks.

I feel I could have added in more objects in the second scene where the cop is chasing the robber in front of a rolling background to make it a little bit more interesting. For example I could have added a seagull flying overhead and the disappearing of the edge of the screen.

The end scene could have been improved slightly because it was my intention to have the camera look like it was really focussed on the robber. When the robber hit the lamppost abruptly the camera would then continue on as if it wasn’t prepared to stop suddenly when the robber did. Unfortunately this didn’t turn out as I had envisioned. I could have spent more time tweaking with the timing of these actions to make it seem more real.

The part where the robber fell after hitting the lamppost could have also been improved. I tried to make the legs crumble first as to avoid just making the character fall at an angle without bending. This again didn’t produce the intended result as the action went at a slower pace than I expected.

However overall, despite its problems, I am quite proud of my animation and think that it is one of my best works so far in university.

An explanation of Appeal

Appeal is central to the make up of a character in an animation. A character has to have appeal in order to gain the audiences interest.

Animators use a number of different methods to increase appeal. One of these methods is to create easy to read designs and clear drawings which will appeal to the eye. As well as appealing to the eye, drawings of characters etc have to appeal to the mind also.

Early animations were just a series of pictures that were joined together by a main theme. Nowadays however, animators have learned that to create features, there is a strong need for the animation to have story continuity, character development and better quality artwork.

All of these attributes help make the animation appeal to audiences.

This is an example of the type of character I drew in this module for an animation and in previous modules for other animation.

I think it appeals to people because of its simple shape. One of the reasons I chose to draw this type of character in all my animations is because it is easier to animate with the legs just being like a stick man's legs. Also, in order to make it appeal to more people I put lots more detail into the face, which I believe works.

Heroes

Heroes

This story is set 20 years in the future in a fictional world where Spiderman, Batman and the Fantastic Four team are aged veteran superheroes who are about to retire. They are going to be leaving the responsibility of saving the world to a younger superhero team called the ‘Protectors’.

On the last day of work for the veteran superheroes the alarm bells start ringing which indicate a super villain is at work in the world. Believing the Protectors to be mature enough, the veteran superheroes send them off to tackle the super villain. However that this is no ordinary villain. This villain calls himself Villain Xtreme and is an amalgamation of all the villains that the superheroes have ever faced. Villain Xtreme wants to make Earth his fortress and use it to rule the galaxy. Villain Xtreme quickly overpowers the Protectors and begins to transform the whole planet into his fortress.

Meanwhile back at base, the superheroes watch the beginning of the transformation on live TV and decide to go to battle one last time to defend the planet from super villains. They realise that to defeat this villain they have to remember they ways that they defeated the villains that they have ever faced before. This is a more complex task that they had originally thought because some of the team have memory loss due to old age and can’t remember how they defeated villains. However scientists on Earth have made up a cure to memory loss caused by old age. Before going to defeat the super villain the superheroes go to the scientists and get the cure.

The superheroes armed with their fast knowledge of defeating super villains travel to Villain Xtreme’s base of operation and engage in battle with him. Half way through the battle the superheroes fall back and realise that they can’t defeat this super villain with just knowledge from previous battles, they have to figure out a way to defeat this villain with previous knowledge and another thing. Eventually they work out that to defeat this villain they have to put their full physical and mental strength into defeating this villain. The superheroes are then aided by a return of the Protectors who have recovered from their earlier defeat. The Protectors add a stronger element of strength to the battle as they are fitter and more agile than their older superhero colleague. With the combined strength of the Protectors and the knowledge of the veteran superheroes, Villain Xtreme is eventually defeated.

In his dying words, Villain Xtreme whispers, “I’ll be back!”.

Love at first sight

Love at first sight

This is a story of a man and a married woman who bump into each other in a supermarket and instantly fall in love, despite the fact that the woman is already married. The characters involved in this story are a 24 year old man, a 28 year old married woman and a 32 year old husband.

The story starts off with the husband leaving for work in the morning with the woman still in bed.

An hour later the woman wakes up and goes downtown to do the weekly shop. Once there, she walks down an isle looking at the produce when she turns around and bumps into a man who is also not looking where he is going. They both apologize and attempt to walk away. However the woman turns around to look at the man again and the man turns around to look at the woman. They make eye contact for a few seconds and are instantly attached to each other. They both then smile at each other and walk away from each other.

Later on the woman has visions of her and the man falling in love and eventually having kids. While dreaming of this she bumps into the man again who by chance was thinking of the same thing. They then start to talk to each other and exchange names etc.

A few hours later the woman and man finish talking to each other and the woman realises that she has to get back home to put lunch on. The woman faces a double dilemma whereby she wants to get back home and have lunch but she can’t take her eyes of this man that she bumped into. Also she has a husband that she loves so this complicates matters. In a moment of shear stupidity she forgets about her dilemma and kills two birds with one stone by asking the man to come back to the house and have lunch.

Before long one thing leads to another and the man and woman are in bed together. They then hear the front door opening and the husband comes in. The husband climbs up the stairs and into the bedroom to find the woman in bed and the man dashing for cover. The husband enraged starts to beat up the man by punching him.

(This last scene is shown in my blog a few weeks ago. It is entitled 'Man punching another man' and here is the link to it below)

http://furguniversitywork.blogspot.com/2008/02/this-is-animation-of-man-punching.html

An explanation of Staging

Staging in an animation is the process of making an idea clear to the viewer. Staging helps the viewer to correctly see the action and what is actually going on clearly so that they don’t miss any of the action.

This is achieved by a number of different ways. One of these ways is to provide bold colours to the characters/objects involved in the action when the rest of the scene is greyed out etc.

Another way is to have a character moving across the screen in a scene where everything is still. This draws the viewer’s eye to the action of the moving character.

Staging basically helps the animator use different techniques to help the viewer look at the right object at the right time.

An explanation of Easing out and easing in

Easing in and easing out is the process of slowing down and speeding up an animated object.

For example in real life, easing in, could be a car slowing down from a constant speed, to a stop. Easing out could be the car then speeding up to a constant speed from being at a stand still.

In animation an example of easing out could be where a character is standing still or in a walk cycle and then speeds up to be running. Easing in in a character animation could be where the character is running and then slows down to be walking.

Easing out is achieved in animation by adding in key frames and steadily increasing the space between the objects in the individual frames.

Easing in is achieved in animation by adding in key frames and gradually decreasing the space between the objects in the individual frames.

This is an example of a bus easing out.

This is an example of a bus easing in.

Head poping out of box

This is an animated gif file of a box lid opening with an object popping out of the box and then falling back in into the box with the box lid closing after.I orginally made this with the lid closing much slower but then I decided to make it close much faster to give the impression that it was slaming back down.