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.

Part 2 of the storyboard of the Secret Agent, Martial Arts Expert and The Company

This is part 2 of the Storyboard of my story.

Scene 7 shows Ben explaining the situation that he is in to Ti Ching saying that The Company is going to start a war.

Scene 8 shows Ti Ching shocked saying that we have to stop them.

Scene 9 shows Ben and Ti Ching running to The Company HQ. They are both saying "Lets kick some ass!"

Scene 10 shows The Company officials realising that Ben and Ti are on their way to destroy The Company.

Scene 11 shows Ben and Ti heading towards the HQ of The Company and The Company thugs running out of the building to fight the duo off. The battle is witnessed by The Company officials.

Scene 12 shows Ben and Ti as the victors in this battle with the HQ of The Company in ruins.

Part 1 of the storyboard of Secret Agent, Martial Arts Experts and The Company

This is part 1 of the storyboard of my story.

Scene 1 shows Ben - the Secret Agent dreaming of peace in a world where the USA and USSR are enemies in the Cold War.

Scene 2 shows Ben on assignment in Paris where he learns of an organisation called The Company who are trying to pressure the USA and USSR to go to war against each other.

Scene 3 shows Ben thinking that without The Company there would be peace in the world.

Scene 4 shows Ben walking to the gym to meet Ti Ching - a martial arts expert who he believes can help him in his quest to bring down The Company and destroy it.

Scene 5 shows Ti Ching practising his moves in a gym.

Scene 6 shows Ben greeting Ti Ching.

Secret Agent character drawing

This is the main character (the secret agent) in my story. Views shown are front and right side.

Scene 2

This is a picture of how scene 2 will look like.

Story of the Secret Agent, Martial Art Expert and The Company

Theme: Epic slice of life
Main characters: Ben – Withdrawn Secret Agent
Ti Ching – Overworked Martial Arts Expert
Setting: Paris
Major Event: Dream

Preliminary Story

Ben is a Secret Agent in the Cold War and dreams of peace in the world. While on assignment in Paris, Ben learns that there is an organisation called ‘The Company’ which is pressuring the USA and USSR to go to war with each other. Ben thinks that without The Company there will be peace between the two nations.

So he enlists the help of Martial Arts Expert, Ti Ching, to take down The Company. They then team up and head to the HQ of The Company. The Company realises the threat to their grand plan and so send out there henchmen to stop the duo. The henchmen then get killed by Ben and Ti and the duo then destroy the HQ of The Company!



I may use this as one of my ideas for the animatic and might even develop it more.

Pros and Cons of Toonboom and Flash

Toonboom

Pros

- There is more workspace available to use than Flash.
- It has the familiar feel of traditional animation i.e. pen to paper.

Cons

- It takes some getting used to if you haven’t used the software before.
- You have to adjust some settings in Quicktime, which can be a minor annoyance when viewing your animations.


Flash

Pros

- Easier to adjust and get used to than Toonboom.
- Industry standard animation tool.

Cons

- Quite a big price tag attached to it.
- Some features are useless especially ones in later versions of Flash.

Basically Toonboom is more suited to tradition animation creation because users have to draw objects by themselves and the storyboard function looks the same as it would on paper.

Boy with balloon at bus stop scene

This is a scene which has been drawn in an animatic form from the storyboard seen below.

The scene is of a boy with his balloon at a bus stop and then being told that he can't bring the balloon onto the bus.

Deconstructing - The Red Balloon

Plot

This story is about a boy that finds a balloon and starts to play with it and treat it as a friend. This friendship goes through tough times as the boy is forced to leave his new friend outside the bus to school, the school and his house because balloons are not allowed inside these places.

Characters

The janitor, the boy's mother, schoolkids, the boy and the balloon.

Location

At his house, at school, in an alleyway and at the railway yard.

Dialogue

No dialogue apart from some inaudible conversations

Sound

There are different soundtracks for the different scenes, mainly used to emphasize different moods i.e. when the balloon is annoying the janitor in the story a mischievious soundtrack is played. You can also hear street sounds etc. i.e. sounds of a bus moving off.

Treatment

The colours in the film are washed out and most of the objects are greyed out with only limited colours shown. The red of the balloon and blue colours of the boy's clothes are the colours that stand out and the ones that are not washed out. This emphasizes the characters of the film.

If I were to direct this film again, I would place more emphasis on the characters involved in the action so that they stand out more from the other characters in the scene.

The Red Balloon Storyboard Part 3

This is the 3rd and final part of the storyboard.

The penultimate scene shows the boy and his balloon on a hill just above a railway yard.

Scene 10, the final one, shows the end credits.

The Red Balloon Storyboard Part 2

This is part 2 of 'The Red Balloon' storyboard.

Scene 5 shows the boy head back home later on in the day.

Scene 6 shows the boy with his mother. The mother upon seeing the balloon says that no balloons are allowed inside.

Scene 7 shows the mother throwing the balloon out of the window.

Scene 8 shows the boy and the balloon later on being chased by a group of schoolkids.

The Red Balloon Storyboard Part 1

This is part 1 of a storyboard that I have created of the events that happen in a film called 'The Red Balloon'

Scene 1 is of a boy noticing a balloon tied to a lamppost. He then unties it and makes it his new found friend.

Scene 2 is of the boy and the balloon making their way to school.

Scene 3 is where the boy is told that balloons are not allowed on the school bus so he walks instead.

Scene 4 is where the boy arrives at school late and is told by the janitor that balloons are not allowed inside.

Man being chased by Police

These are a few sketches showing a man being chased by the police, jumping into a car and then being chased again.

This idea carries on from the animation I made in 1st year - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbSbRu9wI5M. This will be part of an alternate ending where the robber keeps on running away from the policeman and uses different methods to get away from him i.e. steal a car.

Man punching other man

This is an animation of a man punching another man.

This scene is part of another idea of a story where a man is caught sleeping with another man's wife and so the other man punches him and beats him up etc etc.

Boat sailing across screen

This is a .gif file of an animation of a boat sailing across the screen.

Man taking hat off

This is a stick man taking off his hat and then putting it back on.

[Note this is a .gif file so you have to click on the picture to play it.]