flash work

in uni we have been learning how to use flash.

our 1st lesson learning about flash was learning the basic tools and windows used within Flash such as the timeline where we create are animation. The timeline shows different ways on how the animation can be made such as using frame by frame animating or motion tweening and shape tweening.

In this I've learnt  a lot about different types of framework that could be used in flash of which I will use later in any animation I may create.

 Other things learned within Flash was putting objects onto a rail/grid this will allow an object to move in a certain direction but keeping to the grids line. We learn this by creating a little planet and a UFO going round it and then created a grid. This allow us to attached the UFO to the grid so it would go around the planet.  The UFO used a motion tween while the grid itself simply attached to the UFO but did not show up in the end animation.

another thing learnt within Flash was to use the action script this would allow us to create buttons that would react with our animation, how this would work would be making a simple animation which would react to an object within the scene and only start or stop when the object was pressed.  At 1st the action script seemed difficult to understand but over the course of time became easier to understand, the action script works in coding certain objects within the animation allowing the animator to create buttons within the animation.  For example I created an animation where a sphere would change colour and change shape I then created 2 boxes at the bottom of the screen that I would turn into action scripts which would affect the animation of the sphere. One button would start the animation while the other would stop.

advert project

The project animation is working another gruelling create an advert for a hydrating advert. Within the group we all had different jobs to do the job that I was acquired to do was to create characters for the advert based on the ideas given to me the 1st idea involves the character being in a little girl in the advert from this I created a couple of designs based on the drinks themselves. I wanted it to look sweet the North for the advert be watched by all ages but have a style of its own.

I also did a version of the character in a different style to see how that would look the character has more detail then the one above.

At the advert progressed we realise that we wanted a bit more to the animation itself so we change the character from being a human girl creating the drink but animals collecting the fruits to create the drink themselves. After a while we decided it would have taken too much time to create multiple characters for this animation sewing reduced it to being insects of only 3 different rights.

The different characters were based around Caterpillar, butterfly and a Ladybird from this I created different ideas. The characters are designed at 1st were a lot more complex but finally became a more simple design to work from.

After choosing the designs that seemed right to make I moved on to how they would animate sided tests on their walking.

Didbeth project

for the beginning of this term we have been put into teams to create and make an animation about an area in birmingham called digbeth. though out i have been logging what we have done (reasrech, testing, etc) and what we have changed along the way.

27^th and 29^th of September 2011

For our animation assignment we were given the task of creating in at a small animation about 3 min long about a place in Birmingham called digbeth. Our 1st task we did was go to digbeth and write what came into mind to give us an idea of what to make the animation was about. We walked around digbeth for a while and felt it gave off a modern style, quite noisy, colourful, old-style buildings, industrial feel to the area.

The idea came to me of thinking of how would look in the day and is well the night from this I got the idea of making animation inspired by Alice in Wonderland theme. The idea is to start off in the daytime showing digbeth colourful and old classical buildings giving it a style of happiness while at night time showing its more modern and shadier side.

The idea of the animation is a beautifully dressed manikin with a masks (to portray happiness) comes to life inside the art gallery and begins to wander and looks around while looking around the area which seem almost like a dream the manikin wanders off towards a fountain where the time between day and night changes. The manikin finds its self lost in a dark and unknown place where all is dark and different to what was seen before. Lost and alone the manikin sees a butterfly of light (still an idea) shows the manikin the way back.

From what I know of Alice in Wonderland I remember that the story is based around a magical place that seems almost perfect until the very end where it shows its true colours this is what we want based the animation around.

2^nd of October 2011

As we went to make our animatic for animation we came across a couple of problems that we would encounter later on in the animation itself, where our character who would have been played by a person would may or may not be there for the animation most of the time instead we replaced our actor for a more animation style character drawn on pieces of paper which we could rapidly change to make the animation. We would still keep the storyline that we created 1st off but our character would be drawn instead of acting. From our new idea we worked around a base that would use our animation from 2-D side point of view to a 3-D illusion

To give an idea of how we would make an animation around the 2-D character we did some research on animation that use this type of style. The style were using is known as paper child, paper child is commonly known for 2-D characters drawn on pieces of paper that are cut out and react with the real world this is used in both still pictures and animation.

Video references:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTAhglvnKic&feature=share

http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gu_L0iM2ao

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyY1fGD7-cU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw6xt3sc8RA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9896cYPaFf0&feature=player_embedded

Information on paper child: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/paper-child#.Ton9yHNuH9A

14^th of October 2011

Today we discussed what roles we would be playing for this animation, what we decided was one of us would draw out some parts of the animation another would help support the characters look another on design.

The job that I was given was to create a body portion that we would use for the main character that I would draw, they came up with 5 body designs 1st before creating 3 test designs and used the ideas from the 5 body designs that I had already drawn. Out of this the group decided that the test design 3 would be appropriate, as the character looks doll like.

17^th of October 2011

This week I will be testing out the cut out animation to see how we will use it in are main animation and if we can use different styles (squash).

Ref of character movements:

18^th of October 2011

Today we had one-to-one tutorials where we discussed what we would be doing for our animation and how far we are. Most of the discussion was about how we were going to take our animation and where we were so far.

Throughout our discussions we talked about the sound effects or would be used in it, as a storyboard would portray the character what would we be using for references and what jobs each person had to do.

After further researching up on the animation style will be using for animation I found. The animation style is called cutout, but I can use any type of material to create an animation for example Elizabeth Hobbs used for the felt material for her to short films Glenda and over-excited. The technique you will be using is similar to the cutout style only based in a 3-D environment with the 2-D character


24th October and onward 

Throughout the project there have been many ups and downs within the project itself. Our 1st problem created was getting a character for animation we then find a solution to this problem by making the character self eliminating the volatility of an actor. While we were going through the project we realised we could have also used stop motion animation in the form of a model doll which we could have clothes as the character, this would have made the process much faster but in the end we were quite pleased with how the animation came out in 2D

The work is required of me was to create the body of the character and animate throughout the animation process I found it quite difficult to draw step-by-step of animation such as walking and keep it consistent so I developed what I call a doll in photoshop where the parts of the character were all movable in which I simply could move them without changing the body form of the character. 

From this dull character I created 3 different side views1 from the side front view and side view, From this I worked from the animatic picking out the individual scenes that were needed for this animation I then worked scene by scene to create the animation of the character. 

Throughout the making of this animation is gone across a lot of problems which have caught is out along the line some such as finding a character model to choosing what style of animation we were going to do and also getting the film we need for the animation. From these problems we have created other ways to get around them for example while we were shooting for our animation which was based outside we found that our spot for 1 scenes the nighttime scenes where the character would run across the wall past some graffiti was coloured over and so our idea of capturing Digbeth urban style in our animation had to change slightly so that we could still keep the urban style but worked to our aromatic.