adverts brief 1

“Sugar rush Sunday”

for this module i have chosen to do the advert for Sugar rush Sunday. before i started on the storyboard and character making i first did some reasrch on motion adverts and designs for my animation.

From what I was given in the brief I then made a diagram so that I could get some ideas of what I could base the adverts off.

Sugar rush Sunday

I.            Foods

A.   Sweets

B.   Chocolate

C.    Cake

D.   Ice-cream

E.    Sundae

F.    Milkshakes

II.           Restaurants

III.         Dally

IV.         Edible

V.           Fun

VI.         Large and small

VII.        Colourful

VIII.       Homemade

IX.          Silly

X.           Cupcake wars

XI.          For all ages

XII.        Man vs. food

XIII.       Kid in a candy store

XIV.       Unique sweets

XV.        Sweet and savory

XVI.       Desert first

XVII.      Ace of cakes

XVIII.    Food network challenge (cake making)

 

Research that I have found about motion graphics and forms that motion graphics is a way of making still images move giving the main concept of the commercial/advert without making too complicated to make it seem like a TV show. There are many concepts of motion graphics adverts some only use words to describe the product others using shapes or figures.

A couple of adverts references which uses motion graphics explain the icon using people's explanations with their words being formed into text around the product.

My idea for the sugar rush Sunday advert

For the animation of sugar rush Sunday my 1st idea was to use a short animation based around some of the shows that show on food network (example the food network challenges, kid in a candy shop, diners, takeout and drives). Most of these animations would be 10 to 15 seconds long due to the fact that they were longer than was needed (5 seconds) I had to change the idea to a more simpler animations that would get the advert across to the viewer.

 design drawings

This gave me a challenge of which I had to create an animation that would only last 5 seconds but yet have what was asked for of the brief that this I came up with 2 ideas one from being a piñata being smashed of which different types of confectionery would come out another was a food fight where the food was throwing food at each other

10/15 sec animation ad ideas

 

5 sec ad ideas

final idea

 

In the end I chose my 2nd option where the food would be having a food fight is zoomed into the sugar rush Sunday banner and then the logo appearing at the end. With this I did some research up on art styles, different types of sweet confectionery, different styles of adverts before starting on the actual animation itself. I made all of the characters within photo shop using different styles such as plain flat colour lined characters and textures for this animation I chose the flat coloured characters to make the advert a simple style.

 

 

After creating the characters for the animation my next division was to choose whether to animate within flash and export into after-effects or to animate directly into after-effects. In the end I chose to use after-effects to give me a chance of using the software for the characters I made I created limbs that would be easily movable and flexible with the public tool in after effects.

In all I have learnt how to use the software after effects what types of motion graphics there are that can be use of advertising (i.e. moving text and pictures or simple animation) and to schedule how long to research, storyboard, character design and animate.

animation brief

info to help know what and how infographic is used

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_graphics

http://www.vizworld.com/2010/04/infographic-environmental-impact-computing/

http://www.platformnation.com/2010/04/21/online-gaming-infographic-reveals-what-you-suspected/

http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/?currentPage=13

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.

domino effect: Toy room machine

For this assignment we were given the task of making a domino effect animation in Maya using are own idea.

For this assignment I first looked at different types of domino effects on then internet, some of the had multiple objects that would carry on the effect while some were fairly simple using only dominos them self’s

References:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOGqZAMHS-M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jMBNesc-8k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMZVCRQ8YRU

Slinky effects going down the stairs in 3d and real reference videos:

Real reference slinky

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

Cardboard slinky

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

Slinky toy animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHd0PPJnQlE

Slinky 3ds Max

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg3SVMhw7j4

Better slinky animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrFHP-tLFAU&feature=grec_index

Spring toy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb1fDKEBu3M&NR=1

once I had my understanding of  what to do I then mind mapped out what I could use in the animation from this I chose to do a domino effect based on some kids toys. The idea was simple to make and from it I planned out the room area, what would be in the scenes how many scenes and cameras there would and what would happen.

(the layout)

From the References I watched I liked the idea of having a little goal at the end and so for my storyboard I made put the whole idea together. the storyboard was simply designed to get a base idea of what I would do and also that it could be changed if any problem would happen.

along side making the storyboard and planning out the model room i also draw out references of the objets that would be in most of the scenes to have an understanding about what i would make and how it would look. 

When it came to modelling out the room and area I had a fair bit to do, through out the modelling I had to make changes that would make it easier to render once done so some of the object like the bed and small objects had to be removed to make the animation render faster. 

here are some pictures of the models with in the animation:

While I began to animate the objects in the scene I found a problem in my idea, in my storyboard I used a slinky as one of the objects to carry on the domino effect but found compactions in rigging the object to look convening so instead of using it I changed it for a bouncy ball that would go down the stairs and hit the button instead.

Another edit that I did to my animation was changing the dominos to a book hitting a ball which moved along a laid out track, the reason I had to change the idea was due to a problem with the dominos falling over using a dynamic called “gravity” 

over all this assignment was difficult to start of with but over a while my understanding on the software became easier to use. i had a lot of problem through out animating and texturing but i enjoyed learning about maya and will use what i have learnt to improve and make better 3d animations later on in the course

tutorials: vtc, youtube and internet
ideas: youtube and internet

history of animation

Animation is the rapid display of 2D or 3D images in sequence giving the watcher an optical illusion that makes inanimate object look as if it is animate. At the very beginning when animation was in its first stage it was a popular toy to children, in the present day animation is used in a variety of things like advertisement, children movies and TV shows.

The Thaumatrope

Back in 1824 a man called Peter Mark Roget invented a simple device which was made of no more then a paper circle and some string, this was called the Thaumatrope. At the time the Thaumatrope was a popular and simple toy to use, the child would simply pull the string which was tied onto both sides of the paper circle wind it up a couple of times and then release making the paper circle spin. On the paper circle were two different pictures and when the paper circle is spinning the viewer would see both pictures together, giving the illusion that the two pictures were one using simple movement. This simple invention which uses movement to create illusion was the first in animation.

The Phenakistoscope

As time past new ways to experiments animation were being developed and in 1830 two inventers, Joseph Plateau in Belgium, and Simon Stampfer in Austria both simultaneously the Phenakistoscope. The word Phenakistoscope meant: 'deceptive view'. The Phenakistoscope uses a cardboard disc with small slots around the edges this allow the viewer to see, on the other side of cardboard disc in between the slots where sequence drawings. When the viewer wanted to see the animation they would simply spin the cardboard disc on an axle in front of a mirror and watch the drawing move. The last phase of the movement joined up with the first phase, so the motion was repeated continually. Later versions had separate shutter disc and picture disc on the same spindle. The viewer looked through the slots in the revolving shutter at the sequence pictures: no mirror was necessary.

The Thaumatrope being the first animation was a simple design using a single picture on both sides of a paper disc. While the Phenakistoscope using a more complex design using a sequence of drawing to give a greater illusion of movement.

Zoetrope

In 1867 an American, William Lincoln, invented a patented new way to watch animation. The Zoetrope is based on the same principle as the Phenakistoscope, but is cylindrical in shape. This enabled several people at the same time to view the moving pictures. A zoetropes has thirteen slots through the cylindrical side; inside of the cylindrical is a strip with 12 images which would produce the moving subject that appears to progress forwards.

   

This newer design using a cylindrical shape enhanced viewing for many people as well as being hands free and in on uses of a mirror to watch the animation.

Flipper book

The first flip book appeared in September, 1868, when a man called John Barnes Linnett showed off is invention the Flip book. A flip book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to move by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are essentially a primitive form of animation. Like motion pictures, a flip book relies on persistence of vision to create the illusion that continuous motion is being seen rather than a series of discontinuous images being exchanged in succession. The book must also be flipped with enough speed for the illusion to work, the way to watch the animation of the flip book is to hold the book with one hand and flip through the pages rapidly with the thumb of the other hand.

The flip book was one of the first types of animation that employed a linear sequence of images rather than circular (as in the older phenakistoscope). With this style of showing animation the flip book would give birth to cinema.

Stop motion

Stop-motion animation is a term used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create an illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation used, usually named after the type of media used to create the animation.

Clay animation or Claymation is the most commonly know type of stop motion used. What clay animation does is use figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create a stop-motion animation. The figures used will sometime use an armature or wire frame, similar to the related puppet animation (below), which can be manipulated in order to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures may be made entirely of clay, such as in the films of Bruce Bickford, where clay creatures morph into a variety of different shapes. Other examples of clay-animated works include Wallace and Gromit shorts (1989) and Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2008) and The Trap Door (1984).

Puppet animation mostly involves stop-motion but uses puppet figures instead of clay. To keep the puppets still when doing stop motion the puppet has an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady as well as constraining them to move at particular joints. Good examples of stop motion which use a puppet for stop motion are a Nightmare before Christmas (1993), Corpse Bride (2005) and Coraline (2009).

Unlike their animated counterparts stop motion is watched on film after the animation is done, some stop motions can take up to a year to complete before being seen. To give the animation lifelike movement the animator must move the figure or puppet slightly, take a photo move the figure again and repeat until getting the full motion.

 

Cel animation

Cel animation or traditional animation as it is also known as is the most known, historically and most popular form of animation. On its first appearance it amazed watchers as its style of animation using the same technique as the flip book. Cel animation is made in stages the first is the storyboard, this is done in a series of pictures which have been draw to give the artist a more vivid description on what will be happening in the story. When the storyboard is in order the animators move onto the next stage: the animation. The animation movement is drawn frame by frame on a transparent panel which is placed over a background, just like the flip book the frames are placed on top of the background and then removed to place the next frame on top the background and so on until the scene is finished. While the animators is placing the frames onto the background the animator takes a photo of the picture from a high perspective, with this the animator chapters the frame by frame motion which will be come the animation. Because traditional animation is drawn frame by frame it can be very expensive and time-consuming process.

  

Rotoscoping is a method of traditional animation invented by Max Fleischer in 1915. Rotoscoping is when animation is "traced" over actual film footage of actors and scenery. Traditionally, the live action will be printed out frame by frame and registered. Another piece of paper is then placed over the live action printouts and the action is traced frame by frame using a lightbox. The end result still looks hand drawn but the motion will be remarkably lifelike. In most cases, rotoscoping is mainly used as a guide to aid the animation of realistically rendered human good examples of using rotoscoping are Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty and Anastasia.

This was a great improvement of 2D animation for not only did cel animation not need help from human manipulation to display the animation but allows the watcher a more lifelike motion to the animation. Apart from stop motion being the only other to using a camera to create an animation cel animation is easier to correct then stop motion for if an animator makes a mistake in stop motion the scene would have to be redone while in cel animation if the animator makes a mistake they would simply draw a new frame which fits with the scene.    

CGI – 1990’s

Computer-generated imagery (also known as CGI) is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in films, television programs, commercials, simulators and printed media. Video games usually use real-time computer graphics (rarely referred to as CGI), but may also include pre-rendered "cut scenes" and intro movies that would be typical CGI applications. These are sometimes referred to as FMV (Full motion video).

Apart from being used to make animation CGI is used for visual effects because computer generated effects are more controllable than other more physically based processes, such as constructing miniatures for effects shots or hiring extras for crowd scenes, and because it allows the creation of images that would not be feasible using any other technology. It can also allow a single artist to produce content without the use of actors, expensive set pieces, or props.
Computer software such as 3ds Max, Maya and Autodesk Softimage is used to make computer-generated imagery for movies, etc. Recent availability of CGI software and increased computer speeds has allowed individual artists and small companies to produce professional grade films, games, and fine art from their home computers. CGI was first used in movies in 1973's Westworld but in the sequel movie it used 3D Wireframe imagery in, Futureworld (1976), which featured a computer-generated hand and face created by students Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke.

2D CGI increasingly appeared in traditionally animated films, where it supplemented the use of hand-illustrated cels. Its uses ranged from digital tweening motion between frames, to eye-catching quasi-3D effects, such as the ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast. In 1995, the first fully computer-generated feature film came out, Disney-Pixar's Toy Story, was a resounding commercial success. In additional digital animation studios such as DNA Productions (Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros.) and Pacific Data Images (DreamWorks SKG) went into production, and existing animation companies, such as The Walt Disney Company, began to make a transition from traditional animation to CGI.
In the end CGI surpassed all the different styles of animation, because CGI uses computer software to make its animation it was cheaper to use to create animation the cel animation. Apart from being cheaper to produce CGI also give an animation a more realistic look to both the effect used and characters in the animation.

2001 animation era

for my assignment i had to fine information about animations around 2001. for this i looked at both TV cartoons and movies and saw how the way people watch animation has changes over the years.


For my TV animation I chose an animation called Samurai Jack. Created by a Russian animator Genndy Tartakovsky

And aired in America for a TV series Samurai Jack was aired in 2001 until 2004.

The reason I chose this animation was because of its cinematic and comics style. When watching Samurai Jack it gives a sense of artistic value in both its background and style of displaying scenes. A another reason I chose this animation was because of its unique way to take on a old Japanese style of art and mix it with both futuristic and on real elements in its story and artwork. Considering this animation is a TV series the animators designed it to have a cinematic aspect putting in scenes that show movie aspects, comic book strip action and a strong idea of the characters. Throughout

The series of Samurai Jack it tries to keep an air of humor within it from becoming too serious.

The story of Samurai Jack is based around the good versus evil idea where Jack a samurai tries to stop the evil shape shifting demon from destroying the world using a magical sword. But before Samurai Jack can finish off this shape shifting Demon he sent into the future where the world has been taking over by evil and it’s up to Jack to get back to the past and undo what has been done.

what i enjoy most about this style and type of animation is that a lot of work and time was put in to making the animation look as western and smooth as possible something that is very hard to do in 2d animations. 

As many animators used 2-D drawing to create films (animation is like beauty and the beast, Cinderella, etc) a new aspect to making animated movies starts to become popularity amongst the audience. In 1995 a new company known as Pixar created software where they could create animations out of 3-D images this would be used to make the first ever 3-D animated movie called toy story. This animated movie was such a hit to boast adult and child audience it made more on money then any of Disney's old 2-D drawn animated movies. In 2001 Pixar after getting an understanding of the technique of 3-D animation now with a new idea for their next animated movie Pixar was going to test there abilities when they call monsters Inc.

The story of this film takes place in Monstropolis where monsters scare children for electricity for there own world but then one-day a kid gets into there world and starts causes trouble so then it is up to you to their to the to get her back to her own home and save their company. The film was released to theatres by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 2, 2001 and in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2002. It was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $525,366,597 worldwide.

This was another big leap for animation and overtime 3D animation became the norm of all animated films such as Pixar, DreamWorks, entertainment etc. Until Pixar took over Disney creating more 3-D animated films and 2-D animation was only used particularly in TV shows for it being more cheaper to produce than a 3-D series.