pendulum animation study task

the brief was to create a pendulum effect using animation paper and place holder in order to keep all the frames in order, so that the play back for the animation works with the object staying in place. As for producing 25 frames of a pendulum swinging for 2 seconds at 12fps (frames per second) was a nice easy task, all i did was place the key frames which were frames 1,6,13,19,25 these frames were basically the begining, middle and end of the first swing then back with the same middle and end.

withing this test i learned how to control the speed of the pendulum by understanding momentumn of the pendulum, this was helpful because i was able to make a smooth pendulum swing loop as the example shows above. One problem that occoured when making this animation was when i got to frame 13 i continued with a straight on animation which turened out to look wrong and i had to redo all the frames above 13 using key frames. Ive learned that it is important most of the time to place keyframes to help give an understanding of how far each pose is and you can mesure how far apart each frame needs to be.

overall i loved end result of this animation and i hope i can keep on improving as i produce more tradtional animations. i beleive the most important part of this task was making sure the momentum of the pendulum was correct as it hit each key frame i made.

 

Storyboard Analysis 1

The anime Samurai Champloo had some interesting scenes, and the storyboards made by the studio really indicate the key moments which are memorable. What i like about this storyboard is the fact that we have a really good look at the expressions the characters are giving, in this case the main protagonist is challenging another character and the tension is shown just by his scared expression as he dodges the attack towards the close up camera, in this still frame.

 I'd like to be able to make expressions similar to this so that the audience I'm appealing to can understand and have similar feelings to the character they are watching.

click here for the website i got this picture from, very nice references for story boarding.

As you can see in these scenes there are various angles which tell the story in a certain way, for example the scene where the main character is holding the sword is at a low angle which i have also done for my story board where we see Miss mouse from low angle, i just like this shot because it really helps to tell a story in many ways.

my storyboards (nursary rhymes)

For our first brief we were tasked to make a full rendered storyboard for a nursery rhyme. in order to create it we had to undergo many processes which include making a paper edit, thumbnail sketches and character design.

To begin with i created a simple paper edit which showcases the scenes for Hickory Dickory Dock. When producing these scene i had to think carefully about the camera angles so that i can tell the story and its easy to read for the viewers and understandably visually, also with each frame i thought about what is necessary withing the scene so that there is a sense of depth and perspective which i can work with. for example the the 2nd scene where we can see the under shot of the mouse looking up at the clock shows how big the clock is from the mouse's point of view.  

the paper edit scenes

1. The establishing shoot of the scene, this is so we can get an understanding of the surrounding.
2. This is a low angle shot showcasing the protagonist looking up at the clock.
3. Over the head shot of the protagonist showing their scared but interested face.
4. A Birds eye view of the protagonist climbing the clock, with this angle i can showcase how difficult it is for the mouse to climb the clock.
5. Medium shot of the clock ringing, the reason behind this shot is to show the clock shaking.
6. Over the head close up of the mouse being scared by the noise.
7. A far shot which zooms in to the protagonist.
8. Close up at a low angle so that we can understand the height they are at.
9. still a low angle shot of the protagonist going down the clock.
10. To showcase the perspective of the protagonist i did a birds eye view which shows the mouse climbing down the clock.
11. side view angles of the protagonist running away from the clock, keeping n mind the sense of direction making it easy to understand where the mouse is running towards.
12. side view angle as we ease in as the mouse runs off to the left.

notes towards making these paper edits, i made sure i used rule of thirds in each scene so that i can tell whether the composition works or not; this is important because each scene needs to make sense with direction in order to make it easy to read/view

After creating this paper edit storyboard, i planned on creating a character. the character design process was fun to create, i particularly enjoyed making the expression of my character. For example one expression shown is shocked, which i believe i executed well. I've learned a lot about making these expression, to make them i pulled faces and try to produce my own representation of the faces. This also gave me an understanding of the visual element of the face. The reason behind making the character a female was to challenge myself to see if i can make a human body move when it comes to animating. 

I made a few different designs of hair and clothes and deiced that the long dress was best for this simple design, i did not intend on making her look complicated since this would make animating her difficult. most of all i just love the simple design in general. 

Once i decided which design was best for the sequence I then moved on to the thumbnail sketches of the paper edit which were more rendered then the paper edit, and easy to understand each scene. As i was doing each thumbnail i found it difficult to keep the proportions correct at different angles, for example the scene where she is climbing up the clock was very hard because the closer she is the bigger she looks (as you look at her arm as it reaches and goes of the camera zone)

After producing this storyboard I went on to creating the full rendered storyboard which was created on a digital format, the reason for making it a digital format was because its easier to undo mistakes and also i have layers that i can work with to produce depth within the scenes shading in grey scale.

line-arting every sketch i produce took a lot of effort because i kept undoing many of the lines, and this was very time consuming. Ive learned that i need to improve my line arting and be able to line quicker with fewer mistakes.

This is the final rendered storyboards which showcase the full nursery rhyme, when creating each scene I traced over the thumbnail sketches and added more detail, details such as grey shadows and lineart in general. throughout making the full rendered storyboard i did encounter some problems which i then resolved, some of which were how i could change the brush in order to work for me so that i can get the right pressure in order to do the lineart and grey-scale.

  in the end i learned many things which should help me when producing storyboards in the future, and hopefully i will be able to think off better ways to improve the storyboard and the time it took to make the full story board.