Specialisation Post Mortem -2019
- 1012433
- Apr 18, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: May 3, 2019
Project overview
During my mid presentation I was still stumped on where I wanted to focus on; after effects or animation.
Areas that i knew i wanted to improve on was:
-Editing
-Using different angles
-Light sources
-Better understanding of colours
-Show weighting in my animations
I was directed to continue focusing on animation since it was the area I chose to specify after all, by the end of the trimester i was appreciative of this guidance. So I scaled down any after effects stuff I wanted to complete and started creating a plan on how I could improve my animation process. The topic that I chose for my time in specialisation was using reference. What I wanted to gain from them was a better understanding of body mechanics and timing.
Research was recorded separately and can be found here.
2018 - Animations - Trimester 3
This was my animation's back in trimester 3 2018. I used these to gauge my improvements and try find what i still needed to improve on.
2019 - Animations - Trimester 1
THE PROCESS
The way that i went about my animations I felt has slowly been improving. I was so use to using the straight ahead method that this time I really wanted to force myself to slow down and plan out the keys more. thinking of passing, contact and hold poses. as they would be the aspects that determine the speed and smoothness of the movement/motion. The following list is how I will be breaking down each animation:
- Dog walk
- Dance - smear vs traditional
-Motion and movement
- script to animation
DOG WALK 0:00 - 0:07
For this animation, it was more of a warm up. To get use to using live reference and then converting it to drawings in a more cartoon style. The image below was found after a google search and broke down a dog walk and run and closer detail.
End result of the animation was satisfying but should have done more key frames to brake down the transitions between the keys. I learnt how quadrupeds do have a pattern when they lift the front legs and when they will start to move the back. As well as a bendy spine. it helps stretch the animations possibilities.
DANCE SMEAR VS TRADITIONAL - 0:08 -0:12
This animation was fun at first but became time consuming as the weeks went on... Most of it was due to the program i decided to try this in. Photoshop is perfect for painting and still art. but for multiple layers of animation. it got messy very quickly..
This sequence where i decided to test out smearing, as its a technique i see used a lot in action sequences and thought it would be a nice time saver in future projects. As the motion integrity was never compromised and if anything helped the audience out on reading that the movement was being done so quickly. Research that was done for this animation was mostly through observation, trial and error. the smears couldn't be directly applied to this dance and the characters torso and head mostly stayed facing the camera. So i experimented with smearing the left leg and arms.
An interesting blog post and video to look at that breaks down what smearing is as well as "how to smear". What this sequence mostly taught me was that 24 fps is a lot of drawing and thanks to a class martin taught on drawing in betweens traditionally; that it was normal for an in between to be hair splitting in the minute differences if needed be.
MOTION AND MOVEMENT - 0:13 - 0:20
This sequence was really fun! I am a big fan of the assassins creed games so when i thought about trying to find a snip it of movement to use as reference there was SO MANY choices. but what i went for was from a trailer for assassins creed unity. Breaking down this reference was done in passes. the first was laying out the backgrounds and pinning where each character would be on the page. then the begging middle end of the throat of the guard being slashed. Since the entire sequence was over within the blink of an eye i spent most my studying from the < > keys on Youtube. Watching when there was a major shift in the assassins spine and arms. This sequence made me curious on why the arms where in such wacky positions at times. but after some googling found this blog post that goes through centre of gravity and different drawings and poses for examples.
SCRIPT TO ANIMATION 0:21 - 0:52
Another area I enjoyed as it was a challenge to one draw male characters. But also have a fast pace movement. reference for these was limited but most was as I was watching animations and found an angle I liked. What I did to resolve this was sketch out the keys, on the angle from the reference. then seek out feedback. From the feedback I then went over again and tried to redraw each pose in a looser gesture, with in-betweens focusing on halves then thirds on areas I wanted smaller details smoother. So the back leg landing from the wall jump. There wasn't alot of research done in this segment. It was more an area for me to solidify knowledge learned.
APPRAISAL
By the end of this trimester I feel that I have travelled far and overall i am satisfied and even proud of how my animations are starting to feel. What worked well was using Krita to animate as it wasn't locked in on the vector lines and let me be loose in my sketches when trying to capture and maintain the line of action. Another area that I felt went well was my transition from reference to animations. I didn't roterscope anything and was constantly learning different tricks on how to get the results i wanted. Smearing is something i want to practice as there is no real set in stone "do it like this" its mostly up the artists desire. What i found that i struggled with was around male character animation. i have been drawing women for so long that when looking at how shire moved, It felt to feminine and their legs are not thin and petite like a ballerina so to remedy this I should go back and look at anatomy and references more.
FUTURE LESSONS & GOALS
What i would want to repeat next time?... It would probably be trying to create one longer sequence now that i'm confident i can keep consistent with my animations look. for example in a fight scene i know it wont randomly go stiff because i don't know how to animate a character rotating or pulling back for a punch. i can use reference. its OK. its not cheating ^^;
What can i do differently next time, well that would be to decide earlier on what animations i want created. as each of these where not decided upon until i was finished the prior and spent a few hours searching around for what grabbed my attention. what else I would want to learn Is a pipeline for creating 2D rigs and the process around animating. As I still feel that I am wasting too much time to try create animations and loosing quality with glitches in rigs and the rig overlaying backgrounds.
Bibliography:
Animators survival kit
Comments