Looking at the evolution of a character like Micky Mouse you can see in proposhion size and character he has not changed much at all, i think this is because Micky mouse and his popularity has make him more of a fashion accessory and a mascot rather than a character who can develop.
with age all Micky Mouse has gained is gloves at the start to help his black and white animation and latter,more detail in his drawings with shading. Witch is natural as our TVs and animation programs advance in quality also.
The character is now stale and uninteresting. and as this is has came on hard times as Disney try to change there mouses aperince the audience rejects its change. For example, in 1955 Disney made a TV advertisement with Micky Mouse in a modern style animation.
The cartoon was taken off the air not to long after its relece because fans of Disney claimed its style to be to communistic.
Apart from changing Micky Mouses style thy have also tryed to improve his personality. Thet have done this mostly throw there games rather and television as this is a new market.
this has been been mixed waters as not every one enjoys this new personality of Micky mouse.
It is something that i personally don't believe can develop much further because of the constrained of fans and there character, What people like and what people are use to is very diffident and difficult to deal with.
Looking at the evolution of a series has helped to see how it has improved and changed due to changes in animation programs and style development.
Even just looking at the style from the first series of my little pony to the present day. there is a clear change from the hand drawn to digital style.
And the popularity of the more resent series is huge. there are dedicated conventions to it all other the world. while the previous generation (G3.5) is largely disliked.
But was this because of there overly disproportional style and overly cuteness story line?
Even tho the show was designed for little girls, its market has boomed with people of all ages enjoying the show even fully grown men, with its change in story characters and visual style.
Looking at the characters they are sickly sweet and unrealistic compared to real people. in voice moment and character. This is fine for a little girls show as this is what they stereotypical look for in a show. while G4 has more repeatable characters and realistic personality's. Its not just, Pink, cute, handbag, shopping and cuddles.
It still follows stereo types as the main 6 charictors you have, a kind shy one, the brainy school kid, the fashion girl, sporty tom boy, excited energetic party anime and a country girl. with more characters stereo types there is more to relate to.
It could also be said that the maturity of children is increasing and because of this the show has also.
Looking at Practial animation for television I have notest a common style in the characters, Particularly in new age animation.
All of there shapes are simple and bold, normally with a thick outline. But what is the reason for this? Is it simple to animate with and cheaper for production? Designed to be simplistic for smaller screens and audiences understanding? or a style choice like pop art that has became popular on places like cartoon net work?
At first i thoght it would have been simpler for animation becose of the
switch from tradishonal to digital would make drawing solid shapes quichly and cheeply, How ever UPAs animation styled much like this was
longe befor the digital animation era.
UPA insperation was from Illistrators of that time in the 1950's
here is a list of there Insperations (listed in Cartoon modern by amid amidi) to see there relevence to modern animation.
Stuart Davis
Ronald Searle
Ben Shahn
Robert Osborn
Martin and Alice Provensen
Raoul Dufy
Virgil "vip" Partch
Saul Steinberg
From looking at theses Illistrashters you can see the clear isperation it had added to UPAs animation makeing it more of an animated art pice than a simple animation for televeshion.
(I have a link to an argument about this in a news paper artical....On my other P.c will add and find later)
But agein Moder animation dose look similar or inspiyerd by UPAs first styal of limited animation. By only adding what is nececery. It also says in modern Cartoon by amid amidy,In the 1950s animation didnt only looked difrent they where seen difrently. Animation befor the 1950s was made purly to be seen in the cinima. Now with televishions becomeing more popular and common in the family house hold, animtion started to be simplare to agust to the smaller screen size as well as apeling to a family audiance. There was a large increce in animation for advetising it was said that 1 in ever 4 where animated. with this a lot of animation commponys opend and flureshed as this became the golden age for animetion.
This shows that theses simple shapes are for practicality and efectiveness for home televishion.
The Pitch whet well with more direction and clear thought on where i am going with my project. as well as i felt more confident in my presentation skills.
Feed back:
They all seemed happy with the small examples i had made and agreed i had more of a cleare idea.
Where to improve:
More Research and information. Better explain the positives and vegiteves of the tests i have done.
Things to look up:
Look up European animations (Bellgrade school) and flebus- lotie Riniger?
Limited animation , more commonly used for television production, Do not draw every frame to make the animation feel realistic like Disney movies I.e snow white. They limit there frames to what is needed to show the motion as well as reusing frames.
I have presently been Reading Cartoon Modern By amid amidi. It was said that in the 1950's everyone was trying to make there style "Disney style" with lots of circular and pare shapes. but UPA animation Studio had a diffident approach. They did not want to stick to the same trend and stereotypes of animation in the 1950.
The Early days
There earlyist film I could find was Hell-Bent For Election.
This as you can see was still following the stereotypical style of then.
How ever, latter on you can see the change of there style and method of animation but still making a lovely animation.
There where a few things i notes whill watching this animation that realy helped itsd animation.
Basic color, there skin often was the same as the background. the only thing that was colord was there clothing to help them stand out.
Some of the less Important character where even seethrow. This worked very well in the scene where gerald is wocking down a busy street. There is still a clear viwe of the main charater, drawing attenchen to him with the color of his clothing, but still haveing the feel of a very full and busy street.
I manged to find and download a fan made My little pony friendship is magic flash file with all the ringed characters and preset animation much like the data base for the show.
I played about with it to better understand how they work and how they help shorten the animation production.
I did this by picking apart the animation of this talk cycle and chanced it to a completely new charictor i designed ..... this one :
Just looking at all the characters walk cyclical in the show you can tell that they refresh the walk, just changing the color and hair for each character. I changed the color of the character and edited the symbol for the mark on there rear and hair. and this is what i made i made
It may look like a lot of animation has been done, but I done no animation at all. I just changed the symbols that define the character (like the hair and mark in the back leg) and the preset animation was all there for me. This is how a show like this can have so many background characters all animated quickly.
From further research and plating with the animation I learned that they first make the basic movements like this then draw nececery keyframs ontop, for example blinks and facial animation. (even then they save almost every expression they use to expand there library) This fresh look on prescripted and frame by frame animation keep the series looking fresh and very details for a children program.
This is the same animation as above, but with a frame by frame blink I animated on top.
Looking more at the model
I found the Charater was split in to difrent parts. In this animation, everything apart from the legs, are one image only slightly eddeted by squing or rotation. whill the legs on the other hand are 3 sepret frams, being the Contact, Lift up and bring down, then all slightly detected to blend together. Also the curcals in the bottom of the feet have two drawings, the contact and in air.
The legs glosest are also the exact same as the back, just moved in the timeline and moved up slightly.
As you can see they tryed to use all there shapes efectivle and only drew new frames when nessesery, to concentrate on more inportant things.
I was asked to look up Bill Plympton for research on limited animation but i might as well get it out and say it now... I REALLY don't like his animations. But I will try to understand and explain why.
Positives: The sketchy drawings have a grate amount of detail and really add to the piece. its western theam and sketchy style really work well to gether to make it feel like a wanted poster.
The flickering of one frame to the other makes it look like there are a lot more frames and animation than there really is.
The over dramatized proportions and angles work well at making the animation very charachures, However this dose make the continuity of characters a little harder to follow.
Negatives: His animations always seem to go a little strange and over the top to the end of there story, for example, I like this animation above until about 45 seconds in, where the horses neck stretches He looses all continuity and reason. everything Becomes To disproportions and dramatic, as well as the imagery is to Dark and vivid. I lost interest and understanding for the animation, everything became to much. As well as the flicking between two frames is extended for to long with the womens eyes making it no longer look Intenchonal or more interesting but instead very cheep.
It also felt like he lakes a lot of the basic princibels of animation.
I Did a short animations inspired by the parts i did like about Bill Plympton, the flickering of frames and pencil drawn animation.
I felt this was a nice effect and took me less than 2 days of work, following his works of working very fast.
In animations for Television I have notests that there are a lot of things they use and do to make there life'seasier in there animation.
Here is a list of the ones i have seen and studdied so far.
Still frames : More common in thing like Japanese anime, this is where a animation hold a single frame, some times up to a few seconds with out any animation or movement. Naruto also took it one stage further by designing the migratory of there characters with face masks so would also talk on these still frames, and no need for talking animation.
Smear drawings: The snapping Quickly from one action to an other and drawing these smeared looking drawing in between.Used a lot by chuck jones and loony tunes. this makes key actions quicker and easier to animate. Also gives it a nice feel or rushing in the animation, also Running with smugged/blurred lines, just look at sonic!
Zip Line!: Animation of a character walking can be long and expencive so to save time and animation they used a zip line. this is a smoke and a line of them going out of frame. here a good video explaining
Halfing the frame rate: Not as common on English television but more on internet videos. they half the frames needed from 24 to 12 frames, making animation a lot quicker.
Library animation: More common in digital and most recent animation, this is where they have a library of pre-made animation, sutch as walk cycles , butterflys or anything used commonly in the animation.
Rigd animation: Also more common in recent animation, This is where a character is rigged even in 2D to help it to be moved easyer frame to frame.
this can make an animation look quight static tho.
2 frame animation: I don't know the name of this, but its where what would be a still frame flicks from one drawing back to an other giving an ilushion of contusion animation. I notest this most in things like Bill plympton animations.
Simplified color/shading: A limmited amont of colors or no color at all. and also no shading used migratory of the time.
Simple/limited backgrounds: most animations, ether reuse more complicated backgrounds and scenes so they dont need to keep recreating them. Or simple backgrounds just showing key elemental needed. s (simple background) A more complicated, reused background
Added Camra Effects done after animation to make it feel like it has more moment they shift the camera movement in post production.
More talk less walk :D You notice in older animation they talk about everything. its a lot cheaper and easier to animate them animating all the actions if they can just say whats happening instead.
For my first personification i was a lot more scared and nervous than i normally am for presentations. And i think this may have effected my representation of my idea. Hopefully i will be less high-strung for my next presentation.
However my feedback was very useful and gave me more direction in my subject and what i should be doing next.
They seemd to agree with my actions on changing my research subject as it was not really what i was interesting in. However they also thing that i shouldn't bring in the budgeting of animations, perhaps more on limited animation.
They also wonderd what my age group would be? should it be only childrens animation i look at? I in all honesty still don't know the ancer to this question. i would like to look at all animation for television but this will probably be to big.
I meet with one of the lecturers to talk about my ideas and where I would like to go with this. there was a lot of tough and very useful questions this left me to think about.
Is Composting really what I want to do in a job? and is it what I want to learn from the year? Would I not prefer something much more animation based?
And really I agree with all of this. and I thought really hard at the choices I had. and asked my self these questions ageing.
What is my dream job? Animation for Television.
What would I like to spend my last year doing? What I love most animation!
Not only that but i found that when I was trying to brake down the composting of the animation in "Short Reviews on Hybrid animations Examples " I was righting more about the animation and movement than the tools and techniques used in hybrid animation.
So by going back to my roots I now know that I would like to consentrat on animation for television but i am still unsure about my directions.
I would like to learn about the budgeting of an animation and how it can effect the Quality of an animation. or something in to limited animation.
Second attempt at a question:
*How does an animation suffer under a tight budget, and can an animation still look impressive with these conditions?
Actions:
Research the basic budget for different programs and compare the Quality.
Look at existing examples that have used innovative ways to cope with the
tight budgets.
Make examples of basic animation and higher quality animation to compare.
Make a video showing the techniques I have learns.
A Live play Mixing the medias of live performance with simple 2D animations. this worked beautifully with the story and characters. some thing that a first was a little cheesy and hard to look at, them became so indulging and interesting when you got in to the play. I simple drawn background with the acting and music really gave it that extra kick to drag you in to there reality and make you feel that they where really in that environment with out the need of many props or stage changes. I Real Live performance comic book.
This a short review on animations that have used compositing and why they have been done this way.
01 Tarzan
1. Was this compositing done for practicality or aesthetics?
These effects are done for practicality, for backgrounds and visual effects.
2. Why was it done this way?
It is done this way to save time in animation. things such as the waves in the ocean where made threw programmed wave simulation with shared to help blends in with the 2D animation. They also Used the program Deep Canvas to paint on to the 3D geometry. so camra angels could easily be changed and keep continuity in a organic environment. This was a great help to there dramatic chases. (the baboon chase)
3. What do you thin worked well, and why?
This gives a more Dynamic and dramatic feel to the environment and surrounding. you do feel a lot more like the characters are in a real jungle. with scale and camera rotation there is a lot less work needed.
4. What didn't work so well?
Some trees and other background environments can look very flat round the edges making it look unnatural with flat vegetation. The fast moving background when the camera has focus only on the 3D environment (eg, the rollercoaster vine ride) Can look very out of place.
5.personal thoughts?
As a howl, I think this effect was extremely successful in look and methods for saving time
.
02 Iron giant
1. Was this compositing done for practicality or aesthetics?
These effects are done for practicality, for the iron giant and other objects (bikes and some vehicle)
2. Why was it done this way?
It was done this was to keep the proportions of the giant always correct as well it have more of a mechanical feel and less of an organic one. This also helped with the transformation at the end of the film.
3. What do you thin worked well, and why?
They made the iron giant blend in to the animation very well, at times its very hard to see any differences. They did this by first Rendering the 3D animation as a outline so it looked hand drawn, then with the help of the color artists they filled the 3D renders. This works brilliantly it blend them together with a good blend of color.
the only problem i could see with this is occasionally , other things like cars when moving could still look pretty static.
4. What didn’t work so well?
the only problem i could see with this is occasionally , other things like cars when moving could still look pretty static.
5.personal thoughts?
Im not sure if this saved as much time as it would have just making it 2D so some times i find it hard to think weather it was practical or aesthetics but from reading and watching the making of Videos i know it was a practical reason. This i think is one of the most effective ways to make 2D and 3D blend, so much its hard to see. but is it better we don't see it?
03 Tyger
1. Was this compositing done for practicality or aesthetics?
This was done for the aesthetic look of the characters. But it could also be argued to be a practical way with the transformation of all the objects and people.
2. Why was it done this way?
It was done this way to give a strong diffrence between the live action tiger and the caricatured humans, to show that these two things are from difrent worlds and the effect it has on the city. It also helps the tranfomration from human to animal.
3. What do you thin worked well, and why?
The transformation worked well and i dont think the same feel could have been capched in 3D. And the after effects lighting helped gratly to tie it all to gether and feel like it was all on the same secne. Like a ribbon tieing it all together.
4. What didn’t work so well?
The 2D animation was very limited compared to the live action movement makeing it some times look a bit off.
5.personal thoughts?
all together a very beautfull and impacting pic. I feel the lighting and strong orange color is what realy made this work so well as a pice, with out this it would have been very flat.
04 Nyócker
1. Was this compositing done for practicality or aesthetics?
This was done for the aesthetics.
2. Why was it done this way?
To change the feel of the movie and make it feel more urban.
3. What do you thin worked well, and why?
It gave a very strange and uncomfortable feel as well as being very bold and in your face. Had a strong feel of urban street art and graffiti that worked well with the story.
4. What didn’t work so well?
Extreamly jummpy and strange. the dark out line and the 3D modles looked like there was a lot of errors with the low polly mesh.
5.personal thoughts?
In extemily strange styal of animation and movment. it has definitly opend my eyes. also remiond me a lot if this :
What i would mostly like to do is learn how to mix medias of animation. best example i can think of is things like "who framed roger rabbit"
But i also want to learn what make the character blend in and feel like it is part of this other world that they are not from. and how could i do this with other medias, E.g Why cant i have a 2D background with a 3D character?
To learn what makes it work and not work.... I just need to find a better way to say that and put it in to a question....
(Fist attempt at research question and actions)
How is Hybrid animations used to help in production and why is it used more for practical than aesthetic reasons?
Actions:
Look at existing examples and brake them down
Work on tutorial and techniques
Make test animations to improve my skill
Make a final animation showing the things I have learned
s
