Simple shapes test

Test with simple shapes to make a walk cycle. Not perfecxt but easly made and easy to add details

Limited animation: anime

This comic is by HamletMachine http://www.starfightercomic.com/chapter_01_page.php?page=Chapter_01_Page_01.jpg

I took this an inspired from Japanese limited animation, made this page in to a animation keeping it as similar to the original as possible. 

playing with ponys

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.

Critical review : Bill Plympton

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.

Animations and there "short cuts"

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.

1. 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.
2. 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!
3. 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
   
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
   
8. Simplified color/shading:
   A limmited amont of colors or no color at all. and also no shading used migratory of the time.
   
9. 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
10. Added Camra Effects
    done after animation to make it feel like it has more moment they shift the camera movement in post production.
    
11. 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.
    

Progress perspiration Feed back week 4

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.

Things i was advised to look up:

• Limited animations
• Cartoon modern (book)
• Bill plympton (animator)
• Do more case studies
• LOTS of animation

Meet Up with Lecturer week 2

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.

First try, Composting animaiton

My first try at mixing 2D and 3D animation....it is not easy at all.

I have the key frames so far. but the mixing of the 2 media is hard to keep in line and on time with one an other.

See thru sam

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.

Some Words from the animator.