Final Piece

Here is my final animation that I am happy with. It could do with some more fluffing but in the time scale I think its of a good enough quality. The amount of time this short piece took is unbelievable which puts me off using animation in the future however the results produced can be awesome :) I have learnt alot of new skills on this project, specifically about the after effects software but also how to time-plan and create story boards.

 If I had some more time I would make the music fit the story better, I have messed up the order of the paintings, the Scream should occur last, when the tempo increases with the music. The Scream painting change would also be more dramatic, the face change is only subtle, this could be cleaned up on Photoshop. At the start of the animation, the bugs should parachute into the painting, after trying with plasticine I couldn't make a good enough representation. These adjustments will be sorted for my peace of mind, I still think the animation is sweet though.


Check it out ^.^

Time scaling

Scaling the piece and all the images for specific time periods is a long labourious task! It still needs some work but here is the timing for the current piece. Alot of elements have to come together to create the short clip, audio, several pictures and hundreds of character tweens.

Layers and my bug

First I made a bug from plasticine and put it on blue card (no blue in the image). I then edited the image on photoshop so the background was all one specific colour. Still on photoshop I drew around each limb and extendable and created them as different layers. The psd document was imported into After effects layer by layer which meant I can now transform the moving parts of the bug separately. Parenting all the pieces together with the main body being the centre allowed the separate limbs to move but also to stay as a bug shape.

Text

I want text in my animation and after trying different fonts from Photoshop I have decided the best way is hand-made to go with the hand-made feel. Here is my hand-made text made from green plasticine to go with the character.

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Here is my stop motion dancing bug. I think it's okay but its very jiggly and would need alot more frames per second. This effect took ages and was very fiddly, i need to experiment more.

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After much experimentation I have decided to use the pin tool to move the limbs of my dung beetle. I have made a short to show what results look like produced like this.

Plasticine is just too rigid and doesn't stay squidgy enough for the amount of time it will take me to create all the different frames. I have discovered using the pin tool does take ages, moving all the seperate pieces for every half second of animation but the result is alot smooth and more professional looking.

Specific Timings for good animation flow

Title Screen 0.0 - 1.5

Parachuters 1.5 - 3.5

Painting 3.5 – 7.5 (Van Gogh)

Travelling 7.5 – 9.5

Surfing 9.5 – 13.5 (Japanese)

Travelling 13.5 – 15.5

Painting (Scream) 15.5 – 19.5

Travelling 19.5 -21.5

Sculpture (Duchamp) 21.5 – 25.5

Jump out 25.5 – 28.5

-also-

Playing about with After Effects



Here is a short of my first bugs in a stop motion animation.

Assessment

Today our storyboards were assessed to question the concept of our work. Everything went fine and I have even gained some new ideas.

- Think of encorporating Pierco Manzoni's "Artist's shit" ViewWork, this would compliment the characters as they are Dung beetles, they could play with the piece of art, the "shit" in the can could be made of playdough like the characters might be, this links the characters with the art.

- Using plasticine could potentially be my method for creating the animation, the effect its created is okay and can be improved to a higher standard with hard work.

-Go for a handmade piece - not much digital work done atall, went to see Brian Cannon today and realised how awesome hand-made design can look

-Have my signature, title and credits done on Affecteffects where the line is drawn so it looks like an invisible hand is doing the lettering - learnt this on the 14.04.11

:)

Scene one

*Parachutes are needed in these frames*

 Scene Two

*Surfboards are needed in these frames*

Scene Three

*These are before the scream(EDITING), the face here will be happy*

Scene four

 *Thinking about rubber rings to slide down on?*

Here are the keyframes in my animation shown via examples. Not 100% sure if I'm going with the plasicine or even stop motion in general but it is definitely an option - but it will drive me mad!

Stop motion bugs

Playing with plasticine

Wicked animations such as Chicken Run, Purple & Brown, Walice and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep all use plasticine models for characters and use stop motion. I am going to play around with some plasticine and see if I get any cool outcomes/ideas.

Here I have made three models of the same Dung beetle character. 2D, 3D and a massive 3D I dont know how useful these will be but atleast they look cool :)

Storyboard!