Character Walk Cycle

      Bonjour mes amies!!! Comment ça va?! Je me fais bien et vous? My week has been going well, the musical practice has been going great and I'm very excited for the show coming up in two weeks! I have also done some very exciting things in my eComm class. I have been working on a character walk cycle. We have been working on this for a week or so now and the finished product looks pretty cool. 

Process 

    The first thing we did was spent a day or two just sketching our ideas and brainstorming what we wanted to animate. I, for some reason, was in a very Up mood. Maybe I was because I had watched the cute movie last night, but I decided to do something with Russel. I looked at concept art because Russell is 3d and we aren't doing that yet so I needed something 2D to draw. this part took a while for me to do because I wanted it to look pretty close to the art I was looking at. I also changed his gender so Russell became a girl, I didn't want to copyright Pixar, things would get worse. When we sketched this, we had to separate every body part so we could animate the arms, legs, head. Everything. After we were done drawing we had to outline the sketch in sharpie so the copier could read the lines. We copied the picture onto our computers and then put them into Photoshop so we could color the individual pieces and add detail like shadows and highlights. After all the sperate body parts and layers are colored we than exported it into Aftereffects so we could start the animation. This part was a bit tricky because you first have to change the anchor points for each layer, but also have to parent each layer to each other. So the left thigh parents the left calf and the left calf parents the left foot. This continues on until everything is parented to the main body part that won't move, which in this case is the chest. Then I created rotational keyframes for each part that moved to give it that human feel to it. After you had the character walking in place you must create a null object once again to make the character actually cross the screen. I forgot to do this at first but I went back to render it again with my gender bent Russel walk across on the same background as the worm and ball.

Learned 

     I learned a lot again for this project. I had to learn how to create a bipedal walk cycle which is why everything had to be rotated because we naturally walk in arcs. I learned how to better use the keyframes, so I learned that rotations would work for this project and I learned how to use them correctly. I had to create a pattern of the leg going forward straight and backward bent. Once I got that down—after watching many animation guides for realism—I was able to make it look semi-realistic.

Different 

   If I would change anything I think it would be the speed of the walk cycle. I think Russel is walking way too fast, almost at a run, and I don't really like it. I also think there is sliding. I really need to work on the no sliding thing because I seem to be having a bit of an issue with it. I also am not really liking background, it is the same as the others but for this project, I feel like a grassy field doesn't fit Russel. I think the background also downgraded the quality of it when I rendered it out.

Same

   I wouldn't really change anything about the animation save for the speed. I think the colored Russel looks really cool and I think I did a good job because I've had a few people come up to me and ask me if it was Russel and it is. I am pretty proud of how my first bipedal walk came out. I think it looks pretty neat.

Experience 

     This has been really fun to work on. I have really been liking animation so far, even if we have been breezing through all our projects. I know I still have a whole bunch to learn but I am really enjoying my animation class. I have learned so much so far and I have worked hard, but it's all been mostly enjoyable.

    Overal I am pumped for the future projects we are going to do and I am just really excited to continue learning everything. I may not be the best at everything but I am definitely improving so much.

Stay fun, my friends,
SophietheFirst





P.S. Please listen to the Spooky Scary Skeletons Remix by The Living Tombstone. It's so lit and just in time for the Halloween season.

Inch Worm

     Bonjour! C'est mon ver vert et jaune. Il est très mignon! A few weeks ago we worked on using the puppet tool to make an inchworm cross the screen. I had a great time doing this and I think he turned out very cute.

Process

We got the first few days to create our little worm dude, it took me longer than most because I kept changing his design. At first, I wanted him to be a monarch caterpillar but I couldn't get that to work, so I tried another design, but that one didn't work either. So I used reference pictures of tropical worms to create my lil' dude. After the worm was created we got to put it into, you guessed it, Adobe Aftereffects! The first thing in this program to do was to use the puppet pin tool to be able to create the arch of the worm. But, before you make the arch you must make a keyframe of the worm laying flat. Then just grab the pins and move them around until the worm is arched but it doesn't look too awkward. To fix the problem with the antennas you starch them and they should move naturally with the head instead of going way too far forward. After that is set, it's time for the background and shadow. I added the background first but the order doesn't really matter. I imported the files from the bouncing ball to create this background and make sure to drag it down to the timeline. For the shadow, copy all the worm layer and make it into a new comp. and change the brightness to put it all the way down so it's dark. Then flip it upside down so it's right under the worm and make the worm parent the shadow so now the shadow will follow everything the worm does. After the background and show are added create a null object. The null object will guide the worm across the screen so you just have to parent the null to the worm. Use the positional keyframe to get the null on both sides of the screen and the worm should follow it across the screen.

Learned

    I have learned many things in this project. As I have mentioned in my last blog post, we have started working in a new program so all this stuff is pretty new to me. I am still trying to figure out which keyframes I need to make because not all are going to be rotational or positional. I am still working on trying not to let things slide around too much and trying to get used to the null object dragging things across the screen. I learned how to better my skills in Adobe Aftereffects and Photoshop.

Different

If I could change anything about this it would be the way my inchworm inches. I think it looks too awkward or maybe I didn't make it arch enough or there could possibly be some small sliding going on. It just doesn't flow effortlessly, the head looks a bit weird everytime the worm goes up. His colors also match the landscape in a way, which makes him sorta blend in, around his back at least. I would probably change the amount of time I spend adding detail than animating, but then again, it wouldn;t look this good would it?

Same

I think the background looks cool, it is the same one as the bouncing ball, but sadly in class, if I want the animated subject to look good I can't work on a different detailed background every time. I do like my worm, he's cute and the animation looks ok. I really like the shadow that follows him and his eyes are really cute. As I have said, the animation looks good, just not great.

Experience

        This has been a very fun experience because I have gotten to learn how to animate an even bigger and more complex object. It took me a while to do this project (Up until the last day I believe) but I am glad I took my time because I think the extra time I took made it look better. The detail is definitely better than most of my classmates but it may not look the best in terms of animation and technical stuff.

     Overall I am happy with how my worm turned out, I think it's really cool and I really like it. I am really excited for the next project and for the rest of the year actually. As always, I am excited to continue my learning in animation and for whats to come next.

Stay healthy at the beginnings of the sickness seasons,
SophietheFirst






















 

Squash, Stretch, and Bounce pt. 2

      Bonjour mes amies! A while a go we reviewed over some basic animation principles like Squash and Stretch. We than got to make a ball bounce, sounds like a lot of fun I know. But we got to do all of this in a new software which is pretty cool. It's called Adobe Aftereffects and it is way better than Photoshop in terms probably just because it can take less time and it looks a bit better.

Process

     First we reviewed animation and I think we got to watch some short films and talk about all the twelve basic principles briefly before diving into squash and stretch. Than we set to work on our first project of the year, making a ball bounce. We went into Photoshop first and created our background like the sky and grass, than we created our ball. I was gone the day we did all of this so when I came back I created the very basic shapes with no shadows or anything and I added them to Aftereffects. Than we were to create key frames of the ball at the top of the screen and at the bottom to show the ball's movement through the simple bounce. After that we added the exaggeration and used the positional key to make the ball bigger or smaller etc... After we did all of this, there was a very basic looking ball bounce on the screen of it just going up and down and repeating on forever. This is where I went back into Photoshop and changed my ball and background to make it much more realistic so there are shadows and fun colors now. All you have to do is import the file into a new completion in Aftereffects and you can choose which files are visible or not. But we aren't done yet. Next we took the same idea as what we just did but turned it into a more complex bounce so now it jumps across the screen instead of just up and down. We used the same ball and background from the simple ball and just changed the direction. So instead of the key frames guiding the ball up and down it now guides it through arcs and bounces. It's getting interesting now. We still used the rules of squash and stretch but now we added ease in and ease out, although Aftereffects messed this up so no one really used it, and arcs. The ball first starts in the top left corner of the screen than bounces three or four times until it gets off the screen. We than had to mess around with it's path making sure the arcs are wide enough and that all the bottoms or squashes lined up. This project didn't take too long considering it was the same stuff as before just in a different way.

Learned

     I learned a whole bunch through this. I definitely got a refresher on the elements of animation but I also learned how to use a whole new software. Aftereffects is hard to get used to because I have trouble remembering how to create the correct key frames because you can't just use positional the whole time, there are rotaional, and whole bunch of other options to help with keyframes. I learned how to better use arcs when creating a bounce sequence; this whole project just taught me how better use the new program and the review really helped me remember.

Different

    I would change the way my bounce sequence better because it looks really awkward, the bounces don't just flow altogether. The ease in and ease out doesn't look good so I ended up getting rid of it, but I think it could've helped. I also think it just pauses at the top and bottom of each arch making it look awkward.  the ball also just slides off the screen and it honestly annoys me, but I couldn't think of any other exit for the ball without it starting another arch.

Same

   I do like how it turned out, sure it's a bit slow, but I liked this. The squash and stretch actually looks pretty good and the archs are nice and big so those look nice. it's the transitions that need work. I liked how the background came out. I learned how to use the grass tool in Photoshop so that was nice instead of trying to draw every single blade of glass.


    Overall this was a fun way to review the animation principles and get a start on our new program. I am really looking forward to the next projects we will be doing because as we all know, I love animation.

Au revisor!
SophietheFirst

Student Interview

       Bonjour! Lately, in my film/journalism class, we have been working on how to create an interview. It has definitely been a process, we have been working on this project the last couple weeks, our school schedule has been crazy recently with homecoming a few weeks ago and now we have this weird testing schedule so this project has taken a bit longer than everyone would've liked. But with the long period, I can now edit and try to make the interview look as best as I can.

Process

     The first thing we did was get put into groups from the drawing of a hat. I got put with a really colorful group so it took us a while to warm up to one another and figure everything out. It took us about two days to think and decide as a group what our topic wanted to be, everyone in my group presented great topics but we eventually settle on mine, my experience with theater. We then got to work on the questions, which took another few days because of us not being able to figure things out, again. Then a group member of mine got all the questions figured out so we set off to the location we had found a few days prior. It was in the theater hallway at school, in front of the two masks Thalia and Melpomene. But the camera didn't work that day and by the time a teammate could get back to our classroom, figure out the problem, and walk back time had run out so we had lost another day. This pattern of something going wrong continued on for the next few days until we changed locations and finally got everything filmed in one 48 minute class period, which is pretty impressive considering all that been going wrong for us. After we had filmed everything the next day we were set to edit, which brings a whole new load of problems. Since this was a school-related interview (My theater stuff) there was a lot of things that had to be shared among my groups like pictures, videos, and sound. I had to find pictures of me in elementary school, I also had recorded my theater rehearsal and used that as background music (The song is "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat) and sometimes the clips wouldn't load on the software or the clips weren't found. At one point I had lost my entire project and had to restart twice, but I got everything finished on the last day that I could've turned it in. 

Learned 

     I learned a lot with this project. I learned how to handle my patients better when the software doesn't work or when my group is having trouble working. I learned how to better operate the new cameras we are using this year for the exploring film class and I learned how to use Adobe Premier better, even though we've been using it for the past year and a half now. With Adobe I now know how to change the sound and how to make sure it is not going to be too loud or too quiet. I know how to add pictures and make sure they fill up the whole frame instead of being tiny little things in the middle of the frame. We now know how to use the clip on mics called the Lavalier, which is really fun to say. We were taught how to make the interview interesting which means adding B-Roll or extra footage and that we need to change up the camera angles. I also learned that if I start stressing out about not getting my project done on time than it will not turn out good. Like when all the bad stuff was happening before and after filming I was freaking out a bit, but after giving up some of my lunch periods and accidentally being late to my fifth-hour class I got both the original and re-edit done on time.

Differently 

     If I could probably change anything it would be how productive my team was and what camera we used. I would change the productivity levels because some days we weren't really focused and that slowed us down in being able to turn our project in on time with everyone else. The project wasn't late, it just wasn't on the day my teacher would've liked it to be on. I would also change the camera we checked out, after continuously checking out the same camera a few days in a row and falling behind, we could've checked out a different camera and maybe we would've finished way sooner. If I'm talking about editing I would probably change my voiceover, it isn;t the best one but I was really confused over that part. Another thing I would change is the way my group treated each other. I wish we all would've been a little nicer towards one another because once we realized we were on a time crunch we all kinda snapped at one another everyone once in a while. It wasn't bad, but it also didn't help that half the group wasn't working half the time so it was just me and another member who was doing all the work. But that's how group projects are, right?

Same

    I wouldn't change my group members, even if something were difficult we solved everything and I am always learning how to better my team working skills through hard groups. It was fun to work on another project and I did like how my interview came out.

Experience 

     It was definitely an experience. All my stuff was malfunctioning and my group taught me leadership skills. I learned how to not become freaked out when something doesn't go exactly as planned and that groups and partners may not always be 100% compatible but that it's in your best interest to try and get along in order to help the rest of the group and get something finished. I learned how to create something of decent quality under a time limit and how to improve it given the ability to re-edit the project.


   All in all, this was another great project from my favorite program and I am as always, excited for whats to come.
See ya next time,
SophietheFirst

P.S. It was my birthday the day we filmed this, that's why I got to say I was 16 years old. X)

Re-edit

Orignal