Introduction to Animation

Today in media was the very first lesson of Term 2 and starting our new unit, animation. Mr Andrews explained some different types of animations and what animation was.

What is Animation? 
The technique of photographing successive drawings or positions of puppets or models to create an illusion of movement when the film is shown as a sequence

What are key frames?
Key frames are the images of the start and end of the movement. For example, if a stick figure was to wave their arms up and down, the key frames would be the start and the finish of the movement.  
What is tweening?
 Tweening are the frames in between the key frames, using the example above, they are the frames in between the raised arms and the arms down. 

- Traditional Animation (Walt Disney Movies, Warner Brothers)
These are hand drawn animations. This technique was used during early cartoons.

- Stop-Motion Animation
We use a software called iStop Motion, which is where to take pictures of objects or people and as you gradually take pictures of one movement one you play it, it will look like it has been filmed. These pictures are called frames. 

EXAMPLES: ParaNorman, Wallace and Gromit, Coraline

- Claymation
Still using iStop Motion, but using clay as the characters in the video. An examples of claymation would be, Wallace and Grommet and Pingu.

- Cut-out Animation
Still using iStop Motion, but using paper as the characters and other objects. Cut-out animations include, Blues Clues and South Park.

- Sand Animation
This style is made by sand. Usually the sand is placed over a piece of glass, an example of sand animation would be, Gulp, the animation we viewed in class.

We looked at many different examples including, the smallest animation in the world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD7eagLl5c4 
This is called dot, I quite enjoyed it and it has some inspiration to what I am thinking of doing in my assignment. My favourite part was probably when the crystals were falling down on her. It looked really cool.
We also looked at the biggest animation in the world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieN2vhslTTU
This called Gulp. Once I watched this I thought a lot of time and effort had gone into this animation. It looked like a big job to do but the final product did look amazing.
Another one was a lyric animation made from paper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw_ncZAYRSM
I loved this one out of the three. I especially loved the colours used and the characters they made. I loved the part with the window wipers, it had a great effect.
This one was a bit weird and different. I don't have a link because I'm not too sure what it was called. This one was about a feud going on with two boys, I didn't like the storyline too much but I thought the animation quality was great. I especially liked how the ran in mid air.

There were also tow other animation names.
Limited Animation - Use of less detail when making an animation. Movies which are not hand draw an are similar to cartoons fall in this category. 
EXAMPLES: Dragon Ball Z, Tom and Jerry and Yellow Submarine
 
Full Animation - Producing high quality traditional films. Like most Disney movies fall under this category.
EXAMPLES: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty - WALT DISNEY 

With these ideas I do have an idea of what to do for my assignment. I want to use both animationish and istop-motion for my assignment.

Media Arts Yr 9 - Photoshop – Term 01 2014

Avatar Reflection/Evaluation:

Respond to each of the following dot points (using complete sentences or paragraphs). You should include as much detail as possible in your responses.

·      Describe any problems or difficulties you encountered during the creation and editing of your avatar. (These may include; technical difficulties, corrupt or missing files, difficulty with Photoshop tools etc;

One of the problems I encountered was the scar. I couldn’t find a great scar to use, but after searching for quite a while I found a great tutorial and I think the scar turned out fantastic. The URL was:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELnELastd04

Another problem was making the beanie look like I was really wearing it. Mr Andrews helped me with this and introduced the Drop Shadow tool to help make it look better and I think it turned out to look really realistic. Another problem was the background and how it was very bright and colourful. Mr Andrews assisted me with making the colourful bits died down a little using the levels and some other tools. He also showed the class how to make fog which was very helpful, as the sky was very bright so I added fog to the sky to make it look a lot darker and stormy.

·      Did you undertake any additional Photoshop tutorials to help with your project? If so what new skills/techniques did you learn ;

I did research a lot of additional tutorials to assist me in making my photoshop look even better. I did find some tools by myself. I found the blur tool, which helped me with blending.

I used a tutorial to add fire in my photoshop to create an evil effect. Here’s the URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVvnZncUIUY

I used a scar tutorial, it’s a really good one and I’m so glad I found it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELnELastd04

The tattoo tutorial helped me a lot, it taught me how to use a displacement map. Tattoos were a main part in my avatar. This tutorial was an absolute lifesaver! Here’s the URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C22J1-c_FMk

·      Explain how your planning (personality profile, ideas and reflections) helped to create the avatar in Photoshop;

My character profile and my mind map did help me throughout making this avatar. I think they made a big difference if I didn’t use them. They made me get into more depth with the creation of the avatar and my interpretations of the personality of a ‘Rebel’. Reflections jogged my memory on what I needed to improve on and do the next time I have media, it was a great reminding system and helped keep my avatar on track.

·      Clarify any time-management issues you encountered during the process and describe the steps you implemented to improve in this area (Did you have your images ready before class? Did you have your USB each lesson? Did you work on the avatar outside of class time?)

My time management was pretty good, I only forgot my USB once but I did have a spare so I just worked on my background and saved it to the USB. I borrowed a computer every weekend during the assignment and it really helped as I could access youtube and do photoshop at the same time. I also stayed after school in the library and used photoshop there. All these extra sessions, made my progression with the avatar much faster. Before lessons I did select a couple of images and had ideas already set in my head before lesson time so I could get as much done as I could. This helped so much and I was thankful for my organization, as I didn’t have to stress about this assignment.

·      Discuss whether you undertook sufficient reflection to throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look at your blog. Does it reflect a term of work);

My blog contains about 32 posts so far. I think it does reflect quite a lot of what I did during the term. My reflections are quite detailed and have images attached for all the work I have done with phototshop throughout the term. I also updated my blog at least 3 times a week, depending on how much work I did on the weekend. I updated my blog a lot to show my progression with the assignment.

·      List any skills, techniques or tricks you have discovered during the project.

I used the basic Skills Mr Andrews had taught us during the project (liquify, crop command, free transform, masking etc.) These are just extras I discovered via tutorials or discovered by myself.

-       Brushstrokes, crosshatching

-       Line tool (not too sure what its called)

-       Blur Tool

-       Dodge and Burn Tool

-       Displacement Maps

-       Channels, Levels

-       Desaturation

-       Outer Glow

-       Drop Shadow

Discuss your feelings about the Avatar task:

·      Are you satisfied with the final result?

Yes I am satisfied with my result. When I first planned this assignment and what it would like was completely different to how it looks now. But, my final result does look way better than what I thought it would look like.

·      Does the completed Avatar look like you imagined?

No, not really but it looks way better. Honestly, I thought that my avatar was going to look weird and wouldn’t even look real. But to my surprise it actually looks pretty realistic.

·      Would like to change any aspects of your avatar?

I don’t think I would want to change anything about my avatar. I think I wouldn’t be able to add anything because I think my avatar looks pretty full on.

·      If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

I would probably make my background a bit bigger, so I could fit more and more photos in the background and make it more detailed and mysterious.

·      Are you pleased with the progress you have made in using Photoshop?

Yes I am very pleased with my progress with photoshop. I never thought I would be able to do what I can now do. I thought I would not be good at photoshop, I thought I would suck at it and I thought it would be really confusing, but during this term using photoshop I really enjoed photoshop and it will be a skill that I will try to remember and use in the future.