In Class Notes 1.31.12

Animated Gif in Photoshop.
Charlotte gave a presentation today on Animating in Photoshop, what timing and spacing are, and how you can use them to make your animation look natural. We practiced with an animal turning its head. Also she gave us these two links for future learning/reference:
http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=873
http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/timing-and-spacing-webinar/


Key Information I didn't know Before:
Timing: Timing is the main story drawings. These are the Narrative, Key Drawings that are cleaner and more well thought out. These need to be held longer than the Spacing drawings, or at least to need to appear to be held longer.

Spacing: Spacing are the in-between drawings. These are what give the animated look.

Animating on 2s: 1 drawing every 2 frames. Most animation is on 2s, although if there is a lot of camera movement or dancing or something that changes a lot, it will be on 1s. "2s" refers to each drawing is held for 2 frames.

Evenness is evil, that's why animators are odd. BAHAHA.

Getting started:
We started with a Timeline. Drawing X on the left, and Drawing Y on the right. These are the Timed Drawings. Between those, there are spacing drawings, M, 1, 2, 3, &4. M is the Midpoint, 1 is the 3/4 and 2 is the 7/8 points. Click here for a diagram. You want to focus your attention in the motion closer to your Timed Drawings, so that they appear to hold longer than the midpoint spacing drawing.

Now, create layers titled "X, 4, 3, M, 1, 2, Y, E" And draw the Timing Drawings on X and Y.
Then go to window>Animation Menu to pull up the timeline. {Note: if you hit the button in the bottom right of the pop up window, it will show the frames on a timeline}
Then go to the pull down menu in that window, and click on "Document Settings" to change the frame rate to 24 frames/sec. Animation is done on 24 Frames per second, based off of the persistence of vision in film footage. ALSO, change the Duration to 0:00:01:00. Duration is set up to be HR: MIN: SEC: FRAMES, so setting it to this will tell PS there are 24 frames in this 1sec.

NOW LET'S ANIMATE!
Click on the M layer, and draw the head halfway through the motion. KEEP IN MIND:
1. the head will dip down, because that is what a head naturally does when it turns.
2. the eyes will shut, because all species blink when they turn their heads.
3. Push the weight toward the direction you are going, and let the features drag behind.
4. Distort as head passes thru, don't have to worry about details until the end.

When drawing any of the spacers, look at both at the frame directly before and after, to get a good inbetween image. These can be very loose, just to show the movement of the key pieces.

After you have X, 4,3,M,1,2, Y Draw E. E stands for "Extra" to push the character slightly past your final drawing.
Then copy your Y layer, and have that be the hold for the remaining of the 24 frames. Theoretically in an animation, when a head turns, it should hold or flip back and forth with E for a 12 frame period.

If you haven't already, make each of these layers last for 2 frames (it should snap into place in PS). in the order of X,4,3,M,1,2,Y,E,Y and turn the Onion skinning on (square with striped circle inside).

I've included the GIF i created quickly in class. YAY! ANIMATING!


I hope that was clear. Comment if it wasn't and I can reword/change things :D

Out of Class Notes

Please feel free to check my drawing blog "Monica Is Drawing" to read about what I am learning from Walt Stanchfield's book "Drawn to Life".
Also, if you would like to read about Dave Pimentel's opinions of this book, and of Walt himself, click here.

Since this is all brand new to me, I feel I need to do a lot of catching up. This first post is about the principles of Squash and Stretch, and how they effect an animation that is full of life. Please check out these posts if you would rather not purchase the book for yourself (although I highly suggest it).

In Class Notes 1.26.12

Technically today was not a "notes" kind of a day...but I did learn a new concept today that I wanted to talk about on here.

Straight vs. Curve
This idea suggests that for every straight line there should be a curved line. Dave Pimentel actually does a fantastic job describing this technique here. In short, parallel and perpendicular lines are not nearly as interesting as line that intersect or may someday intersect, and are more interesting still if one is straight and the other curved. This provides a drawing with a sense of fluidity and feels more natural that things that are all curves or all straight lines.


Also we got to talking about 101 Dalmatians, and people looking like their dogs...which is SUCH an accurate thing to say, because it is SO TRUE. Most people you see at the park walking/running with their dog...usually have similar features to their beloved pet. Anyways, here is the link : http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=2890

Have a Happy Weekend!

In Class Notes 1.24.12

I want to post in-class notes on here
1. To immortalize it, so I can't lose my notes
2. To process what I learned a few days previous, in hopes for better retention


Charlotte's Lecture:
1. Joseph Canzani is part of all of us. He taught us things like 50% grey mat board is the best color to make your artwork look its best, and that Elvis was a decent musician. www.josephcanzani.com

2. Making a Contact Sheet:
-Open images in Bridge
-click "output"
-US Paper, Quality 150, columns X, Rows X, keep/leave filename, refresh-->do again till happy
-Hit save.
****ANIMATORS: this is a quick way to build a storyboard

3. Color:
www.colorschemedesigner.com

4. Unsharp Mask, to make a rich film look to images
- Make Copy of Layer, Layer Adj, Desaturate
-Filter, Sharpen, Unsharp Mask, [Amount Up, Radius, Threshold Down] Need and Alpha Mask (layer mask)

5. Coloring in PS
-Copy linework into layer mask. On new layer, fill layer with black and then invert. Lock pixels and paint away :D

6. UNDO IN PHOTOSHOP: Cntrl+Alt+Z
-OMG WHAAA?!


Matthew's Lecture:
1. The MOST difficult thing for many an artist is Online Visability and Promoting their Work.

Different types of Visability:
1. Flickr/Reddit/DeciantART: semitargetted community, immediate feedback, but it is hard to stand out in the sea of images. click*click*click. However, Coey Kuhn (Graduate of Aurora High School AND CCAD) seems to be doing alright for herself off deviantart.
2. Behance/Creative Hotlist/Krop/Dribble/Carbonmade: industry oriented and you have a collection of work presented.
3. Facebook Page for Artist: Post links, get likes, strong community.
4. Monthly Newsletters: Image, how did it, how job came up, Stay Tuned for this great thing I'm doing next month! conceptcontent.com>>plug in email addresses to send newsletter to.
5. Blogging: Long form of online portfolio, to see an artists successes and failures, sketches and process. You are engaged on this one page, because you looked this person up, and can see a history of the artist.



2. The Marketing Plan: Define a Marketing Plan:
Define your objectives, your demographics, ideal clients
Develop content/place holders for content on a 3-6 month basis
Gantt Chart- Timeline vs Tasks. When you will update each thing, and how often.

Rocketship Test

OKAY SO IT WORKED.
Trick was to create a Photobucket account and upload it through that.

ANYWHO this is a quick thing i made based off of a tutorial I saw about animating in photoshop.... not anything spectacular...but my first moving animation, Yay!

Project Hiroshi- Week 1

For this Design for Media class, we do 3 projects throughout the course of the semester. Each project is inspired by a faculty member in the department, and then we take our own spin off from there. This Project was inspired by Hiroshi Hayakawa. He has 2 different styles to his artwork [see here], and therefore we had 2 choices with this project. "Figure as Landscape" where the figure blends into or becomes the landscape and the viewer sees first a landscape, and then a figure. Or we could do a menagerie, because Hiroshi enjoys making paper animals, and has created a few books about them, which you can see here.

I chose the first prompt, though my definition of "figure" falls more into the menagerie prompt. I decided to make my main character a bunny, hopping along in a landscape. It is a simple story, but because this is my first animation, I wanted to worry more about the mechanics and less about the storyline.

The animation will start out with a close up on leaves/landscape/foliage (still to be decided) with the bunny hiding among them. The viewer doesn't realize the bunny is there, until it jumps out of the frame. The next sequence is a very zoomed out view of the landscape, where the bunny hops across the frame from left to right. Finally the bunny stops, the background is white, and a piece of the "title" (still to be decided) is visible. The bunny smiles and rears back to take a bite out of the text...and then it cuts to the bunny sitting next to the title...minus a bite.

I think this is something that I can accomplish in 4 weeks, this first week was for planning and sketching, next week I will do the environments and final look of the bunny. Then weeks 3&4 can be dedicated to animation.

Rocketship Test FAIL.

http://vimeo.com/35464266
So I found a tutorial to start practicing making an animation in photoshop, just to mess around... and then I tried to upload the GIF to blogger, and found out you can't do that with moving GIFs. So, I tried to upload the thing to my vimeo account...and it was too small.
So, I made the file bigger, and uploaded it again...It tells me "UH OH theres a problem" but doesnt tell me what.

So here I am, video-less. I'm glad this happened Sunday and not Wednesday night...but I would just like to know what I am doing wrong!

I'll get the hang of all of this eventually.

Put a check in the "FAIL" column. YES!

Anyways, I also found this...which is a video done entirely in PS, which I thought was impressive.
http://gdbddesign.com/blog/full-blown-animation-done-completely-in-photoshop/

Are you a Dreamer or a Doer?

This reflection is in response to the article "Are you a Dreamer or a Doer" by Chris Oatley click here for link.

Where are you on the Dreamer/Doer spectrum (why)
My Dreamer Strengths: vision. initiative. see potential.
My Doer Strengths: productivity. realistic. results.

My Dreamer Weaknesses: lose focus. constantly stressed.
My Doer Weaknesses: stuck in a rut. risk-averse.

Here is the story of (almost) every project I complete:
I am an illustration major. Given a problem, I can find 20+ ways to solve that problem. I love to concept, sketch, and problem solve. Once I get a great idea, I don't stop, because I don't want to miss out on other great ideas I haven't thought of yet. Once I come up with "THE IDEA" I get very excited about it, and think about nothing else for hours, as I sketch and write down everything that pops in my head, whether it is coherent or not.
I edit as I go, knowing what will be easy to complete, a stretch-but-doable, or impossible...and I usually hit somewhere on or a little after "a stretch-but-doable".
As I start to follow through, however, my steam starts slowing down. I am suddenly very hungry, or my room is making me anxious for being so messy. Anything to distract me from my work, I use as an excuse. A day or 2 will pass, and I haven't touched my project again, and the due date is coming up fast. So I buckle in, grab a Rock Star and some Gardettos Chex Mix, and hit the project square in the forehead. 80% of the time...this works in my favor, I focus for a good 10 hours straight, and push through all the awkward stages. 20% of the time, I come out frustrated and confused as to why my vision in my head doesn't look the same as what I created. But, whatever I came up with for that 20%...I still go into class, acting like it was just like I wanted...because no one can believe your work is any good, unless you believe your work is any good.

and what area(s) of Media Arts are you going to test-drive (have you ever produced an animation/cinematic/photography masterpiece? What are your goals for this course?
I want to test drive animation. I am doing an independent study with Dave Groff, and working on the characters/storyline/backgrounds for a short public-awareness animation, that I hope to animate in this class. I hope to use the first 2 assignments to experiment with different types and styles of animation, so see what feels most comfortable and right for the final.
No, I have never produced an animation before ever...very excited/nervous/eager!

What will be your accomplishment?)?
I want to learn about animation, and get a basic understanding of different programs and techniques, and employ those techniques on my various projects and experiments. I hope that I will accomplish a short video, based on my work in my independent study.

Include at least one image of your own art (what are you proud of?).
Please click here. to see my website (that I just created/coded in December, and am very proud of.)

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