Wednesday 8 December 2010

Animation Genres

Martial Arts Genre


Tom and Jerry: The Karate Guard


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl2d-oiBPlw





Text Opening has a feel of the oriental font like Chinese and Japanese calligraphy where most of the end stroke of the lines are sharp. Most martial arts originated from China and Japan, and dojos use hand written calligraphy for their logos. The red colour represents fire, wild, aggressive which could related to the personality of the martial artist.


The blue background in the intro could represent gentleness or perhaps a bit weak in the character Jerry...not being able to defeat Tom with his martial arts because of his size.


Few seconds in the sound intro had a typical tune of a Chinese kung fu. The tune represents China because, it is usually played in Chinese festivals and do the Chinese Dragon Dance


Mise-en-scene: the use of the karate GI of Jerry, Japanese samurai armour for the Guardian, the master spirt, martial arts dummy, Chinese Gong, 


Scene - in a modern house. This could represent that martial arts isnt ancient, it could also mean martial arts can beat modern technology weapons like the paintball near the end of the story.




Romance Genre


Romeo X Juliet (anime)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZSoy_T-Kgw





As you can see it the first few minutes intro of the animation, you cannot see the romance genre, and the fact they mentioned Sky Continent Neo Verona shows that  it has a sense of magic to it, suggesting a floating continent (world). As the intro progress, the melody shows a sense of thrill, something bad is about to happen, It represent that this show is for mature viewers, it has a greyish background which could also represent death. As the story shows the dead woman followed by the man cursing the man in black using his surname shows that, it is a war between families, this shows the genre of adventure, action, crime, war, and drama.


After the intro, its followed up by an opening theme, the song tune is the same of "you raise me up" but in Japanese version with different lyrics. it somehow represents sadness. as you watch the animation of the opening theme, It shows 2 family crest separated means that there's going to be conflict. and the tile Romeo and Juliet gave sense of the story would be more focused about Romance. It is based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. they showed the main characters, Romeo and Juliet. After they showed Juliet, a flower petal flew to her almost shaping like a heart, which shows romance. As the animation goes on showing most of the cast, they show clips of battles which could represent the conflict between families and Romeo and Juliet almost held each others hands means, they cant be together but near the end of the opening, it showed both of them kissing


If you look at the character designs, it doesnt appeal to a younger audience, its aimed at mature people.


Settings shows that it is set on the earlier ages like the victorian times. they showed churches and some roman ruins which could represent love


It is mainly focused on the main genre of Romance because of the title Romeo and Juliet
they showed flowers wrapping Romeo and Juliet, Juliet being naked, Kissing, hugging, laying on grass...and Red colour stands out to represent blood and Heart...white flowers could represent the wedding dress :D

Saturday 4 December 2010

Sound animation "Manny Pacman VS Robot

I have chosen the sound clip "11SecClub_April_Competition
I have decided to animate it with a Boxer Boxing a Robot to match the clang sound. Manny Pacquiao, a Filipino 8 world titles holder would be my main character.

Here are some caricatures I've done for Manny Pacman. I have decided not to use it because it will take a lot of time to complete my animation


I am quite happy with this character design so I have developed it more so it would be easier for me to animate


This is my final character design of Manny. As you can see, it is very simplified, It shows he isnt a heavy weight fighter, maybe a welterweight and it is perfect for my animation

This is my final design for my robot, it is very simplified, with less details, and easy for me to animate


I have made some video references of me boxing, showing some basic punches

FRONT VIEW: I like this camera angle because, it is good to show pressure to the opponent he is fighting eg: camera, robot

SIDE VIEW: I have done this view so its easy to see the foot work and body movements, this would be best to use at the star of the fight to show "The Rush"

ROBOT SIDE VIEW: this is an exaggerated acting I did here hahaha


This is my animatic, it is just snapshot of scenes where it showed more movement
   

LINE TESTS:
Robot close up

Boxer rush attack...start of the fight
Boxer Combo attacks Front View


Scared Robot Front View...Then Exploded


FINAL OUTCOME

I have coloured in my characters to make it interesting for the audience to watch, to make my animation feel alive. It took quite a while but its worth it :D I have first animated scene by scene on photoshop so it will run smooth. After all scenes are done, I put it all together on windows movie maker to match the sound.

Hope Yall Like it XD

Sunday 21 November 2010

My Understanding of Computer Animation Limitations

Computer animation has revolutionized the animation industry, virtually replacing the older types of animation, like cel drawn or stop motion. But notwithstanding its appeal, there are limitations an animator faces when using this process. The animator has to keep in mind the limits when planning the project so he can deal with them.
The character hair design doesn’t always look too realistic because of its blocky shapes, sometimes it looks more like a hat than a hair.
One of the limitations of computer animation is seen in the area of hair. In early animation, stop-motion or cel (and still occasionally today) hair was used on mesh models that had hair texture images and transparency maps applied to them. These made it look unrealistic, more like a hat than hair. Now a day’s people stimulate hair on a figure is called hair dynamics. Using this approach, the animator defines an area in which he would like hair to appear, as well the length and other characteristics of that hair.

Another limitation of computer animation is in the area of motion. Most animators are expert at creating a pose for a character, but not as good at creating realistic believable motion frames. To overcome this limitation people used motion capture files (MoCap) Those motions are based on actual people and applied them to the characters. A good example of a Computer animation motion-capture is ‘Happy Feet’ some approach can't achieve completely accurate motion, it will require allot of tests to perfect it but will loose allot of time to complete.

Another problem when creating a computer animation is the texture resolution. All 3D models, moving figures or background objects like tables and chairs, have texture maps applied to them to provide the colours that you see. Otherwise, the models are just colourless masses. These textures come in different sizes, this will depend on how detailed the object needs to be. It will take a great deal of computer power to render a large file for a moving figure like a person.

A foremost difficulty with computer animation is the difficulty of the process (coordination). There are many different fields and subfields within the industry. For example, the average animated movie will have texture painters, modellers, riggers, audio specialists, matte painters, MoCap, story-boarders, technicians etc... Because the director and producer would spend allot of time coordinating all the parts to make a whole, they have less time than they might otherwise have for other aspects of the film, such as the story.

Saturday 20 November 2010

History and Development of animation

The earlier attempts of animation were really experiments. First animation discovered was from the still drawings of Paleolithic cave paintings, where animal legs and arms change position on different frames, almost like a story board. An example from 5,200 year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-i Sokhta. It has five images across showing a goat leaping to a tree.



Another good example of an early experiment of animation is the famous Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci where the limbs swings, showing movement.



Animation has then been developed through the years, such as zoetrope which was created in China by Ting Huan 180 AD. It is a device that cycles many individual images and created the illusion of a moving image.
The zoetrope first gave rise to the concept of moving a physical object to create the illusion of animation. From here, people were inspired to develop the technique and make animations by taking still images and play them in quick succession in motion.

By the year 1868 flip-book was discovered by Joseph Barnes Linnet. Flip-book brought us closer to the modern animation like the zoetrope which creates the illusion of motion by flipping the book with squealed images at a particular speed.
As animation develop through the years, Charles – Emile Reynaud, the inventor of the praxinoscope (a sophisticated version of the zoetrope) created the first animated film using loops of 12 pictures on 1892.

In my opinion throughout the years, people wanted to give life to art, and animation was born: traditional, stop-motion, 3D animations.

James Stuart Blackton was one of the people that invented Stop-motion animation, he created the first American animated film ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces in the 1906 where he made a time lapse drawing his character on a blackboard and used camera trick to animate his illustrations by rubbing and redrawing the character in a different position. There was this particular scene in his video where he had to draw a champagne bottle and he pulled out a real bottle from a board which suggested magic, this shows appeal to the audience to entertain them like what all animators aim to do so people would want to watch it more.



Rinpa Eshidan means Art crew in Japanese. Basically they are heavily influenced by the work of James Blackton. They are very famous in Japan for their street art animation by using time lapse much like Blackton. they basically paint images on wall and fusing with patterns to relate it with the music, much like a music video.  One thing they rarely do is to do camera tricks like Blackton to animate, make the patterns move, they like to keep their work natural. as the music beat changes every patterns will change.

They have worked for tv adverts in Japan like honda, music videos, house decoration, etc...A good fact about them is that they are not afraid of erasing their work





By the year 1911 Russian Scientist Ladislas Starevitch created a stop-motion animation ‘The Cameraman’s Revenge’, he was inspired by James Stuart and Emile Cohl’s stop motion illustration, he decided to further develop stop motion by using dead insects with wire limbs as his character puppets. His animation has showed a story of a dramatic complexity of feelings and desire on how the puppets acted in the play which makes it entertaining for the audience to watch. Ladislas Starevitch influenced other animators and film makers by the use of puppets like in the 2000’s Nightmare before Christmas, Wallace and Gromit, King Kong, Star Wars etc...



By 1914, the famous Winsor McCay has released his Cell animation ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’ which is the first animation that feature a character with an appealing personality which could relate to modern animations such as ‘Simon’s Cat’ in 2010
In 1934, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first feature length film that was based by the Brothers Grimm fairytale. It was the first full length cel-animated feature in motion picture history and produced in full colour, produced by the famous Walt Disney (founder of the greatest animation company Disney) Disney has become very successful by their animations such as Snow White, Pinocchio and Dumbo in the 1940’s.



Disney has inspired many animators around the world especially in Japan Mitsuyo Seo, the creator of the first Japanese feature length anime film ‘Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors’ was a propaganda to support the war by the Japanese Naval Ministry. Osamu Tezuka developed the animation into a Japanese style and was referred as Godfather of Anime and Godfather of manga. He was also considered as the Equivalent of Walt Disney.

By the year 1990's Pixar has created the first CGI film called Toy Story. It is a 3D modeling almost like a vitrual stop motion that combines the two worlds can be considered to be computer aided animation but on 2D computer drawing. This has been a big hit in animation because it is like characters are coming to life.



Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momotaro's_Divine_Sea_Warriors
History of Animation (google word document)- www.stevewoods.ie/articles/history_ofanimationbysw.doc
Youtube - wwww.youtube.com

Thursday 18 November 2010

I have chosen this animation 'Crayon Shinchan' because this is one of my favourite anime titles during my childhood even now. I love this anime because mainly of its storyline, most are the catchy jokes which makes me burst out laughing. As I grew older and became more interested in animation, I began to admire the character design. The characters dont look very great but you can tell by its style, that it is targeted on children because of its child like drawing, and exaggerated like when the character's mouth is out of place. In my opinion this animation suits for people 12 and above because Shinchan is a bad role model for younger audience because of its explicit jokes, inappropriate use of language and mild nudity on it.

The first story of this animation was written by Yoshito Usui (Lived April 21, 1958 – September 11, 2009) was done in manga (Japanese comics) then made it into an anime during 1992 till 2010 and currently have 700+ episodes

Shin is a 5-year-old boy who is constantly doing and saying inappropriate things, with hilarious results, much to the dismay and annoyance of those around him. Shin, along with his family, his friends from kindergarten, and some annoying neighbors, ends up turning every day situations into funny adventures.

Yoshito Usui the creator of shinchan died on September 11, 2009 after a fall at Mount Arafune. After Usui died, Futabasha originally planned to end Crayon Shin-chan in November 2009. Upon discovery of new manuscripts, Futabasha decided to extend the comic's run until the March 2010 issue of the magazine, which shipped on February 5, 2010

Tuesday 26 October 2010

20 Second animation project






I have started this animation on the day we were given the task. I was very excited to make it and finish it with the best of my ability showing a short clip of my life. I did some research, planning and tests on how my character, plane and objects would look like by looking at some images and video in the internet and looking at my self in the mirror. I have done my anticipation test on my RVJ how will the arm move. when recording it, I have made every movement slower so it will suit well with the sad moment. I didnt show much exaggeration in making my character because I'm not into that sort of style, and I want this animation to really relate to me, but I have done tests in my RVJ about exaggerated drawing of myself. As for morphing, I have done that to the clouds changing shape into I Love NYC to show what I was thinking during that moment.

When Im satisfied about my planning and development I started making my frames and took pictures of it on istopmotion. I have then developed them further to make my animation much more interesting and touching for my audience
This is my first test of my 20 second animation project. I have done this animation by taking a snapshot of every frames I drew. I have noticed that the character and the objects doesn't shake a lot and works quite well. It has good use of timing and spacing like pausing when he was looking at the window suggesting that he is thinking of someone or place that he miss


In this 2nd video, I have tested on adding some close up effects to really show my characters emotions. I want the audience to be touched by the simple short story of my animation.

In this 3rd test, I have done this by using photoshop. I have scanned every frames I drew and layered them on top of each other then erasing the seat and window from my character. I kept 1 single frame of the seat and window and used it throughout the scene where my character cries. I have also added a new frame for the last scene where the clouds morphs into I love NYC

As you can see, I didnt add any close ups because I have noticed that its losing quality when I export it to a video


This is my Final version. I have decided to add a song clip of 'The Scientists' by Coldplay. I have chosen to add this song because I was really listening to it at that moment in real time. I have extended the I love NYC so the audience can have more time to read it
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I have based my airplane animation from this video looking like it just take off, flying upwards


I have used this video as another reference on what position the passenger can see outside the window.






Saturday 23 October 2010

Aikido Ukemi waza duo


This is a video of basic movements of recovery in Aikido called Ukemi waza (forward roll)
I have decided to base my animation on this because I'm very interested in this martial arts.
I made some experiments on my RVJ working out the motion/ movements. I have then decided to combine a simple jump then followed by the roll to make very interesting to watch.

I decided to try something different on how to make my animation by using the scanner instead of taking a picture. I have scanned each frames to photoshop and animate them there. I have noticed that the blue pencil isnt visible when scanned, only when pressed on quite hard. I find scanning quite easy to do and easily edit the images eg: add colours, adjust size etc...



This is my first test and it works quite well clean and smooth



I have decided to make my animation much more interesting by adding an obstacle, but instead I duplicated the character and make them look like about to spar each other. I made the copy roll then the main character to jump over him and do the recovery roll. I think this work really well because all the timing is right. All I need to do is maybe to add a bit more detail on my character to make it much more interesting.

Thursday 7 October 2010

Sunday 3 October 2010

Group animation

This is my animation clip for Jordan's trainers...it didnt work well because it is too fast and I could have duplicate some images to make the animation smooth.

First I have made some experiments in my RVJ about anticipation on how my character will run and dunk the ball...I have used my self as a reference looking into a mirror and it looks