Analysis and Reflection

        My idea was to have two inhuman people in a nondescript cave trying to figure out a weird floating gem. I mostly based my idea of the floating gem on the fact that I wanted to take the "wah-wah" sound we had made when we learned about sound recorders and audacity and incorporate it into the animation. I wanted the "space pirates" because I do not favor natural skin colors and they give me the opportunity to use oranges and pinks for skin and eyes. When they first touch the gem they turn into puppets, and this happens because I wanted something simple and funny. It was fun to be able to animate the puppet-esque mouths, and not have to worry about drawing legs for a while. I also wanted to do something that wasn't usual to my style. They shake it, and the female space pirate starts shrinking, and then the gem pops them back to normal. I made them throw it so that when it fell it had the unexpected fall of a feather and broke very easily upon hitting the ground. Then it was just coins and a portal with another gem formed, so that they could choose to repeat the cycle or not.
        One animation principle I used was appeal. There is appeal in the design of the gem and the way it floats and sounds. My characters have appeal in their designs as well. Carlisle has bright hair and pink skin and is tall with a dark suit but bright sash. Her eye-patch is eye catching, but so is her eye because they are both warm colors beside a cool colored hair. Bean is short and has a blindfold with glowy eyes and orange skin with dark pink hair. The appeal in the characters is also their slightly coordinated color pallets. They both have orange, pink, purple, and blue in different shades on their bodies.  There is anticipation in the animation as well. In the beginning when the gem is just floating, you anticipate something to happen, like a view change or a person to show up. The first explosion also makes anticipation grow because you don't know what the gem did after they poked it. Then when the gem breaks and it switches to a walk cycle you anticipate what the gem has turned into, since it was spewing smoke previously.
         There is staging in the simple three tone and a gradient background I used. It shows that they are in a dark place. The dark place being a cave because of the shapes and the things hanging from the ceiling. There is also exaggeration in the way the puppets talk. Instead of simple mouth movements, an entire half of their head comes off to speak. Carlisle shrinking can also be seen as exaggeration because it is something you wouldn't expect but also something really extreme to make a point.
        I think my puppet section went very well. I have gotten better at timing movement to sound since the beginning of this course and since they spoke by moving instead of lips I felt it was able to be seen fully. I also feel like I have better grasped key-framing. The gem was key-framed for almost the entire animation, and the shrinking Carlisle was also key-framed. I was not lost on how to do it and I kept a consistent speed with the movement for the most part during the animation. It is a huge improvement from my complete shunning of key-frames in the beginning of the course.
        I need to better improve on figuring out how to add more to an animation. I have suffered the issue twice now where I have played out my entire story and still not gotten to the least amount of time it could be. I know my grade suffers from it, but I don't know what I could do to fix this. I feel I need to flesh out my stories more, or add more movements, or something. There is just a quality that is missing from my animations that is taking away from giving them length. I also need to better improve on making movements look smooth. I don't really understand how people do the quick flashy frame thing, but I know my constant arm moving would look a lot better if I did that.
        This project taught me I need to leave more time to relearn things if I have not used a program for a while. I wanted to use camera work in this but I had gotten so used to Maya's camera that I could barely relearn Harmony's camera. I also learned that sometimes making things go your way just isn't going to happen and you're going to have to deal with it. I might revise the fact that my color layer decided to off-center itself a day before the project was due, but also it adds character. Overall, I think my strategy played out very well, I put most of my storyboard into action and that is what I wanted to do. I just wish my strategy had gotten me that last like 400 frames. I feel this project will leave a lasting impression on me. It has given me an overall feeling of accomplishment, but also some disappointment. I'm glad I finished on time and didn't give up hope, but I'm upset some things didn't turn out as envisioned and I'm mostly upset about my color layer because that is a huge mess-up. But I like my space pirates and I like my weird floating gem, and I like what this project has taught me.

References for Days

REFERENCE #1

The idea for the way the eyes are seen through the bandages on my one character was taken from the Demon Hunter class in World of Warcraft and how they are all blind but can still see in a way, and how their eyes glow through their eye coverings.

REFERENCE #2
Adding and Deleting Keyframes
It is kind of a silly reference to have. However, at one point I completely forgot how to work key-frames and this really helped me to remember. Which is good because I used them a fair amount.

REFERENCE #3

I have a puppet-esque scene in my animation. The puppet mouth movement was inspired by the way the South Park Canadians talk. It is amusing and kind of unexpected.

REFERENCE #4

I had a back view walk cycle. It does not look good at all, but I used these two things to try and help me out with making it. Back views are harder than you expect them to be.

REFERENCE #5

Admittedly, it is not the smartest choice on my part, but I really do not like Harmony's lip syncing function. So I rely on free handing it and the assistance of mouth charts. These two are the ones I used the most while lip syncing. They probably didn't make for smooth lip syncing, but I was trying to work with what made me comfortable.

REFERENCE #6

I have a kind of explosion in my animation and this video helped me to understand how to make it happen. I wanted the kind of fluffy explosion that this one is. It was very helpful for getting a basic grasp on explosions.

Be More Chill

        Me: Freaking out internally 24/7.
        This week I have learned that there is a huge chance I am not going to finish in time and I am panicking hardcore. I am trying my best to get this done but it is harder than I remember to focus on 2D. I just want to get it done and throw some music in and get the final blog post done but I am worry worry worry worry.
        Something I want to learn in the future is how to get sleep. Like a regular human. I want to lay down at a marked bedtime and then go to sleep at that time. I just want to feel like a well-rested human and not a zombie for once.
       Something that frustrated me this week was my lack of focus. Where did it go? Why did it leave? Will it come back? Please come back. I miss you. I need you. I like...really need you. I am not kidding you come back here right now.
       Something that made me happy this week was finding a new musical I enjoy. It is called Be More Chill and it has a lot of relatable songs. Like one about hiding in the bathroom at a party. Or one about having to put on pants. A good teenage musical.
       Did you know some animated movies could change based on what country they are in?

So you wanna work at Pixar?

        Pixar is one of the powerhouse animation companies of this world. So of course you've thought about working at it. Which is why there's an interview with animation mentor Nate Wall. What better way to learn what it is like to work at Pixar than from an employee himself?

        A typical day at Pixar starts with a coffee, a few chats before jumping into work, animation dailies, and then the rest of the day in an office drawing or animating or studying with the potential of another meeting happening at some other point. Wall explains to readers what dailies are. He says they may be the most amazing and valuable part of the job. They are the department's opportunity to meet with the director and show the work that has been done. They are a great way to start work. And while they are not unique to Pixar, the studio has truly forged them into something special. he says that it is a loud affair and that anyone in the room can give notes and speak up with ideas and opinions in service of the shot and the story. Of course, egos are left at the door and everyone is cooperative. The director has the final say, and he says that Pixar is lucky to have directors that engage with the dailies process so readily. To sum it up, he says, what defines a Pixar animation daily is humility. It is humbling to show your work to a room full of artists, and have them show theirs right back with the same humility. Humility is key, they all serve the story. He then explains that to serve the story means that he most powerful way every person can contribute is to make every decisions based around the central idea that they serve the story. Story doesn't make the animation, the animation follows and understands the story.

         Nate says that his favorite kind of shots are anything that takes something you've seen before and makes it new. It could squeeze some new meaning out of a moment, like when the character is profoundly sad but keeps a brave smile on the entire time. He wishes he could redo many of his scenes. It is frequent that he watches his finaled shots and wants them back. But also that is natural, as an artist is their own worst critic. The biggest challenge faced at Pixar is that feeling that there is never enough time. And personally for Wall it is balancing his time and effort with his emotions and sometimes anxiety. A job at Pixar is a Job, not a side passion project you can spend leisure years on.

         The interview with Nate Well ends with asking why he does what he does. He says it is because he loves the process. Working for just the final product can be daunting. But he loves the process, and wants to make something meaningful. Animation can be a tough business, but if you can get into the swing of it, I'm sure you can love it.

        This was a good article because it gave an inner perspective of working at Pixar. It was cool to read someone opinions of what he does day in and day out and how he feels about it.

        I want to hear other perspectives. Or just more. Like how he really fully breaks his days down or more about how meetings go. It would give a wider perspective.

sobbing

        How many points do we lose if we hand in an unfinished final project?
        This week I learned that I really like animating lip syncing like the Canadians from South Park. It is easier and now as mind draining as using actual lips. Why couldn't this be my entire animation?
       I don't have anything I want to learn in the future currently. Maybe how to convince my mom to get me a chameleon, but that doesn't aid my education.
        Something that frustrated me this week was starting to put words into my animation. I forgot how much I hated word scrubbing and listening to the same phrases over and over and over. I'm also frustrated because I'm not where I want to be, and there is so little time left for this animation. I'm going to cry.
        I saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It was amazing and I loved it. It made me very happy, and you're a monster if Baby Groot doesn't make you happy. I can't wait until the next time we get to see the Guardians. I just love them so much.
      My link of interest this link was made by one of my best friends: enjOY IT!

PHYSICSS

        In order to succeed in animation, you have to have a grasp on physics. Without physics, animations can lose their appeal because they do not look realistic. No matter how cartoony, having a realistic air to your animation is important.
        In this article, Professor Alejandro Garcia talks about the principle of weight gain and loss. To us weight is a constant, you can gain or lose some but for the most part, you stay in one area of weight. But when something is moving, their effective weight is constantly changing. This most often happens when the something is moving upward and gaining speed, moving upward and losing speed, moving downward and gaining speed, or moving downward and losing speed. When you go upward and you are gaining or losing speed, you are also gaining or losing weight. But when you go downwards you lose when you gain and gain when you lose. Essentially you are working with gravity. If you go against it, like rising and gaining or falling and slowing, you are gaining weight. When you go with it, rising and losing or falling and speeding, you lose weight.
          All this weight this and that is important because as a character moves the weight variations create overlapping actions through hair, clothing, and flesh. Losing weight makes these things seem light while gaining weight pulls them down. Poorly animated characters can look floaty because of the lack of effective weight overlapping. The important thing to remember is that it is not just the direction of the motion but whether it is going with or agaisnt gravity. Weight is related to inertia, with a distinction in perspective. When the camera moves we see the overlapping action as drag and when the eye is following the movement we see it as a weight variation.
         Weight is a very important dynamic to animation. It gives realism to imaginary characters and lets the eye follow something and process it correctly. Without weight variation animations would be floaty and low quality and would not look real to us. It is the small things in physics that aid to the appeal of animation.


        This article was informative. I knew there were principles of animation but I was unaware there were principles of physics of animation. Knowing what I know now could help future walk cycles.
        I like when we learn about physics in animation. I plan to never take physics so this gives me a very basic understanding without all the complexity. What else can physics be applied to for animation?