DigAct 01_Part 01

Digital Acting One
My Animation Method

In this assignment we were asked to document every part of our Animation method so the teacher's know what experience everyone is on and basically polish our skills here and there.

And it's not just to show others but also your self and maybe after a while you can come back and look how far you've come. Since this is an online course you might say, you would want to put up a schedule to keep up a track on the time for the longer assignment or projects. My self like a lot other people tend to get too much into details and lose track of time making a hell for myself in the end of the projects and assignment. So for that simple reason i always start with a plan and work from there and usually i end up with some extra time to give my work extra touch here and there. Since this isn't an actual project where we have to do into all godly details from scratch i'm going to leave out details like creating 3d figure and how to put in bones etc. I'm going to start of with the planning...

The breakdown:

•  Organize
•  Research
•  Executing sketching/blocking/animating
•  Tweak/Polishing 
•  Documenting

Research:

I've gone through some of the forum posts, blogs just to get an idea how those before me have done it and it's nothing out of the ordinary. So i started with checking out some heavy weight lifting animations on YouTube for starters and from there i tried to find a real video of a human lifting a spherical object and this is where i found this video which is perfect. The guy explains pretty much everything in detail how to pose and how to lift the object correctly. But i didn't stop there so i went on Google to search up some lifting poses that were drawn and i found this picture which is perfect cause it fits this guys video it's the same lifting method. Saw that others used the same example for their assignments i appreciate the guy who pointed out this video it just brilliant!

Anyways these are few of example pictures i found on Google that i would use to make a smooth flow of animation if i had to make a rendered out version.

 This picture show exactly the same lifting method as in the video above perfectly showing the executed lifting loop. However i don't think i would have used all of those frames, well it depends on really how detailed you want the animation to be really. If this was a project i would definitely use all frame but also put in in between's to make it even more smoother.

Next picture shows pretty much the same thing except it's with a rigged standard dummy which i actually think might be from an old student. Not entirely sure, i got it while i was searching on Google but that's what the internet is for right? 

I've seen previous students use Digital Tutor and they stumbled on same issue as me. Most of the stuff is either in Maya or some other programs i don't recognize. When it comes to Maya it's pretty close to 3D Max but since i don't have the access to Digital Tutors i had to use Lynda. And that's where i had a problem cause a lot of the tutorials over there are simply in other programs that are different if you compare it with 3D Studio Max so i had to find my way on YouTube. 

Sketch:

Back to the Sketches, i did my research that i needed now it was time for the animation it self. I've made a Sketch which i was going to follow or should i say use as and example for my animation more or less.




Blocking:


 These are the keyframes for the lifting cycle from my Animation i didn't follow my Sketches entirely to the point however i just went with it and the flow/timing was not that bad considering i hardly touched Curve Editor.

Tweaking:

This is how my Timeline looks like, I tried to tweak or adjust the animation with inbetweens so the timing in the animation was a bit smoother.

I barely adjusted anything in the Curve Editor since i don't remember much about it!

Conclussion: 

Animating is a struggle for me to a small degree, but the worst part for me is "fine tuning" the animation fixing the timeline in Curve Editor. In order for me to progress in this area i simply have to work more on my Animation timing in the editor. I feel like i'm just making it so much harder for my self when it comes to editing in the Curve editor. It's blank page for me even in the past I struggled a lot with it, haven't done much in it this time.

Must say, my Curve Editor looks awfully alike London Underground system definitely need to work more on it. I have been trying to look up tutorials on YouTube found couple of them which might help me in the future. I'm also trying to get my hands on couple of those books but it seems the only way to get them is by ordering online.

Anyways to summarize the assignment first thing i did was to put up a plan and get familiar with the assignment. When that was done i went on the internet and researched as much as it was needed in order for me to start on the Sketches. Once i sketched out my animation and had a decent storyboard i could follow i started on the Animation. When the Animation was finished  the only thing that was left was tweaking and adjusting the timing on the Animation.

Part 02
Storytelling Poses

Picking out the Keyframes:

To start of what is a keyframe you might ask?

It's a drawing that defines the beginning and end point of a smooth animation or film transition. Those drawing are called "frames" cause of their position in time is measured in frames on a film strip. Sequence of key frames defines movements that the viewers will see on a film, video or animation defines the timing of the movement.

In this assignments we were asked to either study the GIF animation above or any of the other animation clips below and pick out the keystory telling poses. I however choose to go with this Wolf/axe animation which is from the book "Illusion of Life: Disney Animation" which is written by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson while the drawing is by Fred Moore. Since i don't have the book i had to study the GIF and the collection of images really closely for the keyframe.

Sequence:

I have crossed of the poses that i think are the Keyframes and put a number in which order the whole animation cycle goes, not entirely sure its 100% correct thou. One of the main "tell tale" signs you might say is in the word it self "keyframe (key storytelling pose)" the pose thats explain the action the most. I don't know how to explain it detailed but if you study the sequence you get a hunch what are the keyframes. Most likely some of my keyframes are wrong since ive seen couple other students with different keyframes maybe not. I felt pretty sure that the ones i picked were the right ones.

As for the sequence i have put up numbers in which order i think it goes, studied the GIF and the sequence and i can definitely tell you that the collection of the picture are not in correct sequential order. I'm not sure mine is either to be honest but ive  tried and i found out that the hat on the character was quiet helpful it could tell you what the next motion was kinda.




Methods in context:

So going through other students work i'm not that far off i can definitely see some resemblance here and there. The animation keyframes are different from student to student, take for example my keyframes i have positioned them in fives but i have also put keyframes here and there where i felt like the poses needed to be more visible or kinda explain the situation better. Also i gave the animation smoother transitions with inbetweens which helped cause i basically didn't use Curve Editor that much.

Some students counted  the key positions in thirds and fives like previous students mentioned while there were some who didn't do that at all and just put the key's where they felt like it should be. In the future if i work with a group i will have to do this better cause my keyframes on timeline were chaotic and when i tried to smooth the transitions in Curve Editor i was just overwhelmed by the graphs i was getting. I don't know i was basically also looking at what other did before me and i think that made me start second guessing my self. Probably should have ran with my own thing and hoped for the best cause in the beginning i was quiet confident that i was doing it right. I mean even back when i was at Noroff we were keyframing on every five frames.

Further on ive also seen people used the stepped mode and some were using linear method to adjust timing on their animation which just made their animation much smoother. I didn't use this but next time i'm going to cause at the moment im pretty much clueless when it comes to the Curve Editor.

There was also some difference in how people started to animate and how they excuted the whole thing, like there were some student who animated in the keyframe positions and then they animated in the inbetweens. Which was then again followed by editing in the Curve Editor and in the end one last polishing touch to finishe it all off. I was doing a pretty similar technique except i did it all in one go. I didnt animate the keyframe first but i did everything at same time and then when i felt like that transitions had to be more smoother i put in more inbetweens. I wasnt too happy cause i wasn't done by that i mean i should have gone through it with Curve Editor to give it last touches.

Anways to end this i would just like to say that my current problem is the Curve Editor i just don't know it enough to put it to good use. I'm going to read up on it and see if the tutorial videos i found help out so next time we do this again i can try out the Curve Editor.