Exploration #1

This introduction to animation class began with experimenting with a program called Dragon Stop motion. Is connects with a down shooting camera pointed at a gridded platform. We then practiced moving different objects around taking one image for each frame, then using the program or Adobe After Effects to compile the images into a Quicktime movie.

After getting used to producing stop-motion animations and creating certain affects with Newton’s Laws of Motion, we moved onto our first exploration, which was done in two parts. 

In Exploration #1a, we used a backgammon piece to show, Ease in, Ease out, Anticipation, Overlapping action, Linear paths of action, Curved paths of action, Fast movement, and Slow movement. For this I drew a guide and put dots on the line to indicate key frames where the checker needed to be in each advancing frame. I then placed the drawing under the camera to get a test frame that I would overlay onto my live view of the animation area. After that, the rest was easy. Just follow the guide. The result ended up looking a little long and not as imaginative as many other students’ work, but it included all the principles required. The next few sequences were a slow, medium, and fast degrading pendulum. The critique that I received for this section was that, the animations fulfilled the basic requirements but the movement didn’t show realistic degradation. They looked almost like the same animations, just played at different rates of speed.

For Exploration 1b, we created black paper cutouts (some jointed) to move. Cutting the paper pieces and figuring out how to use the snaps for the jointed figures took some time. There were six different animations: Followthrough, Jointed Followthrough, Oscillation/Stagger, Sine Wave, Jointed Arm Pound, and Whip Crack. I decided to give my jointed followthrough figure a little style by making it look like a foxtail. All the animations came out really well with the only comment that the arm movement could have broken the joint just a little more for a more exaggerated look. Finally we were given the option of redoing the pendulum with a very smooth movement. This pendulum animation turned out very successful, because I drew a guide ahead of time instead of feeling it out like I did previously. My followthrough animations also followed a guide that I drew ahead of time, giving them realistic movement.