Week 4

Last week we were given class time on Monday to continue working on our animations and to ask questions in class. One problem that I had encountered the previous week was getting my loop to appear unbroken. I learned that I needed to double my background images in order to make my loop flow properly without any jumping. I needed to delete a large portion of my mountain range and grass background to do this. During class time I also began work on a house for my background and I drew in clouds and the moon.

Before class on Thursday I spent a lot of time in the Steel Plant working on my finished product. Working on so many different layers in order to create a sense of depth, one problem that I encountered was getting everything to move across the stage at the correct rate of time. I drew in three houses of different sizes. I placed one house on a layer in front of my walk cycle figure and two houses on a layer behind my walk cycle figure. I also added in two separate layers for smoke clouds that appear to come out of the chimneys of the houses. I used motion tweens for the houses and shape tweens for the smoke clouds. At the last minute I decided it would be a good idea to have the smoke clouds come out of the chimneys twice instead of once in order to make the scene more believable.

In addition, I used tweens to move the moon and clouds across the stage. The moon was placed on a regular motion tween, and I drew a path for the clouds to attach to and follow. The moon and the clouds take one full loop cycle to move across the stage, while the walk cycle figure goes across the stage three times per loop. The houses and smoke begin to move across the stage during the second walk cycle. One additional element that I added was a square in the background for the sky. I used a shape tween for the sky. I changed the color of the sky from blue to near black and back for a full loop.

On Thursday, we spent our entire class looking at everyone's walk cycle animations, and we were given the opportunity to offer feedback to our classmates. I think that critique sessions are very helpful because they give me great ideas and pointers for my future work.

Week 3

Last week we continued working on our walk cycles, and we were given time to work on adding additional elements to our animation. We were asked to create a background for our walk cycle, and we went over how to make our background appear to be on a continuous loop. For my background I decided to create a mountain scene which was on a classic tween. I used the brush tool and the paint bucket tool to create my landscape. My mountain scene currently moves from the right to the left of the stage at a slower pace than my walk cycle figure which moves from the left to the right of the stage. I had a very hard time trying to get my background image to appear to loop continuously without "jumping" when my animation restarts. I edited my background to make everything line up, however the image still seems to jump. My intention is to have that problem fixed by next class.

I am happy with my walk cycle at the moment. My figure is a bit taller than I originally intended, but I think it adds something to the character of my animation. I spent a good amount of time getting the feet of my figure just right, working on how its heels We were asked to continue working on our backgrounds and to add at least three additional movements to our animation for our finished products. I think that I am going to add a cabin with a smoking chimney and possibly a forest. I may also add the sun.

Week 2

Last week our assignment was to create two one second animations. The first animation was supposed to be made up of 24 drawn out frames, thus creating a frame by frame animation. Our second animation was supposed to use the same 24 frames minus every other frame, resulting in an animation that lacked some detail and resulted in a bit more choppiness.

Rather than animating a line across the stage as we practiced in class with the help of the onion skin tool, I decided to use the brush tool to create a simple animation of a tree. For many of my frames, I copied and pasted previous frames and then made slight adjustments. I played around with different color brushes and I tried to create a little story. I wish that I had stuck with animating a line across the stage rather than trying to fit so much information in a one second animation. I was pleased with my result, however after the critique I found that animating a line and getting it exactly right would have probably been more useful as practice for future assignments.

On Thursday we spent a few minutes looking at everyone's one second animations, and then we learned about walk cycles. We spent most of class working on a simple walk cycle animation. I found this to be very challenging because it involved a lot of drawing! We were encouraged to pretty much just draw stick figures, but attempt to capture accurate movement of the arms and legs. In addition, we looked at the work of one artist whose work I very much admired. She has a very distinctive style and although the characters she creates are simple, the manner in which they move is so accurate that I found them quite mesmerizing. I decided that the best thing that I could do was to use a reference to aid me in drawing out a walk cycle. I found images on one website that were very helpful and I looked at the work of the artist that we looked at in class as inspiration.

Week 1

Last Tuesday our class was introduced to the pencil tool in Adobe Flash. I learned that the pencil tool has three different settings. The smooth, straighten, and ink pencils can be utilized to achieve various styles. I also discovered how helpful the tools can be for frame by frame animation.

Our first task was to create three caricature drawings of our face using the three different pencil styles. My approach for this assignment was to import a photograph of myself onto the Flash stage and use the photograph as a template for each of my line drawings. I created four layers, one for the photo and three for my three line drawings. I enjoyed working with the straighten pencil tool the best despite its tendency to create perfect ellipses in places that I hadn't hoped.

Ultimately, I was most pleased with my smooth pencil drawing, and I chose to use that drawing for my next assignment. Our second task was to create a three-quarter view and a profile view of one of our three original drawings. Using my smooth drawing as a guide and using my imagination I was able to create two more smooth pencil drawings. I found this to be quite a challenge considering that I did not have pictures to work form.