Week 9

Last week we continued developing ideas for our final animation. We shared our storyboards with the class and we talked more about character sheets. My storyboard currently consists of 11 images. I scanned 11 pictures that I had sketched in pencil and went over with permanant marker into Photoshop, and then I brought each of my pictures into Illustrator. I think that if I stick with my storyboard I will be more efficient about developing my animation. I think that one of my biggest challenges will be to stick with the storyline and not get wrapped up in ideas that don't lend to the overall idea of the story. I want the viewer to be able to follow my story quite easiely. This definitely does not mean that I don't want there to be an element of suspense however. Rather, I just don't want to get too caught up in the details.

Week 8

Last week we were introduced to our final project—a one to three minute animation incorporating the tools and techniques that we learned this semester. We also discussed storyboards and character sheets. We watched classic animations, and we learned about the development of Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny and Wild Coyote. I found that learning about these characters was very inspiring. I thought that it was so interesting how each character has what seemed to be hundreds of specifications to keep its appearance and personality consistent.

I have been thinking about my own animation for some time now, and after sitting down with a sketchbook and a pencil I came up with some much unexpected ideas. From the beginning I knew that I wanted to incorporate a song in my animation. Originally I was set on “Cynthia, She’s a Really Cool Dancer,” I silly song from the Rugrats that’s been stuck in my head for weeks now. After tonight, however, I’ve decided to give my animation a Christmas theme. So now I’m thinking of incorporating a Christmas tune and then ending with the Rugrats song if possible. The first draft of my storyboard is all written up. I based my first draft off of little sketches I did a few nights ago. My next step is to go back and redo these sketches clearly and make sense of all the ideas that are streaming through my head!

Week 7

On Thursday we presented our finished animations in class. I was pleased with my final outcome. I think that combining all of the exercises that we did in class was a great way to practice different techniques and to see how different techniques can be applied to my final project. I really enjoyed working with my butterfly movie clip. I experimented by creating different paths for my movie clip to follow. I also experimented by scaling my movie clip differently in order to give my butterfly the illusion of flying closer to the ground and then flying up toward the sky. During the week I also played around a lot with getting the timing of my animation just right. I had a lot of trouble getting the end of the second scene just right. I enjoy working with text but sometimes it is difficult to judge how long text should remain on the stage. I created a layer to transition from the bird's eye view scene to a black background. I created a box that was completely see through and then used a shape tween It was important for me to make the trees, rabbit hole, and the road in my first scene one graphic symbol rather than three separate graphics. By making everything one symbol I could use one classic tween and not have to worry about lining all of the objects up exactly right and exactly proportioned on separate layers. To add some sense of surprise to my animation I decided to add three additional yellow balls in my first scene.

Week 6 (continued)

After looking at everyone's animations, we learned about creating multiple scenes. Using multiple scenes is helpful because they allow you to cut from one scene to the next and they help you stay organized. I wish that I had learned about scenes last year when I was first introduced to Flash. My animation last year was only one scene and it had so many frames that it was difficult to navigate to the part of my animation that I wanted to edit in a time efficient fashion.

The example of a second scene that we were given in class was a bird's eye view of road with clouds and a butterfly flying overhead. I thought that the overhead view was very interesting, and I decided that I wanted to incorporate a similar scene in my final animation. I liked the idea of a camera panning with the butterfly at some points and remaining stationary at other points in order to create interest.

Week 6

Last Tuesday we shared our butterfly animations in class. My animation included a butterfly movie clip that was tweened and aligned to a path and clouds that were tweened and followed a continuous loop. I also included a hilly landscape in the background with flowers. My background image remained stationary. As for the path of my butterfly, I decided that it would be interesting to have my butterfly fly across the stage from left to right and then return onto the stage, entering from the right and leaving on the left. I duplicated my original path on a new layer and I made another layer for my my "second" butterfly. I simply dragged my butterfly movie clip onto the stage from the library for this layer. I was pleased with my final result and decided that it would be interesting to combine my butterfly animation with my bouncing ball animation for my final product.

Week 5

Last week we went over how to make a bouncing ball animation and how to make a movie clip animation of a butterfly. I learned both of these processes last semester, but I was very happy that we reviewed the processes once again. I had a lot of trouble with movie clips in my final animation last year so going over the details of making a movie clip was very helpful.

For my bouncing ball animation I decided to make my ball bounce once and then fall into a hole that I rabbit would then hop out of. I chose to include trees and grass in my background image, focuses on the size of trees in order to create a sense of depth. I then placed a black hole on a separate layer and drew my rabbit character on another layer. I realized that I needed to create another layer of green grass to place in the area underneath the hole so that it would appear as if the ball was falling into the hole and the rabbit was coming out of the hole. During our class critique I learned that there is a way to create a mask so that I do not need to make an extra layer in the future. Hopefully I will learn that process in the coming weeks before our next project is due. In addition to the rabbit, I created a word bubble has the word "Hey!" inside of it. I put the bubble and word two different layers so that the word could flash a few times. I played with the opacity of the word bubble and word as well.

As for the butterfly movie clip, once a finished my movie clip I began working on the scene that it would fly through. I created a path for the butterfly to follow and I changed the orientation of the butterfly so that it would look more believable as it flew across the path. I needed to check of a box in properties to align the butterfly to the path as well. Currently I am still working on my butterfly animation. So far I have created clouds in the background that are tweened and run on a loop.