Technical Issues I ran into while doing my animations

Of course while doing my animations I ran into issues. For example during my second animation containing the Dominoes, I was unable to add anything to it without completely displacing the core of it.

The problem I had lies primarily on the platform on which the Dominoes sit. Anytime I added something (for example a pillar for this platform) it would displace it thus making the dominoes float rather than stand on it. What was disappointing was I couldn't have the start I wanted and had originally planned though that was a fault on my behalf as had made the silly mistake of forgetting to include this in the first place.

Other than this I haven't really run into any other major technical difficulties in my animations so far.

Idea development (Trial and Error)

So I have now scrapped one of my animation ideas that I was working on - this consisted of a shape going up a hill then tumbling back down - was scrapped because of technical difficulties. However I have begun work on my 'Portal' style animation although the colours and style have steered away from Portal itself, I have now attempted to take a more Japanese style though not an overwhelming sense of Japanese style art:

First shot is the tree I've decided to add (among many tree choices). Second shot shows how my 'portal' has changed to fit the style. So instead of being a coloured circle it's now a bit of shade.

Influences that could be used in my animations.

This post consists simply of pictures that coud possibly influence graphic styles or contents of my animation.

Patrick Caulfield:

2D influences:

Other visual influences:

Despite not having any plans of including Pixel style art there is still a possibility there may be an influence somewhere. Pixel art in my opinion works great as a 2D visual style.

But regarding the pictures above it would be interesting if I could incorporate some sort of visual theme. For example Black and white for an animation based on Dominoes. (This is one of my main ideas).

Looking further into Animation principles.

An in depth look at animation principles:


SQUASH AND STRETCH:
The concept is this... when a rubber ball hits the floor, it squashes out - it flattens a little. Then when it bounces back, it will stretch, or elongate slightly. This can be used to make things look very realistic or comical.

ANTICIPATION:
Instead of making things just happen, for example animating someone just immediately throwing an object and catching the viewer of guard it is important to draw the viewers attention to the action beforehand.


FOLLOW-THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION:
Follow-through is what occurs after and action has taken place. It is the direct physical result of an action.
An overlapping action involves movements that flow for instance, a man winding up for that pitch might start by only moving his arm, then his shoulders get into it, and then his torso, and pretty soon his entire body is winding up.

ARCS:
Arcs refers to the gravity of an object or the way it's formed. For example if a ball is thrown it wil not move through the air in a straight line and then fall flat down. What it will do however, is move through the air at an angle then when it falls down it will dip rather than fall straight to the floor and thus when the ball travels it is similar to an arc.

EASE-IN AND EASE-OUT:
Or in other words Acceleration/Deceleration. If something starts up such as a car, it will not instantly move but rather gradually get faster and of course gradually get slower.

TIMING:
You can break it down into essentially 2 categories... physical timing and theatrical timing. Physical timing refers to the actual motions required to perform an action, while theatrical timing refers to the pauses and the emphases added to make it dramatic.

SECONDARY ACTION:
Secondary Actions are little movements that aren't essential but that help to add meaning to an action. Example: a boy is lifting a sandwich up to his mouth to eat it. If he licks his lips along the way, it adds a shade of meaning to the action. Hence this is a secondary action.

EXAGGERATION:
This depends largely on what kind of animation you're doing. If it's realistic you might want to keep exaggeration to a minimum, but obviously for something more crazy or comical you can really go nuts. 

STAGING:
Most of the other principles have been written about mainly in animation books, but Staging is really not animation-specific. It's a director's tool, used in all kinds of filmmaking and stagecraft.

STRAIGHT AHEAD ACTION AND POSE-TO-POSE:
This one is really biased toward cell animation or CGI, since stopmotion by its very nature is always straight ahead animation. What this means is that you must start at the beginning of a shot and progress through it straight ahead, one frame to the next, with no going back and no jumping ahead - no second pass (unless it's in post production to add effects).

SOLID DRAWING The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into color and movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time.

APPEAL:
You should try to make your work appealing. If people start looking at their watches a few seconds into one of your animations, maybe you need to work on your appeal. 

AE tutorials that could help with my animations.

There are likely a few useful websites concerning the use of After Effects but one site called 'Video Copilot' has some fantastic tutorials and even a free After Effects basics tutorial.

http://www.videocopilot.net/

Simply by doing the first set of free tutorials that teach you the basics of After Effects it is possible to get a good idea of how to animate and the feel of the overall software.

Researching 2D animation.

There aren't too many examples of 2D animations that relate to the basic principles of animation but we can get a good idea of what the brief is asking us to do by looking at some videos fairly related to the brief.

The Bupa advert seen on Television uses basic 2D animations to convey a scene or story with the right music to suit the mood of the animation.

New project: Creating an Animation.

In this new project we have been asked to create 3 short animations using basic 2D shapes which use a range of Animation principles. There are 12 animation principles and these include:

Squash and Stretch
Anticipation
Follow through and overlapping actions
Arcs
Erase-In and Erase-Out
Timing
Secondary Action
Exaggeration
Staging
Straight ahead action and pose to pose
Solid Drawing
Appeal

These principles are examples taken from a source other than the brief although it appears to be pretty much almost the same. When making my animation however, I will be using the principles written in the brief as a basis.

Other influences may work their way into my animation (just for inspiration). These influences include music or some other form of media such as Art that uses 2D shapes. Other influences such as an artist or art movement may make their way into my animation in order to give my animation more substance visually.