Today we got another demo on the 3D tool in Flash. This technique is similar to tweening. With this technique we can make scene 3D giving it depth.
As you can see in this scene there is depth, the idea of this scene is for the camera to move into the scene passing bits of scenery and focusing on to the man. Using the 3D tool makes it easier to do this effect; you can do this by tweening the the symbols to move forward and enlarge but when you do it with the 3D tool it becomes smoother and you have more control on the pace and ease of the movement. In comparison the 3D tool works as a better way of creating this effect.
Another thing I have done is two character designs, these are the annual design I still need to do the model sheets but with this I now know exactly what they will look like.
The first character I did was the Jamaican character.
This character came out very well and is exactly how I wanted it to look. Most of my peers and tutor liked this character too and feel that it matches the character.
The next character I drew was the Vietnames.
This character also was given approval from myself and my peers and tutor, I even got the person to do the voice with it and it worked and sounded amazing.
After a lot of thought I have finally came up with a solid idea, looking over my previous posts I have realized that my idea was already there I just overlooked it.
The idea is for all the characters from different places to come together, in like a support group talking about their problems. With this idea I can explore all of their cultures, humor, life styles and hobbies, All the characters will also be able to interact with each other to show the difference in the different cultures.
The next thing I need to do is work out the script, and how all the people are going to speak or act.
First I am going to look at how to design all the characters, we have five characters.
Jamaican
Vietnamese
South American
Indian
Irish
These are the characters I will be creating for my 2D animation. Hopefully I will be able to create these and have them all have a conversation. What I am going to do to record all the voice is sit everyone down and start a conversation, improvising what we say would be better then writing a script, it will bring natural humour and a nice flow with the speech.
We also went over some techniques in flash. We went over the basics, liking creating a symbol and what symbol to use, tweening and frame by frame. My tutor gave us a demo on the bone tool, I haven't used it before. After the demo I sat down and created a little stickman and tried to use the bone tool on him so I can practise on it.
Heres the stickman I created, he doesn't have arms because there wasn't any point the main focus was for me to get the legs moving. Each part of the stickman separated and created into a symbol, I then selected the bone tool and created a skeleton for him.
This was it looks like once its done. there was a few tricky parts here and there, I found out while do this that you can only connect of bone to each symbol as seen above. The main point is at the bottom of the spine, creating the skeleton was easier then I expected.
When you have the armature done, the timeline of the armature layer turns green and it automatically creates a keyframe when you move a bone, This could help but in the long run it would get very confusing, it will be really easy to make a keyframe by mistake but overall I think that it would work well and would make animating a character easier, but I'm not sure if I can use this technique in my animation.
Today I have re thought about my idea, and have decided on an idea I like and want to animated. Me and my friends have different accents that we can do, so i wanted to do a funny conversation between them. There are different accents and very diverse, we have many accents like:
Jamaican.
African.
Irish.
Indian.
Vietnamese.
South American.
With all these different accents I want to get them all to have a conversation. I want it to be funny but I'm don't know what I can get them to talk about.
I found this video which is similar to what i am going to do. This video is called The English Language in 30 accents. This video didn't have a story through out of the animation, and the characters didn't interact with each other either. For my own animation I want to create a conversation between all of the different people and their different accents.
This is the mind map I created to work out what subject the characters can talk about. I want something that all the characters and can interact with, a subject that everyone can talk about and have their own views on it.
Today I am focusing on creating my idea. My tutor gave us a hand out from the book Ideas for the Animated Short (Sullivan, K, Schumer, G and Alexander, K, 2008). The hand out is there to help us generate our ideas, using ourselves, the world around us, an adaptation of a story etc.
I wrote down the ideas that popped into my head.
Halloween Story, Trick or treat with supernatural creatures dressed up as humans.
The Box, the conversation of inanimated objects, like the New Yaris TV commercial
Ingredients for food in the kitchen, the story of the life and them becoming a part of the meal. like the annoying orange. (http://www.youtube.com/user/realannoyingorange, Annoying Orange).
Funny moments like Drunk stories, and other moments that have funny or random.
I also adapted more on some of the ideas I have had.
Halloween - Monsters hanging out and talking - werewolves steals the skeletons legs. - The skeletons family goes to werewolves familys house and the parents talk about what their children have done.
Honestly I don't think I like this idea at all. One I think its boring, and if thats the case I don't think its good to continue with it.
the only other one that I think I can adapted on is the Funny moments / drunk story.
Two people are talking and one just suddenly stands and walks away and the other one goes oohhhh
A man just sits there with a straight face and then pushes his man boobs together and releases. (he isnt naked)
the rape face announcement
the random i need to poo moments
a person calls someone over to whisper in their ear, the guy puts his ear by his mouth. two different endings either he licks his ear or he shouts in his ear.
I like all these random moments i think that i could make them funny. The only problem is there is only a few with talking, I'm still not sure but i think the my idea will be a series of random moment, because I can explore different camera shots. I will also need to think of a few more different random moments.
Today, we was shown some different animation with lip syncing and there was one that stood out for me and it was one that was created by a previous student.
This video is called Blah Blah Blah (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDomWionPGI, 02/01/2012). I really liked this animation because it was funny, The video is like what I wanted to do mentioned before, but instead its a series of adverts or parts from TV, but it still is entertaining. The art work isn't the best but I think that its really effective, and with this type of art work it makes things more funny, they blend together well. what I liked the most out of this animation was the movement of the characters. the lip syncing was done really well.
The lip syncing was smooth, the animator strung together the different mouth positions to create the flowing dialog, and i don't see anything wrong with it at all. The styling itself is good as well, there is a lot of colour which attracts the audience. The backgrounds are not too complicated but they still work, just having a background to put the character in helps, it creates a connection to the dialog itself. The story of this animation is good, because it has the different stories with all different characters and dialog, and styling goes well with it because it then connects it all together and visually making it work as well as with dialog.
This is a video called Friends who can't Keep secrets by Swoozie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcAdk_n--ns, 25/08/2013). This animation has a little bit of lip syncing but not a lot, the lip syncing is pretty basic, there are only a few mouth positions which create the illusion of dialog. The main reason i looked at this is because of the concept, this animation is all about a true story this guy went through, and I thought that I could create something just like this but with more detail and a lot more lip syncing and maybe exaggerate it to give it more dramatic atmosphere, maybe even make it more funny. This is another opinion for what I can do instead of jokes and funny situation maybe I could do mine on more the serious side of things.
The styling of this animation was very basic, there was no colour at all and the characters are stick figures. There is shading and shadows which are done all right, but there is no backgrounds at all. compared to the previous video above this animation is very basic because of the lack of mouth positions and the styling.
I created a story board going through some of the ideas I came up with.
I do like most of the ideas that I wrote down but I just need to find a story to do, so I can plan and work on it.
Module DV2900 is a 2D animation project, where I will be learning lip syncing in Adobe Flash. Lip syncing is new to me, I have never done this before, but it is a main skill I need to be able to do for my future animations, and I can't wait to learn how to do it.
In most animated movies, TV shows and short films there is lip syncing. As I am making only a short animation between one to four minutes, I have turned to YouTube to find some short animated videos; videos which I have seen before and want to use as a basic idea of what I want to do and to do. lips syncing is very important, if it's off then it will look all wrong and sound wrong, which no one wants. lip syncing is done by the animator creating all the different mouth positions for each sound of the alphabet.
Using these mouth position you can create characters talking and this is what I'm going to need to do, and this is what I'm going to be looking at in other animated videos.
Here are a few videos I have found.
This video is called asdfmovie2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKB4h9gvmm0&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL3A5849BDE0581B19, 01/01/2010) created by Tomska. This video is a series of short animations. I really enjoyed these videos, they were funny and was animated very well. This video has a lot of speaking in it, which I think makes this a very good example for myself to look at, to work out how he has done it. The animation is black and white with colour coming in at certain parts as effects but the colour isn't given to characters or objects this gives a good effect, making things stand out. The art work in the video is simple, there isn't a background and there is only people and props which are mainly constructed by basic shapes and appear and disappear when needed for each scene; all these things make the video very effective the animation is smooth and the stories are good and makes it enjoyable for everyone. looking at the image I found earlier on along side the video, I can see all the different mouth positions and how it works with the dialog, when they are separate it feels weird but once the lip syncing is involve its like the characters have been given life.
Watching this video made me think that for my own idea, I could create a compilation of stories, or I could make one short funny story, something colourful and funny for all viewers, something like a funny conversation.
This is another video I looked at called I love Dota 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcK0b99t39w, 24/07/2013) from Jazza studios, this video is also short and funny like the one above but as you can see, it is more detailed making it more realistic, with human facial features, background and clothing. This video is also different because it mainly all about the characters dialog, which is why I chose it as an example. This animation is still funny but might be more for an older audience instead, but there is no swearing or rude behavior, the only thing that might make it more for the older audience is the blood at the very end. Another thing that's different is that most people wouldn't get the narrative of this animation because this animation is for pc gamers, who know or play the games mentioned in the animation.
For me the things I would take from this animation is the styling and the colouring, The styling is advanced and most realistic, the art work and the colours combine create the realistic feel, the style is of a cartoony nature, and I personally like this style of animation and I would love to create something like this instead, because the previous styling in the other animation above is known to that artist. This animation is like one of the ones i was saying before, this a sketch and short story but very effective.
With this animation the lip syncing is amazing, it really creates the illusion of speech, the different mouth position are strung together very nicely and create a smooth movement. I found that the artist done a series of videos showing how to create a flash animation from start to finish and he was creating this video with his audience. One of the videos was all about lip syncing and how to do it, the video really does help and I think it will be good to go back too to learn how to do it for my own animation.
By watching this video called Facial Animation in Flash (Lip Syncing) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_1616982161&feature=iv&src_vid=MFAtpQd1Ld8&v=T3l3txgnf_A, 27/072013). I have now learnt about the different mouth positions and how the jaw moves with it and how you have to align it right with the jaw lines that are invisible within the drawing; but I'm sure that if I have problems I can create a line to help me with the jaw lines. All the art work was done in flash on a tablet, I want to be able to do this on my own animation, I will have to start practicing in the next few days.
After watching these videos I have came up with a few ideas, one to re create some funny college moments with my peers and tutors, maybe to exaggerate them as well to make it more dramatic and funny. Another one was to create a simple story with either and good meaning behind it. I could create a truthful story or a funny story, using some of my experiences.
