DGA110 - Digital Animation Practice 1

DGA110 - Digital Animation Practice 1

Anticipation and jump 1
This was our first digital animation attempt, using Flash CC. I found the transformation tool hard to use with consistency as I find it easier to hand draw characters in animation. However I found this insightful in maintaining proportions with the acception of hyper realism.

Moving hand 1

We were given the first and last frame of a hand turning and were told to fill it out with inbetweens, this was my result. I found this task somewhat easier than the previous as the flow of the hand was easier to demonstrate with freehand drawing.

Disney ball 1

This video was our first attempt at using Maya, we used the squash and stretch principles to emphasise the Disney ball bouncing. This was fascinating to do as it gave us a different perspective on the squash and stretch form of a bouncing ball in 3D. The output for this I found out later could be modified to not includes nodes and nets, which I will follow up in my other animations using Maya.

Tails jumping 1

Next we animated a basic fox rig in Maya bouncing around a few obsticles using a similiar method to the Disney ball, as we applied the squash and stretch principles again.

Weightlifting motion 1

This was my first attempt at the motion of a character lifting weights. For this I used a reference I found online to make the key frames more accurate. I used a simple design as I was focusing on the motion of the character. It did make the animation a lot clearer, however this had drawbacks as it seems to restrict the illusion of motion in perspective.

Bouncing ball cel 2

This was my new attempt at the original exercise, I found that I could use a small coin as a consistent reference for the ball and using a guide underneath I could follow an arch persistently.

Squirrel jumping and acorn 1

This was my first attempt at a squirrel jumping after an acorn, in our crit I found that my timings for the jumps were off slightly and the acorn should have more of a bounce to it. Next time I will also look at the jumping motions of a squirrel more closely as I found that a squirrel jumps more horizontally than as featured in my animation.

Water animation 1
For this animation I mimicked the key frames from "Timing for Animation" by Harold Whitaker and John Halas. From there I filled in the inbetween frames and added some extra detail, this proved pretty effective and I plan on attempting to make another water animation without the guide of the book.

Yawn and stretch 2

My first attempt at this was pretty unsuccessful as I was trying out many different positions. My 2nd attempt however came out fairly well as I achieved a more fluid motion with the limbs and emphasised the yawning with the inflation of the upper torso.

Catch and throw 1
I wasn't very happy with the outcome of this as I struggled to get a smooth motion with the limbs. Next time I need to regulate the timings better, I might take a video of me acting out the motions to achieve this.

Smoke

For this animation I started with a line motion, then proceeded to add bubbles alternating in sizes. I found this animation challenging and would like to attempt other forms of smoke as well.

Water 2
For this animation I used no key frames from the book and attempted to make a waterfall effect. I found that the white ripples in the water needed to be repeated to give the illusion of the water flowing. Next time I will use a repeat on the flow to make the animation last longer, as well as different layers to make my animation more efficient.

Juggling 1
For this assignment I needed to draw out the different forms of hand motions and create a cycle flowing in a circular pattern. I then made a 2nd copy of this animation with varied timing and reversed to create the 2nd hand. I also spent a lot of time figuring out the timing for the balls though the air, which resulted in a looping pattern of juggling 3 different coloured balls.

Stopmotion walk cycle 1
This stopmotion proved hard to make without the clothes and hair seeming to writhe and the form seems too clunky. Next time I will take more consideration into the form of the joints.

Diving board 1
I spent a while trying to get the right hop and jump on the springboard of the character. One of the students pointed out that during the jump the character needed to be constantly tilted forwards, which I edited before completing my animation.

Pushing block 1
I thought it would be more interesting if the character in this animation failed to move the block, so I decided to also add a faint sigh towards the end of the animation.

2D showreel
I feel that next time I should spend more time into fully developing the forms of characters. But for this semester, understanding the forms of characters interactions and movement was much more imperitive than producing an aesthetically pleasing outcome.

3D showreel
Using Maya during this project proved quite challenging, because I had never used this program before. As you can see I left in the nets and nodes on the first two animation while getting used to the program. I soon later picked up on how to get an optimum playblast.

Stop motion showreel
There were a lot of challenges with these animation involving continuity and I feel the more I practice this style the more confident I will become.