Sophomore Year(Animation): Semester 1 Reflection

Semester 1 Reflection 

The Walk Cycle

When making the walk cycle, I learned how to  make a shadow by just using a shape layer and turning down the opacity and decreasing the hardness of the shape. Mr. Olson, my animation teacher, taught me how to make the shadow through one of his lessons.  This project also taught me how to use the text tool by just making a text layer. I learned how to use the text tool, when I was trying to get more familiar with using Adobe After Effects.  I learned how to use the key frames to make the person appear to be walking. The legs for the walk cycle went very well, however it was very time consuming making the the different key frames. I would have liked to have been able to make a different background.  I had ran out of time to spent a lot of time on the background, since I had spent to much time making my character in Adobe Photoshop. I have improved my time manage meant skills. I plaining to be an animator, so I can apply everything I have learned into any future projects.  Overall, my walk cycle was one of my favorite projects. 

The Story Animation

The story animation was my favorite 2D animation project, which is why I have chosen to talk about this Animation. When making this animation,  I learned how to incorporate all what I had learned from the multi plane animation, walk cycle, bouncing ball animation, and the worm animation (Blogs for each down below this blog). I was given three weeks to make this animation. Within thous three weeks, I learned how to manage my time by making what I needed to have done by the end of each week. I learned, from the final project last year in E9, that organization and time management is key to being finish on time with a good product. My greatest strength was getting the animation done on time and completed because of project management. However, I should have spent more time in Adobe Photoshop on the characters and background. I am going to use what I learned with this project and use it on any new projects I will have. If I became a professional animator, I will defenetly use what I have learned, like how to animate a multi plane. I would change the length of my story so that I could spent more time on the design of the characters in Adobe Photoshop. I loved this project so much and hopefully I will be able to do something like this again.  

The Polything

 Maya, is a new software I have just learned to use. Mr. Nuterville, the other animation teacher, taught the basics of Maya first before this 3d image. I was given a document with instructions on how to make the polishing. Within thous instructions I learned how to use the 3 key lighting elements.  A video over lighting also helped me with lighting the shape. I also learned how to use the difference tool to make the holes using multiple cylinders in a sphere.

This was a fun project to do and was my third project in Maya. It was easy for me to make and  color the polything and plane. I had trouble making the shadows using the direct lighting tool. I have learned more tools to use in Maya. I will apply what I have learned, about shadows and lighting, into future projects I will have in Maya. I wouldn't change anything because it turned out pretty great. I can not what to use the lighting tools more in the future.

The Castle

The Castle 3d image was made using Maya. I learned how to duplicate a shape. I also learned how to add colors and textures. This will help me   in the future when I will have larger more complex projects. The knowledge of adding of color and texture will also help me easily color objects faster. I learned to add color and texture from Mr. Nuterville. I picked this 3d image because this was the first project in Maya were I was able to make a 3D building. It was easy for me to make the castle. I struggled trying to find seamless textures. I have much to improve and learn because I have just learned how to use the basic tools in Maya. I am going to apply what I learned from this projects to future projects. I would have liked to have added more towers and a drawbridge to add more to the image to make it more interesting. I can't what till I can use Maya for more larger projects. 

Story Animation

Story Animation

The Story

 The story is that there is a boy and a girl. As toddlers they each found a helicopter seed. The little girl planted her seed first at the neighborhood park. Then the boy finds a helicopter seed on his window seed and he decide he wants to plant it. Unknowingly, he goes to the same park the girl had gone to and he plants it in the same spot the little girl had planted her helicopter seed. The tree grows as the boy and the girl grow up. They both visit the tree as they grow up, but they never seem to come at the same time, until one day both the boy and the girl are walking to the tree at the same time. When they get to the tree they see a man with an axe and had on a shirt that said Bob’s Logging. The man was about to chop down the tree. They manage to stop the man from chopping the tree down. They finally meet and became best friends. Three years later the boy and the girl get married. You may be wondering where the fairies at the beginning fit into the story, the fairies foreshadow the meeting of the boy and the girl.

What I learned and The Obstacles 

I learned that it takes lots of work to make an animation. I also learned that a longer story with lots of characters is very challenging. Maybe next time I can make a shorter story with less characters, so that I can focused more on the details. I learned different ways to use the pin tool. I also learned how to I learned to budget my time more efficiently to meet the due date.  I had many obstacles I had to overcome, one was getting the fairies to look like they were flying as well as dancing. I also had to take out some transitions to shorten the time of my animation.The beginning of the animation was insanely slow.

The Underwater Forest

The Underwater Forest

-the background animation 

What is Multiplane animation?

Multiplane animation was first made by using the multiplane camera, which was made by Ub Iwerks. The multiplane camera is a motion picture camera used in the traditional hand drawn and hand inked animation process. Walt Disney used the maltiplane camera to produce the beloved film, Bambi.  The multiplane animation camera  moves multiple pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another.The multiplane camera allows a background to look more 3 dimentonal. 

How this animation was made?

Most of this animation was made in Photoshop. I first stared by making an artboard with the demintions of 10000*1080px. Once the artboards' demintions were set, I set vertical guides by turning on rulers. These helped me divide up my art board into "frames." I then made many layers for the moon, the sky, the water and four floor layers. I named each layer:background, moon, water forground, midground, secend midground,and closest ground. I then ilistrated the trees on the diffrent grounds using the paint brush tool. I also used the burn tool to make the swerly lines on the trees to make them look more life like. Once I finished drawing out the layers I save it and send it to Adobe After Effects. In After Effects all I had to do was use the postion key fames and move each layer across the screen on how I wanted it to look like and how fast I wanted each layer to go by adjusting the key frames. Once that was done, I was able to render it out as a video. Finaly I put it onto Youtube.     

    

The Animated Marcher Walking Cycle

Animated Marcher Walking Cycle

The Project Overview

The animated walking cycle project all started with a sketch of a made up figure with two lags or a human, I chose to make a human. I got my inspiration for making her outfit from my schools' marching band program, where I play the flute. Once the sketch on paper was done, I took a photo of the drawing and sent it to my computer through email. Once I received the email I put the photo into Adobe Photoshop. In Photoshop I selected each limb of my person. I copied and pasted each one into different layers. I cleaned up each of the pieces. Then I found a real life photo of a terf field and edited it to my liking. That photo was then used for the background. Next, I put all of the layers into Adobe After Effects. In After Effects I first parented all the limbs to the mid-section. I made the lags move by using the position and rotation key frames. I also wanted to make the caps move along with the lags too, so I used a little of rotation and some position key frames. I made a new composition with all of the leg and cap movements. Then I made a shadow using the shape tool and parented that to the movement composition. I made a Nall object and parented that also to the movement composition. Finally, I used the position key frames to make my marcher march across the screen  and I added some text to. Once everything was finished I rendered my animation and posted it on to YouTube.  

What I learned

I learned another way to make a shadow. To make a shadow this new way, I just made a shape layer. Then I turned the opacity down and decreased the hardness. I also learned how to use the text tool by just making a text layer. I learned that animation takes a long time to do and can be very challenging. I also learned that not just one thing is happening during a good animation.  

What I Need To Improve And Keep The Same

 I need to improve some of my fixes on the background that now stands out badly. I would have liked to have had more time to animate the arms to go up and down. The lags walking went very well but it was very time consuming. I would have liked to have been able to make a different background or have been able to add more to the background. Overall, it turned out to be pretty nice and I can't what for the next project.  

My Worm Animation

Worm Animation

 What was the project?

           This project was called "The Worm Project." The first step to this project was to make sky, ground, a worm, and if time permitted some clouds, in Adobe Photoshop. The gradient tool was used to make both the blue sky and green ground. Just to note the grass and sky are separate layers. I made a layer for the worm and the worm was made by using the paint tool. I made a layer for clouds as well. I made the clouds and the worm look 3Dish by using bevel and boise. Once everything was touched up in Photoshop I saved the layers into a file. Then I put the file into Adobe After Affects project window. I then used a new tool called the push pin. The push pin creates key frames that let you to warp a spot in an image were the push pin or pins exists. Once all of the pin key frames were set to were I wanted them. I used another tool that is called glue. This tool helped keep the worm in place. Once that was done and all of the pins were in place, I put them in a group hidden from sight. This put them out of the way for the next part of this project. Next I used the tool that is called "Noll," this tool keeps things from moving off a certain point of travel. In this projects' case the Noll makes a layer which, is used to keep the worm from moving up and down as it moves across the page(screen). So I connect the Noll layer to the worm layer. I just use the position key frames, setting them every 10 frames to make the worm move gracefully across the screen. Finally I made the worm a shadow.  Once that was done I rendered the animation, posted it on YouTube, and Embedded it into this blog.  

What did you learn?

            I learned how to use the pin tool in Adobe After Affects. The pin tool allowed me to make pin key frames and attach them to my worm. Once the pin key frames were set in place I was able to maneuver the middle and back pin key frames, up and forwards a little to make it look like the worm is scrunching up before it takes it's next "step" foreword. I also learned how to use a tool called Noll. I learned how to make a shadow in after affects too. I first copied the worm layer. Then I just had to flip that copied layer horizontally. I turned the color of that layer to night black. Finally I gust turn the opacity down and soften the edges of the shadow. 

How did it go?What would be done differently?

             This project went pretty well. I would have loved to have been able to make the clouds move across the screen. I also would have made the worm larger so that it wouldn't look so small. I was also little crunched for time, so I was not able to animate the clouds sadly. This project was lots of fun. I can not what for the next project I get to do and all of the new things I will get to learn.     

   

Bouncing ball Sophomore year

Bouncing ball Sophomore year

                                              What was the project?

This project was an updated version of my freshman E9 bouncing ball project.  The first step was to make the sky layers. I colored the first layer blue for the sky using the fill tool and using the gradient tool to make the illusion of light. Next, I made new layer then used the brush tool and changed the look of the brush to look like long blades of grass.  After that, I made a new layer and made a circle using the circle tool.  I was assigned to make a circle using the circle tool on photo shop. I used the gradient tool to make the circle look like a ball. I copied the grass layer and put the copied layer in front of the ball layer and I offset it lower than the first grass layer to make the ball appear to be sitting in the grass.  I then added some clouds in the sky by using the paint brush tool. Next, I put my photoshop work into a project file in adobe after effects. In after effects I used position keyframes to make arcs that the ball will follow.  I used the scale key frames, after making the arcs, to make the squash of the ball for every time the ball hits at each bottom arc. After the squashes were made I made the stretch with the scale and rotation key frames. So, after and before each squash I made  scale key frames. Which narrowed the ball and the ball's height got taller. I then used the rotation key frames to tilt the ball to look as if it was in line with the sides of the arc. After, the ball was finished being animated, I made the clouds move across the screen by just using the position keyframes. Finally, I exported the animation and put it on my Youtube account.    

What did you learn?

I learned that animation takes a lot of time and that some animations are made up of many, many, and many key frames. I learned how to use Adobe After Affects and Adobe Photoshop. I learned how to use a gradient on the ball and the sky. I also learned how to change the paint brush tools' shape to look like grass. I also learned how to use Adobe After Affects. I learned how to make arcs in After Affects, by using position key frames. I also learned how to use the scale and rotation key frames to make the ball squash and stretch.

How did it go?What would be done differently?

The project was relatively simple. The animation turned out very good. However, I had a problem with trying to get the layer effect bevel and boise on the ball to get the ball to look 3D but it was not working so I had to opt for the gradient tool instead.

Graphic Design Sophomore Photoshop Work

My First Sophomore Graphic Design E-Comm Work

       This past week I have sharpened my knowledge, on the ends and outs of editing photos in the Adobe program Adobe Photoshop. The photos below are all of the finished projects I did in Photoshop, organized from my first project to my last. 

     The three photos below, I edited with the tool called the Content  Aware Fill tool. This tool helped me touch up unnecessary spot in each of the photos. All I had to do was make a selection using either the square selection tool and/or the lasso tool. Then I clicked the Content Aware Fill  tool which takes the colors from other parts of the photo around the selection and fills it the spot in.  You can also use this tool to move logos around and remove logos, as shown in the third photo down.      

Now for the photo below, I used the tool called the patch tool. The patch tool was used to remove a logo from the man's shirt. To use the patch tool I had to use the lasso tool to make a tight selection around the logo. Then I had to deselect part of the shirt once it was moved then I used the patch tool once again to remove the remainder of the logo.  

This photo of a model, shown below, was edited by using the clone stamp tool and the Healing brush tool. I used this tool to remove a tag from her coat by using the clone stamp tool. Then once the tag was removed I added texter to the part removed by using the clone stamp tool.  

This photo shown below was edited by using the clone stamp tool and the patch tool. I used this tool to remove a poll that looked like it was sticking out of the man's head.  

The photo pf the little boy was edited by using the spot healing brush. I used the spot healing brush to remove very small specks of dirt from the boy's face. This tool lets you remove very small detailed parts from photos. 

The collage of photos shown below used all of the tools I learned about to follow a guided video on how to build a college of different shots of this girl. I combined all of the tools I described above and watched a step by step video on how to put together this collage. 

This photo was the challenge which combined all of the skills I learned, letting me and my imagination go free editing this man and landscape photos together to make a master piece. 

The photos below are my branding, billboard and flyer photos. I used the skills I talked about in the upper photos to make each of these photos. 

What was My  favorite skill I learned and why will it be valuable in the future? What were my strengths/weaknesses?

My favorite skill I learned had to be the Clone stamp and Patch tool. These tools will help me in clean up some unnessisary marks or mistakes in the future. My strengths had to be that I had some knowledge in how to work photoshop which helped me work through each of the editing videos that helped me edit each photo,(except the challenge there was no video). 

What would I do different? What would I do the same? Why?

I would have liked to have had more time to work on making some of these photos so they look more cleaner edited. I would do the challenge the same because I loved the way it turned out.  

Conclusion 

These projects were very different than I am used to but I feel like most of them were successful. I loved the Challenge that was my favorite part of the whole project.