This Month's Projects
2D Animation Course Projects Video

So confirmation of my Geometry grade is a 93.9%, expected. And my CDC (Character Design Creation) grade is a 96.9%.  I'm stoked!  That beat my old high grade by .1%, and I now have 7 A's, 2 B's, and a 3.5 GPA. A 3.5 was my goal; now to aim for a 3.7 GPA.


2D Animation was fun, but easy and hard at the same time.  Granted it was my only class this month, but I was restricted with no Open 2D Animation Labs and limited number of computers to load my projects with.  Some days it was difficult waiting for a computer, and sometimes I worked outside of class blindly finishing some of my projects.  But all in all, most turned out fine with little issues, and I'm happy with all of them.  I decided it be best to put all the projects into one video instead of uploading little individual ones, and then talking about the individual projects here.  But first, a quick lesson in 2D Animation.

- Scene/Shot - the area within the drawing space describing the motion portrayed.

- Frame - Sections within a timeframe to enter images and manipulate motion. Typically, there are 24 frames per second, so an animator can enter up to 24 images in one second. Can you imagine 129,600 drawings in a 90 minute 2D movie?

- Straight Ahead - One of the arts of animating. Drawing each drawing following the previous drawing.  This is considered more freestyle animation as there is no determined timeframe for each motion to be completed.

- Pose-to-Pose - The 2nd art of animation. Drawing certain placements to meet within a certain timeframe.
-- Key Frames, or Keys - The important drawings placed in the motion.
-- Breakdown & In-Betweens -  the images between keys to create each point of the motion.  Breakdown usually falls halfway or in thirds of the keys while in-betweens fill "in between" breakdown frames to either smooth the transition, build up the momentum, or slow down the momentum.

- Stepping - How many times an image is viewed per frame during a motion. When in conversation, stepping is depicted by its number of times each image is repeated.
-- Animating on 1's (aka "1's") = 24 frames/second.  This stepping is the smoothest transition from image-to-image and mostly used for fast actions, such as running or action scenes.
-- Animating on 2's (aka "2's) = 12 frames/second.  This manipulates slower image-to-image motions, but is the most used stepping for animation.
-- Stepping can continue to larger numbers, but the animation will move slower as the stepping increases till the image may be considered "holding."

- Holding - repeating a image for a certain length of frames to manipulate no motion.

- Cycle/Loop - repeating the animation to repeating action

- Layer - one drawing stacked on top of other drawings each controlling a separate object to animate

- Flow Chart - a sheet to track when the animation should build up or slow down momentum.




And onto the 2DA Projects

Exercise - Morph Shape ("Square to Star")
Objective: Learn how to time movement.

I would've held the pentagon frame for 6-12 frames, but we didn't learn about holding till the Project 4.


Project 1 - Perpetual Bounce
Objective: Learn how to show weight/gravity, squash, stretch, speed, slow, and loop.


Project 2 - Physics ("Obstacle Drop")
Objective: Continue learning weight, squash, stretch, speed, and slow, but change the physical attributes of the bounce project.

I decided to change the terrain of the bounce. The ball had to bounce quicker as it fell farther down the narrow pathway.  My idea was a pinball machine right above the flippers where the pinball would occasional bounce back and forth between the guards before if descended downwards. The faces were in there for comedy.


Project 3 - Pendulum
Objective: Continue learning timing, weight, speed, slow, and loop, but also learn natural arc movements.


Project 4 - Head Turn
Objective: Continue learning speed, slow, and natural arc movements, and timing. Hold the straight-on image for 12 frames, and the last for 24 frames.

Apparently heads move in a downward or upward action and never straight across when turning.  It seemed more natural to move straight across.


Project 5 - Descend
Objective: Continue learning weight/gravity, squash, stretch, speed, slow, and natural arc movements.

Everyone was doing the normal tossed ball across the scene till it bounced out of energy.  I was still in my pinball phase and wanted to make the ball hit something other than the ground.  So I made it hit a wall before it came to a stop.  I had a battle getting the ball to stop.


Project 6 - Whip
Objective: With the stick frames provided, continue learning natural arcs, but also how to animate a secondary action (reaction/follow-thru).

I wanted to make this a surrender flag, but I ran out of time.  At least I made it loop.



Project 7 - Overlap
Objective: Retrieve the Bounce Project.  On a separate layer, continue learning weight, squash, stretch, and follow-thru actions by using a flexible lightweight object.

Once again, I had to be different, while everyone was doing tails, I did bunny ears.  Have to thank the teacher for showing us a Bugs Bunny cartoon as an example.



Project 8 - Run Cycle
Objective: With the key frames provided, finish the cycle on 1's using squash, stretch, and natural arcs.



Project 9 - Jump
Objective: With the key frames and flow chart provided, finish the animation using Breakdowns, In-Betweens, speed up, slow down, follow-thru actions, and natural arcs.

I had an argument with the instructor on this one.  The key frames provided did not mimic a natural jump, and due to my history of being a rebounder in middle school basketball, high jumper in elementary school, and a long jumper in high school, I told him how I think the jump should look.  I'm now known as "Jumpy Justin" to him; he even sketched me, and it was funny.



Project 10 & 11 - Walk
Objective: Animate a two-step bi-pedal walk across the scene using the flow chart provided.  Learn the key frames of a walk, then continue the animation with breaks, in-betweens, weight, squash, stretch, and natural arcs.  Project 11 adds in the arms and head movements using follow-thru/reactions, and creating personality.

I wanted my character to be focused and angry at what he was walking towards.  I only have beef with the head movement being rapid and not slight.



Project 12 - Sit to Stand 1
Objective: Learn how to use anticipation to an action before the action begins and how to animate in and out of holds.

My character does a snake slither as it gets up, and that didn't look good.  I tried to hide it by animating it on 1's, but I still see it...



Project 13 - Sit to Stand 2
Objective: Create a story of why a character would stand up using at least 3 other actions.  Use anything that was learned to create the scene.

This was the most fun and the most work.  I used 7 layers, squash, stretch, weight, natural arcs, follow-thrus, reactions, holds, and anticipation.  2 of my classmates were doing bending from Avatar,  so I decided that I should base my actions on a reference too, and decided to go to my old roots, DBZ.  The energy didn't turn out too bad, it's believable.



Final Project - Flipbook
Objective: Throughout the month, practice straight ahead animation while learning the principles of animation.

At the beginning of class when the flip book was issued, I was thinking of some kind of action that I could animate that looked cool.  The first thing that came to me was Jager, my FFXI character.  I had a lot of fun being a Dragoon, and was thinking about how I awesome I was being able to solo my own Light and Darkness Skillchains (a series of weapon skills that create extra damage; Light and Darkness are the largest amounts of extra damage that can be reached that take timing and skill to pull off successfully for each class/job.)  I decided on animating my version of the "Dragoon Solo Light Skillchain" with a victory pose at the end. So I returned to my old life, brushed out some cobwebs of trying to remember the sequence, and practiced the animations myself with a stick I bought as a prop. I already got a 100 on my Flipbook project, just have to wait for the rest of the grade.



The Shading and Lighting Test

I had some miscommunication at the beginning of the month, and missed out on critiques for the first 2 weeks.  After I was able to meet with the instructor, I initially had 24 hours to fix a multitude of problems.  I decided that I will take my first strike and work the project at a later date till I'm ready to retake the test.  Essentially, that's my 2nd fail during my education... or is it my 3rd...?  Either way, it's another mistake learned and I hope it doesn't happen again.



Next is Compositing Fundamentals (CFM) and Fundamentals of Animation (aka FOA, basics of 3D Animation, or 3DA).  I have no good clue to what compositing really is, but I hear I have to buy my own Nuke program, which the student version is 3-digits where I believe the professional version is 4-digits.  Unbelievable they don't provide all the programs required for students in the tuition.  It's an expense that I wasn't prepared for, and may need to increase my next loan amount.  3DA on the other hand is the next class I'm looking forward to.  We take what we learned in 2DA and relearn them in the 3D world.  So it's playing with boxes and balls and giving them character.  Time to make more awesome!  The only drawback is that I may have to wake up earlier than ever to be to class.  First lab is at 5am, and I've been in first lab every month so far.  Time to change my sleep schedule, and update ya next month!