Animation II
Art 311 Lecture 12
Dr. J.R. Parker
Fall 2010
How do we make an animation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Get an idea.
Build a storyboard.
Scrum and edit
Build key frames
Drawings
Build film
Add sound
How do we make an animation
1. Get an idea.
This is not always the hard part.
Short animations are easier; long ones are like
films.
We can find 3-4 good ideas in a few minutes.
Get a small group – get one to say a word, next
person to expand, next person to suggest
something interesting/funning about dogs, …
How do we make an animation
2. Build a storyboard.
Hard work
A storyboard is a set of drawings, in
temporal sequence, showing the
progression of the animation (story).
How do we make an animation
From Ridley Scott’s production company
RSA films - a set of different kinds of
boards for a TV commercial for the
British mobile company Orange.
How do we make an animation
How do we make an animation
How do we make an animation
How do we make an animation
How do we make an animation
How do we make an animation
How do we make an animation
3. Scrum and edit
Meet with the team and walk through the
storyboard, explaining / acting each
frame and the possible script beneath it.
Egoless reception of critique is essential to
the project.
How do we make an animation
Build key frames
These are the drawings from which all other
action is derived.
How do we make an animation
5. Drawings
Between key frames are ‘tweens’. These
drawings move the action from one key
frame to the next, and must be perfectly
consistent with all other drawings.
They are often done by a set of artists, and
so consistency is hard. We use
computers and software these days.
How do we make an animation
6. Build film
Collect the frames in a sequence and place
them next to each other in a video or
film.
We can use Microsoft Movie maker
(primitive) or Videomach (better)
How do we make an animation
7. Add sound
This is fun (for me anyway).
Creating and editing the sound track
requires skill and timing. Mix music,
voice over acting, and effects again using
software.
OK, let’s do one.
Idea?
Something very simple for a very short
animation. A ball hitting a wall, perhaps?
OK, let’s do one.
So we use a drawing program (or a pencil and a
scanner, I suppose) to create an initial storyboard
(which in this case is very very simple)
We will show a basketball thrown towards the basket,
and splatting against the backboard like a
pumpkin.
Images were borrowed from the web (Google image)
OK, let’s do one.
OK, let’s do one.
If this takes 1.5 seconds then it will be 36 frames! 4 keys -> 12 frames per,
The ball will spin …
So we need a series of ball drawings/images that show
this rotation.
We can then place them into consecutive frames
The GIF
version of this
is set to a slow
frame rate.
We can see
some flaws.
AVI is set faster.
How did we make the gif?
By using the Videomach tool.
How did we make the gif?
Video can be saved as a GIF, AVI, and other formats..
What else did I do?
There are 20 rotated ball images. I use a different one
each time.
I use a marked template of the basic image showing
consecutive ball positions.
Using paint, I copied ball images into the template for
consecutive frames.
Some ball images needed to have a transparent
background, so the backboard could be seen. I
used LView …
For transparent backgrounds I used Photoshop to
place the ball in the template, since it understands
transparency.
I placed a bunch of empty templates at the end of the
animation.
Transparent background in GIF
1. Load image into LView.
Transparent background in GIF
2. Select RETOUCH and tyhen Background Color.
Transparent background in GIF
3. A window will pop up. Click on ‘DROPPER’.
Transparent background in GIF
4. The pop will vanish, the cursor will be a dropper.
Click in the area of the image that is background.
Transparent background in GIF
4. Now select FILE .. SAVE. Do not select SAVE-AS
Transparent background in GIF
The white area around the ball is now transparent. Any
program that recognizes transparency will show
the background through this color ANYWHERE IN
THE IMAGE. Background color can be any color
selected.
This will be useful again later when we talk about
Second Life.
We can now, for instance, place our animation over top
of a fixed background.
Transparent background in GIF
Transparent background in GIF
Demos and examples
We can now do some stuff with
LView
Paint
Videomach.