“Animation 101” Module briefing

[FIRST YEAR] Animation 101

Covered today:

The animation 101 brief and deliverables

(Note to Self: Information to be inserted on the briefing presentation)

The Principles of animation:

• Slow in & Slow Out

• Anticipation

• Staging

• Appeal

An induction to the Stop-Motion Studio, camera and introduction to Stop Motion Pro software.

Today Joe Dembinski and James Russell gave an induction of the stop-motion studio. I was part of the group that was being shown how to set up a scene for the A-to-B exercise using a wooden block. They showed me how to plug in a DSLR camera to a computer interface. The setting up of the camera was shown to the group but this was hard to see because I couldn't see the screen, to get enough detail to understand what I was being shown. 

So it followed on to the technique called 'Onion Skinning', using this function within the software for the purpose of seeing a previous shot and a live view. By moving the slider to the right to view the previous shot or moving the slider to the left to see the live view. However, if the slider is in the centre it can be viewed with both views overlaid to see the previous shot but with a low opacity, making a block or object (that is being used) look like a ghost. 

Finally James showed the group how to export the final animation images into a video. This wouldn't help me when I start to make my own stop-motion animation as I couldn't see the screen to replicate the process (as the computer was too far away making it blurred). The induction wasn't presented well for such a large group with such a small screen. In my view James and Joe should have used a projector to allow the group to see a bigger version of the computer screen allowing more detail to be shown to the group.  should've been a one to one session (rather than group). 


An overview and introduction to Maya

Johny taught the group about the interface of Maya. Showing how to navigate around the stage:

• Alt + Left Click = Rotate
• Alt + Scroller Click = Pan
• Alt + Right Click = Zoom
• Spacebar = Change Perspective 

How to do an A-to-B

Johny showed me how to create a block A-to-B Animation. Sorting out the Settings:

1. Preferences> Edit> Restore Default Settings
2. Preferences> UI Elements> Command line (turn off)
3. Preferences> Settings> Time 25fps
4. Preferences> Settings> Time Slider> Height x2
5. Preferences> Settings> Time Slider> Playback> Real-time (25fps)

Creating the Animation:

1. Create a Polygon cube. Press 5 to shade it
2. Move the cube to -12in in the X Channel
3. On frame 1 set a key for X Channel (right click > Key selected)
4. Move to frame 25 set a key for X Channel (right click > Key selected)
5. Move the cube to 12in in the X Channel
6. Move to frame 75 set a key for X Channel (right click > Key selected)
7. Move to frame 100 set a key for X Channel (right click > Key selected)

To render the animation quickly with basic lighting then a Playblast would be made:

After doing this it will default, to create a Slow in and Slow out to move from A-to-B but the graph editor need to change this to a linear A-to-B:

1. Select the key frames then click the icons to see what happens to the graph
2. Playblast and pay close attention to the changes in movement