Day 6 (animation) - Goals and Understandings (discussions)

(Note: this is a 'draft' created on Tuesday and may be 'updated' prior to class)

(for the instructor) 

A) Prior to class, understand the various rendering types (H.264 vs. mp4) and 'compression' aspects.  4:3 ratio on Youtube - smaller file, but don't need compression of proportions.

B) "Letterbox to 'preserve' ratio" / resolution of the mp4 movie - appears a little bitmapped

Review:
Storyboards and planning your work:
"Why are storyboards effective for us as animators?" (Write keywords on the board as students react to this question)
(answers include: planning, timeframes, angles for character drawings, sound and music files, 'transitions'/fade ins/outs/timing is key to effective animation - 'credibility')

*After this review (above) - have students open this blog for further discussion/review (below):

1) Establishing shot (with title) / *download or create a background image (saving to your folder) - Organization - the 'key' to effective animation (labeling, folders, storing/restoring)

2) Compositions (software) vs. Footage (files inside of folders that must 'travel') - Keeping it all together.
Example: Use Kara's file of the bird in flight to review/discuss 'compositions' inside of compositions (wings flapping 'looping' file)

3) Character movement using 'A' and 'B' keyframes (apply sound effect here if possible/GarageBand is a good source)
Example: "Is your 'movement' believable?" / Heather's worms are moving too fast, but look at the 'depth' we were able to achieve.

Example: Scanning image files last week - we need to consider our various angles / resolution / 'props' - including background images, other objects and their 'roles' using a storyboard.

4) Rendering your file to a movie (discuss file types). Figure out why Jack's file did not render completely and why we need to 'shorten' the render's on other animations for preview on YouTube.

Discussions (demonstrations) for tonight:
Tonight's Goals:
1) Bring it together / watch your time / plan effectively (2 hrs. of lab tonight / 2 hrs. next week)

2) "Do we want to have an open house at *8:30? next Thursday for our folks to visit?"

"If this is a 'yes' you need to take the 'final' - on the blog, to prepare your vocabulary".

3) Adding 'sound' to your animations (rendering to GarageBand to 'cut' to 'fit')

Example: Jack's 3 minute song - cut to 17 seconds (which part to use).

Jack's starting Major animation on week 6 - click here 

Kara's starting for week 6 - click here

Day 5 (animation) - Goals and Understandings (discussions)

For Day 5 (DRAFTED on Tuesday)

(prior to class starting)

Figure out what is 'wrong' with the projector (pull down menu/format)

Have 'links' for bookmarks:

   YouTube (login and password through your Gmail / use the bookmark for blogs and postings and the 'kcailogin' account)

   Postings - in Blogger.com / for student references

For Class Discussion:

Review - started (now finish) intro to After Effects.

"I apologize - in that I think there is too much available" / the 'upgrade' to CS4 threw me for a loop

Is this a good thing?  Are we able to remain focused on the 'basics'?: 

  Creating and importing our artwork (from Photoshop/as layers)

  Keyframes - inserting and manipulating A and B

  Storyboards - the basics of where this begins/planning/timeframes, etc.

Last week we discussed 'adding depth' to your animations and 'considerations' prior to execution (through storyboards).

"Are you planning effectively?  Do you know what is out there?  Do you have any questions about our progress?"

Question:  Do we want to have a 'showing' of our learning on the last day (evening) of class - April 2nd?

Tonight - bringing it all together, requires an understanding of ALL that is available to you as the animator.

  Exporting your movie for viewing on YouTube (your audience)

  Quicktime (formats) and Adding sound (GarageBand)

  Did you bring music? (discuss potential at 6:30) - group demo

FrogPond (Click here) trt :18 sec.

Adding Sound, tracking, establishing shot, fade in/out, titles, 'puppet tool'.

Jack's click here

Heather's click here

Kara's click here

Day 4 (animation) - Goals and Understandings (discussions)

A review of last week included our efforts at establishing 'keyframes' (an 'A' and a 'B') and then 'tweening' movement by allowing the computer to take over.  This is what software does - it makes things happen.  Just as Photoshop (after titling our layers) was able to be brought into Flash and the software 'retained' the titles of each of the layers.

Last Week (week 3):

- Revisited the 'Lava lamp' movies (with the introduction of 'morphing' shapes over 'time').

Generated a two ball movie that morphed in its shapes using the following steps/vocabulary:

1) Establishing a shape (a ball) and creating a gradient to give it a sense of form (illusion)

2) Establishing an 'A' keyframe and a 'B' keyframe for each layer (10 second movement)

*Make the two shapes intersect at some point in the animation

3) Allowing the 'shape tween' (Shift 'select' + Control>'shape tweening')

4) Inserting additional 'keyframes' in the 'shape tween' to respond to a collision

- Re-rendered in Flash our Quicktime exports (.mov) file for uploading to YouTube.com (still)

- Discussed (introduced) Photoshop: When scanning an object into the computer for layers

- Made our turkeys (and layers) in Photoshop - saving as a 'native' .psd file (file types)

Imported layers into Flash for establishing keyframes (sorry, tried too many layers)

*Go back to your turkey movies and work with just one element for movement (Save as .mov)

(This completes the review portion of Day 4) - Take a quick 'break' (at 7pm)

Today - We are going to take our characters into Photoshop and generate 'layers' for use in BOTH Flash and later (tonight) After Effects.

- You can generate (paint) or find (Internet) a background image (show examples of student work from last summer).  Lava lamps had 'no' background aside from color (stage).

Introduction of After Effects (around 8pm) - Save a simple movie (.efx and .mov)

Next week - adding sound to our movies using Garage Band (bring your CDs and MP3 players.

(file types include: .aiff, .mp3, .mp4/video and .mov)

Day 3 (animation) - Goals and Understandings (discussions)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOqbgQnknDY
There appeared to be a rendering issue with Quicktime - when uploading from Flash (.mov) to YouTube. We will discuss this 1st.
Time will be given in class (1st half hour) to review the work from last week and our 'uploading' to YouTube (use the blog posting to access the webpage/link for this class:

Today's Goals: Photoshop - Scanning, file types (.psd, .jpg and .gif), tools (selection tools), layering (in Photoshop)

- Scanning (of character) into various 'modes' for working with native files (.psd)

- Importing to the 'library' (vector based objects vs. shapes with Flash)

- Creating layers (titling) and 'pivot points' for movement

- Review of Keyframes and 'tweening'

- Saving today's work into an .swf and .mov file (for upload)

Homework: 

1) Continue to develop your 'storyboards' for your 'final' animations

Remember to include ideas about 'music' (.mp3 and .aif files are preferred), transitions and timing for your animation (aim for a :30 sec animation) which will use After Effects (next week).

2) Research (option) find job postings for animators / research the 'skills' necessary (and include a list of softwares utilized).  Post the results to the end of Day 3 (below).