Run Cycle

Rocket Animation

 For this task I had to create a storyboard for a rocket animation and then create the actual animation following it. The story is expressing the excitement of the little rocket who wants to go to the moon. In the first half of the animation he notices the moon and starts running in circles and bouncing up and down. The little guy gets overexcited and takes off in a clumsy way. Once he lands on the moon he expresses his satisfaction by raising his eyebrows. The emotions have been visualised in the animation pretty well. The only issue I had in the process of animating was the rotation of the body as the rig was not properly set but I think I managed to work with what I had. The follow-through movements of the antenna give the character personality and therefore help the audience better understand his thoughts and feelings.

12 principles of animation

The major thing I notice when I am talking about the 12 pinciples of animation now is that they have become way more noticeable for me than they were a year ago. I started noticing them everywhere, form animation movies I am watching to not-animated movies, even in my every day life when I am socializing with people. And not only I can see the difference between each pinciple but I also find myself thinking about ways to improve them in other peoples work.
They are all equally important when it comes to animating because they help the audience engage with the particular character. In my animations I usually copy my own behavior and movements as I think this helps me a lot with the visualization of my character's thoughts.

Storyboard research

I quite enjoyed doing the research on storyboards using Pinterest.com. It provided me with a range of styles and themes. Before I did the research I already had an idea about my storyboard but I did not have a clear visualisation. After I had a look at the work of other storyboard creators I came up with ideas of how exactly I should visualise my animation idea and how to make it easily understandable. Here is a link to my board in pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ra43700/sroryboard-research/?s=3&m=facebook

Excitement and how to express it throughout for character?

Excitement is a stage of euphoria and physical activation, it makes us full of adrenaline and active. The most common synonyms are euphoria, enthusiasm, frenzy, ferment. Excitement is mental but it affects the whole body and it has strong physiological responses. It is one of the main things that engages our audience.
The first thing we need to understand when it comes to expressing excitement with our animation is what is the emotion provoked by. It can come from expectancy of an event, the love of doings something etc., but it can also be fueled by another emotion as anger.
How can you pose you character in order to show excitement?



When people are happy or excited of an upcoming event or so they usually start dancing or jumping, clap excessively, rock back and forth etc. Animators usually use personification to their characters so the audience can better engage with the film. That means that their animation is mostly inspired by the feelings and emotions of the people around them or even themselves. Some of the `symptoms` of excitement you can make use of include:

• bottom lip tucked under and bitten by the teeth
• quick short hops 
• energetic movement of the hands
• shivering body 
• hands and one leg lifted up
• eyes wide open

What is a good model?

Before starting with the modelling you should have a clear idea of what you are actually trying to achieve. Having some reference images helps with the creation of good proportions which is a very important factor. You should always aim to make your character distinctive. The character must me appealing, strong and interesting in order to catch the audiences eye. For instance, when devising The Simpsons, the creator knew that the bright yellow skin and the unusual design of the characters would grab the attention of the viewer.
The strong topology makes the work of the animator much unchallenging and pleasant. While creating the model it is a good habit to always check for errors like triangles or holes instead of fixing them after you finish. It is essential that you have good edge flow in certain areas of the mesh - usually around the eyes, the shoulders, knees etc. This aspect of modelling matters if you are planning to rig the model for animation because the poorly made model is hard to rig and skin, it also deforms badly when you are animating it.

Pose to Pose animation

 

I created this short pose to pose animation following a Linda,com tutorial which I found on Youtube   ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQAOPhQLV4 ). I find the tutorial helpful as it covers the basics of creating a pose to pose animation and this is actually all you need to know.
There is also another tutorial ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8quCbt4C-c ) I found which is really good when it comes to understanding the theory behind this method and the difference between pose to pose and straight ahead. Both methods have their benefits and it is good to know the difference and app;y the method that will work the best for your animation.