by Prof. Hopkins

Final Portfolio / Critique Day

Requirements for Final Critique Day: Monday, April 24

BEGINNING OF CLASS CRITIQUE  on your Character Animation Project AND hand in of your final portfolio files.

No exeptions. No time to save files. Walk in, on time… be ready or points will be deducted from your final portfolio grade for lack of professionalism. (10 points will be deducted for failure to meet this beginning of class deadline)

Critique will begin promptly at 8:15 a.m.

Final Portfolio Requirements: (This counts as your Final Exam)

 

Animation Projects:

Your folder of files should have the following projects saved with all accompanying files – Each project should have a .fla file and a .swf file in the folder.

Please label the folders as follows:

  1. Commercial Animation Project – logo + banner
  2. Creative Animation Project
  3. Character Animation

Design Statement:

1-2 page (typed) designer statement answering the following questions in paragraph format: (save as designstatement.docx in your folder)

What did you learn this semester? (Technical + conceptual)

How is your view of animation  and Animate different after taking this class?

What aspect of the animation process did you enjoy the most/the least?

Is there anything specific that you would have liked to have gone over?

How can you improve your design skills for the future?

What do you see as the future of animation?

How can I improve http://www.professorhopkins.com? Do you use it?

Anything else you would like to tell me?

FINAL CRITIQUE WILL BE ON Monday, April 24

 

Also – if you have changed any of your projects, please list what you have done to improve them within your Designer Statement so that I know you made changes.

 

by Prof. Hopkins

Frame-by -frame animation

Some of you are incorporating traditional frame by frame animation in addition to your work with the bone tool for this animation.. Here’s a few resources to remind you of the basic principles.

 

Adobe tips

 

Shortcuts for frame by frame animation:

hollow circle on timeline: no artwork on stage

Select and right click: Convert to Blank Keyframes

Use onion skinning

comma key : move back one frame

period key: move one frame forward

 

 

by Prof. Hopkins

Inverse Kinematics: Bone Tool

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Inverse Kinematics:

The bone tool gives you inverse kinematics (IK) capabilities within Animate. IK is a way of animating objects using bones chained into linear or branched armatures in parent-child relationships. When one bone moves, connected bones move in relation to it. Inverse kinematics lets you easily create natural motion. To animate using inverse kinematics, specify the start and end positions of bones on the Timeline. Animate automatically interpolates the positions of the bones in the armature between the starting and ending frames.

Adobe Animate Bone Tool tutorial

Extensive important reading: Adobe Animate another great tutorial

Remember: Lynda.com Chapter 11

Really great illustrated how to: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/character_animation_ik.html

Tips: 

  • Break up the body into different layers
  • Bones can be placed on shapes or movie clips
  • To animate: Series of poses
  • start and end are the same
  • last frame: right click: insert pose
  • control points
  • armature layer: click on: options: wire, solid, line
  • fine tuning: property inspector for speed, pin, (keep in one place) spring, ease (quality of movement)
  • Property Inspector: rotation: enable (full range of motion) constrain: set degree of motion
  • click on individual bones: spring (force of motion); damping (heaviness of how fast it stops)
  • ALSO: when you are working on an embedded bone tool layer, you can’t see the motions until you export them to view!
by Prof. Hopkins

Monday, March 27: Building your Character

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  • Begin building your character in Illustrator or directly in Animate..
  • Tutorial on the bone tool

Things to think about:

  1. What is your visual narrative?
  2. Are you telling a story? Completely a task?
  3. Who is  your character? Think about character development – personality
  4. What are the emotions that you are  illustrating?

Character development resources: 

I love this link with two detailed character questionnaires (Marcel Proust Character Questionnaire)

Obviously, for this project you have to think about your character visually –

What do they look like? Facial features? Hair? Color palette?

What kind of clothes do they wear?

Do they have accessories/props?

A sidekick?

How old is your character?

But you should also think about them, mentally..

What do they care about?

What is the one word you would use to define them?

What is their name?