Animation

Below are the requirements I completed for the Animation Badge

With your counselor’s approval, choose two animation techniques and plan an animation using thumbnail sketches and/or layout drawings. Then, create the animation, and share your animations with your counselor. Explain how you created it, and discuss any improvements that could be made.

Here is the animation I created:

I used Adobe Flash to create my animation along with Final Cut Pro to  add sounds. We decided to show every Principle of Animation instead of just 2.

The 12 Principles of Animation and how I demonstrated them are:

• Squash and Stretch: An object will squash or stretch while moving relative to its speed and mass. In my animation, you can see this when the ball is dropping and stretching and when it hits the hill and squashes.
• Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose: Straight Ahead is an animation technique that uses frames drawn each by themselves. It tends to result in the shrinking of characters and can look unclean. Pose to Pose draws (in this order) main poses called “Keys” that show the beginning and end of a sequence, “Extremes” to show the farthest a character will go in each direction, and “Breakdowns” to show the general direction. Then you fill in the gaps to create a smooth animation. I used Straight Ahead in my animation to animate the first character falling and this resulted in the fall begin unrealistic. I used Pose to Pose for the next frames after the fall, up until the character throws the stick.
• Arc: The general arc that human movement tends to have. In my animation, the arrow and the character’s arm both show arc.
• Timing: The speed by number of frames of an object. In my animation, this is the arrow’s speed in frames. It is not relative when slowed down like it is in the video, but at 24 fps it was a realistic speed. We slowed the original animation down in Final Cut Pro so that a viewer would have time to read the labels.
• Appeal: Making a character likable by the audience. This can mean a number of things depending on the character. In my animation, I made my character thinner and easier to animate.
• Secondary Action: An action to go along with the main movement without becoming the main movement, such as movement in the arms while walking. My character moves his arms in a jogging-like way while running.
• Slow In and Slow Out: A character starts and ends a movement slowly. In my animation, the stick figure is jumping into the mountain, the jump starts relatively slow and ends faster.
• Anticipation: A character prepares for an action to make clear what is happening before it happens. My figure’s arm exaggerates the upward movement in preparation for taking the light bulb out of his pocket.
• Follow Through and Overlapping Action: Extra parts of a character or object move to follow the main part. In my animation, my light bulb’s extra chain swings, following the light bulb as it is moved towards the ceiling.
• Solid Drawing: Solid Drawing refers to drawing objects realistically with a basic understanding of physics. This applies most to 3D objects. In my animation, the block I drew was drawn 3D to illustrate this.
• Staging: Making the main action clear and obvious using timing. I made sure that the bulb did not start moving until after it was revealed, to make the movement (the main action) clear.
• Exaggeration: Exaggeration makes movements very clear and big. In my animation, I used size and color to make the main action of combining the bulb and the cube very obvious.

Thinking about improvements, I’d say I could have improved my animation by adding more detail, making it longer, and adding a background.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS COMPLETED

In addition to the above, I also researched all the following areas and then completed a verbal presentation/interview to demonstrate my knowledge and understanding for each of them:

• Describe animation in your own words.
• Explain a brief history of animation.
• Choose five of the 12 principles of animation, and discuss how each one makes an animation appear more believable. I presented with a brief description of all 12 principles.
• Tour an animation studio or a business where animation is used, either in person, via video, or via the Internet. Share what you have learned with your counselor.
• Tour an animation studio or a business where animation is used, either in person, via video, or via the Internet. Share what you have learned with your counselor.
• Learn about three career opportunities in animation.
  Pick one and find out about the education, training, and experience required for this profession. Discuss your findings with your counselor. Explain why this profession might interest you.