Animation and all its glory!

okay i know this really doesn't pertain to animation but i have to post this! I GOT A FREAKING LAPTOP!!!

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Almost done with my rotoscope! *Does a little happy dance* Now I have to start thinking/planning of how to shoot the footage for my stop-motion. (Depression....) Not going to be the easiest thing I imagine. I'm not sure if I am going to capture it with a video recording. I.e. filming for a second, pausing and moving the character, then recording for another second and so on and so forth.  The other option is to do the same thing except instead of recording it on video, I would take a picture of each shot. Both processes are long and tedious but I hope it will be worth it in the end.  And then we get to move on to 3-d animation! *does a little happy dance again* I'm sure it'll be hard but so what?  No one said any of this would be cake walk.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Okay one more post for this week. Let's see...what to write about. I guess I could write about how long the sculpting is taking for my stop-motion project. OH MY GOD!! It takes forever. Luckily I took a break from it today to work on my rotoscope.  I think up to slide 95. But I'm doing a little bit at a time. Like the glasses, then go back and do the outline for the neck, head, etc. So it is a long processes. Guess both of these projects are long huh?
Alright back on topic. Extra post. Grrr... why is this so hard!? Fine uh....in the season of Christmas lets talk about the movie, "The Polar Express". It is a computer animated movie using live action techniques. That's when you see the actors/actress wearing black jumpers with all those pretty little balls glued to them where the persons joints and such are on a real person. I love this movie! I love Christmas time because (sorry teachers) I LOVE BREAK!! Come on, who wouldn't? And don't say teachers because I know they do too!
Now because I believe I am rambling I will just get to the point and show some really cool cells or behind the scene thing of the movie. Enjoy.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

For additional post.
I would like to incorporate some music for a scene of my stop-motion. However finding music on public domains that would suit my project is hard. I am trying to find a waltz type of music, slow yet beautiful. And there are so many online yet I can guarantee that most of them are copyrighted and I won't be able to use them. Darn you copyright!! I'm 16! How much trouble could I do to a song? Really? A snippet of a song for a minuet is all I ask but no!! They can't! It's like what to those people who posted a parody of the Pokemon (if you don't know what Pokemon is you must live under a rock...) opening song on YouTube and it got taken down because of "copyright infringement."  Anyway long story short I need a way to find music for the project. This is the music I would like to use. Again copyright. But I digress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjz8ZZU5Ibo&feature=related

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Working on stop motion. But haven even started shooting yet! Still making the characters as well as additional parts and pieces. I am trying to get my characters to look somewhat good and believable and not just blobs moving around the screen for 1 min or so. That is easier said than done. Although I seem to be getting the hang of it. And not a moment too soon. Starting this Friday I will have two weeks to complete both the stop-motion project and the rotoscope. I have to admit that I have been neglecting the rotoscope in place for my stop motion. I do this because stop motion seems to me what will take the longest. I pray that I can meet the deadline. So  now all I have to do is keep my nose to the grindstone and go for it. Oh I am so screwed. (can i say that hear? I don't know. If i get in trouble for this....please don't be mad...)

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Okay additional blogs. Hm.... Running out of ideas..... Well lets talk rotoscope. We have to have a ball fall in from left screen. A person must be in the next shot doing something (verb ending "ing") somewhere (noun).  Must interact with the ball in some way, the ball must transform and then exit left screen. And as close to 15 seconds as possible. Yeah I think getting the 15sec. exact is going to screw me up... I usually obsess with that kind of stuff if I am given a time limit or something like that. Oh well. Just gonna have to do trial and error. And patience. Need lots of patience for Stop motion too. I can't imagine how stressful a stop motion persons job must be that if you move the character or object a fraction of an inch this or that way it can completely ruin the shot. Luckily you can go back and do the shot over. But really....who would want to?

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

FINALLY! Those blasted 2-D shorts are finally done!!! Thank goodness! Do you know what I learned from doing this project? That it is a lot of hard work just to get three minuets of decent animation done. But a whole half an hour? Good god. I was watching cartoons last weekend, i.e "Tom and Jerry", "Phineas and Ferb" and really looking at the graphic of the show. Sitting there and seeing how seamlessly the characters move, how well the voices, sound effects and just general craft-man ship I was in awe and applaud these cartoonists. I mean I know this sounds stupid but I mean it. Now after this project and actually doing some of the things other cartoonists I now know how complex it is. Anyone else would just watch the show and think nothing of the graphics. But because of this class, I seem to be watching a show with almost scrutiny. Watching a certain bit, imagining what style or technique they used. What kind of medium. If they drew it all by hand or if they used a program like flash etc. WOW! Also I will no longer complain on how long it takes for a new movie or new season of a cartoon to come out. Such a humbling class for the avid cartoon watcher. 

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

STORYBOARD DUE TOMORROW! (Tuesday) Yeah! It took from the beginning of this project to now to achieve almost 30 seconds. how in God's name am I going to be able to pull of a minimum of 1 min short in 3 weeks plus a day? Really? Who can? Okay people who work at Pixar and Disney don't count. They're masters.... Still I guess that's why Ms. Licata says a lot of people don't finish. Then what is the point besides humiliating us and showing us how hard it is to come up with short that's more than a min. long? I guess if you have Flash at home it might be possible; if you could spend every second after school working on it without distractions. But honestly when does that ever happen in real life. You would have to be dreaming for such a perfect work day to happen. One could stay after here, (are you allowed to?) but then you'd have to get a ride home and if your parents can't come and get you and you can't drive... you're dead. -Sigh- Well I will have to tackle it a step at a time. And make sure I have every little detail planned now so i am not worrying about that kind of stuff later. And save my blogging till after school at home.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

OKAY completely off topic here. Now I know Ms. Licata doesn't like anime... however this movie is being aired/sponsored by Disney so that should qualify this as digital media related. Anyone ever read or watch the movie The Borrowers'? Well Hiyao Miyazaki, my favorite animator of all times, is remaking the movie in Studio Ghibli titled The Secret World of Arrietty!!! I am absolutely excited! Miyazaki's films are always amazing! His son Goro does really great work too! Disney is translating it as we speak and it will be premiering in U.S. theaters February 17th. YEAH!! have to watch the promo for it and if you have never seen it then now would be great to do so. I know some people would be hesitant to watch a movie adaptation of a book, but Miyazaki does really great work at sticking to main story and characters while still adding his own little "thing" in there if you will.
Link for promo;
http://www.youtube.com/user/DisneyMovieTrailers?v=VlMe7PavaRQ&feature=pyv&ad=8317098654&kw=hayao%20miyazaki

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

We are doing a walk cycle next Wed. Thank goodness. When I make my characters move it looks rather stiff and just plain bad. -Sigh- That's why i come here though, to learn how to animate characters, logos and other animation types to use in the future. We'll see how well that works. But anyway back to the walk cycle topic; found a tutorial that may help. Don't know, have to try it yet. Will try and post comment on it later. Here's the link;
http://www.magentagalaxy.com/blog/2010/11/flash-animation-tutorial-animate-a-walk-cycle/

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

2-d storyboard due next Tuesday. "Great!" It has to at least a minute long! That's like 1,440 key frames! And we have how long do do it? Well I think its like from next Tuesday,(when the storyboards are due) until November 23rd. Approx. 3 weeks and a day...hm. Ms. Licata says most people don't finish because it's so hard to fill up 1,440 key frames with different scenes in three weeks. That includes tweeking it, adding sound etc. All the little details and time to edit everything adds up. Grrr! A minute never seemed so long until now. I can only hope I can complete a minute of the story. I already have an idea, its just expanding on that idea and make into a coherent enough story without making it drag on a specific scene for too long. That will be fun.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Okay this is a great video because it covers a lot of the recent topics we covered. Its shows the pixar logo and how it got the "jumping lamp." It shows follow through (the cords moving as luxo jr. jumped) ancticipation when big Luxo saw the huge ball rolling past him and little luxo jr. chasing after it. It showed timing in how the lamps reacted to luxo jr. jumping and it conveyed emotion when the ball popped. And most of all; IT'S CUTE! Come on, how can you not love that little guy?

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Geri's Game This one is so awesome. In the beginning it's just Geri. But I swear by the way it plays out that Geri is playing against someone else. At the end he is revealed to be sitting alone, arms crossed looking quite sly and cunning. Really you have to watch this. And with it is the "bonus features" of the short.

http://www.pixar.com/shorts/gg/index.html

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

 This week we worked on our 2-D logo.This will now be in the preceding scene for our projects. I am proud of my work, although I wish I had come up with a more interesting name than what I have. Ah well. Next is our 2-D shorts. That reminds me of the little Pixar shorts. My favorite has to be the old man playing chess. I'll show it in my next post. Other than that, not much to report. Grades close today. Not too worried. I think I did okay.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

• In the spirit of Halloween and for stop motion I present; The Nightmare Before Christmas.
• Stop motion is a very long process that requires a lot of man hours and a lot of patience! This is a dying art. A lot of people do CG work (i love CG!) so it is rare to see such a beautiful work of art like that of Mr. Burtons.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

TIM BURTON AND ALL HIS GLORY!
how could anyone not like his movies. And this movie plus the nightmare before christmass is just right for Halloween. The best holiday ever! 

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

• 12 PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION!! These are the basics of any animation; Stretch and Squash, Arcs, Follow Through & Overlapping, Anticipation, Slow in & Slow out, Timing, Staging, Secondary Action, Appeal, Straight ahead action and pose-to-pose action, Exaggeration, and Strong Drawing. Luckily we only had to eight out of the twelve. 

• I think the hardest one to make was Follow Through. It got me really frustrated when I would have the character move and the object that was supposed to "follow" was a few seconds behind or ahead. Or if it didn't go the same way as the character moved.
• I can't wait to go on to stop motion and 3-d animation. I wanna learn stop motion because Tim Burton uses that in almost all of his movies.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

 Hmmm. Additional two posts about media related topics. See now I am running out of ideas. Trying not to post about the same each week. I guess I could write about one of the more famous Miyazaki films. Featuring the younger sibling of the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus; PONYO!! Oh come on she's so cute! How can you look into that pretty little face of hers with all that pretty red hair and not love her? Look for yourself if you don't believe me.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihA9hukPMjcVkBsu5c2WRtwLwrwjKjij1Js1RJJmK8ehtL2OWLdKEtamJ4qP8WIGW6lWltC-e5_SgZ5omz3skbEymTYw3VtK_cdWD8UdvCCclE8K7EfExQTs6Ob59nVE0NIrP4qMO65w/s1600/ponyo_12.jpg
and this is her mother and father. Her father is kinda weird but he means well.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidRodOZCkmSoP0Rr0IqP374SFyYOyQoWruehsFZhBsZ1UgSK235400XvxWpIqxdnKvUD_0nbUzdLN4ivrl9Ohy4FqoBiaBdupDgzi6pcFtJOlLbGDCx0R3XBYN_UWehxBulZ7TOl31wOY/s1600/vlcsnap-2011-01-20-01h44m33s86.png

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Has anyone seen the movie, The Borrowers? You know the one with the small people that "borrower" items from the human "beans"? Well my favorite animator, Miyazaki is remaking the movie himself. Here are a few pics of the movie.
http://hopeliesat24framespersecond.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/29.jpg
http://image.ohozaa.com/i/81d/the.borrower.arrietty.d2_s.jpg
I have said it once and I will say it again; MIYAZAKI ROCKS!!

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

   So for this week we started to do the heavy duty work of Flash. We are now learning how to create the three different types of symbols; graphic,movie, and button. Symbols are anything you create that can be used over again in different projects. Also we learned the different types of tweening. Tweening is the term used in animation when you want a object to do something (move, change shape etc.) from point A to point be. An example would be like a bouncing ball. You could draw where the ball starts, when it hits the floor or its lowest point and then where it ends. Then right click on the correct layer and click, "create motion tween." The computer will fill in the gaps "between" the points.

Moro wolf god from Princess Mononoke by Hayao Miyazaki. I think this is 2d animation. I am also a fan of Miyazaki-san and his movies; yet another reason for my attending this class. Other of his films include;
Spirited Away
Ponyo
Howl's Moving Castle
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Castle in the Sky
Kiki's Delivery Service

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

http://jetsetnick.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/kingdom-hearts-birth-by-sleep-4.jpg
I LOVE THIS ANIMATION!! 3-D ALL THE WAY! This game along with others like final fantasy are the reason why I wanted to take animation classes. I am always so in awe when I see/play these games and how such a vivid and realistic image was once a simple flat drawing on a piece of paper.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

We have finally finished with all the demos/projects for adobe illustrator! *does a little happy dance* Now we get to start, or at least be introduced to flash. I took a peek at it earlier. This thought came to my mind; "Wow. This thing is intense..." Ms. Licata said we would have tutorials for this so we know how to use it. And we won't start 3-d animation until Christmas.. *sad face with little whimpers* Aww that's what I'm waiting for. Hopefully I'll be able to conquer Flash©. Oh and on another note. I got the stupid Adobe Illustrator© program to work and got my 2-d character to actually look the way I wanted her too. I also had the chance to see what other people had drawn and am very impressed. Everyone else has much much better skills at drawing than I...oh well. "C'est la vie." In this class, do you need to be good at drawing or just need to know how to use these programs? Hmmm..

http://www.1upgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lulu-final-fantasy-x.jpg
Lulu is my favorite of all final fantasy characters. Oooh and Paine!
http://www.mycosplayclub.com/images/201103/goods_img/10596_G_1299481604108.jpg

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Not only is this a wink at animation... the banter in the beginning  is hilarious too!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6A7X4FvNUw

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

Today and the past few days we have been working on our first 2-d characters. You have to scan them into the computer and then save it to a flash drive, upload it to our computer. Then bring it up in Adobe© Illustrator. It's really hard. I drew a person. Everyone else is better than mine and I'm thinking about giving up on my original character idea and just gonna draw something really basic; a ripped up maroon colored heart with only threads holding it together. And some eyes maybe a mouth and limbs and there you go. That should satisfy Ms. Licata enough so I don't have to show her and the rest of my class the horrible original I have...Anyway we learned about copyright and how people can get sued or a video post on YouTube©  can be instantly taken down because it references even the tinniest bit to a real movie, book, tv show etc. Stupid gov't and their censors.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzzGPfVx32MOh come on. HE IS SO CUTE!!! Scrat awesomeness! And it's 3-d animation.

ANIMATION AND ALL IT'S GLORY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3WWFizy2JE&feature=related
I know we don't use this anymore, but I think its cool. I mean, I never knew you could do this with a computer. Granted this is not a mac but... better than nothing.

ANIMATION AND ALL ITS GLORY!

I would like to say that in animation class we worked on a really cool project. Unfortunetlly I cannot. All it was was more review on safety rules, how to sit at a computer properlly. Can you believe that?! There is actually a proper way, picture and all, to sit at a computer. You know sit up straight, don't stare at the computer for too long. Feet must be firmly on the floor. Yeah I cant reach, and my chair is all the way down. I hope to learn 2 and 3-d animation. But its not taught till towards the end I think and I am impatient. They say patience is a virtue... It's really frustrating right now!! GRR! Can we make pretty pictures move now? What has made me happy this week? Going to BOCES

Day 4, September 8th 2011

My second day of school. Had first Health class of this year. It's gonna suck! I like Math so far because; well its review. So it is easy. Although I doubt Trig will be that hard. As long as you have a calculator and remember the acronym for it. I really am looking forward to BOCES classes. Killed a lot of trees with all that paper work. Oh well. A 50 page packet on norm school stuff. And you have to read it all. Hmmm? How many people do you think, including teachers, read those things cover to cover?

Day 3, March 12 2011

Well today was eventful. Woke up at 5:00am as usual. I watched Jump Start top 20. My favorites were; Fucking Perfect by Pink, What the hell by Avril Lavigne, If I was from Paris by Grace Potter and, Grenade by Bruno Mars. "What the Hell" was #3, "Fucking Perfect" was #2. Adele was #1. HOW?! Her music isn't even that good. Anyway. There was a weird smell coming from the basement. Apparently water was leaking up from the bottom from the septic tank and you could smell gasoline in the whole house. My mom and I, even the dog, was sneezing and coughing from it. Really bad. After about 3hrs the smell is finally dying down. Now I can breathe. Thank god. So that is the excitement for the day.   

Day 2 March 11 2010

Today like any other day. Although waking up to my dog throwing up in the morning is new. Had to clean that up. Nice way to start the day. Went through school like yesterday. TGIF!!!! My moms friend is here. He's a teaching chef at Buffalo. And for diner...burgers! real gourmet.

Day 1

Wed. March 9.
 Today was slow. Got up early (5:00am) as usual. Crawled back into bed cause it was freezing when I got up. I was intent on staying awake till I had to wake my brother up at 6:30 am. Luck jerk gets to sleep in for an 1hr and a half longer than I do so I can make sure he's awake and ready for school even though he is 14! C'mon I shouldn't have to wake the boy up anymore! But parents orders so what are you gonna do? Got up,rushed to get the garbage cans out before the truck came and ran out for the bus at around 7:26am. Went through school in a comatose. By now, school has become an automatic thing. I act like those adults you use to see when you were younger; getting up, getting dressed, packing whatever was need and then leaving the same thing everyday, all day! I'm only 16 my day shouldn't be like that! Go figure! Anyway I went through the day in and out of classes. OH in science though we are making our own stroop test. That's the test where its says a color but typed in a different color font. like this:
 YELLOW
BLUE
GREEN

Well isn't that fun! rolls eyes! 

HI

 5:55 pm. First blog in my life. Just gonna write whatever I think of. I'm doing the same kind of thing in school. School blocks all kinds of websites. (i.e. blogger.com,flavors.me yahoo) all that good stuff. So I can only make it here. This will be fun!