Final Post This Year :) :(

Year 9 Creative Media Animation Project – Term 4

Animation Unit: Self-reflection and project evaluation:

Discuss your feelings about the production task:

·      Are you satisfied with the final result?

Yes, I think I am very satisfied with my final result.

·      Did the animation process require more or less time than you originally thought?

No, unlike previous assignments, this one was perfectly planned and I finished the iBook just on time.

·      Would like to change any aspects of your final project (style of animation, the concept etc.)?

I think I would maybe want to find a better title because I couldn’t think of any good ones whilst I was making it so I just used The Baby Panda.

·      If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

 If I were to start the project again, I would maybe change the background of the animation and give it a more parchment feel. I wanted to do that at the start but I had trouble finding good water colour pictures that worked together.

Respond to each of the following dot points (using complete sentences or paragraphs). You should include as much detail as possible in your responses.

·      Discuss whether your final animation has turned out the way you imagined?

Yes, my final iBook turned out the way I imagined because I wanted the design to be quite simple so it doesn’t interfere with the message.

·      Discuss whether you had to modify any elements of your original concept and planning to create your project;

I had to modify my the use of faint, water colour bamboo forest pictures but other than that, I didn’t really have to change anything.

·      Explain how your animation skills developed during the project (i.e. did you become more efficient?; did the quality of your animation improve?; did you have to use a variety of animation techniques? etc);

I think my skills in iBook Authors developed quite a bit because at the start of the term, I hadn’t even opened the application once before.

·      Describe any problems or difficulties you encountered during the animation process. (These may include; technical difficulties, corrupt or missing files, difficulty using the editing software, problems exporting etc.)

I didn’t really encounter any difficulties throughout the entire course of the iBook because it’s a much simpler unit than photoshop or animation so there were really any opportunities to make mistakes…

·      Explain if you made effective use of storyboards and scene planning/breakdown?

Yes, I think I made effective use of storyboards and scene planning because at the start, before I started making my iBook, I broke my animation up into 10 scenes and that is all the scenes in my iBook, with no alteration.

·      Describe whether your planning assisted or helped you to focus during the animation process;

My planning definitely helped me focus during the construction process of my iBook because for each chapter, I had to write a description to go along with the video. So, everytime I just rewatched the scene and retold the story.

·      Describe any time-management issues you or your group came across during the project and describe the steps you took to improve in this area;

I didn’t come across any time-management issues.

·      List any other software skills, animation techniques, tricks or shortcuts you have learned during the project.

In iBooks author, I learnt that changing the name of a section meant that it changed automatically in the contents. I learnt how to put media into each chapter and how to create the line that is in the middle of my pages. Overall, I learnt how to use iBook Author.

Starting My iBook

Today was the first lesson of the second week back. Last week, I started on chapter 1 of my book and by the end of the lesson today, I had the first page of my book finished. I'm not sure if I'll change it the next time I see it but for the time being, it's going to be like this.

I'm still not sure what to name my book but some of my ideas are 'One Month' - as in the things that happen in one month - and 'A Month in the Life of a Panda. But...I don't particularly like any of them so I'll probably just leave it until I think of a title.

Final Evaluation

Year 9 Creative Media Animation Project – Term 03: Mr Andrews

Animation Unit: Self-reflection and project evaluation:

Discuss your feelings about the production task:

Are you satisfied with the final result?

I think I’m kind of satisfied with my final result because I feel like if I was faster in drawing the background, I could’ve put more scenes into the animation. Furthermore, towards the end of my animation, I think the quality dropped slightly because I felt the time pressure and therefore didn’t put much detail into the hunter that shot the panda.

Did the animation process require more or less time than you originally thought?

Well, I think it actually required more time than I thought. Drawing the background in detail was especially time consuming and tracing the pandas also costed a lot of time. In the end, I ran out of time and had to alter the ending so I didn’t have to draw the baby panda surviving and running out of the cave.

Would like to change any aspects of your final project (style of animation, the concept etc.)?

Yes, I want to change many aspects of my animation. If I get the chance, I would probably prolong the part of the deforestation and somehow make it easier to understand. I would also rework the hunter scene and try to make it as detailed as my scenes before. Also, I would also want to add a couple scenes of my baby panda playing around so when the hunter takes the sack away, the audience will be shocked and when the baby panda is alive again, they will feel pity for the baby who lost her mother and so the whole film might have a greater impact.

If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

If I could start the project again, I would try to spend less time on the background and focus more on the scenes rather than the obsession of drawing every bamboo stick by hand. Also, I would probably link the deforestation better with the actual story and make the use of the butterfly more effective and have a bigger impact. Additionally, I would really love to rework the walking hunter scene and make it into something more detailed than just a stick figure.

Respond to each of the following dot points (using complete sentences or paragraphs). You should include as much detail as possible in your responses.

Discuss whether your final animation has turned out the way you imagined?

I think my final animation half matched the way I imagined it to be. This is because I was sort of rushing at the end and therefore had to alter and condense the ending of my project. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the end result and I think this ending can also fit into the message I’m trying to deliver.

Discuss whether you had to modify any elements of your original concept and planning to create your project;

I had to modify quite a lot of the elements in my original concept in order to finish the animation. For example, I shortened the part where the baby panda grew up, cut out the scene of the mother and baby playing and at the end where the baby panda crawls out and howls at the night. I had to alter these components because I was running out of time towards the end and if I were to spend time drawing those scenes, I wouldn’t have finished. Another reason was that when I was trying to add the scene of the baby panda rolling around, I retrieved a sequence of images from the internet and tried to trace it. But when I looped the drawing at the end, it didn’t really flow so to make it flow, I had to connect the different drawings. Being not a particularly talented drawer, I tried and failed to connect it so in the end I just decided to ditch it and move on.

Explain how your animation skills developed during the project (i.e. did you become more efficient?; did the quality of your animation improve?; did you have to use a variety of animation techniques? etc);

My animation skills developed quite a lot during the entire animation process. This was because I got used to the drawing pad and started to draw with a lot more efficiency. I also des covered shortcuts on the computer for Animation-ish such as to press the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 to switch to the tools on the side panel according to their order. This was very useful because I didn't have to go and click the actual tool whilst drawing; I developed a system where I had my drawing pad parallel to the computer and my left hand on the keyboard to press on the shortcuts.

Describe any problems or difficulties you encountered during the animation process. (These may include; technical difficulties, corrupt or missing files, difficulty using the editing software, problems exporting etc.)

I didn't have many difficulties - thank god - but I did have quite a few that had me panicking. For example, in the scene of the baby panda being born, after I finished the drawing, I tried to add a keyframe so that the animation zooms in on the baby. But, every time I clicked the keyframe button, the whole animation just crashed. The first time it happened it was very, very annoying because I had just finished tracing the entire thing so when it crashed, I lost my progress. I reopened the file and redid all the tracing, saved it before adding a keyframe and clicked on the key frame...and it crashed.... again. So, I decided to ask Mr Powell the next day but.... he was away. Luckily, instead of a substitute teacher, we had Mr Andrews so he solved my problem by coping my drawings in the crashing file into a new animation file. I didn't even think of that because I thought you couldn't copy drawings into different files but I learnt the trick and used it for the butterfly in numerous scenes.

Explain if you made effective use of storyboards and scene planning/breakdown?

I think I made effective use of my storyboard because I was able to know right away which scene I was doing after I finished one and could immediately start a new one without wasting time in thinking about it.

Describe whether your planning assisted or helped you to focus during the animation process;

My planning, I think, helped me a lot during the construction process of my animation. This is because in my animation, there are times where the same scene is repeated but with parts being different (deforestation). So, I made a 'base' file for the deforestation part, and every time the forest was cut down, I just opened the previous file, edited it and saved it as a new file. Furthermore, since I knew what I had to do, I was able to start a new scene in class when I forgot my USB because I didn't want to waste any time.

Describe any time-management issues you or your group came across during the project and describe the steps you took to improve in this area;

The time management in this assignment I think was a lot better than my Photoshop one, I constructed my storyboard carefully and therefore didn't have to abandon it and start anew. Because I had spent so much time on perfecting the background, I was rushing a bit towards the last few weeks but I managed to pull it together and submit my assignment one day before the due date :). To do this, I altered the last few scenes in my animation so that the baby seemed to die with the mother (If I have a chance I would show that the baby panda didn't die because I didn't actually show what was in the sack) and then had the storm and the message appearing during the rain.

Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look back at your blogs/journals and think about whether it looks like a whole term worth of work);

I think my reflections are alright. There are some evidences of my work and overall I think the posting was better than my Photoshop assignment.

•       List any other software skills, animation techniques, tricks or shortcuts you have learned during the project.

•       1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – switching between tools on the side

•       Z & X – zooming in and out

•       Command Z – undo

•       A & S – moving between frames

Watching everyone's animation

Today is the submission day of our media assignment and we are going to start watching everyone's finished animations and evaluate it.

Chelsea, Lily and Ruby's animation:

• Lyrics were timed really well to the music
• Use of colour, bigger writing, and moving words were really effective

Ella, Devin and Lily's animation:

• Sound effects - especially the rap at the start - was really good
• The missing page idea, I think, is interesting and I like how the characters came alive from the book

Ella's animation:

• It was beautifully drawn
• Casper's movement was fluid and didn't seem to lag and overall, the film flowed really well and was well thought out 

Abby and Joyce:

• Timing was really good
• Well use of all the different backgrounds 

My animation -

• I think the overall reaction from the audience was better than I imagined
• Some people understood the money part which I'm really relieved because after I put the animation together, I wasn't really sure if people would understand but some of them did

Katie and Maddie's animation:

• I think the part where they coloured the natural background was really eefective
• Maybe can be imrpoved by making the scenes not as shaky, but that's normally what happens with i-stopmotion 

 

My Finished Animation

IT'S OVER

OKKKK, so......at the beginning of this lesson I imported the sounds into iMovie (with the help of Mr Powell) and actually finished my animation!!!!!

Mr Powell said if anyone was ready, they could hand it in so I decided to hand it in a day early! (first time I've ever done for an assignment)

:D

I will be posting the video in a post solely dedicated to it :)

Sounds with Eliza

Rightio, I came into media today thinking that I would record my sound effects alone.....but when I asked for snoring noises on the computer from Mr Powell, I quickly realised I needed a buddy to record with me.

I asked Eliza to help and she kindly agreed :)

We first went into the OS rooms to record the snoring, then, for the panda footsteps, Eiza gathered some dead leaves and bought them onto a desk in the classroom so we could tap on it to create the sound of walking. But, the sound wasn't realistic enough so we decided to go outside and actually walk in the garden. This proved to be really good and we had the panda footsteps in no time.

Then, we had to do the hunter footsteps and because the hunter came from far away and then came near, Eliza started off away from me and when I started recording, she walked towards the computer to create the feeling of the footsteps coming nearer. We also did the same thing for when the hunter was walking away :)

For the deforestation part, I just chose a random stick and started rubbing on the dead branches on trees, creating the effect of saws cutting down trunks.

To be honest, I think the sound lesson was actually the most fun I've had during the construction of this assignment because it was really interesting what we could do to create different sounds and also, I was working with my friend :)

Working on the Weekend :)

So, I borrowed a laptop home from the school in the hopes that I will finish and put together my animation over the long weekend. When the weekend started, I still had to do the last two scenes; the panda being shot and the message at the end.

I altered my ending so that I didn't show the panda actually survived to save me some time in drawing the animation. Towards the end, I didn't have enough time to draw the hunter in detail so I just did a simple stick figure with enough expression on his face to show how evil he is. After I was finished with the hunter scene, I went back to the incomplete rain scene and closed it off. At first, the part where the message appeared was pretty short but then I decided to make it stay on the screen longer so that the message sinks in. Also, I tried having the message without the sound of the rain but in the end, I liked it better with the rain so I decided to have the rain still pouring whilst the messages appears and stays.

After that, I went back into all of my scenes to do some editing here and there. I found quite a lot of drawing errors that was unstable when the animation looped so it took me a while to fix that....despite the fact that my end product is 'perfect', I still tried my best.

Finally, I imported the scenes into a quicktime file and put it together in iMovie! So now, I just have to wait until the next media lesson to add the sound effects in :)

Nearly Finished!

Ok, so, throughout the week, I tucked my head down and worked really hard to my animation done.

I found pictures of a mother panda holding a baby panda in its mouth on the internet, imported it into animation-ish and traced it. However, the hind leg of the mother was hidden behind the bush so I couldn't copy it so I had to draw it myself, but, I think it was alright....

Initially, I was going to have the baby panda rolling and messing around in the foreground but after finding 4 pictures on the internet:

I drew it and was hoping to loop the scene, but because the actions were so spaced apart, the panda looked like it was jumping around in different spots instead of rolling in a smooth action. In the end, I decided to take this scene out of the animation and moved onto preparing my background for night time.

Background Changed

Ok, so remember how I talked about my friends criticizing that my background looked weird? Well, I've got to admit, it kind of does......I've realised that I can't actually COPY and trace the real picture because it will just look unreal. Like, the brush and shade of colours on Animation-ish can't compare to the colours in real life so I can't just depend on matching the colours and hope that it looks good, I actually have to think and decided which colours to use to make it look better.

Also, last time, I just coloured in the ground without filling in lighter areas and shadows etc. so it just looks like a big blob of paint that was carelessly thrown on.  So, to fix this, I rubbed out the entire ground and chose two colours that I was going to use for the ground. I used two light shades of green, both lighter than the bamboo colour and the other more yellowish than green. In order to make it look 'real', I decided to colour in the lighter areas with little brush strokes and the darker areas with the darker colour. I had to debate whether or not I was going to colour in the entire gound or just do little 'strokes',  I tried the 'strokes' out and in the end, I decided to use it.

Finished Background, Restarting Panda

After about a lesson this week, couple with the lessons last week, I've finished my background!

Halfway through the week, my background looked like this:

Initially, I wanted to fill the whole screen with bamboos but I quickly realised that it will take forever and will probably look unreal since I won't get that good '3D' effect. I was quite iffy with how I was going to draw the leave at the top right hand side of the screen:

 

Then, I decided to use the green I used for the bamboos to draw the base and then use a green that's lighter than the bush to give it 'highlights'. I didn't stare at the original picture and tried to copy it, instead, I drew it how I thought it would look good and I think the end result is pretty good :)

In the last lesson of the week, I forgot my USB and couldn't extend on my animation so I just started the last scene of my animation. I decided to change alter the last scene of my animation, because I thought it would be a good idea for the rain to still fall when the message appears instead of disappearing and then fading to the message. There isn't going to be any music played, except for the sound of rain falling.

Working on the Background

So, I really want my animation to be detailed and I'm going to start drawing the background. I found a picture from the internet of a bamboo forest that I started tracing. After about the first lesson also, I had only done a little bit of bamboos and the background was full of bamboos. As a result, I copy and pasted some of them, flipped it, and put it somewhere else so that it didn't look like a duplicate.

That worked for some of the bamboos but since I want my background to be detailed, I had to draw individually the ones that had unique shapes which interlaced each other.

At first when I started, I covered the floor with a layer of green until it reached the bottom of the bamboos. My friends started critisizing it and saying that it was weird so I'm going to change it....

But I have no idea how to draw it because the smallest brush in Animation-ish is still really big so it's really hard, coupled with the fact that the shades of green don't match...so, my OCD side is going crazy

Starting My Animation - Week 1

So now that I've got my storyboard ready, I can start my animation!! The first part of it would be to get a general drawing of my baby panda so I can manipulate him the whole time. I started tracing the the part with the baby panda on the mother's belly today and below is what I am up to.

Finally Finished....sort of....

Ok, so I've finished my storyboard! But, I don't know if I should continue to expand further on my story because really, it can be led as an open ending or I could continue on. I want every frame of my animation to be detailed and carefully-constructed but I'm scared I'll run out of time so I've made my storyboard to the point of the mother getting captured and I will continue it if I have time when I finish the first part. Basically, the first part can be a stand-alone but I could also make a 'part 2' to tell the story of the panda after her mother is gone...

Here are the remaining pages of my storyboard storyboard (it's a bit sad but...hehe):

Storyboard!

So far, I have been working on my storyboard and expanding on it. It's actually quite fun to draw because you can just plug in your headphones and start planning someone else's life......

Anyways, I think my story is heading into tragedy and I'm debating whether or not to kill off my main character, the baby panda. I don't want the story to have a stereotypical happy end (because it is there to help stop the suffering of animals) but I also don't want it to be overly tragic. 

So, without further ado, I have my second page finished (took me quite a while to draw).

FINAL IDEA!!!

Woop!! So...I've finally gotten an idea that I want to follow through with!!!!

I thought about this idea when my friends and I were talking about illegal trafficking of animals.SO, I thought I could use an animation to send a message about illegal trafficking out. Basically, it's going to be about a new-born baby panda with her mother in the wild. Illegal traffickers come and shoot the mother, taking her away. Then, the story will focus on how the baby panda will survive and fend for itself in the wild.

I'm really excited because as soon as I got the idea, I wanted to dive straight in and start working. So, here is the first page of my storyboard that I've completed.

Another Media Idea

Okay, so, I was looking for inspiration on the internet and I saw this really cool gif go a bunny chasing a butterfly. It was one of those hand-drawn-but-cute bunnies, not the ones where you trace and manipulate it to move.

I thought I could do something along the lines of that so I started up Animation-ish and tried to a bunny like that style to experiment and see if it would work.

It turned out alright so I'm going to work on the storyboard and see if it'll suit my animation.

Animation Idea

So, for the past few lessons, we have been thinking in class about what type of animation we want to do. At first I wanted to do a stop motion but now I think that working in Animationish would give me much more freedom if I wanted to do something on the lines of animals.

I went online and looked at different animations for inspiration and I saw this clever one where the whole animation is basically about photoshop. At the start, there is just a lady made out of lines and shapes standing there, then, she opens a package containing many other shapes like triangular pyramids (gun-like tool). The various shapes represent different tools in photoshop and the lady basically uses the different shapes to change and beautify her face. There's a rectangular prism with two buttons which represents the 'undo' and 'redo' buttons. She uses it throughout the film to undo the bad changes that she does to her face. 

I think that is a clever idea because it represents some of the struggles that people can have with hotshot when they press a wrong button. It's a really smart idea so I'm thinking of doing an animation that's like it.

Bouncing Ball

This lesson, we learn't about gravity and how it affects things that fall. In Animation-ish, the ball comes in from the top left hand corner and reaches the ground, bouncing before going again. To do this, the frames of the ball have to be 'squished' vertically then horizontally to make it look like that it 'impacted' the ground and bounced back. We had a practise in class using the tutorial on Blackboard and this is my finished product:

Animation-ish

For the next task, we will be making an animation piece for the next two terms. We can combine Istopmotion, Photoshop and Animation-ish to create a piece that can be realy life or drawn cartoon.

Evaluation

Media Arts Yr 9 - Photoshop  – Term 01 2014

Avatar Reflection/Evaluation:

Respond to each of the following dot points (using complete sentences or paragraphs). You should include as much detail as possible in your responses.

·      Describe any problems or difficulties you encountered during the creation and editing of your avatar. (These may include; technical difficulties, corrupt or missing files, difficulty with Photoshop tools etc;)

During the construction of my avatar, I had various issues that arised, most of them regarding the change of my idea. For example, at the start, I had the idea to base my avatar on an iceberg but as I worked, I realized that the iceberg wouldn’t really match with my avatar so I changed to the frozen person idea. I wanted the ice to look like it was melting so I had to put flames at the bottom of the picture because one flame picture wasn’t wide enough to cover the whole background so I had to use two. This then created a problem as the two pictures were on different layers so it was hard for me to position them rightly. I asked Mr Powell for help and he helped me by ‘merging’. Then, after I finished the original background, the colours didn’t seem right and additionally, I realized that the picture was supposed to be portrait instead of landscape.

As a result, I discarded my progress and started again. When I was trying to find a new background for my new avatar, the picture was watermarked with the company’s name and a tab at the bottom. To access the original picture, you had to register and pay so I downloaded the image and went into photoshop, thinking that I could either ‘clone stamp’ or ‘mask’ out the watermark and tab. It was then that I discovered one of the amazing features of photoshop, I could click on the watermark, press ‘delete’ and the watermark would disappear! I’m not sure what the feature is but it helped me tons.

Furthermore, after I put the picture of myself on the snow background, it didn’t fit in because the picture I took was too much of a close up thus it didn’t look real. To solve this, I took another photo and afterwards, I searched for a tutorial on how to create a ‘frozen’ effect on the internet. I followed the steps and when it asked to use the ‘frost brush’ I didn’t have it as a ‘preset brush’ so I downloaded it onto my computer and used it for the first layer of ice on myself.

Did you undertake any additional Photoshop tutorials to help with your project? If so what new skills/techniques did you learn ;

·      Explain how your planning (personality profile, ideas and reflections) helped to  create the avatar in Photoshop;

·      Clarify any time-management issues you encountered during the process and describe the steps you implemented to improve in this area (Did you have your images ready before class? Did you have your USB each lesson? Did you work on the avatar outside of class time?);

·      Discuss whether you undertook sufficient reflection to throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look at your blog. Does it reflect a term of work);

·      List any skills, techniques or tricks you have discovered during the project.

Yes, I used this tutorial http://psd.fanextra.com/tutorials/photo-effects/photo-manipulate-a-surreal-underground-scene-with-a-sleeping-frozen-beauty/  and the brush download link to assist with my avatar. It taught me the feature ‘curves’ and how it can be used to darken a particular object. For example, after you darken a picture, you can get a normal brush and change the ‘opacity’ and ‘flow’ to aroundd 20-30% to make particular areas lighter.

I think time-management was a pretty big issue in the construction process of my avatar because I changed my idea quite a few times and had to work out of class time to finish my project in time. I feel like the last few weeks of my assignment was pretty rushed as I felt pressured since I couldn’t find the ‘perfect’ idea/’way’ to approach my avatar. During the weeks, I haven’t forgotten my USB in any lesson apart from the one on Wednesday where we had to hand in our assignment. As a result, I had to hand my avatar in the next day.

Discuss your feelings about the Avatar task:

·      Are you satisfied with the final result?

·      Does the completed Avatar look like you imagined?

·      Would like to change any aspects of your avatar?

·      If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

·      Are you pleased with the progress you have made in using Photoshop?

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with my final avatar as it looks pretty realistic in my opinion. If given the chance to redo this whole assignment, I definitely would plan and think it through more at the beginning because I feel like I dived into making the background straightaway without nutting out every detail. This then cause the change of ideas, which then lead to lack of time and many other problems. In my second idea, I said that the ice was going to melt and therefore reveal my true self. I didn’t follow through with this part because when I looked at my final avatar, I didn’t see how the ‘melting’ part would fit in and also because I really liked it the way it is. It looks like what I initially imagined and the colour of my school dress matches the background well.

How it Reflects Me:

My avatar reflects me because it symbolises the fact that as I get older, my childhood self doesn't disappear, instead, it's frozen inside me. Meaning that, when I'm with someone whom I love very much (warm) the ice will melt and reveal my childish side. Additionally, it also represents the 'reserved' side of which most people won't see unless they 'break the ice'.  This avatar means much more, but ^^ those are the two main reasons that have evolved from my previous ideas (the rest of my ideas are scattered throughout my blog)

Bye for now :D Happy holidays!