The Final Piece... Evaluation of the Overall Module

Overall I feel I could have done a lot better in this module. My time management was bad, due to personal issues and not allowing myself enough time to complete the practical, this has turned out to be a stressful experience.

The final piece itself turned out how I wanted it to; the transaction between each technique is evident, despite two thirds of it being in animatic form. To improve it I would have spent more time animating the character, creating more images for the animatic to show the actions more clearly. Initially I thought I had timed my animatic quite well, but I didn't realise how long the 3D animation would last, so it would have ended up becoming a much longer film then intended.

After evaluating each technique separately, I found that 3D is the most efficient to use. Stop motion takes a lot of work and detail to set up, so I believe I would have benefitted better working in a team, where more skilled modellers could create the sets for me. Hand drawn animation on paper takes the longest to complete; having to draw the character fresh onto each piece of paper would become repetitive and take longer than necessary. However all of these techniques are still an option, technology is generally the preferred technique to use in the industry at the moment, but one day traditional animation could make a come back.

Looking back over the final piece, I could have added a hybrid section onto the end of the sequence, after the 3D, since my dissertation deciphers that hybridity is becoming a technique of the future. However I have never animated using this method before so it would have been very time consuming.

I had planned my practical to link into my dissertation from the start of the module. Unfortunately, because I haven't finished the practical, I decided not to write about it in my dissertation. Though I have used each technique enough times previously to build up my opinion on them, I decided a vague explanation into my experience with each wouldn't have been enough decisive evidence to conclude my writing with.

Final Animatic

Since completing the animatic stage of my final piece, I realise it could have flowed much smoother if I had added in more frames, to try and illustrate more clearly exactly what should be happening.

Despite this, and not being able to complete the animation for it, I am happy with the timing and images used. They give a clear overview of how I would have wanted the animation to look, as well as roughly what's going to be happening and when.

I didn't complete the 3D section because I had planned to animate it, so to save time I left those three pictures as they were in the storyboard. This brings the quality of the animatic down slightly but hopefully I have made up for that with the animation I have completed.

3D Animation Finished!

Overall my final animation turned out well. I moved his back slightly as he lifts his stomach to make him look less stiff; looking back I wish I had exaggerated it more but I am happy with the animation in the bounce.

Applying the floating shapes gives the piece an idea of perspective; though there is a sense of surrealism with using random objects floating. it represents the start of the 3D animation industry. 'Tron' was the first film to use elements of 3D animation, which included floating shapes in the background, so my use of shapes is supposed to reflect where CGI started.

The character movements are smooth and work well, but the rig does look stiff and standing straight for most of the sequence; if I had more time I'd try and loosen up the actions.

What could have made the piece better is if I had rendered half of the sequence, to represent the process of making 3D animation itself.

Despite all of these changes I would make, the concept of him discovering himself and his environment is there





As a technique, it is popular among artists in the industry and audiences alike, with many successful films representing this technique of animating. I personally enjoy using this method, because it is generally a straightforward piece of software to use while animating, especially for the concepts I have made.

It is generally popular because of the amount of detail that can be applied to it; for example in 'The Lego Movie', the artists created such detailed, realistic models, that move as if they are real lego bricks that it creates the illusion of a stop motion film, drawing the audience into that reality. They animated it on the computer so they could have more leeway into how the characters move, yet still had the capabilities to create it accurate to the toys they were observing.

This is just one example of how CGI can be applied to an unlimited amount of creativity, and demonstrates why most companies opt to using this technique in their work.

Based on my own experience with it and the amount of good quality work that is out there already, I would definitely say CG is a big step into the future; with more practice and application, CG has the potential to be a beautiful art form, and has already taken over as the winning technique to use in box office.

3D Animation Continued...

The next stage after animating the character was applying the camera movement. Before this project I had never animated the camera, but I was surprised by how simple it was to control; it works in a similar way to animating the character rig so once I had figured it out I finished the sequence efficiently.

Once I had the motion in place, I applied the floating shapes in the distance for the character to look at. After comparing the two versions of the animation below, one with and one without shapes, it proves that the shapes add so much to the final piece. Since it creates a sense of depth within the 3D software, whereas the first video just shows a blank, plain background, you have no idea of vast the environment actually is.

3D Animation - Adding Floating Shapes

After completing the CG character animation, and having been inspired by 'Tron', I built a few cube shapes, altered the sizes, and made them move slightly, this is the result:





I am happy with the result, it gives the character a sense of surroundings, as well as an idea of the perspective within the software. It didn't take long to complete, since all of the controls are simple to use, so it was just a case of altering the size and placement of the models to my preference.

Having them move in different directions gives the audience an idea that there are many directions the objects can move within the space.

The next task for me to do is animate the camera rotating around at the end of this sequence, so that the audience can see what the character is amazed at.

Making the Animatic... Stop Motion Animation Analysis

The second part of my final piece involves animating a stop motion model coming out of paper, examining his body in amazement, seeing a computer, and walking into the computer screen. It seemed to be a simple idea at first, but considering how time consuming it took to even build the model I realised it would take a while to set up and animate the sequence.

I am disappointed that I didn't allow myself enough time to animate it, however I am overall happy with the images taken for the animatic. They demonstrate how the sequence would have panned out, as well as making the animatic look nicer. If I had more time on it I would have thought about the setting slightly more (as well as the lighting), since I wanted it to look natural, but for it to be realistic I would have found a space with a lightbox available. I would also have added in a couple of extra images to demonstrate what movements he would make when he's out of the paper, just before looking at the computer screen.

Animating with the model in these images would have been a challenge. Since I used plasticine, it is known that if you don't take care of it properly then it will break when handled too much, which slowed production down for me since repairing it was difficult. This made me realise that it would have taken a lot longer than I anticipated to create a decent quality animation, and due to other commitments within this module I worked out there wouldn't be enough time to complete it.

However some companies, such as Aardman Animations, prefer the rough look of plasticine in stop motion. One quote I found interesting whilst researching for my dissertation is from Nick Park:

“If we’re going to do it too slick and smooth, we might as well do it in 3D” (Youtube, 2010, Imagine, From...). Which demonstrates that some people love the authenticity of stop motion over the smoothness of 3D models - though you can achieve rough textures in 3D, stop motion creates the texture naturally. Aardman still use advanced armatures and big sets to create their films, but plasticine is their main material to animate with.

In the film industry the latest technology - decent armatures, good quality materials, and big sets - are provided, which I would personally love to have the opportunity to try one day; the more money you put into it, the more you get out of the experience, but you need a team in order to create a successful production with these materials.

Overall I would say if you are going to animate in this technique, make sure you have the funds and production team to back it up; while it definitely has potential to be a beautiful art form, I have not taken advantage of the most advanced techniques used for feature length films. 

Making the Animatic... An Analysis of 2D Animation

In order to create the final animatic, I decided to create each image using the technique I will be demonstrating, which should give the final piece a higher quality finish.

The first stage of my animatic entails the 2D animation sequence. It demonstrates how the final piece would have seen me draw the character by hand and pencil, and see the initial movements of the character examining his body.

Whilst drawing the character, it was relatively simple to edit; one disadvantage with drawing on paper though is that using an eraser doesn't always remove the pencil line completely, leaving a faint line in place. However if you draw over the top of it again the faint lines aren't very noticeable.

Despite this it was still enjoyable to draw, although the character design works best as a 3D model, it was still manageable to replicate it by hand. If I were to animate the whole sequence, it would have become repetitive since it would be required to redraw the whole character fresh onto every page, making up one frame. This would have been time consuming, which is ultimately why I decided to prioritise 3D animation.

Another, faster way to create hand drawn animation is on the computer; in the form of softwares such as Photoshop or Flash. I used Photoshop to draw the images in my storyboard, and ultimately found that it was a faster way to work; the lines themselves are clear and precise, with a variety of shapes and colours to choose from, it creates an easier way to achieve a good quality image. This proves that 3D animation isn't the only technique that has benefitted from the development in technology.

Despite it being the first method of animation to become established, I would say that it is not the best technique to use anymore. For the purposes of teaching, it is worth having the knowledge of how to use this method, since it is the most basic material that majority of people can use, whereas using stop motion or 3D animation requires further skills. 

A quote written in my dissertation agrees with this theory:

“Teaching software, and not the fundamental principles of animation, ultimately breeds a generation of technicians rather than artists.” (White, 2006, p.xviii Introduction). Written by Tony White in 'Animation, From Pencils to Pixels', ultimately states that if animation students were taught the principles of animation on 3D software rather than hand drawn, everybody would become more technical rather than artistic.

As a technique to use for filming it's a long and expensive process, so naturally it's no longer the number one option (unless you have money and a team to work with).

Inspired by Tron

For the CG part of my final piece, I decided to add floating shapes to the surroundings. This should demonstrate the vast environment that Maya can produce, since there is an unlimited space in the computer.

I felt it was needed, since during the sequence in my work the character opens his mouth in awe at the environment within the computer, I realised he needed something to look at.

This idea is inspired by the first animation to use this kind of space within the computer, 'Tron'. I found it during my research into the origins of animation techniques for my dissertation, since John Lasseter (a Pixar director) was inspired by it during it's release.

I hope it will add more to my final piece, and that the audience will at least vaguely understand what is happening.

3D Animation

To start off my practical work, I decided to animate in Maya first, since it is the least time consuming and all I need to use it is a computer.

So far I have found it enjoyable and relatively straight forward to animate using CGI; however I have been using a character that I've had practice with before and recreating basic movements.



The concept in each stage of this animation is to show the character discovering what's changed about him and playing around in each technique, so I saw this as a chance to add a sense of humour to it. This being his facial expressions, and almost making fun of himself as his stomach bounces.

Getting the small detailed movements can be difficult, since once you put in keyframes the character automatically puts in the in betweens, so sometimes when trying to edit those in betweens it can be difficult to predict how the film's going to turn out.

However using Maya has allowed me to have the freedom to experiment with the principles of animation (particularly squash and stretch with his stomach). This combined with the capabilities to render out a wide variety of scenery has the potential to produce very beautiful pieces of animation.

My next task is to add the camera movement to the final part of this sequence, and create objects in the background to give it depth.