Study Task 3 - Research

Aesthetic

One of our first steps was to develop moodboards, or as O’Hailey (2010, p. 5) puts it - a ‘visual target’. We decided to go with a flat, cartoony art style to reflect childlike awe and bubbly aesthetic.

2D animation is more suitable aesthetically, since it is less likely to suffer from uncanny valley compared to 3D CGI. Uncanny valley is a phenomenon that makes viewers feel uncomfortable when looking at objects that closely resemble humans. Although first described by Masahiro Mori in the robotics field, it also applies to animation (see Fig 1 by (Engländer, 2014)).

Traditional 2D animation was considered for its textures (brushes, paper and other physical media), but digital 2D animation can also recreate these effects (to some degree) and for a fraction of the cost. Going digital meant we could animate faster using digital tweening, but this runs the risk of motion looking mechanical and unappealing.

Bibliography

• Engländer, F. (2014) The Uncanny Valley. Available at: https://www.animatorisland.com/the-uncanny-valley/?v=79cba1185463 (Accessed on 29 December 2018)
• O'Hailey, T. (2015) Hybrid Animation: Integrating 2D and 3D Assets. Second edition. Abingdon: Focal Press

Fig 1.

Study Task 3 - Research

Technique

Firstly, we needed an art style and medium that the team was comfortable with, that also matched the story. Meroz outlines that the main difference between 2D and 3D animation, is that 2D animation can have lower frame rates (as low as 12fps) compared to 3D CGI animation. 

It may seem that 2D animation is much less time consuming, but Kuperberg (2002, p. 11) states that “unlike 2D animation, once a character has been modelled in 3D, it can be viewed realistically from any angle.” This saves production time which might make up for the long pre-production stage. 

Since our team was predominantly 2D animators, we chose 2D. Going with 3D animation would mean extra time would have to be scheduled to train ourselves. Within 2D animation we decided to use 2D digital animation, since that would reduce our ‘line mileage', an important factor that O’Hailey (2015, p. 5) mentions when choosing a medium. Using digital tweens and virtual cameras meant that we could animate more efficiently, and also save time by skipping the scanning process.

Bibliography

• O'Hailey, T. (2015) Hybrid Animation: Integrating 2D and 3D Assets. Second edition. Abingdon: Focal Press
• Meroz, M. (no date) What is 3D Animation Compared to 2D Animation? The Core Differences. Available at: https://www.bloopanimation.com/what-is-3d-animation/ (Accessed 28 December 2018)
• Kuperberg, M. (2002) Guide to Computer Animation: For TV, Games, Multimedia and Web. Oxford: Focal Press

Telling Tales - Week 10

The feedback from last week was to work faster, since we were falling behind. I began to reassign scenes in hopes of getting them done faster, since not all of my team members worked at the same pace. I had done 9/10 of the scenes I assigned to myself, but still had to do the effects for other unfinished scenes.

Minor adjustments were also being made to details, to fix continuity errors. One such example was this shot, where the Hunter holds the sword in his right hand, but he holds it in his left hand the rest of the animation. A simple fix for this was to flip the scene horizontally.

What went well:

• Significant amount of progress made by the team this week,
• Adjustments were made to line thicknesses to keep the characters consistent.

What could be improved:

• Time management and workload assigning should've been adjusted much earlier in the production phase to prevent last minute panic,
• Having more peers critique the animation to find inconsistencies faster, would prevent needing to animate scenes again.

Telling tales - Week 9

This week we recorded the final audio.

Ava did the voice of Sally and R'Shaun did the voice of the Hunter.
I did the foley; pouring tea sounds and the Beast eating/gulping. I also recorded footsteps using a box filled with newspaper, but I struggled to get the pacing right.
We used freesound.org for the non-diegetic sounds since we were short on time.

Since my teammate still hadn't completed character turnarounds and expression sheets, some design aspects had to be explored afterwards. I designed and added in the scabbard into scenes with the Hunter to help reduce the workload.

What went well:

• Improvising to make sounds, such as using a can of soda for the kettle falling or a coat hanger to create whoosh sounds,
• Consistency among team is improved (e.g. now the sword and scabbard will always be drawn on the Hunter).

What could be improved:

• Quality of sound may not be the best since a cheaper microphone was used,
• Slow character design created a chain-effect that slowed down production, work should be re-assigned/re-distributed more efficiently to avoid this.
• Creating our own, or networking to find a musician to create the non-diegetic sounds.

Telling Tales - Week 8

I experimented on this special-effects-intensive scene:

My inspiration for this scene was the bubbly aesthetic of Steven Universe, so using it as reference, I created 'energy beams' to exaggerate the childlike wonder.

Steven Universe by Rebecca Sugar

The feedback received was that the sharp edges wouldn't match the soft art style. So I repainted the beams with a textured watercolour brush:

The sparkles, lighting overlays and multiply layers too were recreated in this style.

We created rules for the backgrounds and the characters, using colour palettes and specific brushes and brush widths.

I also experimented with Keyframe Caddy for lip-syncing.

What could be improved:

• I could get a broader understanding of special effects for art styles by looking at other animators' works too,
• I could make more variations on how the 'beams' look.