What I Learned (First Week) BSA 126

My Class Review for This Week

1. About Me

Hi everyone, just for a small introduction about me:) 

- My name is → Marilyn Audenia

- Originated from Jakarta, Indonesia 

- Currently studying at Southern Institute of Technology, Invercagill, New Zealand

- Interested in drawing (especially sci-fi characters)

2. My Course

a. Introduction about the course

I just started my animation course last Monday, precisely on 13th February 2017. For the first week of my course, I met new classmates and tutors. It was so interesting as I learned new things that I haven't learned before. Truthfully, I am soooooo excited about this course because I had been waiting for this course since last year! And a little bit nervous as well actually...

b. What I learned this week

Monday

It was the first day of my course and orientation as well. My new classmates and me made a tour around Downtown Campus and also the main campus. The first class I had was Screen Arts, we were given the outline about the subject and 3 assignments that we have to submit later on. I learned about "The 12 Principles of Animation" and these are some notes that I wrote:

1. Squash and Strech

Marks rigidity (make it more life), movement, and volume (keep consistent)

Eg: A ball is falling down, there has to be some point when the ball is in the original size and when the ball stretch especially before it hits the ground. 

2. Anticipation
Preparation-Action-Termination → Predicting what is going to happen
Eg: Someone wants to jump, he/she has to prepare before hand before he/she jumps, like the position and gesture.

3. Staging
Framing conveys personality and mood → expression is good to be zoomed in or close up while action is good for zoomed out or look from afar.
It is good to focus on the main point
Eg: Close up expression.

4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
Works in a straight progression of frames
Major poses are drawn and timed out and in betweens drawn later
Straight Ahead : Good for unpredictable movements (such as: ire, water particles, dusts)
because there are laws of physics that work at a constant rate
Pose to Pose : Good for human actions because it helps us to know how it ends and what to fill between the drawings
Eg: Someone bowing down to pick up something

5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action
Weigh and drag (when object moves and suddenly it stops, the movement has to be slower before it totally stops)
* Body doesn't move all at one
Follow Through : Other parts outside of the body that keeps moving after the body stops
Overlapping Action : The offset between the timing of the main body and other parts
Eg: A bag moves and stop suddenly

6. Ease In, Ease Out
Slow then become fast (Eg: A Swing) and Accelerate & Decelerate
More drawings : Movement becoming slower
Less drawings : Movement becoming faster

7. Arcs
Moving in circular paths
Eg : Pointing down

8. Secondary Action
Small motion can results from big motion. Gestures that help the main movement to let know about what the character is feeling.
Eg: A professor that is thinking about something. He puts his hand on his forehead, the hand is the additional movement.

9. Timing
It is how many drawings needed to make 1 action

10. Exaggeration
Make the idea or essence of the action more apparent and real
Eg: The character is sad, make it even sadder or the character is happy, make it happier

11. Solid Drawing
Making sure that forms feel like they are in three dimensional space, with volume, weight, and balance (for the eyes,nose, mouth, everything has to be balance)
Eg: Mickey Mouse

12. Appeal
Quality and charm of the character (Charismatic Aspect)
There are three ways of doing that :
1. Use different shapes (So it doesn't look stiff and with a lot of variations)
2. Play with proportion (Sometimes we can make the head a little bit bigger than the other parts of the body such as legs or hands)
3. Keep it simple (Do not draw too many details, because the more details we draw, more drawings we have to animate)
Eg: A standing up person

Pictures are from:
1. sit.ac.nz
2. animdesk.com
3. courses.cs.washington.edu
4. bestvideosonweb.com
5. bluepony.com
6. brownbagfilms.com
7. profspevack.com
8. danterinaldidesign.com
9. 3dcharacters.de
10. idearocketanimation.com
12. jaberdeen.blogspot.com
12. mnmtanimation.weebly.com
13. bluepony.com


This is it for the 1st part:) I will post again for the next part, Thank you for reading