Ten Strengths Animation

Today I finally finished my first animation project that doesn't involve a bouncing ball. We had to take our ten strengths words and fit them into our animation. The first struggle was actually choosing words. After we managed to find our words that at least vaguely described us, we got to work.

We put our background picture into Photoshop first, mine being an orchestra hall. We spent a lot of time putting in our words after that. We had to make sure we really liked the final look, the fonts, colors, and sizes of each of the words. Once we had that in order, we began to animate.

This time in Photoshop, we used the video timeline to animate. We made all of the words come in front different spots, sizes, and opacities. My animation was looking oddly grainy and it made it super frustrating to try to nitpick little details. I couldn't play it without it looking like that. I ended up shortening the entire thing by hand twice. At first video looked that way, too. But the second time around I got lucky and it was okay.

If I were to go back and do this project again, I would want to choose a less busy background image. Though I do like my image, I feel like I could have gone with something more simplistic and easy to work with.  I am very excited to see what our next unit, working in 3D, has in store.

Ten Strengths Video:

Bouncing Ball Try 2

This time we decided to not only make the ball bounce, but too make it move as well. We added in arcs to see how the ball follows it. That means we had to learn what arcs are and how to properly use them.

Process

First, we learned what arcs are.  Arcs are the circular path that animations follow to make it look more realistic. Without the arcs, your animation just looks mechanical and fake, so it's important to add them in. Next, we applied them to what we were doing. When a ball falls, it doesn't keep bouncing at the same height. That wouldn't be right. The ball slowly bounces less and less until it stops. We put the arcs in and put the ball along the line, making the bouncing affect. We got to put little faces on the bouncy ball so it made a face when it hit the ground. Once we had it all mapped out, we went back in and put it into timeline. There we added a cool little fade in and out. After that we saved it and got to see the final product.

Aftermath

This time around I learned how to make animations look more realistic. Using the arcs helped us keep the ball on track and looking normal. Without them, nothing about the ball bouncing would have liked normal or even remotely correct. I also learned how to put text into the animation, which really isn't too big of a thing, but it would have taken me a really long time to find it otherwise. I learned how to fade from one frame to another as well. 

Looking Back

If I were to go back and to this again, I would add in shadows and clouds. I would also change the faces I put on the balls. I want to also edit the arcs a little bit to make the more realistic at the end 

when they do the little bouncy things. Looking back, the project was really fun, exciting, and interesting. I am looking forward to our next project, and I'm excited to see what it incorporates.

Learn about arcs:

Bouncy Ball Animation

Since we are in the animation rotation, we finished our first animation today. We animated a bouncy ball bouncing on a loop in photoshop. For our first time ever animating something, I think we all did pretty good.

The Process

We started by putting in the sky and the ground and then adding in the ball. We had separate layers for each ball to show how it would bounce. Once we had every layer for the ball, my sister and I decided to play around with some of the other features on photoshop and see what they did. We both added in grass and a gradient to the top of the land layer. I really wanted to do little tufts of grass, but I had no idea where to do that or how to do that. I added clouds and a gradient into the sky layer to make it look a bit more realistic than it already had been with just the blue. Around this point was when we found a way to put in shadows. I made one shadow on the last frame before it hit the ground and nothing else. It took me up until we began to animate it to realize that maybe I should add shadows to the other frames to make it realistic. Without the other ones there would have been a shadow that appeared and disappeared out of nowhere. I'm glad that i got the other shadows in, even if they don't flow terribly well. After that we went into timeline and turned them all into frames.

The Aftermath

During this lesson I learned for the first time how to animate and how to actually use photoshop. I've seen photoshop used a lot, but I've never really known how to use it or how it works so it was really interesting to finally use it. We learned what does what and how to get to everything. We learned about the rules of animation and how to apply them. We mostly focused on squash and stretch. I never realized that you had to physically show the squashing and the stretching. I always just assumed that it looked like that since it was going that fast. I was wrong. We saw how robotic it looks when you don't add in squash and stretch. So, add the squash and stretch. It's important.

Reflection

If I were to go back in and redo this entire project from scratch, I would keep the shadow and change the clouds. I would also add in little tufts of grass and maybe try to make the clouds move. I like the way the shadows look, but maybe I could go back in and make them smoother, so they flow nicer.  I don't know how you could add tufts of grass, but there's most likely a way to do it. I added in the clouds in a way that I don't know if i could animate them, but I think if I added more of the clouds to the sides of it I could make them move. Maybe I could redo them in a different style, make them look cartoony and float past. But, overall, I enjoyed the project and cannot wait to animate again.