A Day On The Farm (with the cast of FRIENDS)

     Our net project in animation was a multiplane animation. We had to have four separate layers in Photoshop and take it into After Effects for animating. I chose to make mine a farm with animals and trees.

     Multiplane animation is when numerous layers pass the camera at different speeds depending on their distance and location. the first ever multilayer camera was invented in 933 by Ub Iwerks in Disney. The invention of these cameras made tracking scenes much easier and more time-efficient. It also made the animation look more realistic.

     In Photoshop, we had to make the four separate layers to animate. My back layer was just the background with the sky and sun. The next one had trees and hills. The next layer had a barn, pigs, and horses. My front layer had a fence with cows. The hardest part about this project for me was drawing in Photoshop.  I had to draw in farm animals and that isn't something I am good at. Still, I like the way it turned out in the end and I'm excited to get to use this on our next project. I named it A Day on the Farm With The Cast of FRIENDS because I named every layer the way they named FRIENDS episodes.

Barold the Girl Scout

Our next animation project was to make a walk cycle. We had to make a creature and give it it's own personal walk cycle.

We started out with creating our characters and I felt the need to make it unnecessarily complicated. Meet Barold. He is a snail with three legs, or, as I like to call him, not something that should ever exist. Being a Girl Scout is his full-time job and he isn't very good at it. His snail roommate (or his snoommate), is sick and tired of him because he doesn't pay his half of the rent. I don't know why I couldn't have just done something with two legs. Getting through the Photoshop portion was very difficult for me. Something about the way my Photoshop is set up is making it hard for me to make things. Anytime I put something over something it has to be in a new layer. No matter how little it is. It gets super frustrating and time-consuming. By the time I got through that step, I was behind. After Effects proved to be even more difficult. I'm not sure if this was clear, but animating a walk cycle with three legs is a bit more confusing to get down than two. I went through about four different styles of walking and animating them before finally just animating the back two legs like normal and having the front one do its own thing. Turn out, I did that step backward and now his front foot drags on the ground all of the time. By this point, I was a day or two behind and I decided that that was a small enough issue and I was over Barold. I had been mad at him for about a week now. I finally understand, in a way, what he's putting his snoommate through.

If there's one thing I learned during this project, its don't stray too far from the original assignment. I decided to add a body part and that was by far the worst idea I have had to put myself through in school. I'm not sure if there is something up with my Photoshop or if its user error but it's bothering me and I don't know how to fix it. There's something wrong with the paintbrush and eraser and it's really confusing me.

If I could do anything differently I would have chosen an entirely different creature. Preferably one with two legs. That would have made it a lot easier on myself and on everyone that had to endure my rants about my three-legged snail. I would, on the other hand, keep the background I made and the over-complicated backstory I gave him. I really enjoyed creating a whole character with a backstory and a motive. If I hadn't made it clear before, Barold here is on his way to sell Girl Scout cookies.

In the next project, I want to do something a bit more simple and not too weird. I think I got the hang of my Photoshop problem so we will see how that goes down. I'm really excited for our next project, though. My friend gave me a sneak peek and it looks like a very fun project.

Zygon the Space Worm

   
     For our second project in animation, we learned something new. We had to make an inchworm in Photoshop and the animate it in After Effects. My worm is named Zygon and he is a space explorer. I've also been working on giving all of my characters wildly extravagant back stories but I didn't get to give Zygon one.

Process

     We started in Photoshop. We had to make our worms and the environment they were in. I chose for him to be in space on an unknown planet. It took me a bit to get the final details on the worm like the SS Zygon and his goggles. Once we were in After Effects we were able to follow a video Mr. Olson made. We had to make the worms move and inch across the screen. It was kind of hard to work with at first because when you moved a part of the worm the whole thing would warp. Eventually, after adding couple other things into the mix. We got the worm to make the inching motion. After we got that down, we could just copy and paste it over. Then, we got him to move across the screen. Unfortunately, Zygon didn't make it all the way across the screen. But, I think he's doing a great job.

Did I Learn? Sure Did 

     This was one of the first times I have used After Effects extensively. I learned a lot about how to make the worm moving look realistic. The tools we had to use were confusing at first, but I think I understand them now. 

Would I Change It? No, Sir!

I really like the way Zygon turned out. It makes me really happy watching him inch along and knowing he is on his little explorer way. But, if I had to change something, I might have made the planet look a little more planet-like and made his goggles look a bit more like goggles. I also wanted to make his fins looks a little more like spaceship's. 

Next Time?

Next time I want to give my character an  extensive back story. I also want to like the colors  I put on it. (Since I'm typing this in the future, I can tell you now that no, I did not like the colors I ended up having to use.) I'm excited to use the skills I learned here on my next project!

Ball In The Fall

 Overview

     For our first project in animations, we had to recreate one of our first ever projects- a bouncing ball. This time, we didn't use Photoshop the whole time. Once we had made the ball, we moved into Aftereffects. I made my ball in the fall. You can tell it's in the fall because there are leaves. I honestly think the bouncing makes it look like something out of a Tumblebook. Since this was our first time in Aftereffects, I had a hard time getting used to it. It took me a good amount of time to catch on to where everything was and how to use it, but I eventually (for the most part) figured out how it all worked.

Did she learn? Read here to find out!

    While working on this project, I used Power Hour effectively for one of the first times. Aftereffects took me a good amount of time to get the hang of, and that put me behind a couple of times. I had trouble getting the bouncing effect just right, and that really set me back. My big takeaway from this project was definitely mastering the basics of Aftereffects. In all honesty, that program is difficult for me. I also learned the effectiveness of good note taking and how to ( in the future ) apply that to animation. 

What would she change? What would she do the same? Who knows!

     If I did this project again and had more time, I would add in clouds that could move in the background or make the leaves swirl in the wind. When I was in Photoshop, I couldn't find a way that I liked to have clouds. That meant once I got into Aftereffects, I couldn't animate anything. I do like the way my ball turned out so I would keep that the same. 

What does this mean for her future projects?????

     Once we start our next project, I think (and hope) that working in Aftereffects will go a lot more smoothly than it did this time. Now that I've used it before, I'll understand it better the next time around. Notetaking will also be a biggie.  I need to take more detailed and helpful notes this time around if I want to be successful in this class. Our next project is going to be an inch worm and I am excited to see how that goes down. 

Fire Safety

  The Project™

     Our first video assignment of the year was to make a safety procedure video. I worked with Andrew Stout and Jenna Daugherty. We made a video about what to do if the fire alarms start going off. We really didn't understand what you actually had to do during a fire so that made it harder for us to storyboard. We had a bunch of directions we wanted to go with the video (like making it in the style of a 50's instructional video) but we went with a simple, straight forward, instructional video. When we got to the second day of shooting, we had forgotten our clothes from the day before. We ended up re-shooting everything. Thank goodness we had, there was no sound from the first day. On the third day, we had a different camera and that kind of messed everything up, just a little bit.  I edited the video at home, so I had a day to help my team members with whatever they needed.

  What I need to fix

   I learned while watching the final cut of my video, that I had a good few things I had to change. There was a pretty obvious continuity error, but we were too scared to correct it. We weren't sure if you could actually open doors during school hours, so, we didn't. I need to fix some of the audio levels so you can hear it in some parts and fix the coloring so it's even. When I was editing, I learned how to crop a video and that was nice to know.

  When I redo it 

   If I could go back and do this video, I might have tried to find a way to get shots of us actually going through the doors. When editing I would fix the audio levels and the coloring. I will get a chance to do that today because we have to re-edit. When filming next time, I will try to focus on making sure all speaking is loud and clear so the audio doesn't need to be tweaked as much. I was glad we were all on the same page the whole time, though. (For the most part.)

For next time

     I had a lot of fun and I felt like I learned a lot about the people I work with and how I work with them. I am proud of the video I made and am ready to make it better.

     

Final Blog Post

Quarter Four Project

      For our final project we had to create a project a product and sell it. Our product was called the Lingua and it was a microphone that could  translate languages in real(ish) time. We had the entire quarter to work on it. Our group wasn't the best at staying on task and thoroughly making sure everything was done.We were put into groups based on our animal personality traits and our Myers-Briggs type.  We all didn't agree very well and we got off topic easily.  By the end of our project we had almost gotten everything done, except for the website.  None of us were very confident in our website building abilities, so we put it off for as long as we could. When we would go to work on it individually, we wouldn't really know what to do. Needless to say, the website was the hardest part of our project. I learned al to about working in a  group with people who are hard to get along with and people who aren't always on task. I learned a lot about trying to keep people on topic, working, and how to scream on the inside.

Presentation  

     When we were presenting for the first time, we were told to memorize, finish our website and not bash other companies in our presentation. Throughout the quarter, we had am mini rivalry with another group called the "Speaker". We would both continuously hate on each other in a fun way. by the time presentations came, we both had each other in them in some way or another. In our presentation, I gave myself the honor of bashing on their product. I was going to take it out, but they put my name in their video. When we had to show our video and website, neither were finished. Well, we had a video, but it was a seven second clip of Evan fake falling over the railing. No product, no addressing what we were selling, no nothing. We pulled up a save second clip and showed it to the class. At least by the time we had to actually present, we had a real video and a mostly finished website. 

Opinion

     I enjoyed working on the project, but I didn't like our actual product. After we had chosen our product, we found out that i was already a thing. And at that, the real product was better. It's not fun working on a project that you aren't proud of. But, we did it and and we finished it. 

Time Management 

     For the first quarter, we weren't the best with time management. As a group, we weren't always on task. It took us a long time to finally get our 3d animation done and we had one person doing the 2d animation and we didn't see it until we were finished with the rotation. I feel like our 2d animation could have definitely been stronger. Our 3d animation he'd too much going on in the background for us to see the actual product.  I tried my best to keep everyone on task, but we argued and got off task and it was hard. We got through planning our video fast, so in the men time we planned our shots out quickly and had time to write up a second commercial. I liked the idea for the second commercial better, but the first one was easier to do. The shots we got for the commercial weren't very good and it made it really hard to edit. I stayed after school times and i came in in the morning for a week straight. I have the programs at home so I can take the projects home. I should learn how to bring home all of the stuff instead of just the file like I did. 

Strengths and Improvements

     I would say my strengths are in editing and keeping people from fighting. That actually came in handy a lot because we fought often. I was able to straighten people out and make sure we weren't yelling. 

     I could work on not getting off task when other people are and working through other people's distractions.

     My favorite part of this semester was basically the idea of this project. We all got experience making a product and having to have pride in it and selling it. The hard part was not actually having the pride required to sell your product or be proud of it. If I could go back and change things, I would change our product in a heartbeat. W had had ideas for other things after that that I like a lot more than what we ended up doing, like tattoos that last for a year or change color. After this semester I learned that it's important to be proud of everything you create and do. I would have enjoyed the whole process just a bit more if I had like our product. One goal I would like to set for next year is simple: be proud of everything I create. I honestly cannot believe that the year is already over and I we are going to be sophomores soon. I am very excited for e-Comm next year. 

Project 

CSS And CARP Design

     To finish out the quarter we did another web design project. We had to use Dreamweaver again and this time we had to change up a poem and make it look nicer with CSS and CARP. Hint hint to the title of this blog post. This project felt a lot easier than the last, but maybe it's because I don't remember it too well. The original file looked a lot different than the end project. At the beginning, it just looked like a white screen with a dog and a poem. By the end, it looked like a real website with a background color and a title and everything.

     C- We showed contrast with the black background behind an almost white box holding the poem and dog.
     A- We used alignment to Show the title (which was in the middle) and the normal format for poems which is aligned to the left.
     R- We showed repetition by using the same colors from the dog multiple times throughout the website.
     P- We used proximity by keeping everything close together but far enough apart that you can easily tell where everything is and what it goes with.

   
      Even after this project, I am still not the biggest fan of web design but I had fun and I learned a lot about working with CSS and CARP. For starters, I learned what CARP stood for, meant, and how to use and demonstrate it. I relearned how to use Dreamweaver and how to write out code. I don't think I want to work in Dreamweaver again, though.  But, I did enjoy it.