Animation
03.30.21
Storyboard
The general story of my animation is that I want to show my turtle swimming from the top view and animate how it swims. Then, the camera will pan down to show the environment of the turtle with the grass, seaweed, corals, and rocks, and then a shrimp trawler will sail into the frame and throw its net into the water. The camera will then pan down to the turtle’s point of view where it will then see the net and get caught in it.
Dani’s Critique:
- Watch animal documentaries to understand how to visually compose the environment of the turtle and its movement
- Consider the transition between turtle swimming to the boat and the net. There needs to be more of a logical sequence because it will be jarring to the viewer to see such different objects and point of views in such a short amount of time, so it can possibly be looking for food, looping around and seeing the net
- Show how and why it gets caught in the net
- In some scenes the turtle looks like it lives shallow waters and in others it looks like it lives in the deep ocean, so do research into that and show it more accurately and consistently.
- Pan down to deep ocean
- Show more behaviors of the turtle because the purpose of the assignment is to demonstrate the behaviors and showcase the environment rather than having the reason of endangerment be the entire purpose of the animation.
Next Steps:
- Refine storyboard and come up with ideas that would make a better transition and to show more behaviors of the turtle.
- Start playing around in Aftereffects to learn the different parts of the software.
04.01.21
For this class, I wanted to work on some of the assets of my animation by creating some backgrounds and quickly sketching out the position of the turtle so I can visualize the composition.
For the title sequence, my idea was to show the turtle swimming from left to right and as it swims across the screen, the letters dissolve and the baselines of the different letters shift.
In these backgrounds, I wanted to show the environment of the turtle in different point of views, so the one on the left shows the ocean from the side and the turtle will swim across the screen and the one on the right will show the environment from a 3/4 perspective and the turtle will be seen swimming from the top.
From the last scene, the turtle will be seen closeup eating grass and a net will drop down, them turtle will turn around and see the net moving closer and closer. I’m not exactly sure if the composition of these scenes are correct or if I did the perspective correctly, but I mostly just wanted to draw it out in Illustrator to have an idea of where my story was going and how and where I would portray its behaviors and environment.
Next Steps:
- Put assets into Aftereffects to visualize the sequence and start to animate.
- I think that the last two backgrounds are currently confusing because there is not any depth occurring in them so the brown makes it look like a side view of the ocean when my intention is to show the vastness of the ocean so I have to figure out a way to add depth to it.
04.06.21
Since the last class, I made some changes to the composition of my frames and I began to animate the different parts. throughout the entire animation, the main thing that I changed was changing the brown to a dark blue just so that the turtle would be the only thing in the composition that wasn’t blue which would draw more attention to it.
Q’s Critique
- Frame by frame in Illustrator to animate the flippers (6 different images to create motion, repeat it mechanically, every x number of frames)
- Add a blue color on top of the animation and change the opacity to show that everything is underwater. Currently, the turtle is too saturated so it doesn’t look like its cohesive with everything else in the frame.
- Since the title is at beginning, show the turtle visually interacting with it through animation. This can be done on Aftereffects instead of Illustrator. Make each letter move and rotate to add more motion to the animation.
- The fish can be animated through using the particle system so it looks realistic.
- The background is too filled and there is way too much going on, changing the color, density, and size of the elements of the ocean floor.
Next Steps:
- Adjust the details of the backgrounds
- Begin to animate the turtle’s limbs
- Figure out the last sequence of the animation.
04.08.21
The changes that I made since last class was that in the third scene I zoomed closer to the turtle so that logically it makes sense when transitioning into the next scene where the turtle will be seen eating grass. The next scene is a front view of the turtle eating grass.
Daphne’s critique:
- Use the puppet tool to animate the flippers by pinning the shoulder joint
- Zoom out on last frame
- Change the background by decreasing the density of corals
Next Steps:
I think that the main things that I have to fix is the background and the animating of the turtle. I also think that the last scene could use some work because the turtle is too close and it’s going to be difficult to animate it moving its head to eat the grass.
04.13
Q’s Critique:
- Camera pan as in move side to side, zoom in all of the scenes
- Move net to beginning as if its chasing the turtle but the turtle gets away
- Decrease the amount of corals and the contrast between them so that the turtle stands out. Use color and sparse contrast to draw the viewer across the page
- Make sure the proportions of the turtles to the corals are consistent throughout the whole animation
- The flippers are wrong in the first two scenes so use the puppet tool in aftereffects
- Have the letters move up and rotate slightly
- Show it slowly zooming while swimming and then stop and only zoom in on the head
04.15.21
Final
