Learning the basics of Adobe Flash professional CS6
Creating roughly a 1 second animation using the drawing
tablet.
Using F5 to extend a frame with the same image.
24/5 frames is equal to a second.
Basic tools –
F7 moves to the next frame
Onion skin – creates a faint shadow of the previous frame
Paint brush tool – draws onto the frame, ‘[‘ on the keyboard
will make the brush size smaller and ‘]’ will make the brush size larger.
Using ‘.’ (fullstop) to move across the frames then pressing
F7 will extend that frame to that point.
Adding
a new layer using the new layer icon and making a background by drawing
selecting all frames and drawing around the frame edges and filling it in using
the paint bucket then using the lock icon to lock it into place.
Using
the paint bucket to edit the colours after making the animation, using the
< and > keys on the keyboard to switch between frames.
To change the size of the canvas you’re working on go into
modify then document.
Week 1
Smiley Face -
On our first week we were taught the basics of using Adobe Flash; creating new frames, the onion skin tool, using the drawing tablet and paint bucket tool. With this we created roughly one second of animation. I found the drawing with the tablet a bit tricky to come to terms with as I wasn't used to it. I was also surprised that a second of animation is roughly 25 frames, which took a lot longer to create than I imagined. This made me think about and appreciate full animated movies a lot more as I wasn't aware how much time and effort is actually involved within animation. I really enjoyed the first session and felt like I'd already learnt a lot.
Week 2
Animating an eye -
On our second week we created a blinking eye, I was still not used to drawing with the tablet, so found the task a bit challenging. It was an interesting effect - seeing how you can animated a certain part of the drawing and bring it to life.
We also traced over an image of a character walk cycle, which personally I found easier than free hand drawing as there were already guidelines set out for me, as opposed to creating an animation completely from scratch and imagination. It was really cool watching the walk come to life from a simple series of images. I think I might of exported the GIF wrong, as there's a pause between looping.
Week 3
Rotoscoping on a film -
This week we learnt how to crop and import a film into Adobe Flash. I chose a section from a wildlife film and to alter it, I decided to make the otter yawn and blink whilst making the grass grow and a snake appear. I think I'm getting hang of the drawing tablet more now but it's so time consuming. I like the black and white outline effect, it's very cartoon - storyboard style which I think gives a this really cool visual impact.
Storyboarding
From researching into Rotoscoping, I decided that was the path I wanted to take so I created a storyboard with my own ideas inspired by my research. I really like the sketchy style which Joseph Pierce uses in his work, especially the idea for the Enter Shikari music video, I was also inspired by Vaugh Pinpin's/the 'Tim Burton' styled Pokemon so, I combined the idea of incorporating both into my final piece. I picked out an Enter Shakari video to rotoscope over and watched it a couple times to see what I could do with it, I noticed at one point the lead singer throws his arm out whilst he's singing - so I used this to my advantage and decided I'd a pokeball in his hand and he'd throw that and crack the screen, revealing the band as pokemon. I then decided to go back to a normal sketch style for the drummer's solo and then breaking into Joseph Pierce's style afterwards to complete the task. Realistically, I realize it's quite a bit of work and dedication but I think it might be achievable.
Evaluating Final Piece
I spent a long time deciding on my storyboard and my ideas, which set my back a bit from the start but once I began Rotoscoping over the live footage, I put a lot of work into it. At the start, I realized I was being too precious with my brush strokes and it was taking a lot longer than it needed to and the neatness didn't really fit into the concept of the animation, especially with the heavy music in the background. After I began working quicker and realizing my time limit, I became a lot freer with my movements and began building up the animation a lot quicker.
When it came to the final few sessions, I decided it'd be wise to change my expectations of the length of the animation as I didn't take into consideration when I was storyboarding, how long it'd actually take. My aim was then shortened to about 8 good seconds instead of rushing to try and get 30 seconds, as I thought this would've looked noticeably rough and I wouldn't have been pleased with the end result.
Rotoscoping over the live footage was particularly tricky at times as the music video was really dark and kept fading in and out of focus which was challenging to work with but I used the onion skin to try and estimate the movements of the band. The cracking of the screen, I thought, wasn't as effective as I would've liked but I think it still works and gives the impact of a breaking screen. I used images of the Tim Burton style pokemon to trace over when it came to adding them into the sequence which I think went really well and I even added little movements to bring them to life. I think I captured the style pretty well. Because I shortened the length of the video, I didn't get a chance to work on the drummer's solo or the ending sequence of the band playing over the original footage, however, I think I followed my actual piece matched my storyboard intentions really well. In my presentation, I made it clear that I was aware that I might not of had time to fully reach my expectations of my ideas and I'm pleased with my final piece.
Initially I was going to do a changing gradient background, similar to the one in Joseph Pierce's Family Portrait animation, however I was running out of time and focused more on doing 8 good seconds and I was less concerned about the background. As an alternative, I found some images with roughly the same texture I wanted so I used them instead which I think worked really well with the piece. If I had more time, I would've liked to make the length longer and maybe add some more colour into the band and background, however I think the outlining still gives a cool effect.
Altogether, even though I wasn't that confident using the drawing tablet, I feel I learnt a lot about animation and approached the task to my full potential. If I did this again, I think I'd practice using the tablet more and become more familiar with the tools, whilst managing my time management more efficiently. I really enjoyed learning about rotoscoping as I wasn't aware of it at all and overall, I feel like I've learnt a lot of useful knowledge which I can use again if I wanted in my own practice of work. I think I tackled the challenge to my best abilities, even though I didn't get a full 30 seconds, I feel my 8 seconds are detailed enough to make up for it.
