Animal Animation

Part Three of the Animal Project Begins: Animation

Planning

Initial storyboard

Video I’m planning on referencing for the curlew take-off sequence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHypbWFRxmw

Today for critique, I had Q. Q actually agreed with a lot of my story ideas, which was very exciting! He couldn’t read many of the comments I wrote onto my physical storyboard (that’s my bad), so he repeated a lot of the ideas I already had. It was very gratifying. He also gave me suggestions for how long my sequences should be, which I honestly hadn’t even begun to think about. I really appreciate his feedback today. It was very pointed and I think it will be very helpful.

Q’s written feedback

The comments read:

• Camera pan down
• Also zoom in a bit
• Scene 6 and 7 does not have to be continuous
• Maybe your bird can be smaller in this scene

Starting animation

Failed asset creation for intro 1

Intro 1 did not pan out (pun intended). I like a cliche trope here and there, but this simply felt too cliche and, surprisingly, too hard to animate. No matter who I asked or what tutorial I watched, I couldn’t quite get a seamless blend. I really sunk a lot of time into trying to make this work but I just didn’t like where it was going.

Some concerns I have:

• I’m not loving the colors, I find them somewhat boring
• After effects is giving me a lot of trouble

Today for critique, I had Daphne. I was really nervous to talk to her, but Dani encouraged me to do it, even if I had very little to show. However, I think it was good to talk to Daphne. Because I had little to show, there was little to talk about but she was able to give me some advice on the colors. The colors of my poster were good, so I can lean into them, even if they were a bit fantastical. Everyone knows that purple grass doesn’t exist, so it’s okay to extend disbelief there.

I’m very worried about this assignment and whether I can create something I’ll even want to turn in.

Creating the intro

Taking inspiration from Jessica, I decided to create a single main asset board to help organize all the parts that I’m working on, as well as creating a cohesive aesthetic across the entire animation.

Main asset board

This main asset board includes color swatches that I can copy and paste into new files for easy color transfer, some of the assets from my different asset files, and some reference photos like the ones of the tundra below:

Tundra photos as used in the main asset board

Based on these reference photos, I created a basic background for my intro. I decided that I wanted a pan motion, with my name and the animal name moving in and out of frame, then the curlew’s head popping up. I was bale to include at the foreground and the mid-ground, but I was unable to add the mountains. Their peaks and details were too high for the perspective I was going for, so I had to settle with a blue almost-sky.

Also with these assets, I included some layers of grass that could move independently. This adds to the feeling of the camera pan and making it more convincing.

Grass asset board

Frames from the opening sequence

Today in critique, I had Q. He suggested the following for my animation:

• I might want to try having the bird move in with the text as opposed to popping up after the pan stops. The entire shot will feel more connected this way.
• The text gets lost in the grass; I could raise the text height a bit to avoid this and make it more legible/easy to track.
• Overall the intro feels too fast. If I want to mitigate this, I can apply Easy Ease In on the text so that it speeds up once it’s established. Also, I should make the background have less of a vertical gradation in movement and move across less the screen. The background currently moves at the same speed at the grass, which makes it feel like the camera pans very quickly. However, I intend to my pan to be slower and the edits will make it feel that way.

Final shot for opening

I also chose to make the bird do a bit of nodding as the camera pans across. I thought that it looked too puppet-ish without the movement. The head nods bring life. I wish I could have made the curlew crisper during the pan across, but with puppet warp applied, I can’t make the lines any crisper without messing up the movement.

Creating scene 2

I knew for scene two that I wanted a walking scene from a higher POV, so I could see the curlew walking across the ground more. So, I began by making a ground asset that would

Environment for scene 2

Curlew assets

Concerns:

• Do I have enough detail?
• Does the purple still work when it’s just like this?

Frames from scene 2

Creating the take-off sequence

Screen shots from my

In-between shot: up close on the feet