Use materials, techniques and processes

Evaluation (Ryan Kirkpatrick)

Learning Outcome One

Ryan has used a lot creativity within his design, In my opinion, it's a great idea, the use of the captions included helps to put the pieces together and also helps to build suspension within the viewer. I think that instead of having still pictures in the animation he should of created some sort of perspective view such as a zoom into a part of the image that highlights what's happening in the animation. Ryan has used his time effectively and the methods he came across before hand really helped when it came to creating the animation.  

Learning Outcome Two

Like myself, Ryan has taken the techniques and processes he learnt and took them into his own independent work by using Adobe After Effects. Ryan has used a lot of techniques that I am unaware of using After Effects, although; just by watching his animation I can tell there was a lot of different use of techniques including a video overlay.

Learning Outcome Three

Ryan's research shows many different pathways that he could of chose in creating his final production, although I think that he has chosen an excellent layout and dedicated his ideas throughout his research into creating a nice looking, smooth animated slideshow. The only problem that Ryan occurred during his final production was a minor switching layers because of a mask being on the wrong image; It was a more time consuming process for Ryan as oppose to fixing problems. Overall, Ryan's final production looks as though it has met the brief by showing a short animation with a structured style and reflecting the title; Innovation In Art and Design.

Self Evaluation

My Final Piece involved the use of Photoshop to cut-out and edit images but mostly Flash. My animation involves a spark running along a fuse until it reaches the TNT and creates an explosion which then reveals the title Kaboom!

Learning Outcome One
Throughout the unit I have discovered many different techniques that have given me guidance towards creating my final production. Although, when it came to the technical process I started to notice that many of the demos were not as useful; as my ideas started to drift away yet also develop from the starting point of our ideas generation. Using my creative potential I combined many of my ideas from my research and techniques we covered in demos into my final idea of crossing life like and cartoon/art styled images into one animation. 

Learning Outcome Two
For my Final Animation I wanted to create a simple yet clean looking design, at first, my idea was to create a life-like explosion with sound that involves the viewer and makes them feel as though it’s “Real” I then started collecting resources and searching the web for tutorials witch led to the discovery of creating a cartoon mixed with a life like styled animation. I made the TNT from my final production using Photoshop then imported it to Flash where all my other components were made. The process of my final production was very independent, as I mentioned before, I didn’t use many of the processes or techniques used in the demos as they did not seem to fit in with the style of my work although they gave me a good starting point as to where to look and what to look for.

Learning Outcome Three
Although I am very pleased with my final animation, the software used, and the ideas that I came across and developed; I still think that if I had more time I could have looked into creating a more art based design that would involve many different processes and would also give the animation a whole different perspective and also help me to learn different techniques for future use. The only problem I had when making my final animation was allowing the spark follow the fused wire, I finally solved this by creating a motion tween path along the wire then converting it to frame by frame which took up a lot of my working time. If I were to do this again I would have looked into how to create my ideas regardless how much I liked the look of it. Overall, my final production has gone to plan and I didn't encounter any major problems. I also think that I met the brief with a stylish and clean looking animation that reflects the briefs title; Innovation and Art and Design. After writing this evaluation I have realised which parts involved in this unit I could do more by including more/better research/techniques etc and which parts I have overlooked, therefore I now have a clearer idea on what to aim for in the future.

Final Production

The Process

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=999eUtFd-5E&feature=related

I took a lot of time thinking on how to create a good looking explosion that will fit the cartoon style that I am looking for, after after searching the web looking for something that would fit the animation I came across this tutorial on how to draw and animate a smoke explosion

 The idea is to draw the explosion in stages, with 3 in total. I started by drawing the first part of the explosion (smallest) with a length of three frames, I then drew the next part of the explosion slightly bigger than the last with a couple more frames.

I then drew the last part of the explosion, even bigger than the last two stages and with more detail, I then distributed each corner of the explosion to it's own layer so that I could scale and transform each one separately so that it gives the effect of a slow motion explosion.

After creating the explosion I filled it in with many different colours on different attempts, each looking worse than before, I then flicked back to the original and decided that it looked a lot better and seemed to fit in with the title Kaboom! in the last part of the animation.

Stage One

The only part of the animation that I had any trouble with was the fuse sparks and getting it to follow the wire leading to the TNT. Firstly, because I created the TNT image along with the fuse wire in Photoshop, it was not directly editable in Flash, so, I had to erase the fuse wire in Photoshop and draw it on a new layer in Flash so that I could make it disappear using the eraser and frames.

This is the final layout for the main asset in my animation, I made the TNT using the pen tool as I said before, but I made some alterations by adding the title "Kaboom!" to the side of the TNT so that it sticks in the viewers mind without distorting the animation too much. My aim was to make the first part of the animation look as real as possible so I also added a reflection by duplicating the layer of the TNT then flipping it and adding a gradient of foreground to transparent.

Final Ideas And Storyboard

My idea for my final animation is simple yet precise, I will be focusing on making the animation look professional whilst still having a basic idea. The idea of the animation is to have a TNT explosive/bomb with a fuse that will slowly burn down and explode to reveal the title "Kaboom!".

Although my idea may vary along the line, I had to decide on the style of the drawing of the animation. Although I decided on a cartoon style based animation I started off by trying to creating a life-like scene, but when I got to creating the explosion it just didn't seem to fit in. A peer then suggested creating the animation in a cartoon style which I had thought about earlier, I then tried this but was not happy with the outcome so I decided to mix the two styles together by creating a cartoon styled explosion from a life-like scene which in my opinion creates a strong image, it's almost as if the other side of the scene escapes with the explosion. This will also help to cut down on the complexity of drawing so I can focus on the animation. This is what I came up with,

Although this is just a storyboard to help plan my ideas, I took a lot of time creating the TNT as I will be using the same image for my final animation. I made it from scratch using the "Pen Tool" to draw the layout of the TNT stick, I then made a selection around the end of the stick so that part wouldn't be affected by the "Burn & Dodge" tool which I used to create shadows and lighting and also depth on the end of the stick by inverting the selection.

Adaption of Pattern Demo

This is my first adaption towards creating my own pattern that I followed on from the demo, I created some detail using the "Pen Tool" to make the line going through the image, to do this I created a path along the line I made using the "Pen Tool" so that the "Brush Tool" would follow it smoothly and that way I wouldn't have to draw it freely. Then, using "Blending Options" I created minor touches to all the layers by adding shadows, depth and "Bevel & Emboss" on both the line and Text.

Below is my second piece that I created using shapes and patterns. For this piece I started completely from scratch, the image to the right is how I created the repeated pattern, I used various shapes in Photoshop; adding gradients and shadows from "Blending Options"

I made the line going through the text using the "Pen Tool" I then right clicked the line and selected create path using the "Brush Tool" then selecting "Blending Options" and adding a gradient and shadow.

I created the shape of the text by using the "Liquify" tool. The image inside the text was an image of clockwork from the web.

After creating both these pieces using the techniques learnt from the demo I now feel comftable in how to use this in my own work and creating one from scratch. Overall I am happy with results I produced using the techniques from the demo and I am intending on including this in future work.

Stop Animation

Today we were split up into groups and were asked to create our own stop motion animation using a camera, unfortunately, we had problems with our camera and took us a long time to actually get started, we had some good ideas for our animation, such as a game of Tron or a hand drawn maze being solved. But we ended up with a very small amount of time so the animation turned out very basic.


Adaption Of Animation Demo

I decided to experiment further with my animation by adding another image that found on the web, this was very easily done by getting the image from the web and importing it into my animation then moving the image where I wanted it to go within the frames. During the process of this experimentation I gained a new idea on what to create for our final animation, I liked the style of the "cartoon like" explosion which in my opinion highlights and creates a huge impact on the title, Kaboom! unlike a "life like explosion" would.

This is the image I used,

Name Tag

Using a black felt tip pen I created a name tag using the initials of my first, middle and last name. I used a standard/classic style for the outline to create a cartoon like tag,

After importing the tag into Photoshop I started to experiment with different gradients and colours, Firstly I added a bold red gradient with lines of white then a black one on the layer above. I then drew around the outline of the lettering using the brush tool and a slightly large brush then added a pattern effect to the inside of the lettering so that it looks almost as if it's crumpled paper. This was a great way to help me gain inspiration on creating the title lettering for our final animation.

Adaption of Typography Demo

This is my own experiment on using typography, for this example i used a picture of my own face and words that i have chosen myself. Although I have not gone all out on this piece I thought it was a good place to stop, as I have now covered all the aspects of the demo and gone further in development in my piece.

Astor Park Collage

This is my source image, my idea is to use the cut-out words as a template to create depth and shadows around it with a background of graffiti.

To start off with, I cropped around the text.

Using various tools, such as the "Line Tool"  - "Magic Wand Tool" and the "Eraser Tool" I cut out the text.

I then imported these two images, cropped them and scaled them to size.

I then selected blending options and added shadows onto both images to help them scale with each other.

I then moved the original layer to the top so that it overlaps all the other layers. I then scaled it down to size, changed the opacity and blending options to help it blend in with the other layers.