Production and Planning
For this week, I have created and ticked off my to-do list, where I have completed the tasks accordingly.
Category: Project 3 – Week 2
Context – Animation
Putting the animation aspect before everything, I created a Pinterest board in order to get an idea of how to process cycles and expressions into my animation, as this is my weak point in the artistic aspect. By pinning basic angle examples and light work, I now have a clearer idea of how to compose my animation, and several references for my work, which will show throughout my process.
Pinterest Board: https://pin.it/ktahKcl
Coherently, after creating my animation moodboard, I turned to creating one based off clothing, in order to inspire my designs for my character.
Pinterest Board: https://pin.it/5L4cMsU
I decided to choose a regal oriental style for my character, putting together several aspects from this board to create a picture in my head.
I used a few characters from Genshin Impact- Zhongli, Ningguang and Arataki Itto- to inspire the style of my character.
Zhongli, Ningguang and Arataki Itto all share many things in common in Genshin Impact. They are all high authority figures: Zhongli being a retired God in the city of Liyue (China), Ningguang being the overseeing ruler of Liyue (China) and Arataki Itto being the leader of the Arataki Gang in Inazuma (Japan) therefore placing them in high ranks socially, which explains their luxurious choice of clothing. This corresponds with their elemental power of Geo (rock).
I chose these three, but will be focusing mainly on Zhongli’s design aspects, as I wish to create a luminescent character (glowing eyes, clothing), and as the God of Geo, Zhongli has many in-game shots of his character being veiled in a glow through his eyes, vision (elemental power holder) and hair.
The power of Geo is associated with the colour yellow, and as a result of that, my main colour palette will be similar to Zhongli’s (black, brown, gold), with aspects of Ningguang intricacy through design (with hints of white) and Arataki Itto’s exposure to paint my own picture and create my character.
Categories
Project 3: Week 2
Research- Animation
In order for me to grasp the general concept of animation, I did some research into where animation stems from originally, and what is known as the first ever animation.
Considered as ‘the father of the animated cartoon’, Émile Cohl, a French cartoonist and animator, created the first ever fully animated film. Dating back to 1908 during the period of February to May, he created the film Fantasmagorie.
This film was created through the process of drawing on top of an illuminated glass plate and placing another piece of paper on top of the pre-existing drawing, varying motions to create a moving picture. This technique would later be known as ‘onion skin layering’, a label used to describe the process of low opaque previous frames under a new layer, allowing the artist to see the previous frame to create the next, much like onions, where there are many opaque layers of skin that you can see pile up onto each other.
For Fantasmagorie, Cohl used around 700 frames- 700 separate drawings that, when captured amongst the other frames- create an animation.
Cohl used 16 frames per second for his film, but due to the film being hand-recorded, frame rates were janky and would differentiate in frame rate, which explains how a supposed-to-be 43 second (considering it was 16FPS) movies’ length was stretched out to over a minute.
Following up on this information, it has been scientifically proven that the human eye typically recognises around 10 to 12 passing frames as individual images. If the frame rate passes that threshold, we will identify the sequence of images as motion, which can be interpreted as less janky and more fluid.
In conclusion, with this information that I have discovered on the topic of animations and frames per second, I am now aware that in order to process my animation in a smooth and fluid sequence, I will need to use over 12 frames per second for my work. However, due to time restrictions, I will have to cut down this down to something around 8FPS, as I wish to create an animation that lasts for at least 10 seconds, and I would like to go into detail with backgrounds and work on expression. As a result of this, my animation wont be as fluid, but regardless, I am just one person working on a semi-detailed digital animation, so it is to be expected.
Harvard References:
Popova, M. (2011). Before Walt Disney: 5 Pioneers of Early Animation. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/07/before-walt-disney-5-pioneers-of-early-animation/241448/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
http://www.kudlian.net. (n.d.). Kudlian Soft – I Can Animate, Onion Skinning. [online] Available at: http://www.kudlian.net/products/icananimate/onion.html [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
The Beat: A Blog by PremiumBeat. (2020). A Beginner’s Guide to Frame Rates. [online] Available at: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/beginners-guide-to-frame-rates/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
Games Design Y2 