Midterm Majesty

This week we'll take a look at the cumulative work you've done this quarter.
What to do?
You'll be "cutting together" a "reel" of your work so far. What the heck does that mean?

1. If you've already got your animations with sound, simply import them into After Effects, Premiere, or whatever video editing software you're happy with.

2. Put them on the timeline to create an edit that contains all of your work so far.

3. Export your mix, name it with your full name, and upload to your blog.

4. Put a named copy of your final mix into the DropBox folder on the courses drive in either ART352 or EMDA 352.

Get all of your good stuff turned in by Wednesday, November 1. Remember, in the grand scheme of life, this is your first time doing this, so it'll get better. In fact, we'll be doing another draft of your reel as part of the final project.

Project 4: Midterm Reel

Cut all of your work this quarter into a fabulous animation reel. All pieces should have sound and needed loops built in.

Due Monday, October 30.

Project 3: Walk Cycle and Looping Background

Create a walk cycle and scrolling background... yup... Due Monday, October 23.

We'll also look at advanced students in-progress work on Monday, October 23.

Ye Olde Walk from Richard Williams' useful classic, The Animator's Survival Kit

How to loop your background in After Effects...

1. Export your walk loop from Animate: File > Export > Export Movie > png sequence. Make sure you choose Colors: 32 bit  in order to use transparency. Make sure you save your sequence to an easy to access folder!
2. In After Effects, import the walk loop. File > Import > File... Make sure to select only the first image in the sequence! If there is a box that says "Import as image sequence", check it! If not, don't worry about it.
3. After Effects won't loop the animation by default, so right click on the animation in the Project window before you add it to the Composition Timeline and choose Interpret Footage > Main... In the dialogue that opens, set Loop to a number high enough to get the job done!
4. If you made your background in Animate, choose File > Export > Export Image and export it as a .png. If you made it in Photoshop, just save a copy as a png. Heck, you can also just import the .psd file if you want to get real crazy.
5. In After Effects, choose File > Import and import your background.
6. Drag your background from the Project tab to the Composition Timeline.
7. Select the background in the timeline and hit "P" for position.
8. Click the Stopwatch icon next to the Position label that opens under your background layer.
9. Now set the beginning and endpoints for your bg - they should adjust automatically.

Miles demo's the basics of creating a walk cycle:

And creating a scrolling background:
More cycles from SOU alum, Jill Bruhn!

Sneaky Guy Cycle from Jill AB on Vimeo.

and. . .


Running Man with Cat from Jill AB on Vimeo.

Richard Williams' Run Cycle

Project 2: Loops, Principles of Animation

Ah, yes, the infamous 12 Principles of Animation...



Create at least one looping animation of a character.
Create at least one looping abstract animation.
Both animations should use overlapping action, secondary animation, squash and stretch, timing, spacing, and sound. We'll export these as png sequences to bring into After Effects to further develop.
First Draft Due and After Effects Intro on Monday, October 16. 

Check out the work of Keke who works quite a bit with loops...