Long Exposure Animation

Recently i have been extremely interested in long exposure animation, this came about during an obsession with long exposure pictures (using trails of light).

I started off by creating pictures using long exposure pictures (which i don't seem to have on my computer at the moment, will upload them when i find them)

I then decided to try out a stop-frame animation using this long exposure technique with Liam.

I did this by taking a photo leaving the shutter open and moving the light, i then moved the camera forwards and repeated the process so it looks as if the light is moving.

Here is my first experimental animation using this technique.

I would like to expand on this in my animation technique lessons to create a move complex and visually appealing animation such as these.

I am going to go to the beach over the next week to try and create a more detailed light animation

Stopframe Animation

We have been looking at stop frame animation during our Animation Techniques lessons.

This type of animation has always intrigued me and, basic stop frame was the first type of animation we experimented with.

I have been researching at animators such as PES and Norman McLaren.

I had an experimental session using stop-frame animation to create this animation inspired by Norman McLaren to create this.

Both of these artists are phenomenal animators; however i have been more interested in the dark side of stop-frame animation, as it seems to break the rules of animation being a childrens media.

I found this short film created by Robert Morgan, called The Separation, in which has truly inspired me.

I love the dark and imaginative context of the animation and the smoothness in which it has been executed.

I find the detail of the characters and objects surrounding them amazing.

2d Stretching and squashing.

In almost all animation there is a technique called stretching and squashing.

Stretching allows the object to appear as if it is traveling fast; the more stretch the faster the object appears.

Squashing is used on impact; the more it squashes the harder the impact.

The trick is to make it as unnoticeable as possible, as in real life most things don't stretch and squash.

I have made two 2d animations using this stretch and squash technique.

My first animation is a simple bouncing ball.

My second animation is using a simple shape and to make it look as if it were jumping, this was slightly more complicated as i had to use a secondary animation on it. (the antenna).

I started off by animating the square first and then going back over my drawings and animating the secondary animation, so that it flow together.

The secondary animation needed to move in the opposite direction to the primary animation.

Jumpy

Animation techniques

This week i worked on basic animation techniques.

I worked in maya to create two 3d bouncing balls; one heavy and one light.

To create these i used the graph editor so that the bounce was more realistic, compared to the soupy effect you get from just keyframing the positions.

Heavy Ball.

Light Ball.

I found this exercise extremely useful as it has allowed me to experiment with density of the object, in which the principal could be transfered on to more complex animations, for example a character walking (creating a realistic impact when the feet hit the ground).

Digital Animation- First week

I started off my first week with a 2d animation assignment, I was asked to produce a 2d animation consisting of 12 hand drawn frames, using a light box to produce them.

The assignment was to produce a short animation morphing a circle into an object.

To make this i drew the first and last frames, first and then drew the frames in-between working in a systematic way to make the animation flow a bit better.

Here is my first animation from the corse.

This animation links back quite closely to some animation i was working on over the summer with my brother Liam Fraser. These animations were made using a whiteboard.

This is the first animation i produced on a whiteboard, i was just experimenting to see what i could create.

Here is my second animation i produced on the whiteboard, this time i was more interested in creating animation to go with the sound (which is all self produced). I also wanted to created more detailed scenes.