Reflection

This course has taught me many things about animation including the history of animation, seven principles of animation, various animation rules, and the process of animation.

Learning about the history of animation was very interesting. I particularly enjoyed learning about all the different early animation tools like kineographs and zoetropes that were used around the world.

Learning about all the principles of animation was very useful. Many of them seem obvious or like common sense once you know them but might not be something you would actually think of on your own. Learning about the different principles through the lectures and critiques in class was very helpful. I learned a lot about animation by studying these principles.

We read a lot of papers that gave tips and rules to animations that were very informative. Many of the readings gave very practical advice that I am glad to have learned. Again a lot of the tips seem really obvious but I might never have thought of them on my own. Things like a person's hips moving in a circle during a walk cycle, for example, could be easily overlooked but having reading about things like that forces you to think about and consider what you’re animating.

I also learned a lot about the process of animation and the steps that you take in animating a project in both general and also the specific process followed at production companies like Pixar. I think this knowledge will be very useful in helping me to streamline my work and be as efficient as possible as well as letting me get a sense of what working for a company might be like.

Final 2D

Walk Cycle

Writing assignment 3

These readings were on walk cycles and the animation process. The information on walk cycles was very informative. The parts about sliding the feet backwards and moving the hips and head in a circle was especially helpful.

The Ollie Johnston article with the 30 notes for animation was also helpful. Note 12 “Everything has a function. Don’t draw it before knowing why,” is very good advice that I will try to always remember. Its very easy to just draw something based on what you expect it to do without really thinking about why or how it should actually look. Its very important to understand what you’re drawing though so I’m going to make an effort to always remember this advice.

The reading on animation steps was also very interesting. The steps are very logically organized. A lot of them are steps that I might not have thought to do or would have combined into one less effective step but the way the article listed them made a lot of sense.

2D Walk

anticipation

3D Bouncing Ball