2D Workshops: 3 Week Rotation

2D Workshop

Introduction

This post is about the 2D workshops I attended over the three weeks. We used Toon Boom, a 2D animating software much like Adobe Flash. Within those three weeks I will learn how to use Toon Boom effectively and animate applying the animation principles in a 2D medium. 

Session 1: 26/11/15

We started the session with an introduction to Toon Boom and what it is. We also went through the tools and interface learning where they are what the tools did. Using the graphics tablets we just experimented with the tools to see what they were like and seeing the results of the different settings we applied to those tools. 

After a brief introduction we started to animate a bouncing ball. Starting with a layout drawing on a different layer, we planned what would happen first.

We then had to animate this ball by applying the animation principles such as squash and stretch and spacing. When I animated my ball, I feel that I added too much squash and stretch because the fall was not great enough for the ball to exert or portray that amount of energy when it strikes the floor. 

Next we added a background to the scene; the ball would bounce in a setting and when we rendered the scene the ball would not be surrounded by just black space. 

After animating the ball, we continued with colour pallets by extracting the colours from our preferred media (such as posters, album, covers ect) and adding them to a master pallet. Doing this would allow us to link this 'master-pallet' to other Toon Boom documents and transfer this pallet to be used. I will find this useful because this allows me to save a collection of colours that i can use in the future if needed rather than waste time creating a new colour pallet every time I open a new Toon Boom document. 

With the master pallet created, we applied these colours to our bouncing ball backgrounds and tested with other documents to see the results of the colours we collected. 

In conclusion I this session was an introductory session to the new software; Toon Boom and mainly learning how to use it. I feel that I have learnt a lot from this session but will have to continue to use the software to develop a further understanding of the tools and techniques. 

Jumping Man

We were assigned to create a jumping animation for a character. This character would jump across the screen and we need to apply all the principles we have learned so far into this jump.  The character we were given was a box with a round head with a pair of arms; we couldn't change this character in any way i.e. adding a face or hair etc.

This character was chosen to not over complicate the jump with any unnecessary features. In addition the simplicity of the character creates a challenge for us to add a sense of character to a couple of simple shapes.

I began with a layout to plan the jump:

With the layout created, I then started to create the animation. I had already planned the movements in my spare time.

This is the first test I created, the character has no arms because I wanted to add them alter because they would be used to demonstrate secondary action; it would be easier to animate them separately.

I was not pleased with the result of this test because of the lack of anticipation in the direction the jump would go. This is because I did not make the character lean backwards to anticipate that the character would jump forwards. Because in this test the character anticipates the jump by squashing downwards, but then the overlapping action makes no sense because there is not enough energy for the body to react in such a way.

Therefore I created another test to better anticipate the direction of the jump:

I am pleased with the result of this test because I built from the problems I had found in the previous test. I believe this test shows a range of principles including: secondary action, over lapping action, squash and stretch etc. 

 Session 2: 3/12/15

We started with reviewing the task we were assigned last week: to complete the jumping box. After discussing my video we found that my animation would be more effective if there was an extended anticipation to exaggerate the action of the jump. This is effective because it over exaggerates the anticipation which exaggerates the energy required to make the jump. 

Here is the improved jump:

After that we started the next assignment where we had to animate a scenario with a small and large box. The scenario was:

-The small box would jump up and down, the large box notices

-The small box is proud of the jumps, the large box is not impressed

-The large box jumps into the air; the little box reacts 

-The large box lands and is proud of its jump; small box reacts to large box's landing

I did this by breaking down these sections and animating them separately because I was using a lot of layers for all of the different animations. I felt that if I kept all of the layers in the one document it would be: very complicated and a greater risk of Toon Boom crashing. 

I started by planning all of these sections and acting them out myself thinking what would i do in this situation. I then thought how to stage and exaggerate both of these characters actions; that they are so 'over the top' that it is completely clear what they doing.

Here are the separate videos of each section:

[Section: Little Guy Jump]

This was a simple start because I applied what I had learnt from the last session to the little guy jumping. I used very exaggerated positions and added the arms waving to show that he is trying to get the big guy's attention. I also added the neck movement to show that he is looking. I really wanted to exaggerate the large box's size; i chose to give him a very large body and a tiny head which i feel has done this effectively. 

[Section 2: Little Guy Jazz Hands]

I did have some trouble initially thinking of a way to show that the little guy was proud. Then i had the idea of being of stage and being very cliche with 'Ta-Da' because the boxes have no dialogue i chose to show this with the staging of the little guy and the 'jazz hands'. 

I feel that the big guy's reaction is appropriate to show that he is saying 'no no no' slowly due to his large size. 

[Section 3: Big Guy Jumps]

This was the largest and most challenging section of them all. This is because there is a lot of actions by the large character and even some by the small box. I really wanted to stage and exaggerate the large jump therefore i chose to have the large box anticipate the large jump with twists as I believe this is an effective way to illustrate power and tension. 

as the focus of the section was on the large character the small box does not do as many actions as the large box but still has quite a lot of movement. 

[Section 4; Little Guy Looks Up]

This next section was important for the comical value of the scenario as this is plays on the audiences expectations and the small box doesn't do a lot of actions, but they are still important. I wanted to add character to the small box in this section; I made him look at his watch and scratch himself because I feel that is what most people do if they are waiting for something to happen. 

[Section 5: Big Guy Lands and Proud]

This is the final section where the large box lands. I found the landing difficult because I had to research how the body reacts in a landing and to not make the landing look like a jump in reverse. I also exaggerated the large box's proud moment and made fun of his 'large-ness'. 

I then compiled all of the sections together into one video. 

This was a lot of work and this will be reflected with my tutor next session. 

 Session 3: 10/12/15

 We started this session again with reflection of the previous assignment which was the scenario of the little and large box's jumping competition.
After speaking with my Tutor there were a number of improvements needed to make the video effective:
-To exaggerate the large box's weight further, I would add camera shake
-Reduce the time when the large box wants to jump because this is too long of a pause
Improve the reaction of the small box to the large box's landing because the energy reacts incorrectly

Here is the video of the jumping competition with the improvements:

after these improvements i believe my video is far more effective than before. 

This session we were assigned to complete a piece of animation which was a 'double take' this is an exaggeration of a character reacting to a situation and is used for comedic value.

The scene was:

-Open with a box character minding his own business

-A noise is heard and the box character reacts

-The box character sees the scary 'thing'

-Returns to normal position as if nothing had happened

-Turns back and reacts to situation

I started with a rough storyboard and initial sketches of how the box character should react. 

Here is the animation I made:

I didn't add a scary 'thing' in the end because i felt i was spending too much time thinking about what could be there for rather than focusing on the double take of the character. 

i can always return to this project and add something scary later but to meet the deadline I felt that this was not essential. 

Link to 2D Collection 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGcW-Xf1aeI

Conclusion

Over these three weeks I have learnt a lot about Toon Boom and the animation principles. Toon boom is a fantastic piece of software that i enjoy using to create animations and wish to continue using it to make more work.