so, animation is OVER.
D-U-N DONE.
Has been for months now.
My last two projects were: an animated animation portfolio, including all of the animations posted about below. you can see it at: http://www.austinisd.org/schools/website.phtml?id=024
My final project was an animated website. Someday it will be up at www.stella-bug.com.
This course was fun. I learned a lot, and I hope to experiment more with animation in the future.
UP, UP, AND AWAY!!!!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Lip-Sync
I have just now completed my Lip-sync flash: a collage of fruit bats singing the chorus of "Wow", by Kate Bush. I chose this seemingly arbitrary topic because it is a long-held belief of mine that Kate Bush herself is a fruit bat. The back cover of her vinyl album "Never For Ever" depicts her in several swooping (swoop, swoop; oh baby rock rock...) poses, pretending to be a fruit bat. She also did a dance routine in the same costume (wired black gauze wings and all!) for her song Violin (from the same album) on her 1979 BBC Christmas special. It's awesome when Kate Bush pretends to be things...like kites...and aliens...and soldiers...and FRUIT BATS!
I was inspired to make the collage of bats enjoying delicious fruit from an illustration from the children's book Stella Luna, about a baby fruit bat, in which Stella Luna tastes fruit for the first time and the delerious ecstasy on that little bat's face... The idea is that all the bats think their fruit is "WOWWOWWOWWOWWOWWOW UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!"
Yes. So. The actual animation was pretty simplistic; I created the bat photo collage in Fireworks before-hand, and made a separate .jpg of one of theirs' jaw, which I placed on another layer and frame-by frame 'd moving up and down with the sound, drawing in a little pink tongue when necessary. The sound was difficult to deal with, since it doesn't behave like a visual layer. It makes me nervous. Technology, up to its little tricks again... I personally think the premise is hilarious, being, like the PLESIOSAUR!!!! animation, an inside joke with myself. However, from the outside it probably is totally nonsensical and entertaining only in a random spam-type way, and I also did far less work than the project actually seemed to entail, by not making little mouth shapes for my batty friend. Not to mention I plagiarized 7 bat images from google and part of a song owned by EMI. What can I say? Cut-'n'-Paste is my very best fwend. And I can't draw. Still, I wouldn't change anything about it, really. I might elaborate on the whole "Kate-Bush-is-fruit-bat" premise at a later date, but the goal of this flash was simple, and I pretty much exhausted all options. I even made a button! Or, I made a symbol and Ms. Banks made a button.
I was inspired to make the collage of bats enjoying delicious fruit from an illustration from the children's book Stella Luna, about a baby fruit bat, in which Stella Luna tastes fruit for the first time and the delerious ecstasy on that little bat's face... The idea is that all the bats think their fruit is "WOWWOWWOWWOWWOWWOW UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!"
Yes. So. The actual animation was pretty simplistic; I created the bat photo collage in Fireworks before-hand, and made a separate .jpg of one of theirs' jaw, which I placed on another layer and frame-by frame 'd moving up and down with the sound, drawing in a little pink tongue when necessary. The sound was difficult to deal with, since it doesn't behave like a visual layer. It makes me nervous. Technology, up to its little tricks again... I personally think the premise is hilarious, being, like the PLESIOSAUR!!!! animation, an inside joke with myself. However, from the outside it probably is totally nonsensical and entertaining only in a random spam-type way, and I also did far less work than the project actually seemed to entail, by not making little mouth shapes for my batty friend. Not to mention I plagiarized 7 bat images from google and part of a song owned by EMI. What can I say? Cut-'n'-Paste is my very best fwend. And I can't draw. Still, I wouldn't change anything about it, really. I might elaborate on the whole "Kate-Bush-is-fruit-bat" premise at a later date, but the goal of this flash was simple, and I pretty much exhausted all options. I even made a button! Or, I made a symbol and Ms. Banks made a button.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The incredible, inevitable ball bounce.
I have completed my contribution to the great animating tradition of the Ball Bounce animation! My colorful little ball squashes, it stretches, it even has a shadow!
So, this project was actually pretty fun to do. It was simple, fast, easy, straight-forward. I couldn't screw it up! I enjoy frame-by-frame animation, as relentlessly time-consuming as it is, because simply, the more tweeny twicks I use the more glitchy it becomes. So, to be a success at animation projects, I will have to develop my drawing skills. Someday, with enough practice, they may become skillz, or perhaps even (dare I hope?) MAD drawing skillz!!!
Basically, I would change nothing about this project. I did it well, I think, and in a timely manner. Like I said, there's nothing I could screw up!
So, this project was actually pretty fun to do. It was simple, fast, easy, straight-forward. I couldn't screw it up! I enjoy frame-by-frame animation, as relentlessly time-consuming as it is, because simply, the more tweeny twicks I use the more glitchy it becomes. So, to be a success at animation projects, I will have to develop my drawing skills. Someday, with enough practice, they may become skillz, or perhaps even (dare I hope?) MAD drawing skillz!!!
Basically, I would change nothing about this project. I did it well, I think, and in a timely manner. Like I said, there's nothing I could screw up!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
project animations 2
Because my parallax animation proved incapable of handling a masked layer on top of all the rest, I started a new Flash project to serve only that purpose. It is a Plesiosaur with flailing fins, with an underlying skeleton revealed by a moving circle. Simple, interesting (to me), and fairly quickly made. I am happy with this animation. I learned a lot about planning, and devious use of Fireworks to modify JPGs, since Flash leaves a lot to be desired in that way.
I think this animation meets its criteria well. It took me about 3-4 weeks, though not longer than expected, and certain parts proved more difficult than I thought they would; namely, making the plesiosaur skeleton JPG that I got online fit the outline drawing I'd made, and figuring out exactly which layers to put above and below the mask.
I am most proud of the concept, which I personally enjoy, and my relative efficiency in completing it.
I think this animation meets its criteria well. It took me about 3-4 weeks, though not longer than expected, and certain parts proved more difficult than I thought they would; namely, making the plesiosaur skeleton JPG that I got online fit the outline drawing I'd made, and figuring out exactly which layers to put above and below the mask.
I am most proud of the concept, which I personally enjoy, and my relative efficiency in completing it.
project animations 1
I was supposed to make a short animation demonstrating parallax and use of masked layers, among other factors. Instead, I made two.
I started with an animation that ended up taking me a total of 4-6 weeks. Most of that time was spent completely unneccesarily on unassigned aspects of the animation. For instance, animating frame-by-frame the changing view of a snail being looked down upon, and the frame-by-frame changes with travel of a patch of grass. What this taught me was that flash is picky and finicky and difficult and doesn't like complexity. It wants everything to be free and clear and simple. As a perfectionist, this leads me down an endless spiral of obsessive frustration.
I think that I need to be more focused. I need to begin a project with a clear set of goals and a brief storyboard, and not elaborate on it. And most importantly, I need a clear idea from thge beginning of how I will go about making those things happen. Ultimately, I was dissapointed with the parallax animation, because it was sub-standard, met few of the project goals, took too long, and quickly bored me.
But I have to say, the snail looks pretty good.
I started with an animation that ended up taking me a total of 4-6 weeks. Most of that time was spent completely unneccesarily on unassigned aspects of the animation. For instance, animating frame-by-frame the changing view of a snail being looked down upon, and the frame-by-frame changes with travel of a patch of grass. What this taught me was that flash is picky and finicky and difficult and doesn't like complexity. It wants everything to be free and clear and simple. As a perfectionist, this leads me down an endless spiral of obsessive frustration.
I think that I need to be more focused. I need to begin a project with a clear set of goals and a brief storyboard, and not elaborate on it. And most importantly, I need a clear idea from thge beginning of how I will go about making those things happen. Ultimately, I was dissapointed with the parallax animation, because it was sub-standard, met few of the project goals, took too long, and quickly bored me.
But I have to say, the snail looks pretty good.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
New Digital Colors!
I'm pretty happy with how this assignment turned out; I was supposed to create a piece of 'digital art' in Fireworks using a pallet of colors I created using hue, saturation, RGB, etc. I was going to make a piece describing the city sky at night, with a tree in front of it. An image that always strikes me, color wise, is this kind of tree with smooth, pale bark, which is covered with little leaves, such a bright green, with a paler underside. They contrast stunningly with the sky at night. So that was my inspiration for my pallet. I made the sky, and even clouds with some devious copy-and-paste-and-fill-and-smudge trickery. But the tree eluded me, so I skipped it. Instead, I did some more copy-and-paste-and-fill-and-smudge.
I learned a lot about using Fireworks, by trying NOT to use their pre-made art tools, as cool as they might be. Mostly, that it's nowhere as usable as Photoshop, but Photoshop isn't nearly as compatible with Flash nor t3h internets as is Fireworks; I've found that the latter has an almost pre-made quality to it, like a 'that came from fireworks!' effect, whereas Photoshop leaves it up to you, which is more challenging. So for a vaguely artistic website layout design, I'd go with Fireworks, especially since I also discovered that when exported to Flash, your Fireworks document's layers remain intact.
I was not taken particularly unawares by any other challenges in this project; I only wish the program was a little more user-friendly. I like how it turned out, though I wouldn't consider it a "piece of artwork."
Riggidy Roll!
-Stella
I learned a lot about using Fireworks, by trying NOT to use their pre-made art tools, as cool as they might be. Mostly, that it's nowhere as usable as Photoshop, but Photoshop isn't nearly as compatible with Flash nor t3h internets as is Fireworks; I've found that the latter has an almost pre-made quality to it, like a 'that came from fireworks!' effect, whereas Photoshop leaves it up to you, which is more challenging. So for a vaguely artistic website layout design, I'd go with Fireworks, especially since I also discovered that when exported to Flash, your Fireworks document's layers remain intact.
I was not taken particularly unawares by any other challenges in this project; I only wish the program was a little more user-friendly. I like how it turned out, though I wouldn't consider it a "piece of artwork."
Riggidy Roll!
-Stella
Friday, March 2, 2007
Garage Band
I have just completed my Garageband song. I have learned a lot about the basic concepts of the program, and I have to say, it doesn't interest me as much as I'd thought it would. It might be that I just don't have the knack for it, or something...Anyway, I'm reasonably happy with my "Summertime Interlude;" I enjoyed sampling the Billie Holiday and Louie Armstrong version of "Summertime." I don't really have the kind of patience necessary to become really involved in a little song; partly I suppose because I don't feel at all related to the song. It wasn't like I was writing a song, it was like I was just screwing around with loops. Which I was. I suppose if I ever got really into Garageband, I would try to do some more original things. I spent a long time trying to match up the tempos of my sample and the Garageband loops, and a couple of days wasting time trying to sync two samples from separate songs, which is virtually impossible. My final product is pretty crappy, and hurts the ears if listened to too loud; listening to someone like Kate Bush (which I am right now), I can understand a level of competency necessary for electronic music. I think that it's hard to make good music with something like garageband, because you can't develop a real sound. Anyway, it's done.
Stella
Stella
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