Practice Pixelation Piece and Final Pixelation Piece

Here is a practice pixelation piece.

Advantages:
• The scene when I change clothes is rather interesting, because it attracts viewers more because you’re seeing a range of colours in front of your eyes, rather than one boring colour on one singular t-shirt.
• The Play- doh scene was also excellent because you see the little creatures form slowly.
• Also the barrier of chairs disappearing was rather effective.
• The comedy and lighting within the piece were both strong also.


Disadvantages:
• In between the walking I could have made it more animated.
• I could have also probably made the piece slightly longer.
• Also probably used more props.
• I should have not used myself as one of the models.





This is my Final Pixelation piece. I’ am very pleased with the outcome.

The plot revolves around the character (Jiten Anand) invading the teddies territory. After he has been attacked by them he awakens to what he thought was a dream, only to find a teddy attacking him from behind when brushing his teeth at the end of the piece.

I enjoyed the editing in this one also because I got to play around with some effects on the pictures this time in Photoshop. I made them brighter and gave them a cartoon effect on top to add to the theme of the piece.

I wanted to keep the same kind of setting (halls) because it adds to the realism of a university student. If I had done it in another location with a different character or theme I think it would have been harder to make more believable because I wouldn’t have enough props.

Advantages

-The music, it’s very cheerful, and it complements the name of the piece ‘Teddy Bears Picnic’. The cheery tempo also adds to teddy bears innocence.
-The effects used in Photoshop.
-The constant experimentation in the hall way.
-The t -shirt changing scene.
-The chair scene.
-The plot itself.

Disadvantages

-Moves to fast in some areas of the video.
-The bedroom scene could have had more experimentation.
-I could have had more models for more interactivity.

-Design Process
















Four specific phases:
-Discovering
-Developing
-Defining
-Delivering


Discovering:
Inspiration-

1. Having ideas, insights, new things
2. Reasearch past znd present solutions, analyzing reasearch.
3. Understanding users.

Developing:
Selecting ideas and creating-

1. Planning
2. Develop concepts and prototypes
3. Acceptance test
4. Choose and refine

Defining:
Validation-

1. Usability test, feedback
2. Refine
3. Further development

Delivering:
Evaluation-

1. Effectiveness
2. Impact
3. Completion
4. Implement


Consider:

- Reverse engineering
- Prototyping
- Open source
- Market research

Competitions:


















I have been asked to search the web for interesting multimedia and design based competitions for some experience. Here are two links below:



http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/animation10/ - About the competition:

- We invite UK schoolchildren aged 7-19 to create an animated film using their computer, and submit it to the competition. On-line submission opens in January 2010.

-Entries can be from individuals, or groups (of up to 4 members).

-All entrants will receive certificates, and winners will receive prizes ranging from laptops to gift vouchers.

-Entries are submitted in 4 age categories (KS2, KS3, KS4 and 16-plus).

-The maximum duration of an entry is one minute.

-Animations must not be interactive - they must run as standalone animations.

-Entries must be created using one of the following programs: Alice, Scratch, Adobe Flash, Serif, and Greenfoot. We regret we cannot accept entries made using other programs.



http://www.11secondclub.com/- The 11 Second Club is a monthly character animation competition open to everyone. Watch any of the 3167 animations or AnimationMentor.com eCritique™ prizes in our archives. Get a feel for what the club is about and what you'll be up against should you choose to enter.

I was introduced to Tomasz Bagiński by a family friend. I found his work very interesting from the start, not just due to the graphical content of his work, but his interesting concepts in his pieces. For example his piece 'Fallen Art' demonstrates a disturbing idea about suicide, but at the same time it delievers an imaginative plot. However, I found the piece 'The Cathederal' to be most effective and interesting one due to the fact that its not based around human lifestyle, its alien. Therefore, a lot more respectable because its clearly took a lot more work and thought to create such a non-fictional piece.

General Information: Tomasz Bagiński (To-mash Ba-geen-skee), Tomek Baginski (born January 10, 1976, Białystok) is a BAFTA Award-winning Polish artist and animator, best known for his Oscar-nominated short movie, The Cathedral (2002). For his newest short, Fallen Art (2004), he received a BAFTA Award for Best Short Animation and Grand Prix for Digital Shorts at Golden Horse Film Festival 2005 (shared with: Jarek Sawko and Piotr Sikora). Bagiński also created cinematics for The Witcher computer game based on the books of Andrzej Sapkowski

2009 WB Induction: Board Animation

In this introduction lesson we created board animations on whiteboards. We did this by using a camera with a stand to take pictures of a frame by frame animation. This technique is known as pixelation. This is done by taking a picture of your drawn piece on the board and slightly modifying it by rubbing it out and moving it slightly. So when you look back at the picutres, it looks like a sequence of movement is happening.

For our animation we had draw/animate a box and get it from one side of the house to the other using interesting concepts and gags to make the piece appealing. The piece was suppposed to last around 10 seconds. Unfortunately ours didnt meet the demands. However, I still found it to be successful. my groups animation is the one that begins from 1:08 in this youtube clip.

Overview of work:

Advantages:
- I think having the house animated is an excellent idea, because it gives the piece a more human feal. Doing this allows the interaction of the viewer and piece to connect easier.
- The use of fire and water (fire from the demon and water from the cloud) are well animated into the piece. I think we demonstrated the movement and flow of these two earth elements smoothly and effectively.
- I think the page being folded at the end is also a nice touch, as it gives a really comic book vibe of.

Disadvantages:
- I think the most important disadvantage is that it wasnt long enough. Having it not long enough stopped us from incoperating more ideas into the piece.
- Also the drawing got a bit sloppy and rushed near to the end of the piece, which discredited it slightly.
- Finally, I think we could have incoperated some human interaction with the board animations like other groups did. for example 00:51-00:53.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCxPEB-uu20

I really enjoy Waterlollies by Adam Phillips. I have watched his work grow on the website www.newgrounds.com for years now. To believe that animation like this is created in flash is outstanding. Most flash artists are not capable of putting this much detail into flash to the extent where it looks like it was actually drawn on paper and coloured in. His impressive blending methods, and the accurate line structures within the characters is what makes him stand out from the rest. He is the God of newgrounds.

Basic Information:

Adam Phillips (born January 1971) is an Australian freelance animator whose online alias is Chluaid (pronounced 'Clyde'). His recent work, for which he is best known, has consisted of flash animation compositions published on his website Bitey Castle and on the flash portal Newgrounds (there, as of May 21, 2009, his movies have over 12 million views and he is one of the highest ranked artists). He is the creator of the Brackenwood series.
Adam Phillips was a featured artist at the Adobe Design Center for the month of December, 2006. The alternate soundtrack for the YuYu in that link was composed by Lee Miller.




Pinhole camera:

















A pinhole camera is a very simple camera. Instead of having a lens, it has a whole to project the image through onto paper. For our camera we used a beer can. We created this camera using the sources of a can, black card and some tape. In order to create this image we must expose the hole when in contact with your chosen landscape for around 8 seconds. From here we developed the pictures inside, some were successful and some weren't. Most of them weren't! HA!

Advantages:

- Its quick and simple.
- Its a quick process (unlike a shop were you have to develop it).

Disadvantages:

-It can damage easily.
-The pictures dont always develop well like a professional camera.
-Your not able to see through a lens what your capturing.