Animation History 10: Interactive Animations (Videogames)

Animation has come a long way in 100 years but only recently has videogames become a popular format. As with any media it is still in an early stage of development and this means there are many arguments on how the industry should be run, but despite this fact even now amazing stories are being told in fantastic new settings and with stunning new visuals. And with the expansion of the interactivity of videogames, once the quality of the visuals of animation goes as far as it can go, interactivity will develop further, which makes me very excited to be a part of this industry.

Animation History 9: Updated technology

From around 2005 onwards, with the development of high powered computers for the public, animation to both view and create has become a lot more accessible for everyone, making animation a much more viable medium for artists around the world. Computers to create 3D animations to the quality of the first pixar films are now cheap enough for everyone and programs are becoming simpler and easier for everyone to use. Furthermore with the internet the cost to mass produce animations has gone down dramatically and animations are becoming increasingly used for getting messages across.

Animation History 8: 3D Computer Generated Animation

The Next time we See 3D Computer generated animation was in Disney's Beauty and the Beast in 1991 for the ballroom dance scenes. From this point on 3D and 2D animation mixed together becomes a very common occurrence, particularly with disney with evidence in films such as Atlantis and treasure planet, and other media companies such as Warner Brothers with The Iron Giant.
By 1993 CGI in films was becoming quite common, one piece of evidence for this is Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. The first film to use CGI as a major use of animation. The film used a mix of animatronics for the close up scenes of dinosaurs and CGI for wide shots of the dinosaurs.
From this point onwards Computer Generated Animation becomes more commonplace in the film industry and by 1995 pixar developed the first fully computer animated feature film with toystory. Though a lot of work was still needed with human characters looking erie, computer generated animation would only become more commonplace and more refined and spread across the globe.

Animation History 7: 2D animation in the digital age

In 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit was produced, and despite the development of computer generated animation at the time, the film was made using cels. This meant that post production lasted 14 months. Despite this it pushed the quality of live action way past anything that had been seen before. Despite his brilliance the creations from Harryhausen all had quite an uncanny nature to them. This was the first film that mixed live action and animation in a convincing manner.
At the same time Akira was produced. A groundbreaking anime developed from a manga set in a futuristic post apocalyptic Tokyo. It was the first Eastern animation that gained popularity outside of asia and really brought popularity to the anime genre, which in turn lead on to the popularity of Studio Ghibli, particularly with their most recent release at the time; My Neighbour Totoro. This style of anime, a light hearted slow paced story without huge plot points lead onto the likely inspiration of kyoto animation's many productions such as K-on and particularly Clannad.

Animation History 6: The Start of the digital age

The digital age of animation, particularly in the mainstream media most likely started in 1982 with the production of tron. However this film was an unfortunate flop, most likely because it was at least 20 years ahead of the time. Despite the failure of this film it lead to more and more companies using this method for the years after.
Then in 1986, John Lasseter co founded pixar with Steve jobs and went on to create Luxo Jr. This short showed the potential of 3D computer animation and at the time was groundbreaking.
Though 3D CG animation had quite an early start, it would not be picked up in the mainstream media for another 10 years.

Animation History 5: The television age

With the introduction the TV, broadcasters began to demand large quantities of programming on low budgets. This eventually lead to the fall of quality feature animations which were replaced by cheap mass produced shorts. Though this may sound like a bad thing at first, this lead to many cult classics that we know today such as the flintstones, bugs bunny etc.
Despite the mass produced nature of the animation industry in this era, this didn't stop the development of animation as art with pieces such as Mothlight by Stan Barkhage.

A film where brakhage stuck insect and plant parts to film.
This era also started the beginning of notable animators such as Ray Harryhausen, a stop motion animator that mostly used this method of animation to create movable mythical creatures. A collection of his work can be seen in this video below.

In japan 1963 Astroboy was created. It told a story of a robot Pinocchio, however the style of animation lead onto the popular genre of animation known as anime to be born.
Though the golden age of animation had ended, development of animation was still at an all time high. This earned this time of history as the silver age of animation.

Animation History 4: The Golden Age

In 1928 Steamboat Willie was created. This was the beginning of the golden age of animation. Many people had produced films that were entertaining and funny but Walt Disney was the man who put it all together. Steamboat Willie was the first animation to have a fully post produced and synchronised soundtrack. (It was also the origin of mickey mouse). Disney Studios produced a number of successful animations which went on to inspire many other animators.

In 1929 Aleksandr Ptushko created an almost exclusively stop motion feature length movie. and this trend continued around the world with new animations coming from France, Japan and Germany.

During the second world war many animations were used as propaganda, particularly from disney, these varied from making hitler less scary to the importance of growing your own vegetables.

between 1928 to 1957 many animations were created in a multitude of styles and over a multitude of different styles, some even addressed extremely modern issues such as racism even before the African-American Civil rights movement.

The golden age ended with the introduction on the TV and cinema houses wanting to compete and the stopping of block booking animated shorts when a feature film came to an end. Though this was not the end of the history of animation by any means.

Animation History 3: Animation before the golden age

Animation before disney was dull. And i'm not saying that i like disney, quite the opposite, however i will discuss that in a separate blog post. The reason i feel animation before disney was dull is because of the lack of the 12 principles, so most of the animation runs in a very uncanny way that seems too smooth. Furthermore animations were long winded and extremely simple, meaning old animations don't keep my attention very well.

One of the best examples of these things i find irritating all condensed into one little irritating ball is the animation of the sinking of the Lusitania animation.

The American patriotic and propaganda feel of the animation is the first thing that irritates me as art in order to convert people to a particular viewpoint goes against my morals, but the most irritating thing is that it takes 12 minutes to tell people that a lot of people got killed in this tragedy, that's over 27000 frames, which seems like a lot of work. Furthermore the soundtrack is repetitive and annoying which as i have discovered from some of the work produced by my peers can have a devastating effect on how people perceive the animation. The actual animation of the boat is very well done but only needed to last for about a minute. I do not like this era of animation.

Animation History 2: Magic Lanterns To Flipbooks

The First fully animated pieces originate to around 1650 with the creation of the magic lantern which lit up an image that could be flipped over and over to make two images look like one single image. There were many variations of the Magic Lantern, some which could project and were treat more like projectors.
Then in 1831 the Phenakistoscope was invented. This was the first time more than two images could be arranged in order to make a moving sequence.

This was a circle (Sometimes with slits cut into and viewed in a mirror) that was spun in order to view a looping sequence as shown in the animation above.

This technique then developed into the zoetrope in 1834 which many of us are more familiar with. It had similar features but was able to be placed upon a table top rather than held.

Then in 1868 the Kineograph was invented. And then renamed to Flipbook. Flipbooks still play a large part in todays animation scene, especially because the contrast between old hardware and new animation techniques such as the 12 principles. 

Furthermore the tactile nature of the flipbook means there are many ways that movement can be created by removing or adding paper to a flipbook.

Researching these flipbooks have made me interested in potentially creating some kind of flipbook animation in a later project.

Animation History 1: Ancient Storytelling

The Basics of animation are seen right to the very beginning of human evolution, starting with sequentially drawn images across cave paintings in order to tell stories of hunts etc. Sequentially displayed images in order to tell a story is not a modern concept.

This is an animation developed by students from Gobelins School of the image 2002 which i think shows how early back animations go. It is likely cavemen didn't run through caves blinking in order to get his own animated porn, but it explains the way these images could have been looked at in order to create prehistoric animations.

The Classical Elements 10: In retrospect

Overall i'm quite happy with my final animation, i think it could use some work and i will most likely come back to it in my spare time but for the amount of experience i have animating and in comparison to my previous animation i am happy with the outcome. It's made me appreciate how much sound adds to an animation or a visual piece all together, it somehow makes it feel a lot more complete, and helps emphasise actions. It was also great after-effects practice, a tool i want to use a lot in the future.

The Classical Elements 9: The final Animation!

This is the final animation for this project! I took the animation and put it together with the audio in after effects and then played around with visual and audio cues to make sure they were all in the right position and overall i am very happy with it!

The Classical Elements 8: Sound Editing

For this animation we were required to make sound so i decided i would record myself making the noises from my mouth. I watched my animation and tried to make the noises the stuff in the animation would make with my mouth and recorded them separately onto audacity and then put into after effects. Here is the audio track i used for my animation. I also edited the bass for the noises that the golem makes in order to make him seem like he is more powerful and generally heavier.

The Classical Elements 8: Animating!

Using the reference i made earlier i started working on my animations for each individual scene, i found that splitting up my workflow into different scenes was extremely helpful in keeping me motivated. In retrospect i wish i had used keyframes more often as there are some noticeable distortions in the characters design and i realised that some of the ways i kept myself aware of the position of the character in certain frames was basically an unrefined and unorganised version of the keyframe technique. Anyway here is the final animated movie, next on the agenda is making the audio.

The Classical Elements 7: Backgrounds

Below are the backdrops i produced for my animation. I used a reference for the crystal shapes but most of it was done without a reference, i did however look up some tutorials online on how to use photoshop to draw effectively at the beginning but by the end of it i was quite confident in my photoshop abilities.

I also used my knowledge of after effects and layers in photoshop to create some moving areas, most backdrops have moving smoke and clouds, furthermore some images where created wider or taller than 16:9 so that i could move the scene around to add weight to my golem.

The Classical Elements 6: Animatic

This is the final animatic for my animation. It went through some changes as the pacing of the walk of the character (which was what i want to focus this project on) took too long so in order to get the most time out of the animation for the walking scene i had to cut out some other scenes, so in order to do this i instead developed my animation as a sort of film trailer, the animatic of which can be seen above.

The Classical Elements 5: Walking reference and Problem solving

I was feeling really unconfident about the walking scene and how i was going to make my golem move since its what i really want to focus on, so in order to get an idea of the way i wanted him to move i filmed myself doing a variety of walks that the golem may do, one of which can be seen above.
Ultimately i felt ridiculous doing this and really struggled to focus on the movement which i later sussed out as me only being able to focus on it being me. Matt them suggested that i rotoscope it quickly and see if that helps i did this and i found it to be really helpful.

This has helped me get more of an idea of how i want my character to move.