Yr 1 Lydia Goldsmith Animation Journal

For the final project of Semester one, I was tasked with creating a 30-second sequence demonstrating various techniques that were learned over the semester. Originally, I wanted to do the sequence in 2D, but I found the process a little bit tedious, so I decided to take a different approach and do the animation 100% stop motion clay animation. The first technique that I used was the boiling loop, and also incorporates perspective and squash/stretch. Below you can find my draft for how the first scene plays out, this gave me the basis for my animated sequence and the rest was completely winged so that it would feel a little more 'experimental'. I generally enjoy claymation because of the charm it has and how easy it is to manipulate the frames as you are working with a physical, moldable object which opens up a lot of possibilities when it comes to basic animation techniques.  By the end of next week, the rest of this animation will hopefully be completed, with a possible title ...

  Further progress on my current 3D Modelling project! Added pillows to the bed and changed the walls as the theme will be more Medieval, so that I can incorporate the sword models I have made. The walls are actually a displacement modifier which is created using a bitmapped image which 'bevels' the cobble bricks, making them look more 3D. This adds texture to the walls and makes them look more interesting. I want to apply the same technique to the floor in the near future.

 For my next project in 3DS Max, I wanted to model a bedroom - so for the bed, I wanted to give the cloth modifier a shot and this is the result. Though it was a little frustrating at first in terms of figuring the modifier out, I managed to achieve the result shown below!

 Some further progress on the animation sequence for my final Semester 1 project. I wanted to do more perspective work for the sequence, so I decided that after bouncing once, the ball would bounce again but towards the camera. This is essentially the first part of my sequence done, and I have been thinking about carrying the flame theme onto the next part, some other ideas I had was the concept of the four elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water)

 For the final project of Semester 1, I am required to create a 10-30 second sequenced animation combining the things I have been taught over the past few weeks. For the animation I want to create, I went with doing boiling loops, squash and stretch along with perspective. These techniques remind me a lot of fire, so I went with a flame theme which incorporates the boiling loop and warm tones. I'm currently working on a test animation for the project, which isn't 100% done but I have been making steady progress. The software I originally wanted to use was Photoshop, but I found their animation tools a little bit clunky, so I moved into Adobe's Animate software which worked a lot better. In the next few weeks, I'm going to draw my frames in Medibang paint and then figure out a way to import the frames into Adobe Animate, which will make the animation itself a lot cleaner looking.

 If I'm going to be honest, I feel like I've struggled these past few weeks due to this semester being mostly online work as I'm mostly used to working in a classroom and I struggle with motivation outside of classes. In my first few weeks at University, I mainly experimented by creating animated GIF's with the limited software I have and these included smears, perspective, primary/secondary actions and light to dark sequences. The subject was mostly a ball as I am slowly introducing myself to these techniques and the character should be simple, but I did do a fish in the first week for my GIF. To improve, I want to plan my time better and try and find more motivation, which in turn will hopefully help me to produce more work to show during my lectures. Now that I have access to the Adobe Cloud, I hope this will be more possible. Now that I am getting the hang of animation, I also hope to produce cleaner looking animations as opposed to the rougher, sketchy animations I...