Production Principles, 2D Motion Graphics: Final Animation
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Category Archives: 2D Motion Graphics
Production Principles, 2D Motion Graphics: Feedback and Final Changes
Feedback from class:
- They thought it fitted the children’s cartoon style, in colours, movement and shape
- Someone agreed that the square would look better if it fell faster before it hits the pentagon
Feedback from tutor:
- She felt the final movement of the pentagon not quite right. It could be more exaggerated
Final changes:
To finish off my piece, I just changed the final movements of the pentagon when the circle stops. Instead of having it slowly fall and then drop quickly, before bouncing back up again, I made it stay mostly upright and just settle back and forth, increasing in speed by decreasing each movement.
This change is maybe less confusing, but also perhaps less interesting. I think in future work, I’d like to carry on with messing with gravity and how the viewer would expect something to move.
Artist Research: Tjoff Koong Studios
Tjoff Koong Studios are an animation director duo.
‘Mine’ (2020)
‘Stupid Love Song’ (2021)
Production Principles, 2D Motion Graphics: Week 2
Monday 2nd October 2023
After using the workshop support session to finalise the movement of the circle and pentagon and map the movement of the star, my plan for today was to animate the star bouncing off the pentagon. However, I couldn’t figure out how to make it squash in the right way as the two shapes collide, so I switched to having it fall straight down behind the circle and pentagon, and then rock side to side when it hits the ground. The comedy element would be in the fact that the pentagon only narrowly missed being hit by the star. But I couldn’t get this to look right either. The rocking looked more intentional than as a result of the falling momentum.
So I have changed the star to a square, so at least any the squash and stretch part feels more doable, and now I’m taking a break until tomorrow because if I carry on in this frustrated mood, it’ll just feel impossible.
Tuesday 3rd October
Today I animated the square bouncing off the pentagon. There were a few things to consider when doing this, because it moves, squashes, stretches and changes direction in just a few frames. Because of that, I had to manipulate it at every frame when it meets the pentagon, otherwise it would overlap or leave gaps when the two shapes are supposed to be touching.
I wanted to make the square accelerate as it falls towards the pentagon, but every time I changed something at that part of the sequence, the other frames for the collision would go wrong again. If I had more time I would try to make it work, but I wanted to have a complete piece for the tomorrow, even if it’s imperfect.
I also added sound to the sequence, in the form of a comedic “boing” for the collision and a slide whistle for the falling and flying of the square. My plan was for the pitch of the whistle to match the square’s movement, but I found that the pitch going up for the down movement and down for the up movement worked well. It creates a bit of a sense of the square being fastest just before and just after hitting the pentagon, without me having to change the animation.
Production Principles, 2D Motion Graphics: Week 1
Monday 25th September 2023
Today I started thinking about how I would represent myself using simple shapes, and made various sketches:
I really like this idea of a fish-like shape, with these things on the side that could be ears, or arms, or wings, or fins. What I like most with this shape is its fluidity, how it bends as it moves.
Tuesday 26th September
Today I tried to make this fish-like shape in After Effects but I couldn’t get it right. I also wasn’t sure how I’d be able to animate it in the way I’d wanted to in the time I had. So I decided to strip back to even simpler shapes. I experimented with various colours, but eventually chose these pastel colours. I get a lot of inspiration from pre-school TV shows like these:
These often use a limited colour palette of muted and pastel colours, and I wanted to use the to help represent the theme of the inner child that often crops up in my practice. This theme is also present in the simple, familiar shapes I chose:
Wednesday 27th -Thursday 28th September
Today I animated the circle and the pentagon. The two shapes aren’t physically touching each other on the screen, but I wanted them to move as one. I applied the animation principle of secondary action and follow through by making the pentagon move as a result of the momentum of the circle ‘rolling’ across the frame. Figuring out the physics of this was somewhat experimental, and I used a combination of what ‘felt right’ alongside slightly more precise calculations to figure out how the pentagon would fall back and forth. The final result isn’t exact to a specific object or movement in real life, because I want the scene to have a subtle feeling of existing in an alternative word where physics and gravity maybe don’t work the same way. It’s quite tricky to find that balance of believable movement with creative freedom. Sometimes when something is only a little bit off from believability, it has more of a dissonance for the viewer than something that is so far from reality that the viewer just accepts it as something completely different and suspends their expectations.