Intent
Note to Students:
BE PATIENT, this will be a serious learning curb for most of you. Watch the classroom activity, take notes, jot down questions and pose questions at the end of the presentation. DO NOT open Harmony to follow along while I am teaching. Lesson will be recorded and posted for you, so you can replay each and every step.
Pre-Activity Task:
Please create a folder name YOUR NAME ANIMATION in the documents folder. Create a new Principles of Animation Folder in your new folder. When creating a Harmony file, be sure to:
– Save the file name as YOUR NAME Principles of Animation
– Set Location to the your Principles of Animation folder
– The harmony work file extension is called .XStage, named after Xsheet and a performance stage.
– In your Windows Explorer or Finder navigate to your Principles of Animation folder to view all the files and folders Harmony requires to create your animation.
IT IS ESSENTIAL YOU NEVER CUT OR DELETE ANYTHING FORM THIS FOLDER!
– At the end of every period copy and paste your Principles of Animation folder to your Cloud and/or USB. Sometimes you may want to rename the file as a version, ie,
jamieleduc_principlesofanimation.xstage on Tuesday and jamieleduc_principlesofanimationV2.xstage on Wednesday.
– Enable and assign previous and next frame views in the Onionskin tool. This will allow you to properly plan out your Extreme and In-Between Keyframes.
– Enable the LightTable tool to easily identify the layer you are working on.
Helpful shortcuts (I also attached my favourite shortcuts for you):
1 = Zooms out
2 = Zooms In
O = Increse or decrease the size of your drawing tool in the Drawing and Camera View
space = Move your stage around
CMD+S = Save your work
Hint:
Before you begin, go to Harmony Preferences and set up Harmony (you only need to do this once):
– General/Auto-Save/ enable Save Scene Automatically
– Exposure Sheet/Drawing Creation/ disable Extend Exposure of Previous Drawing
– Check out provided video on enabling Overlay and Underlay
The 12 Principles of Animation
– Squash and Stretch
– Anticipation
– Staging
– Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
– Follow Through and Overlapping Action
– Slow In and Slow Out
– Arc
– Secondary Action
– Timing
– Exaggeration
– Solid drawing
– Appeal
Animating on the Ones, Twos and Threes:
Animating on the Ones, twos, and threes refer to how long a single image holds on camera in relationship to frames per second. Ones mean every single frame is different, so at 24 frames per second you’ll have 24 individual and unique drawings with that second.
Twos means that something holds for two frames, rather than one. So, if we were to animate one second at 24 frames per second on twos, it means every other frame will be different. So we’d have a total of 12 individual drawings within that second.
Threes means that we have a single drawing hold for 3 frames in a row. So, if we did a second of animation at 24 frames per second on threes, that means we’d have 8 individual drawings, all holding for 3 frames at a time.
Task
PART ONE – TAKE NOTES
– Take notes and doodle the 12 principles of animation. Students are to study, explore, understand, doodle, take notes and document your understanding of the 12 Principles of Animation. Students are to Include the definitions of the Principles of Animation. Create a digital translation of your doodles/notes and post to your “Fundamentals of Animation” Behance project.
PART 2 – TEACHER-LED ACTIVITIES
Rolling and Bouncing Ball Activity
Required steps:
– File name YOURNAME_Ball
– Saving Location: Principles of Animation Folder
– 2 second animation @ 24
– Animate on the twos (each exposed fame will hold for 2 frames.
– Minimum of 4 layers
– Hill/ground
– Timing Guide
– ball
– Colour Card
– Create Pencil and Brush Presets for Roughing, Annotation and Clean.
– Map out animation on paper first (see attached images). Be sure to identify Key Frames, Extreme Key- Frames and In-Between Frames. These are on the 2s and always on odd numbered frames, ie, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc. Use cross hatch marks long the ball path and number them, these will identify the location of the ball on the stage throughout time.
– Sketch out timing guide using the Annotation Preset on the Line Art of the TIMING CHART layer.
– Sketch hills using the Clean Preset on the Line Art of the HILLS layer
– Extend Exposure of HILL & TIMING CHART layers to frame 48 and select STOP on timeline (Not the BALL LAYER)
– Sketch ball (just line, no colour) on the BALL layer using the CLEAN Preset by following these steps:
– Draw instance of the ball Keyframes on the assigned (use your timing chart and plan) frames on the the Underlay of the BALL layer using the Roughing Preset.
– Draw instance of the ball Extreme Keyframes on the assigned (use your timing chart and plan) frames on the Underlay of the BALL layer using the Roughing Preset.
– Draw instance of the ball In-Betweens on the assigned (use your timing chart and plan) frames
– Play your animation, make any adjustments to the timing (Select Stop on the last frame, select Loop and press Play).
– Now go to Line Art of the Ball Layer and using the Clean preset clean up your animation
– Export your animation as YOURNAME_Ball.mov in your Principles of Animation folder.
– Post to your Behance portfolio.
Teacher-led Swinging Pendulum Activity
Required steps
– Similar to above steps, except there will be some new concepts covered:
– Using Key Frames
– Easing Key Frames
– File name YOURNAME_Pendulum
– Saving Location: Principles of Animation Folder
– 2 second animation @ 24
– Animate on the twos (each exposed fame will hold for 2 frames.
– Minimum of 3 layers
– Pendulum
– Timing Guide (Red)
– Colour Card
– Export your animation as YOURNAME_Pendulum.mov in your Principles of Animation folder.
– Post to your Behance portfolio.
PART 3 – APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION IN A FLOUR SACK ANIMATION
Students:
– are to make One 10 second (@24 fps) animation showcasing their understanding of the 12 Principles of Animation. The animations must have the flour sack you have been working on in it. Please animate on the twos (each exposed fame will hold for 2 frames). Begin the animation with a one second title card (info below):
– A Study of the Principles of Animation
– By your name
– Fundamentals of Animation 2021 – Mr. Leduc
Save as: First Name Last Name Principles
PLAN:
Revisit (and annotate using a red pencil) your existing storyboard from the flip-book activity and plan the application of the Principles of Animation. Adjust duration of panels and scenes. All art must be simple, with a limited use of colour art. The focus is animating using the 12 principles.
add an appropriate colour card (background),
ANIMATION:
Students are to
– animate the sequence using different tools and techniques covered in class
– use text and arrow annotations to identify each principles of animation,
– only place one moving object per layer
– are to export each animation as a movie using the following format: firstlastname__PrinciplesOfAnimation.mov,
– are to upload the animated movie (feel free to use Vimeo or Youtube) under the Principles of Animation Activity header on Behance.
PORTFOLIO:
– Submit the link to your behance portfolio to Google Classroom.