Monday, December 13, 2010

Semester troubles

For the last blog, I've been requested to post a summary of main issues I've encountered over the semester.

First, I think it's extremely important that everyone gets a place-holder voice as soon as the project is started. You don't need to do anything fancy, just record yourself in the way your actor will present the text and you'll avoid A TON of revisions a few weeks into the project.

When it comes to drawings, pen is much, much more forgiving than pencil. I wasted an entire week of work and drawing because of the grainy aspects of pencil. Made me want to rip my hair out!

Your storyboard shouldn't be 5x as long as the rest of the class, as the animation is much easier said than done.

File management is extremely important, and I regret not taking account for this earlier because you end up with exponentially more files than any other process of design I've worked with.

Transitions are the stitching of animation, without them your work will fall apart at the seam and be very unappealing. This is mostly important because many students felt it was alright to leave transitions until they actually animated and found themselves SOL.

Accept evolution, the finished result is usually unlike anything you started with.

Staring at a computer screen for so long gave me pretty bad headaches (especially when masking frame by frame)...not sure what you can do about that, but it makes it hard to work on other homework.

Unlike most, I never had too many issues rendering.

Video Critique 14

http://vimeo.com/16153664

Cool after effects project of simple forms and vectors. Lots of stroke effects, and apparently a usage of “shine and form?” Not sure what the is, but the pacing suffers from the fact that it’s merely a study. It leaves me wondering why he didn’t try to piece together a concept instead of just making things look cool. There’s a consistent usage of natural things in a vector setting (leaves, fish, birds, strokes), but it doesn’t really say anything.


Hierarchy and scale works well, he’s obviously got a keen eye for composition. Music isn’t too exciting, but it works alright with the pacing of the piece. Some transitions leave my mouth a little dry and I find myself bored after a couple of views.

In summary, it’s pretty, but not much more.

Video Critique 13

http://lookslikegooddesign.com/animation-we-are-seventeen/

Cool combination of Vector and 3-d graphics. A surreal piece, but the 3-D and 2-d comes together in a beautiful harmony. The colors are great, and though I have no idea what the concept is, it’s lovely. The music moves along with it stellarly, and I find it almost essential to the pacing and feel. Hierarchy is great, the classical type moves along very waell with the music. I also love how it’s arranged in chapters, yet the transitions don’t seem wasteful, yet classy.

A great project that showcases both execution and creativity, with many elements coming together to form a truly abstract video. My largest complaint is that some things are pushed to be a little too shiny- as if they got overly excited with the lights, everything looks glossy. The textures are beautiful however. Great juxtapositions between timeless and contemporary styles. I also enjoy the inclusion of real footage (the arm).

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Video Critique 12

http://lookslikegooddesign.com/meet-buck-teamcerf/

Funny animation, though it's definetly created with some 3-D rendering software. Must have taken a really long time to render! Character and set illustration is very painterly, but with a contemporary digital and vector feel. Some nice texture going on as well, and I'm curious to learn how they set up lights. Music creates an excellent sense of pacing. Type color and hierarchy works fine in credits, and is seamlessly integrated as signage throughout the animation.

Conceptually it was a little lacking for me, specifically the end. There was one forced connection in the tunnel, but that's about as creative as it got. More of an execution project than concept.

Shatter Tutorial

Sprite Study Tutorial

http://www.vimeo.com/14861124

Really cool kit for a study of sprites. It's a pretty open tutorial so you can play with it as much as you want to.

Wiggle Tutorial



Learned this for my signs, obviously this is a bit more extreme