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Singapore Polytechnic 2D animation course
Project Details
A. Brief Description of Project
This course is as the title describes, 2D animation. This course is recommended for those who enjoy and/or are gifted in drawing or even those who are remotely interested in animation. Through the course students are taught how to animate characters, graduating from stick figures to proper characters with flesh and bones, as well as the principles of animation through a period of 4 weeks.
The animation programme used here is the Tab 3.0, a programme that is designed specifically for 2D animation and is based on more traditional ways of animation as compared to the popular Adobe Flash. Students are taught through animation exercises - rolling / bouncing balls, walk cycles, motions a stomping guy, and creating the 'multiplane effect', to name a few.
Various assignments are given, such as learning the basic techniques through animation exercises as well as a thousand word report and comparison on 'traditional vs flash animation' after viewing two videos. In our case, the two videos were from different cartoon series - Bugs Bunny / The Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Handouts are also given to students to help better understand animation as well as to guide them through the learning of using the Tab 3.0.
The final project is a group animation that should last roughly 40 to 80 seconds. In the course we are taught to animate generally on ones/twos, meaning that there are either 12/24 frames per second(fps) respectively. Hence, an animation of 40 seconds would amount to about 960/480 drawings in total, again, respectively. There was also the concept of storyboarding, which meant that we had to come up with a plot and rough storyline, before actually planning our key frames/scenes and drawing them out on a storyboard template. This storyboards basically help us to keep on track and decide roughly how many inbetweens we need between each key frame.
In addition to storyboarding, we were given a rough infrastructure of how our animation should progress.
The rough template of a short animation/clip is as follows:
Act 1
Introduce the Characters and Setting
Open with an establishment shot (one that shows the scene and character)
Character can/should be doing something (e.g. drinking tea, walking about)
Act 2
Character encounters conflict/obstacle
Something that causes the character to change what he / she is doing
Act 3
Resolution
Does the conflict get resolved?
How is it resolved?
B. Results
The brief description of our animation is as follows:
The character in our story starts out as watching a television show about a superhero character. He is influenced by it and hence starts experimenting with chemicals. Due to some unforeseen chemical reaction, the chemicals explode and he gains two powers, the ability of flight / levitation as well as superhuman strength. He discovers his powers when he breaks open his laboratory door instead of just opening it, and is able to levitate above the steps when he is supposed to be walking down the stairs.
With these super powers, various ideas come to him. However the most appealing of those is that with super powers he will be able to become rich. He then decides to rob the bank, but when he comes out of the bank, police cars are surrounding him, and being unable to run away, he flies high into the sky, laughing mockingly at the police down below.
Since he was looking down at the police below, he did not realize that he was flying straight towards an airplane. His money bag was sucked into the plane's engine turbine, and so does he, resulting in him meeting his deserved end.
As the saying goes, ' good always triumphs over evil '.
The production of our animation was successful, even though it may not have been very professional looking. Nevertheless, we did expend a huge amount of effort in producing it, and we are all proud of our work.
C. Reflection
Three content knowledge/skills that we have learnt
1. Principles of animation - squash and stretch, timing, anticipation, staging, follow-through action, overlapping action, straight-ahead action, pose-to-pose action, slow in and out, arcs, exaggeration, secondary action, and appeal.
2. The difference between traditional animation and flash/computer animation.
3. Using the TAB 3.0 to animate and create different effects in out animation, like the 'multiplane'.
Two interesting aspects about our learning
1. Enjoying drawing is a must for this course as a lot of it is required.
2. It was a very unrestricted learning course, and students are highly encouraged to be creative and think out of the box, to create animations that are different and special, to appeal to your targeted audience.
One take-away for life
1. One take away was getting to study and experience a polytechnic course for a brief period of time, which was something very different from life in junior college.
It was a good experience as it allowed us to know more about a polytechnic environment, and also learn how to adapt quickly to a new environment(since we had only 4 weeks to complete the course), as well as how they go about teaching and learning. Since all of us are Temasek Academy students and have been studying in TJC with regulated subjects, having a chance to learn something out of the norm as compared to the lessons we have in school was a good opportunity for us to explore the world outside of the normal college curriculum.
Gallery
Screen shot of 'A Twist of Fate'
Screenshot of the walk cycle with self created character - courtesy of Melissa
| Organisation: | Singapore Polytechnic |
| Mentor: | Mr. Ahmad Al-Mahir Abu Bakar - SP Mr. Heng Swee Kiang - TJC |
| Members: | Denise Wong Melissa Fok Melvin Lim |
| Project Title: | A Twist Of Fate! |
A. Brief Description of Project
This course is as the title describes, 2D animation. This course is recommended for those who enjoy and/or are gifted in drawing or even those who are remotely interested in animation. Through the course students are taught how to animate characters, graduating from stick figures to proper characters with flesh and bones, as well as the principles of animation through a period of 4 weeks.
The animation programme used here is the Tab 3.0, a programme that is designed specifically for 2D animation and is based on more traditional ways of animation as compared to the popular Adobe Flash. Students are taught through animation exercises - rolling / bouncing balls, walk cycles, motions a stomping guy, and creating the 'multiplane effect', to name a few.
Various assignments are given, such as learning the basic techniques through animation exercises as well as a thousand word report and comparison on 'traditional vs flash animation' after viewing two videos. In our case, the two videos were from different cartoon series - Bugs Bunny / The Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Handouts are also given to students to help better understand animation as well as to guide them through the learning of using the Tab 3.0.
The final project is a group animation that should last roughly 40 to 80 seconds. In the course we are taught to animate generally on ones/twos, meaning that there are either 12/24 frames per second(fps) respectively. Hence, an animation of 40 seconds would amount to about 960/480 drawings in total, again, respectively. There was also the concept of storyboarding, which meant that we had to come up with a plot and rough storyline, before actually planning our key frames/scenes and drawing them out on a storyboard template. This storyboards basically help us to keep on track and decide roughly how many inbetweens we need between each key frame.
In addition to storyboarding, we were given a rough infrastructure of how our animation should progress.
The rough template of a short animation/clip is as follows:
Act 1
Introduce the Characters and Setting
Open with an establishment shot (one that shows the scene and character)
Character can/should be doing something (e.g. drinking tea, walking about)
Act 2
Character encounters conflict/obstacle
Something that causes the character to change what he / she is doing
Act 3
Resolution
Does the conflict get resolved?
How is it resolved?
B. Results
The brief description of our animation is as follows:
The character in our story starts out as watching a television show about a superhero character. He is influenced by it and hence starts experimenting with chemicals. Due to some unforeseen chemical reaction, the chemicals explode and he gains two powers, the ability of flight / levitation as well as superhuman strength. He discovers his powers when he breaks open his laboratory door instead of just opening it, and is able to levitate above the steps when he is supposed to be walking down the stairs.
With these super powers, various ideas come to him. However the most appealing of those is that with super powers he will be able to become rich. He then decides to rob the bank, but when he comes out of the bank, police cars are surrounding him, and being unable to run away, he flies high into the sky, laughing mockingly at the police down below.
Since he was looking down at the police below, he did not realize that he was flying straight towards an airplane. His money bag was sucked into the plane's engine turbine, and so does he, resulting in him meeting his deserved end.
As the saying goes, ' good always triumphs over evil '.
The production of our animation was successful, even though it may not have been very professional looking. Nevertheless, we did expend a huge amount of effort in producing it, and we are all proud of our work.
C. Reflection
Three content knowledge/skills that we have learnt
1. Principles of animation - squash and stretch, timing, anticipation, staging, follow-through action, overlapping action, straight-ahead action, pose-to-pose action, slow in and out, arcs, exaggeration, secondary action, and appeal.
2. The difference between traditional animation and flash/computer animation.
3. Using the TAB 3.0 to animate and create different effects in out animation, like the 'multiplane'.
Two interesting aspects about our learning
1. Enjoying drawing is a must for this course as a lot of it is required.
2. It was a very unrestricted learning course, and students are highly encouraged to be creative and think out of the box, to create animations that are different and special, to appeal to your targeted audience.
One take-away for life
1. One take away was getting to study and experience a polytechnic course for a brief period of time, which was something very different from life in junior college.
It was a good experience as it allowed us to know more about a polytechnic environment, and also learn how to adapt quickly to a new environment(since we had only 4 weeks to complete the course), as well as how they go about teaching and learning. Since all of us are Temasek Academy students and have been studying in TJC with regulated subjects, having a chance to learn something out of the norm as compared to the lessons we have in school was a good opportunity for us to explore the world outside of the normal college curriculum.
Gallery
Screen shot of 'A Twist of Fate'
Screenshot of the walk cycle with self created character - courtesy of Melissa
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, Feb 21 2009, 9:51 AM EST
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2d animation
Singapore Polytechnic
SP
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