Minor Project: Celaction Character Performance

Overview

After recreating a character for the first part of this module, I then have to put the character into Photoshop to cut up elements ready for CelAction animation. To create the animation in the software it helped me to think about making those 2D paper puppets with split pin joints.

A few notable animations in created in CelAction are Peppa Pig, Charlie & Lola, Mr Bean (animated series) and many others. 

Log

20th October - I made a list of all the artwork i might need and noted that it might be helpful to traditionally animate to see if I had missed any replacement shapes. Replacement shapes are used to actually animate in CelAction, for example to turn the head you would need to draw the front as the main element then 3/4  to the side as replacement shapes, and change them when needed. 

22nd October - I refined my list of elements to the parts that I needed for the animation --in hindsight this was a bad move as it restricted my animation towards the end, if I had made more than I needed I could of made the animation smoother. 

I also noted hotkeys for CelActions to speed up the rigging and animation process. 

25th October - I will be putting everything in to CelAction on Monday (26th) to animate and find out what I have missed.

29th October - After rigging my character, it became apparent that there would be gaps in the joints when the character moved. I made some patches for under the joints so the limbs moved seamlessly. Another option is to take out the line art completely.-- If i were to do the project again I probably would do this.

My character redesign.

I had also missed some replacement shapes for the feet and the head, so I

make those in Photoshop and added them to the rigged character.

31st October - I have learnt a lot from this though although the project isn't currently where I would like it to be at, I am still making steady progress for my deadline on the 9th November, I have been doing replacement shapes today .

31st Oct- 3rd Nov- I continued to animate the scenes. 

5th November - I tried to add "Limber" to the tail of my character. Limber is a tool that is use to make something move in a different way, through stretching and an manipulating through using nodes rather than rotating a limb from a joint without having to 'redraw replacement shapes.

I also figured out that when adding limber the character would have to be replaced. I learnt of Replacement Actor Wizard, which is a tool that lets you put a different character in the animated characters place. When the character was replaced the tail didn't show up but I found out if you clicked on each individual node and pressed "V" it would become visible, that was luck really. 

6th November - I started to rig my second character for the next scene.

"I have been sat at my desk  for over 6 hours and procrastinated a bit, i feel the software is beating me. But i think i have figured it out mostly. If I were to do this project again, after a short break of course, i think i would fair a whole lot better I manage to get a walk cycle down today, it is far from perfect but I have learnt a great deal." 

I also made a layered background for the characters and added it to that animation.

7th October - "I have nearly finished the animation today, both sequences. I will try upload my new storyboard later as well as my previous. I have to simplify it a lot due to restrictions of my skill in the software. I was in university today trying to change out a tail I made with limber, I thought it would work petty well in the tail, but it didn't look great. If I had more time maybe I could make it look better, I'll try it out again in a couple of weeks anyway. So I was replacing the tail today to just a normal element just to bob up and down no proper animation really, I would make an animation cycle with replacement shapes but time and skill restrict me currently. Alas the tail didn't work after 4 solid hours of trying to attach and replace a tail I have called it a day."

"after a number of attempts replacing my character by creating numerous actors and replacement shapes, the best outcome with a tail was a mess, also the limbs were not attached, meaning i would have to go through 500 frames reattaching them- but the tail was no where in sight, i tried pressing "V" on the tail element but nothing showed up, there must be a way to solve it, but with limited time and knowledge I think is it best I leave it as it is. In the end limber didn't really work for it and hindered my project probably again due to lack of knowledge."

Conclusion:

This project over my years at uni has been the trickiest, as I am not a digital animator. I have done the entire project digitally to kind of throw me in at the deep end and force me to learn things, needless to say it has been pretty stressful for me. However I have learnt a great deal and I will try it again, I would really like to learn more about CelAction and other digital methods of animating. I am planning to do a small side project of my own in a digital medium in the next few weeks.