Unit 34: 2D Animation Production

Early forms of animations :

The first tool used to produce animations was by a object called the magic lantern. The magic lantern or Laterna Magica is an early type of image projector employing pictures on sheets of glass. It was developed in the 17th century (1650) and commonly used for educational and entertainment purposes. It was invented by Giovanni Fontana who was from all the way back into the 15th century.

The magic lantern 

The second tool that was used to produce animations was a Thaumatrope. A thaumatrope is a toy that was popular in the 19th century (1824). A disk with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to blend into one due to the persistence of vision. The inventor of the thaumatrope is unknown, it’s between john Payton paris or peter mark Roget

A Thaumatrope

The third tool used to produce animations was the phenakistoscope. The phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope or phenakitiscope) was an early animation device that used the Persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of motion. The phenakistoscope was made on 1831 by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon von Stampfer.

The phenakistoscope.

 

.The fourth tool used to produce animations was a Zoetrope. A Zoetrope is very similar to a phenakistoscope as it also uses moving images to create film too. The zoetrope had several advantages over the basic phenakistoscope. It did not require the use of a mirror to view the illusion, and because of its cylindrical shape it could be viewed by several people at once.

A zoetrope

The fifth tool used to produce animations was a Flip book. A flip book is a booklet with springy pages with each page filled with one part of the animations series located in the unbound edge. The first flip book was created in 1868 by John Barnes Linnet as the kinograph. Here is an example of a  flip-book: 

 

The sixth tool used to produce animations was a Praxinoscope. The praxinoscope was created by a French science teacher called  Charles-Émile Reynaud, he created the praxinoscope in 1877. The praxinoscope was the first animated projection on a screen.

A praxinoscope 

Different uses for animations:

Animations are used for many things but its used for entertainment the most, For example it gets used for movies, animations on TV and video games. The very first animated film was called the silent era which was created in 1908 by Emile cohl. through the years animated films have become very popular and produced more as films like Toy story, Shrek, Madagascar and many more have been produced for entertainment.

The silent era

TV animations have also been produced a lot for our entertainment as the popularity off animations has got higher through the years, For example there’s a animated TV programme called the Simpsons which has been so successful that it has produced 27 seasons. Animations are becoming so popular that all ages are getting targeted with different programmes, For example: Simpsons are targeting teenagers are there main audiences where animations like south park and family guy target adults as there audience. They use adult humour to make there animations entertaining. There’s also animations like Scooby doo which targets children as there main audience.

Family Guy

The Simpsons

South Park

 

 

Animations also get used for advertisement over the internet and TV. For example: Butlins 2008 advert contains animations to try make there holiday location look better for family.

As entertainment animations was used in video games as well. the very first animated video game was a game called Dragons liar. This video game was produced in 1983 for the arcades.  even in the present day animations are still being used for video games, for example: There’s video games like Naruto and Dragon ball Z.

Animations are also used for education for example many websites with animated games/puzzles to help a student learn quicker. For example there is a website called learning games for kids which is full of animated video games for children to use for there education, helping them learn things they struggle with.

Current trends in animations.

There’s CGI animations. Computer animation, or CGI animation, is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The visual scenes may be dynamic or static, and may be two-dimensional (2D), though the term “CGI” is most commonly used to refer to 3D computer graphics used for creating scenes or special effects infilms and television

There’s Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR):Animation professionals are relying more and more on NPR rather than CG animator. They are using 3D software to create an impressionistic animation that’s similar to hand-drawn media. The best example of this trend is animated movies like Wall and Chains.

There’s the use of the 3D printer. The 3D printer was recently used for a film called the box trolls. a 3D printer is a machine that creates a solid object from a digital file.

There’s the Mixed Styles: This is another trend that has gained popularity in the world of animation recently. The animation here is influenced with western and eastern stylistics. One of the very recent examples is Big Hero 6 that is based on the Marvel Comic about Japanese Super Hero team. Also, lot of western animators are getting influenced by this mixed style.

Software’s used for producing modern animations 

• photoshop CS6: Adobe Photoshop CS6 brought a suite of tools for video editing. Color and exposure adjustments, as well as layers, are among a few things that are featured in this editor. Upon completion of editing, the user is presented with a handful of options of exporting into a few popular formats.3ds Max

• mari 2.ov2: Mari, originally developed at Weta Digital for Avatar, is a 3D texture painting application that uses Quadro GPU-acceleration to handle complex, high resolution textures in 3D.unity pro 4

• premiere pro cc:Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based video editing software application. It is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes video editing, graphic design, and web development programs.

• illustrator cc: Adobe Illustrator is a program used by both artists and graphic designers to create vector images. These images will then be used for company logos, promotional uses or even personal work, both in print and digital form

• CINEMA 4D: CINEMA 4D is a 3D modeling, animation and rendering application developed by MAXON Computer GmbH in Germany. It is capable of procedural and polygonal/subd modeling, animating, lighting, texturing, rendering, and common features found in 3D modelling applications. 
• Toon boom studio: Toon Boom Animation Inc. is a Canadian software company that specializes in animation production and storyboarding software. While major animation studios such as Disney, Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. and Nickelodeon use Toon Boom’s professional-grade animation software to create their shows and feature films.
• Maya: Maya, is a 3D computer graphics software that runs on Windows, OS X and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation (formerly Alias. | Wavefront) and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc.
• poser pro:Poser is a 3D computer graphics program optimized for 3D modeling of human figures. The program has gained popularity due to allowing beginners to produce basic animations and digital images, and the extensive availability of third-party digital models.
• Sketchbook pro: SketchBook Pro, also referred to as SketchBook, is a pixel graphics software application that features a radial/pie-menu user interface, intended for expressive drawing and concept sketching. It was originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation, but is now owned by Autodesk.
• Mudbox: Mudbox is a proprietary computer-based 3D sculpting and painting tool. Currently developed by Autodesk, Mudbox was created by Skymatter, founded by Tibor Madjar, David Cardwell and Andrew Camenisch, former artists of Weta Digital, where it was first used to produce the 2005 Peter Jackson remake of King Kong.
• digi cell Flipbook: DigiCel FlipBook is 2D animation software that runs on Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. It is intended to closely replicate the traditional animation process.
• FL studio 11: FL Studio 11 is a complete software music production environment, representing more than 14 years of innovative developments and testament to our commitment to Lifetime Free Updates. Everything you need in one package to compose, arrange, record, edit, mix, master and perform professional quality music.
• Flash professional: Adobe Flash Professional is a multimedia authoring and computer animation program developed by Adobe Systems. Flash Professional is primarily used to design vector graphics and animation, and publish the same for websites, web applications, rich internet applications, and video games.

preperation for sound project

Equipment Needed	Available Y/N	If not available, where to find it
Microphones	Yes	I could use my phone to record sounds.
Computers/laptops	yes	I can use the laptops in college.
Cameras	Yes	I can use a camera on my phone or the cameras out of college.

 

 

 

 

Sound Ideas

Sound Proposal

Synopsis. My animation is for comix zone and I’m going to be making sound of combat to add realism to the violence in my animation. I’m also going to be making sound of movements like walking and running to add realism to the characters in my animation. I’m going to add sounds of explosions and materials smashing’s so the audience’s attention isn’t on the sound but on the animation. There’s going to be sounds of drawing and paper ripping as my animation is based on a comic book theme.   Sound will help to get the audiences attention and pull them into my 2D animation making it more immersive. It will also help to keep the audience attention on the animation not the sound its self, which will help to create a positive thought to the animation.

Objective. I want the sound to make my animation immersive and keep the audience focused on the animation. I also want the sound to help create a positive though on my animation so the trailer/ animation created for comix zone makes the audience want to play this classic video game.

Structure. Where are you going to get your sounds? What techniques are you going to use to capture your sounds? I’m going to use a microphone or my phone to capture the sounds I want. I’m going to ask people to do the movements that are in my animations so I can catch the sounds it creates. For explosions and smashed materials sound I’m going to use royalty free sounds of the internet. For the sounds of paper ripping and drawing I’m just going to use my phone to record the sound of me ripping some paper and drawing.

Constraints There isn’t many problems as the original trailer just shows gameplay for the video game so the only problem I would have is what sound I use as I need to make sure the owner of the sound gets credit for the his/her sound as I could be done for copyright.

Visual Design.   My animation will be made in the style of Flash and it’s aimed at the ages of 7 and above. My animation will look like a hero character fighting his way through explosion’s enemies and traps. It will sound like a real man is trapped in a comic book and is fighting monster enemies to escape back to the real world, this will involve sounds of ripping through pages as well as in the animation the character will go through different parts of the pages of a comic. Because my animation is based on the video game commix zone it will have the same visual design as that.

Technical Specifications.   I will record with microphones and save it to a digital device I’m going to record it in 40 KHz and it will be in stereo sound not mono because the way that stereo uses two sound channels will make the trailer sound more realistic. It will be recorded raw so the file doesn’t become damaged and the sound quality stays high.

Delivery. I’m hoping to be finished by Easter and have everything recorded a month before hand.

 

Sound Recording Schedule

 

Date	Time of Day and Location	Type of Recording	Equipment Needed
01/02/16	9:00 am south Devon college	I’m going to record the so und of paper ripping and drawing on paper.	I’m going to need Paper, pencils and a microphone or phone.
08/02/16	9:00 am south Devon college	I’m going to record the sound of movements of running and walking.	I’m going to need a partner to do the movements, microphone and a open area
15/02/16	9:00 am south Devon college	I’m going to record the sound of movements to do with combat.	I’m going to need a partner to perform the movements whilst I record with a microphone, ill also need a open area.
22/02/16	9:00 am south Devon college	I’m going to try and create a explosion and smashing sound if I cant ill use a free royalty sound off the internet.	Ill have to experiment with many different materials. I’ll definitely need a microphone and a laptop

 

 

 

 

 

Unit: 63 sound

what is sound ?

Sound is vibrations that travel in the air created by objects, for example if you use a low E string out of  a guitar it will create vibrations in the air that create a low tone of sound. Human beings use vocal chords to create these vibrations to communicate with sound.

What are waveforms and the three elements of a sound waveform?

 Waveforms are what represents sound mainly on graphs. That are three different type of sound waves:

• Amplitude:Amplitude is what measures the highest point of the wave and volume is what measures the size of the Amplitude. For example the louder the sound the bigger the Amplitude.

a Amplitude 

• Frequency: Frequency is how many times a pattern is repeated in a certain amount of time it is measured in Hertz (Hz). Frequency is also related to the pitch of sound because the higher the pitch the higher the frequency is.
  

  Frequency’s 

• Wavelength: The wavelength measures the distance between two peaks of a wave.
  

  A Wave length 

Sound is used in many different areas of the interactive media. For example theres

• Television
• video gaming
• films

these interactive medias uses sound to pull the audience into there story by adding sounds like the Environments , the communication between the characters and sound effects to make it feel more immersive.

Decibels is a unit to measure the intensity of sound or the power level of an electrical signal by comparing it with a given level on a logarithmic scale. Basically a degree of loudness

human beings can hear unto 150 decibels before there ears start to bleed, and from above the mark of 80 decibels can cause permanent damage to a human beings ear drums. For example a whisper is estimated to be 30 decibels and alarm clocks and busy streets are estimated to be 80 decibels. The public services are just below 140 decibels.

A analogue recording is the devices that create Raw data recordings which eventually  wear out when you copy it onto your computer as you loose the quality of the image and sound. Analogue recordings also are physical copies  Where digital recordings are not. Digital copies don’t wear out when being copied onto discs or other storage devices ether as they just copy and compress the raw data to create another copy.

Analogue Distortion is where a signal pattern is to much for the system handle it, so it gets cut down so the system can handle it. it does this by damaging the original signal and looses some of the information.

digital distortion is where certain parts of the signal get removed that the computer feel are not needed but sometimes it can make the audio not sound right.

Sound recording is produced by using capture devices like microphones, then it will go through the process of editing by adding things like compression which is where you change the data from raw data into Mp3. This makes it loose a bit of quality. It will then go through the process of mixing the frequency recording with adding my own additional  sound effects and sound. It is finally mastered to be put on dvd, cd, broadcast on radio or put on tv programmes.

The difference between mono sound and stereo sound is the fact that mono sound is intended to be heard as one channel which makes it sound like its coming from just one direction where stereo is intended to be heard from two to make it sound like the sound is coming from different many directions.

For analogue media there is:

• Vinyl records: which are the big black disks that were used for the musical records to play them you would have to use what is known as a record player that uses a needle to play the music.
• VHS: VHS stands for a video home system which is a video tape player that plays recorded tv shows and films on video tapes.
• Tape recorder: Tape recorders are systems that record sounds and play them back to you.

For digital media there is:

• USB sticks: USB memory sticks are used to store data such as music images and videos
• DVDs and CDs: DVDs and CDs are portable disks that carry videos and music which get played DVD players CD players and consoles.
• Hard drives: Hard drives are the same as USB sticks there used to store data such as images and videos but they have a larger amount of memory then USB sticks

The Advantages of using analogue devices is they create raw data that is represented by a physical object theres also less chance of the data becoming corrupted. The disadvantages is that analogue data wears out eventually after copying it to many times as it looses its quality in the video and sound and its harder to transport then digital and your limited due to the amount of data.

The advantages of using digital devices is the data doesn’t wear out like the analogue data and its easier to transport to new locations. The digital have more data then analogue which gives it no limitations. The disadvantages of using digital devices is theres a bigger chance of the data becoming corrupted then the analogue data becoming corrupted. Digital devices are not as good quality as analogue data as you cannot get any data rawer then analogue data. File sizes is another disadvantage as its limited on the amount of data you can carry.

The problems of digitlizing analogue data is the fact it misses some samples of the data out so even though it sounds very similar it isn’t the full original quality of the analogue data.

There are many types of raw audio data here are some examples:

• BWAV-broadcast WAV ( BBC ) : this format is specially used broadcast.
• WAV- also known as WAVE: this format is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs.
• AIFF-Audio interlaced file format: this format is a standard used for storing audio files for Apple inc devices

There many types of compressed Data here are some examples:

• Atrac-Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding: Atrac is a family of compressed audio data that go onto small discs that have have the same running time as CDs but have slightly lower quality.
• Mp3: is a audio coding format which is used for storage for the digital audio players

 

Sound is important to media projects because with sound media projects are found to be boring people loose there interests very quickly. Sound makes a difference on how realistic the project seems to be so it effects how much people are pull into the media project. The type of sound also makes a difference on the type of emotion it creates for the audience which is crucial for the type of media, For example a Horror film to make the audience scared where a romantic film wants the audience to feel emotional and maybe make them cry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Examples for each type of animation

• Clay/stop motion animations: In animation stop motion animation is a cinematic process, or technique used to makes static objects appear as if they were moving. This technique is commonly used in claymation and puppet-based animation.Clay animation or claymation is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is “deformable”—made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay.

Example of stop motion animation film: Mr fantastic fox 

stop motion animation film

 

Example of Claymation film: Flushed away

Claymation film

• Cel animations: A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. 

Example of cel animation: The BFG 

The BFG animation.

example of what cel animations look like.

• Flash animations:A Flash animation or Flash cartoon is an animated film that is created by Adobe Flash or similar animation software and often distributed in the SWF file format. The term Flash animation refers to both the file format and the medium in which the animation is produced.

Example of a flash animation : Top cat the movie

 

Top cat