Creating Animations
Creating animation can be a very complex process, particularly for beginners who lack designing skills and those who are not familiar with animation software. Most creations in animation usually are inspired by a simple thought. In technology that thought is commonly known as innovation. Before any idea can become a reality, the first and foremost step is to determine the purpose. The same arguments can be said about creating an animation.
Determining the purpose and state of an animation project is the first step in the creation process. Creating Animation can be either created for information purpose, entertainment, or even for marketing a product. The graphics of animation should be appealing enough to attract and stimulate the audience, and in most cases, it should have the ability to encourage participation. This can be truly said of animation games. In my process of creating an animation, I start off with reflection. Some questions I ask myself are why do I think this would be useful, and how do I intend to present it to attract and maintain the interest of my audience. These questions are important elements of a great outcome.
Identifying the targeted audience is the most vital key in the decision-making process when creating animation. It is imperative to have a sound idea of who the presentation will be of interest. While creating, a person should place their state of mind into that of the intended audience. This will help determine whether the project will do what it is intended by further attempting to understand what would attract the audience of interest. This helps to find out if the animation conveys not only its purpose but also whether it can retain the interest of its users.
The next step to creating animation is to implement a good layout by inserting as many layers as needed into various scenes. This method will structure the ideas into uniform categories, and incorporate different thoughts into a comprehensive perspective. In the designing process, it is good to use bold colors, different texts, and attractive images that are useful, informative, funny, entertaining, and realistic in appearance. Programs like Adobe Animate provides the many tools needed to accomplish these many elements. The tools such as the rectangle, circle, pencil, line, paintbrush, paint bucket, color pallets, and their various properties can create objects of all colors and shapes. Also, it is necessary to make full use of the library which contains a large stock of images for display and animating. It is also useful to import images of choice into libraries, and use them in their originality, or even to break them apart to be rearranged or redesigned. As well, a person should make sure to use the timeline effectively on the stage to insert keyframes that will determine what, when, and where a graphic should appear and take place. Inserting motion tweens, presetting motions and action scripts for control, and determining and manipulating movements that appear realist should be done while animating.
Once an animation concept is decided upon, detailed planning is crucial and every step should be laid out in sequence. A person should make use of a storyboard to accomplish this. Putting the idea together into a storyboard will maintain a flow of unity and coherence.
Ever tried to start an animation from scratch without planning a single thing? I’m guessing it ended in disaster. When we get a new idea, it’s tempting to dive right in and start scribbling frame after frame, but more often than not we end up wandering off the beaten path with no idea where we’re going. Slowing down isn’t much fun, but it’ll save your project in the end.
A storyboard visually tells the story of an animation frame by frame. The storyboard should convey what characters will appear in each layer and frame, their actions and movement, as well as sound and dialogues. The storyboard should also take into account the time-lapse throughout the story.
After all of the preliminary work has been done, and the storyboard is approved, the next step is to actually start on creating the graphics, models, textures, backgrounds, etc., that will be needed in the animation. Depending on whether the animation being made is 2D, 3D, or something in between, it can change the amount and type of work needed to be done. 2D animations are the simplest and require the least labor, all that needs to be done is to create the backgrounds, and all of the different poses and frames of characters and moving objects.
The time spent on this step is reduced because of all the effort in determining the design of characters and the layout of scenes beforehand. Creation of different things is broken up to spread the workload, background artists, just like their title implies, work on everything relating to backgrounds and produce the final ones to be used in the animation. Building characters is a process that makes up the bulk of time spent in this first stage, the final character designs must be drawn, including every different pose they will make. Although nowadays with computers it is not needed to draw each and every frame for a character’s movement, all that needs to be done is to draw the most important frames and a computer can fill the frames in between. This is all that is needed for 2D animations, just the very basics of character creation and background painting.
For 3D animations, the only difference is that more work is put into each sector along with a few extra details, because of the nature of 3D graphics. Also, objects within a 3D space are not called graphics like in 2D, they are called models. Since there is an extra dimension, background images alone will not cut it, now an entire set must be created. Usually, closer building models will have more details, while further back models can just be cubes and rectangles with textures applied to them. Textures are one of the new things that come with working in 3D, they are simply images that are applied to models, like decals on a car, to bring the gray lifeless blocks to life. They can be used for everything, for example, texture for a building might be brickwork, and when pasted on a gray cube it wraps around and gives it the appearance of being made out of bricks.
For characters it is also not as simple as drawing stick figures, a modeler has to create the 3D model for the character. This can be extremely time-consuming, especially around the face area, as it has to be as realistic as possible, meaning every feature as small as nose shape must be made. Additional work may be done specifically on the face, to create facial expressions and any other minute details like the jiggling of the cheeks.
Any models that have movement, then move onto rigging, which makes them move believably. Character models are given a skeleton, so when they are deformed, they still adhere to how a real person would move. Finally, a lighting artist must define everything light-related, such as intensity, how light interacts with different materials, and simply making sure objects cast shadows; all of this is in an effort to make it as realistic as possible.
Now that everything is created, actual animation can finally begin. Everything that was made beforehand is, simply put together in the way specified by the layouts and storyboard. There are two ways animation can be made. One way is called a frame-by-frame, which involves specifying everything that will appear in each frame. This method can be quite lengthy depending on how complex each image is and how everything will move. Although the main advantage of frame-by-frame animation is the control over each frame and the resulting finished animation. Movements by characters can be made to be more realistic by increasing the number of images, the tradeoff is, of course, increased effort, as each frame is slightly different from the other. The other animation technique that can be used is called tweening. This can greatly reduce the time spent on animating because most of the work is done by computer software. Tweening is when a computer will fill in the motion between two keyframes. If one frame had a car at one end of the stage, then another had it at the other end, tweening would fill the frames in between with the car in the subsequent locations.
Having sound is an optional feature, for animations that include dialogue and sound effects, they are added around the same as animating is done. With sound effects, they can easily be put in when an animation is nearly complete; music can be added even when an animation is done. However, the dialogue is usually added, as the animating progress, so as to allow animators to match a character’s facial movement. Recording dialogue can be done as soon as a script is approved and an actor is found, although some studios may choose to record dialogue as animating begins.
The second-to-last stage in creating an animation is to test it before declaring it complete. The animation runs through its entire course in its final version, meaning it could be considered finished if no problems arise.
This last step is only needed if issues were found in the test run of the final animation. This is when those complications are cleaned up and no more are present. The animation can finally be judged as finalized and wrapped up to be released.
From idea to reality, the process of creating an animation is a long and arduous one often fraught with difficulties. However, following a procedure can greatly reduce the occurrence of these problems. From ensuring a good layout is implemented beforehand, by creating all the necessary models, it’s important to have a checklist. Covering all the aspects of making animation and understanding which are more important and have to be done before another can make it less of a nightmare and result in a masterpiece.
