Inanimate becoming animate

Juan Muñiz

Animation Where The Inanimate Become Animate

Stop motion animation  is an animation technique that physically manipulates an object so that it appears to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a fast sequence. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of re-positioning. Stop motion animation using plasticine is called clay animation or "clay-mation". Not all stop motion requires figures or models; many stop motion films can involve using humans, household appliances and other things for comedic effect. Stop motion can also use sequential drawing in a similar manner to traditional animation, such as a flip book. Stop motion using humans is sometimes referred to as pixilation or pixilate animation. As stop motion is normally differed a lot the many variants of it have been seen for a while. Such as using figurines to fight out and reenact actual scenes from the original source, or just a crossover parody where not many people expect. 

The style of animation uses, adobe animate, Photoshop, and many more programs to work on it. 

Examples would be one i have done such as this which is one not comprised of figures but of still images.

An example of purely used stop-motion including figures would be Wallace and Grommet but also a fine example of  that type would be this person here.
Counter656

This form of animation takes time but its worth it in the end. The result turns out into a fabulous animation that has the artist's blood sweat and tears put into it.

MikuMikuDance Animations

MMD is a free 3D animation software that's been around since 2007 that features the Vocaloid models like Hatsune Miku and it allow you to create your own 3D animations and poses. There are plenty 3D model characters, props and stages for you download online along with effects and animations. There is a learning curve for new animators who don't know about MMD, but it some can get a hang of it. Most MMD animation videos are music videos for vocaloid songs and animations of viral videos on the internet. There are contests in tournament style for the animations known as "MMD CUP" held on Nico Nico Douga, the Japanese equivalent of youtube. Those MMD CUP videos are the best of the MMD animations and they're at the 20th cup now.

The link for the program:

https://learnmmd.com/downloads/

Happy

  http://24hoursofhappy.com/      For my design exploration I chose a website called 24s of happy which has the worlds first 24 hour music video of Pharrell Williams song happy. The set up is clock like and you can go at whatever time you want in the 24 hours. The inner circle has thumbnails that you can click on to that point in the video. The design is very simple and makes watching the video more easier with clock. The clock also has the time of day where the footage is in.

With the purpose of the wheel is to make the video more digestible. You can also skim through the music video to see the thumbnails of footage. This also helps the viewer manually go to the area where they want to watch. There is also a forward and backwards button to go through the video as well with less movement of moving the mouse.

 What I like about this is if this had a regular formatted video like on YouTube people would get bored easily or less amused but with this its less dry and you can browse throughout the video.

The world of Eusong Lee

I found Eugene Lee's vision through his work of art and directed story-telling to be really captivating. His style of work involves a wide range of vibrant colors; heavily influenced by Power Puff Girls. The colorful form and shapes of his designs really set it a part. Consisting mostly of geometric shapes, each form is composed to create a straightforward concept.

However, it is the combination of different elements directed by Eugene Lee, that make the animation. The sequences of the films and the style of his art, followed by the choice in music produce some very pretty quality work.

"My Moon"

"Will"

Illustration of Airport Terminal

Power Puff Girls Home

His website can be visited here.

Useful Resources to get started

Storyboard Templates

Storyboard Templates

This website contains Storyboard templates in both Photoshop and PDF version.  For Photoshop just opened the downloaded .psd files in Photoshop and start drawing under a new layer. Add any notes in the description area as needed and afterwards save the file under a different name.  The download includes multiple templates with varying sizes which should fit most needs. If you want to draw by hand just print out the included PDF template you need and draw on the go.

Krita

Krita

Krita is an open source drawing / photo editing application that I have used numerous times when I didn't have Photoshop.  What I like about this program is that it is geared more towards drawing / painting while still providing filter, masking, and editing options like Photoshop.  Best of all it's free and compatible with Photoshop files meaning you could open the above story board templates in Krita, edit them then export them as .psd files.

Aspect Ratio Calculator

Aspect Ratio Calculator

Sometimes when i'm getting started I have trouble deciding what dimension to set my stage to look right, or I need to convert a certain aspect ratio to another.  This site can calculate a new dimension based on the ratio you give it.  Rather when doing the math out by hand just plug in the desired aspect ratio and get a result.

Random Street View 

randomstreetview.com 

For me backgrounds/setting are the last thing i'm thinking about when i'm working on an animation. Random Street view is a website I play in the background while drawing, or working on a projects.  When ever something catches your eye you can pause that scene and look around.  Locations are saved so you can always go back to something your missed.  Images can be filter by location as well.

Snipping in Window/Mac

Sometimes you want a snippet of something on your screen, but don't want take a whole screen screenshot and deal with editing that.  For the longest time I did not know about snipping and was doing this the long way.

Windows - Press the Windows key then type in Snip and select Snipping Tool. Click on new, select the area to snip then save image or Edit -> copy image to clipboard.

Mac - Command + Shift + 4, this bring up a cross.  Next select the area you which to snip and the image will be saved to clipboard, a dialogue box will also appear displaying the save location.

Use this with the above Random Street View to get quick simple backgrounds, add a few filters to the image for a desired effect and your'e good to go.