Pixilation: Predator and Prey

My study task here was to create a short 600-1000 frame animation that conveys the theme of predator and prey, using an animation technique known as Pixilation. I thought about how I should convey this idea of a predator catching its prey and tried having fun with it. So the first idea that came to my mind was the idea of a student getting lured into their room and eaten alive by it. I developed on this idea by writing notes about how exactly the room would come alive.

I was mainly influenced by Jan Svankmajer as I was planning this. I took his style and applied it to my story. Because it's a short video, there wasn't really enough to add on top of what I went with so as I was making a storyboard very quickly in my sketchbook, I thought about what I was capable of doing and using that. So changes were made for the short in my storyboard. I did, however, focus on how it would be shot and what would be symbolic of a predator catching its prey. 

There wasn't much change from the storyboard to the actual pixilation in the end, there were some changes I thought were more suitable.

Here's how the Pixilation turned out in the end.

Pose to Pose Animation

This was an exercise to see if we can animate a pendulum swinging using a technique called Pose to Pose, in which you draw keyframes that would show a particular movement has been made, and then add frames in between those key frames that generate the illusion of the movement actually being made. When drawing the in-betweens, they also had to show easing in and easing out to create the feeling of a swinging motion.

This was fairly easy to make with a light box, and the technique made things a lot quicker too. I can see myself in the future animating a basic walk-cycle using this exact method, moving the arms in a similar manner to the pendulum and creating extremes for the legs.

Squash and Stretch

We got to work on looking at the 12 principles of animation. We mainly used The Animator's Survival Kit, The Illusion of Life, and Drawn to Life for reference, and in the end it was fairly simple animating a ball bouncing using the principle "squash and stretch".

I made this with a flipbook, hence the bad quality. I think it moves pretty well, considering I had no way of onion-skinning, making the process a lot harder. I created the feeling of light weight and soft mass for the smaller ball (the one with the happy face) by making it stretch further upon impact. You can also tell it's light because of how high it bounces back up. I deliberately made the bigger ball seem heavier by bouncing simultaneously with the smaller one but going up lower too. You can tell it's soft because it still squashes and stretches.

We then had to make another one using squash and stretch, as well as the principles, spacing and timing. So I made a ball bouncing along a short path. The ball doesn't squash and stretch as much as in the first flipbook, that was because I wanted to make this ball seem more solid than the first two, like a golf and/or 8 ball. You can see how much of a difference it makes. I probably should have made the ball bounce a bit higher so that it would seem more realistic, other than that I think it flows fairly well.

Lastly, we had to make a third flipbook with a little bit more character this time. This basically meant I should follow another of the 12 principles, overlapping movement and secondary actions. So this was a bit more complex than the other two but I think I handled it well. I looked at the diagram in the Animator's Survival Kit of the ball moving with a cloth wrapped around it and, rather than just copy that, I tried something different and gave the ball arms, eyes, and a hat which would all move as it bounced, then added a comedic twist to the conventional bouncing ball flip book. I also added a touch of anticipation by way of animating the eyes, the way it looks in the direction it's moving. Its arms stretch and wave depending on whether the ball is in the air or bouncing back up, and the hat drops slower then lands back on the head as the ball ascends.

Photoshop Induction 2: The Gifening

We were making bouncing ball gifs in the second Photoshop Induction. Here's my bouncing multicoloured rock with a face gif (it was supposed to be a ball, it didn't turn out right). I've read the section on ease ins and ease outs in my copy of the Animator's Survival Kit so I had it covered.

We also made pendulum gifs. I really like how I did the eyes. Not using onion-skinning kind of made a jarring effect making it all the more. Again, we used the Animator's Survival Kit for reference so it was simple enough.

I also did this walk cycle, using The Survival Kit and Ed Muybridge for reference. It's unfinished but it basically moves like I wanted it to. The legs were quite complicated of course but it became quite simple if you keep the "when one goes up the other goes down" rule in mind. I wanted the pony's hair to bounce as she walked as well. Oh and no, I'm not gonna pretend it's not a My Little Pony OC.