March 17

Over the past weeks i have gathered a lot of information on how i should be tackling this project. I am actively communicating with my outside experts. Kris Dunham explained that the higher the frames per second (fps) in an animation the more detail you can create. Flash Pro's default FPS is 12, meaning for every second in an animation there are 12 frames. 3d animation requires higher fps because 3D has a realism aspect that would be canceled out under 12 frames. Creating an animation in 12 fps has its benefits. Animations will be less time consuming. Also the finished product would be smaller file size and have faster rendering time. He reminded me that animation is half planning and half doing. I have to put my ideas on paper before I can start animating. He also told me about the stages of animation. Instead of putting it into my own words I’ve copied and pasted his exact words:

Reference. Look around and use the world as your reference for your animation. Go get a ping pong ball and bounce it around and film it.

Thumbnails. Draw little tiny sketches of what you want to accomplish in your animation and the timing you want. You want to understand what Key frames there are and where they fit in your time line.

Blocking. My favorite part. Blocking is when you put your key frames into the software that you are using. Only the key frames go in at this time. It will help you feel out the timing. At first your blocking will look like a bunch of snap shots but trust me it helps. In the bouncing ball exercise it is only the times the ball hits its peaks and when it hits the ground/objects.

Blocking Plus. This is when you throw in your breakdowns. Remember those are the keys between the key frames. They are so important. A bad breakdown will kill an animation. This part also helps solidify the timing and spacing of an animation. A beginner animator might find his/her toughest battles at this point. But don't lose hope, just work through it. The good news is that we often only make the same mistake a dozen times before we really truly learn from it. When you playback at this point you will see what kind of timing changes need to be done. From personally experience it is better to be a tad too quick on the timing then too slow.

Refining. This is where you do your inbetweens and fill up all the gaps of the animation. Sometimes you wont have to touch all the inbetweens but make sure that they are what you want.

Polish. This is where you separate the amateurs and pros. This starts when everything is in there, Key frames, Breakdowns, and Inbetweens. The animation has all the information in it and reads well but now is the time to show how beautiful the actions really are. You go back all through the animation and decided what needs to be tweaked and played with. This is called "finesse". You will hear sometimes animators say ," His blocking stinks but he finesses it so well it looks great." I know a couple animators who have that skill.

Finalizing. Generally you show your work all through the following processes to some people who understand animation. But finalizing you show it to people who don’t know anything about animation. Mostly because blocking and blocking plus will never impress and just confuse a non-animator. This is just a tidying up process. Any loose ends you have might need to be addressed. I usually take a sweep through the eye area. People watch eyes of characters more than the watch anything else. Now in the bouncing ball experiment you would just take a look at your S&S. You might decide to squash 18% rather than 15%. It really is a nit picky stage.

These stages make sense to me. I have been trying to do everything at once and it hasn’t worked to well for me. Instead of putting my ideas down I would rush to animation and it would come out sloppy. I am going to use these tips so that I can create a polished product. I am a little mixed up about key frames and blocking. Blocking is very useful because it lays out the most important parts of the animation, thus guiding you along. However I’m not sure how I am going to incorporate blocking into Flash. I am used to doing 1 frame at a time one after the other. Now I have to figure out how to space out and time out my animation before I even start animating. I am going to continue a dialogue with my outside experts to address these concerns.