FeedBack

So I've got some feedback on my app. I think it went quite well but as always theres certain i could of improved on. Here are good and bad bits of my crit.

Good
- Animation was cute and charming
- Colour scheme was nice
- good composition on the portrait version
- Good Choice of music

Bad
- Didnt need "history" section
- didnt involve football side enough into the app
- would of liked it slightly different on ipad, not just bigger scale

I can completly understand the sides to the feedback and if we had time, i would include the football more in alot more and changed the composition on the landscape edition.

After Effects

I used several tools in after effects while creating my animation; however i had "main" tools that i used and focused on here they are;

Position;

Scale;

Rotation; 

Opacity;

This simple and key tools, really helped me in this project.

Preview

So Here is a preview of my IPhone app, its only something little but its like its an ad from apple :)

My App

For my app, its going to be simple and fun. The main page is going to consist of 4 key links to other pages and having a main fixed button on all pages, which is going to be the tree of which this connects to the main home page. I made some buttons that will be used in the App. 

NOT IN HIGH QUALITY!


Also, whilst making the backgroud of the app, i was suggested to make the background textured to make it look like cider (e.g. bubbles and colour.) After "having a go" at making these i found out that it works alot better then a box standard gradient.

Below is Textured (top) - Gradient (bottom)

First Draft Of Animation

Here are a few screen shots of my early animation. Its at a rough stage at the moment. I will also put in the animatic towards the same clip in just to show the progress.

Animation Ideas

When thinking of ideas, I really stuggled to think where to start however it was down to watching films that i got ideas.

The idea that i think i might go with is based upon the film 300 ending sequence. I really liked the whole 3d effect of the moving objects to become the storyline. I think the strongest part of it was the silouhette effect, i think it can be really strong if you wanted to have one thing to stand out (e.g. Apple)  Here a some screen shots of the ending title's of 300.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm4B_y7c2Dw

After getting some feedback on the potential of my idea, other people recommended that i looked at other things they think are simular and see if i get any ideas from that. One of the things i looked at was the same sort of things but real life and that was indian puppets. Here is a few snap shots of a video from youtube. 

I want to make my silouettes look like a hand made feel to them however not so much they are puppets. I really like how the puppets arnt a smooth motion between actions and might try and use that in my animation.

Research Into Apps

Research

Bulmers

Bulmers

This is also a free app to download for andriod/ iPad / iPhones. There are more good points then bad points towards this app.

Lets start of with the good points; the main difference is the fact there's alot more to do on this app. It starts of with a nice animation with of a bottle of its product. It introduces what the app your on. After that it comes up with a menu which you are able to do several options. Some of the links involve the camera again and having fun with the products/ marketing. Also a key page that will make people use the app more and more is the fact they have an "offers" page, where regular updated offers are avaliable. The whole camera fun part of the app is supported with the sharing on pictures on facebook and twitter.

Research Into Apps

Research


As we are making somewhat of an app, i will be first researching into apps using an iPad.

Magners
This is free app for iPhone however you are able to download for iPad. There are some good points and bad points towards this app.

The whole colour scheme behind it is strong and keeps going through the whole Magners advertising is kept to the same colours. The image behind the app logo is ment be the cider itself in a glass. I think its a good thing to do because if the colour scheme is catching you will want to buy one because it looks nice and refreshing. Another good thing is the app itself. Its very interactivity but very simple. All you do is take a picture of yourself/ or a person and then you choose a beard and then it makes an animation of bees making a beard on your face, which you able to upload straight to facebook.

The bad points are the logo of a bee, unless you've seen the adverts its completely random. Bee's aren't nothing to do with Cider. On the app itself, there is only one thing to do on it, i think it could of done with some other features because on the app it only says that it is cider once and that in the title. The app doesn't really have a menu screen and i think not having other links makes it a bit boring. Also the man image on it is an older gentlemen and i think that sort of puts younger people off it because i think people from the younger generation drink it more. Another bad point behind it is the fact you really do need a camera, so it restricts it from the iPad. Also the fact they have considered it on andriod is a bonus.

Here are a few screen shots of the App;

Mood Board

As you might already know, there's a lot of alcoholic drinks out there. I resulted to something that i like. Ive cancelled it down to some form of cider drink and thought id do a mood board of "board".

Brief

For this assignment, you will devise and design an app for iPad and iPhone which promotes an alcoholic drink brand of your choice.  This needs to feature a 15 second introductory animation/motion graphics sequence (which you will allow users to skip) followed by an interactive app which offers users something useful, informative or entertaining related to your chosen brand. 

You will look into alcohol brands and advertising, and undertake broader visual research, which enables you to design a graphic style for use in the animation/motion graphics and app with a cultural focus and set of values suitable to your brand.  You will use the imagery you devise to create interesting and imaginative visuals that bring the branded identity to life.  You will choose a piece of music to work with for your animation/motion graphic sequence which corresponds to the visual theme which you can animate your piece to, and produce storyboards and an animatic which plans your sequence.  You will use After Effects to produce the finished piece.

You will research a range of apps for iPad and iPhone, and devise ideas for your interactive sequence.  You will research interface/interactive design for iPad and iPhone (including usability and gestures) and design your interactivity according to these findings.  You will plan the content of your app and produce relevant design planning document (including flow diagrams, wireframes, mock-ups).  You will also undertake technical research related to design for iPad and iPhone (including resolution/pixel dimension issues). 

The final outcome for this assignment is a prototype of your app which you could pitch to your client, not a fully functioning app running on the iPad and iPhone.  This prototype must feature a finished animated introduction and a demonstration of the app mocked-up into an iPad and iPhone graphic shell.  This client pitch will take place in class on Wednesday 7^th December. 

ScreenShots

Just a few screenshots of a my clip :)

Crit

Crit

So just finished my crit and got some feedback on my animation. The result of feedback was : 

Good; 

- Nice music

- Good Colours

- Background looks ace

Bad; 

- Bit boring 

- Repetitive

- Not many principles of animation

On the basis of this feedback, i will create a secondary action in the background of the video clip. Also, I will use a simple fad out on the ending to finish it off (however the clip will go back to the original scene). This will make it look like its a repeat. I will introduce a ball movement for the secondary action to move around the screen / clip. This will provide other things to look at.

Rules Of Animation

After researching, i found there were 12 key rules to animation however in this blog entry i will be talking about the key basic 9 rules. The following rules are:

• Squash and Stretch 
• Anticipation
• Staging
• Slow In and Out
• Arcs
• Secondary action
• Timing
• Exergattion 
• Solid Drawing

 Other rules exist of;

• Pose to Pose
• Appeal
• Overlapping 

Not all these rules necessarily work with abstract work. In this entry, i will briefly explain each one.

Squash and Stretch
The whole point in the squash and stretch is to give the effect of the weight and flexability. The most commonly used rule this is a bouncing ball effect. In slow motion a ball doesnt stay the same shape, when impacting upon a surface, it will squash the ball and when it realeased from the surface impact it stretches out. (as we can see in this picture.) Even watching videos of slow motion bouncing balls real life, makees you release a ball doesnt stay the same. 

 

Anticipation

Anticipation is where you have to try and understand the movement about to happen. The easiest way to understand is simply just by a stickman jumping. Its the movement produces by the body movement such as arm sings and bent legs that make him look like he is going to jump. The following image is a good example however its been taken by a still camera.

 

Staging

The whole point in staging direct the audiences attention to make the scene seem more important. Characters and scenery are normally used for staging to set the scene. After watching a film called Toy Story, there seem to be a few examples of good staging.

In this scene, Buzz fills up a large part of the screen and the camera is placed at his feet and tilted up to make him dominate the scene. Whilst Woody is very small and is the small and weaker character compared to Buzz.

Slow In and Out

This is where the movement of a body to slow down and speed up in a clip. Slow in and out goes for characters moving from one sudden pose to another.

Arcs

Arcs in quite an easy one to understand. Again the best way to describe arcs is using the ball again. After through a ball, it will always have the same effect of arc-ing down towards the ground after release. Using this effect gives a simple animation aviods the animation just being stiff, when with a simple arc it create a more realistic effect. (picture below) 

 Secondry Action

This is an action that directly performs of another action. It would be used to increase intrest in the scene. An example might be the facial expression on a character. The body would be expressing the primary action while the expression adds to it.

Timing 

Timing gives the effect of motion of an action. You have to have the right time for the right action to happen. Timing refers to the number of drawings or frames for a given action,

Exergation

Exaggeration is an effect especially useful for animation, as perfect imitation of reality can look static and dull in cartoons, exaggeration depends on whether one seeks realism or a particular style, like a caricature or the style of an artist.

Solid Drawing

The effect behind solid drawing is to give the image/animation weight and volume. The 3 basics towards three dimisional shapes are anatomy, weight and balence and light and shadow.

First Impressions Of brief

After looking at the brief, Im looking foward to the project. I think the use of programmes of After Effects is a key factor. Hopefully using After effects will improve my skills and hopefully make more advanced and better animations in the future.

However the one thing, i dislike about the brief is how short we have to do it in. But that could a good thing to get us in to short period deadlines.

Brief

In this assignment, you will be exploring the key principles of motion design, you will design three pieces of animation which demonstrate a range of these animation principles. and you will then go on to produce one of these animations as a finished, polished piece.

You will design and storyboard 3 short (20 second) abstract animations which explore different aspects of motion design. For example, you could vary the number of objects which are interacting on the screen from one to many across your three designs. You will develop all three into animatics which test the timing, movement and sound, and you will pitch your research, ideas, storyboard, animatic and mock up of the look and feel to the group and for discussion.

The aim is to produce animation which is abstract and will be made from shapes rather than complex drawings or recognizable objects. Given that the graphic objects are relatively simple drawings, the choice of colour palette and drawing style are important design concerns. Each animatic and animation must have a suitable music or sound track of your choice.

You will research animation/motion principles, generate ideas for animated sequences which apply to these principles, draw storyboards for three sequences, and develop these into animatics with sound.

Compression

We had to compress our footage for everyone able to see via web. There are several different types of software that are able to do this however i used miro video converter. This is a simple video converter that we have to convert from a .mov to MP4 format and a ___ format . Below are few screen shots of the process using the software.

After Shooting My Interview ...

Few Snap shots of my podcast interview in progress with cutaways

After Shooting ...

I shot some one of my Crash bang wallop film clip today and this is some of snap shots of them.