My class has been working mainly with animation lately. We have primarily used Adobe Animate, After Effects, and Premiere Pro. They're all used for different tasks, and as discussed in my last post, they have different problems and capabilities.
Afobe After Effects was easy to get the hang of. You put in an image or text and then using the timeline, put in keyframes, make your adjustments, and the program will fill in between them. For example one of the techniques was called explosive and involved having a word appear and disappear by changing the opacity. You change the opacity on a few keyframes, starting with 0 on one, going to 100 on the next, and back to 0 for the last. There are many techniques but they're relatively simple and don't allow complex movements.
I created this in Adobe After Effects.
Adobe Animate was hard to get accustomed to but had fewer limitations. You draw up a character as you would in Adobe Illustrate and then redraw/create that illustration in the way you want it to move in the next keyframe, and then you can add a tween between the original frame and the one where you made your adjustments and it fills in between those keyframes. This program requires a lot more work and often times you have to add shape hints or change the easing so it performs in the way you would like, however, it has more capability, especially when creating your own character.
Premiere Pro is very simplistic and is primarily for working with photos. It is easy to get the hang of and is similar to After Effects when working with the timeline. All you have to do is drag your images on the timeline in the order you want them and adjust the length.
Created in Adobe Premiere Pro.
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Recently my class has been learning about animation, and as difficult and exhausting as it is, it is so amazing to see what you've created. The sense of satisfaction you get after actually making your character come to life is insane. It makes the tedious and hard work feel worth it.
My favorite animation so far was creating the motion graphic created in Adobe After Effects, which was really easy to get familiar with and really fun to use. The timeline was easy to work with and so were the different techniques such as changing the opacity and moving lines around. However it does have limitations in the end result and you cant make a character as easily or more complex movements. On the other hand, Adobe Animate was very frustrating to use, but the final product was a lot more real and complex. It took ten times more time and I definitely feel like it's hard for beginners, but with more practice it could be really great to use. Seeing my monster that we animated coming to life was insane and a lot cooler than my motion graphic, but required a lot of works and the techniques used took a lot more time. Finally was working with traditional animation mainly in Adobe Illustrator. This was a very primitive and particularly tedious way of animation and is very similar to how it used to be done. We worked with his for the ball animation and took the most time, just to make a super simple animation that I could make in 10 minutes on any other software. It goes to show how far our technology has come and how much more is available to us to make animation more efficient.
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References:
“Traditional Animation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Jan. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_animation. “How to Make Motion Graphics in 4 Simple Steps.” Column Five, 20 Oct. 2018, www.columnfivemedia.com/how-to-create-engaging-motion-graphics-in-four-steps.
You can see the different mini missions you can chose from and the rewards they give. You may find loot in chests, some chests give better loot than others. The most unique and fun aspect of Borderlands is the loot drops. You may find yourself grinding the bosses for hours, trying to get their special legendary drop, or playing every side mission you get, taking the reward. Borderlands has 8 different rarities of loot; white (common), green (uncommon), blue (rare), purple (epic), orange (legendary), magenta (E-tech), pink (seraph), cyan (pearlescent) in chronological order. Some guns are basic computer generated ones, while others are special weapons with unique abilities, also known as "red text" weapons, due to the red text in their descriptions. This means that gun has a special boss or mission that you earn it from and it is permanent in the game, with a given name, and is not another randomly spawning one. These often come in rarities of blue and higher, however often excluding E-tech and purple. These guns do crazy things such as shoot in impossible ways, unlike any regular gun, for example shooting ten pellets in a horizontal line, or lobbing stink bombs, etcetera. They are really fun to use and really fun to collect. You can also earn unique shields, mods, relics, and grenades which are other things you can accessorize your character with. Overall Borderlands 2 has very diversified gameplay and has the best loot drops compared to any other game. It has very unique loot and characters, as well as really fun missions to play and a really intriguing story mode. You can gather up with your friends in multiplayer mode as well. You can see the red text in the weapon's description, meaning it is unique. You may also notice the layout of your character's inventory and the different rarities of loot. This shows the different skill paths and character abilities you can chose. In a nutshell:
References:
“Rank.” Borderlands Wiki, borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Rank. Gallegos, Anthony. “Borderlands 2 Review.” IGN Boards, IGN, 14 Sept. 2012, www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/14/borderlands-2-review.
An idle animation is the movement of your character while they are standing still and they typically occur while the player is inactive. Although it's such a minor detail that you often don't pay keen attention too, it builds character and even the feel of the game without you even realizing its tremendous influence. In the Gamasutra article, "What makes a great idle animation? Devs share their favorites", numerous fan favorite idle animations are presented, and each one shows how idle animations contribute to the game, and overall shows the thought process and cleverness behind these animations.
My favorite out of the animations would definitely be from Earthworm Jim. It presents a rather humorous and imaginative/inventive pose in a dark and chilling setting. In the background, dark undertones are used and lightning is striking too, contributing to a more formidable atmosphere. However, the creativity in having Earthworm Jim remove his body from his suit and use it as a jump-rope and the funny nature of the whole idea reaffirms the more zany theme/presence of the game. Even behind the absurdity of it, it has a more natural presence, based on how his suit and his body are two separate pieces, and given the fact worms are the shape of jump-ropes, overall presenting itself as possible. He is a worm after all... Overall idle animations are very important in contributing to the atmosphere of a game, and although subtle, they play an important role in building the character and the feel of a game.
References:
Couture, Joel. “What Makes a Great Idle Animation? Devs Share Their Favorites.” Gamasutra: The Art & Business of Making Games, gamasutra.com/view/news/318163/What_makes_a_great_idle_animation_Devs_share_their_favorites.php. “Earthworm Jim.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworm_Jim. Giphy. “Animated GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY.” GIPHY, GIPHY, giphy.com/gifs/8hYyqFzmWzSSIRwJZb.
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AuthorMy name is Quinn Peterson! I will be reflecting about my art work in this blog! Archives
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