People have told stories since time immemorial. This has taken many forms; from Neolithic cave paintings to Hollywood movies each storytelling medium has it’s own particular strengths. One of the fastest growing mediums is Computer Generated Animation: a technique that combines traditional design skills with cutting edge technology.
5 Apr 2012
From audience member to maker: a journey of discovery regarding storytelling through animation by Lucy Teire
4 Apr 2012
Edmund Mcmillen: Independent for The Right Reasons by Brian Lindsay
Through playing specific 2D character driven indie games I have gathered a specific interest in animator and game designer Edmund Mcmillen. He has influenced me to try and expand my animation style to the maximum. Why has he influenced my studies and what makes him so interesting?
This proposal aims to explain how Edmund has inflicted his style into my own studies through the use of character development, 2D animation, 3D animation, music, ethnic issues and background design.
I aim to interrogate why this all looks so inspiring to me by explaining in depth: his influences, his workflow, his music, his ideas and his artwork from character design to backgrounds.
I will also explain how these styles are helping me reflect with my studies involving 2D animation and 3D character Design. By explaining the techniques involved within the process of my studies to indicate success or failure.
Exploring the issues around combining motion graphics with live action by Zihui Li
Motion graphics, as a new form of graphic design was born in the 1950s. Since the 1960s, due to the advancements in digital technology, a huge change emerged in the industry of animation and film with the development of computer animation. The boom had also affected the field of motion graphics. It became possible for a Graphic Designer to change his or her role into a Motion Designer with the newly evolved tools of moving image.
A large number of excellent motion graphic works have emerged and the applications of motion graphics have become more widely used. In the era of which special effects and compositing technology become more and more advanced, the technique of combining animation and live action is already maturing, and has already been applied to a large number of film and advertising productions. In such a context, motion graphics, as a branch of animation, is also beginning to combine with live action.
This article focuses on discussion around the technique of combining motion graphics with live action. I will explore how to express emotion and narrate story by using the technique, and what kind of visual experiences it can bring to audiences. I will also analyze the difference between motion graphics and traditional animation by documenting the approaches and process of my own practice, which will be a music video, made using this technique. Moreover, I will ask questions for some unresolved issues at the end.
The position of traditional painting in animation by Hai Guo
Animation is a wonderful and interesting art form, the animation movies and the video games are very popular in today’s world, and it is playing a more and more important part in our leisure life, especially for the young generations. The constant developments in animation industry have brought us improved visual and spiritual enjoyments. While, either for the traditional hand-drawn animation or the latest high-technology animation, the ‘art’ elements remain the same and always play an import role. An animation project cannot be ‘great’ without the proper combination of unique shapes, great composition and beautiful colors. Whatever it is, a character, an animal, a background scene or other parts in the animation, it could not be anything good without good traditional painting skills, unfortunately, those skills are being neglected by many young animation practitioners.
At present, in China, almost all of the animation professionals are just “software operators” who are usually trained in continue education schools, where the educators used to educate the participants by simply teaching them to get familiarly with the mechanism and application of some certain animation design software, rather than help the participants to build their sense of aesthetics and their visual sensitivity. The inadequate training and education at professional levels caused the slow development of China’s animation industry in recent years, and of course, you could not expect a high quality animation works from those ‘software operators’.
In this essay I will explain: first, the role of animation; second, the workflow of animation production; and the principle elements of art: composition, shape and color. After then, I will give a general description of the Chinese animation industry. At the end, I will discuss the importance of the traditional painting skill in creating animation works.
Waverley: What Would Sant’Elia Do? A Reflection on An Attempt to Imagine The Futurist Train Station by Sarah Dargie
One of the most exciting and perplexing aspects of the animation and visual effects industry is its potential to present an audience with a comprehensive reality based on the impossible, the unachievable, on what might have been and what could yet be. Yet in the realm of architectural visualisations, the potential of animation is often unrealised.
After comparing uninspiring architectural visualisations such as that of the Dundee Waterfront with architectural contexts in award winning animation films such as Roman's 'The Third and the Seventh', it is arguable that this frequent disappointment is due, not to constraints of available budget, time or talent, but to the mechanical approach taken by architects towards visualisations.
I am aiming to create a short film that combines CAD and live-action footage to portray the Futurist architect Sant’Elia’s vision at Waverley Station, Edinburgh. By doing so I am experimenting with narrative’s role in the commercial field of architectural visualisation, using the Futurist model as a framework for theoretical debate to illicit an emotional response from the audience. The narrative utilises site research and extensive 3D techniques, whilst drawing inspiration from the strong architectural elements in successful films such as ‘The Third and The Seventh’. This study also discusses the conflicts that arise when attempting to use a storytelling approach to re-establish creativity in a generally unimaginative environment. As Venturi argued: “Architecture is the most fragile of all the media – it has a practical application as well as an artistic application”[Venturi 1984: 121].
Low Altitude Aerial Photography of Heritage: Capturing Context by Kieran Baxter
While methods such as laser scanning offer unprecedented levels of detail and accuracy and go some way toward meeting a desire for objectivity in archaeological survey, this paper will tackle the documentation of other aspects surrounding heritage sites which remain subjective. Considerations such as atmosphere and context within a broader landscape have a prominent effect on the relationship which the modern day visitor may have with a site, and may also help us to associate with, and better understand the minds who built and used a site throughout it's history.
The symbolic and practical significance of spatial arrangements for example may only become apparent when the surrounding landscape is taken into consideration, such as where a location might have strategic advantage or where there are celestial or geological alignments. These often intuitive considerations are of particular importance in prehistoric sites where ritual spirituality and everyday practicality may have been closely integrated. As such we can consider that when documenting a historical site it is important not to separate our search for objective understanding with our emotional response and intuition but rather to integrate these where possible.
In order to generate a balanced and representative impression of a heritage site an approach should be developed which exploits a broad spectrum of documentation tools and methods which take into account and triangulate different aspects of the site. This paper will demonstrate the potential of low altitude aerial photography to form part of this toolkit for both documentation and interpretation.
Digital Lighting and Emotions by Kareem Al Ali
Lighting is an essential part in computer graphics pipeline; it is also one of the major elements in creating and designing a scene or an environment. Most people who do not work in the CGI (Computer Generated imagery) industry do not realize that and just take it forgranted.
Lately people started considering lighting in CGI as both a science and an art; a science because it needs tools and technology to apply it, and an art because of two main reasons. First it is a way to express the feeling of the lighting artist visually; and second, because of the audiences` reaction to light, it has been proven by psychologist that there is a clear relationship between human emotions and light.
My research project takes all of this into account, and aim to investigate how different lighting attributes can trigger different emotions in human beings. The main three light attributes I am investigating are intensity, color and shape. I will show in the project different environments created in 3D with different atmospheres and lights to show the importance of lighting applied on the same scene, and to touch the viewers` emotions while changing the three mentioned attributes.
Everything around us is created in steps, and after viewing my project I do not want the viewer to feel the importance of lighting alone as a stage in the CGI pipeline, but also I want the viewer to consider other elements and stages that are taken forgranted and to appreciate the importance of each creative process and how they add to the other steps so that we can finally have a great output that we like or use.