Stickman animation experimentation

From my bouncing ball animation demo, I experimented with it and added a stickman animation.

Flash button

 I added a button by drawing a rectangle  clicking it so it was selected pressing f8 and choosing button. I then double clicked it which made the back ground pale out.

where the key frames usefully are you will see the up over down and hit actions. you can add what you want to happen when it does it , for example the button changing colour when you click it .  You can move it make it change colour or show signs when being hovered and over being clicked .

Seagull animation

I learnt how to make an animation of a seagull moving, with it's wings flapping. The image shows my experimentation after this demo, where I used a copy of the seagull animation, made it bigger, and then added a speech bubble from a demo I learnt previously. So the seagull would be chased by the larger seagull. and the text would follow above the small seagull.

Bouncing ball animatinon

I learnt how to create an easy to make bouncing ball animation in flash. Here is how I made it.

First I inserted the ball using the oval shape tool with a fill colour(top arrow)

The arrow at the bottom is showing the timeline, this is used to create my animation by using keyframes and classic tweens. 

You can see black dots as you go along the timeline, this indicates a keyframe, this allows flash to understand where to animate. Notice now the ball is in a different position, this is because I have moved it at the second keyframe, then highlighting the first keyframe to the second keyframe, right clicking it then choosing "Classic Tween" This has now allowed flash to understand the balls different position between keyframe 1 and 2. So flash automatically fills in the missing gap between the two to create the balls movement.

This last example is to show how flash has calculated between the keyframes, and this shows a frame inbetween keyframe 2 and 3. Showing how it has automatically created the movement from both Keyframes.

Wall rubbings

In a group, we went around the college finding different surfaces to rub over with a graphite stick. The advantage of this, is it captures a great amount of detail.

Speech Bubbles

Using flash, we learnt how to make call outs(speech bubbles). Simply using the oval tool, we created the body of the speech bubble(also being able to edit the stroke size, to make the bubble lines bigger). Now using the line tool we can create the tail, protruding from the bubble. We then played around using the selection tool, selecting the tail and moving it around. Lastly we simply enter text onto the speech bubble.

Traditional and digital

My opinion of the potential for using traditional and digital methods of production are that one can never easily be classed as better than the other. One can be used better than the other in certain situations, I have bullet pointed below for each one what I considered to be unique points.

Traditional

• Can be convenient for any situation anywhere when you have it, paper and pencil is easy to carry  round, whereas computers rely on a power supply and are usually not portable..
• The lead can be used for unique shading, such as smudging with your finger.
• The technology to produce digital productions can be very expensive, whereas tools and materials for traditional are considerably cheap.
• The majority of people are more familiar with hand drawing than digital drawing.
• Traditional art has been around since the cave men, whereas digital art is quite recent. We are far more familiar with traditional art.
• Digital work files can corrupt
• Digital work has no psyhical texture, whereas traditional does.
• Health and safety isn't really a known issue with traditional work, whereas digital is. For example, using a computer, the screen can potentially cause damage to eyes over time.
• More control
• Team work can be easier, for example a group mind map.

Digital

• Using tablets can more convenient for artists once they become familiar with it.
• You can create alot more detail and depth in art, particularly using the tablet, which can sometimes be far more troublesome to achieve doing so traditionally 
• Through animation, art can be created in a moving animation which is alot easier nowadays to be done with programs like flash.
• The ease of editing and saving work
• With saving, multiple copys can be made, this is useful for prototype work
• With existing tools, it can be easier and quicker to do things, for example using an oval tool in photoshop, can create a circle with ease and how you want it.
• Computer can calculate, like the colours(knowing 16 million) or the tween in flash.
• Work or ideas can be sent to other via e-mail.
• Access to source materials, such as images from the internet.
• combining different types of media together.
• Although it may take a while to get used to the tablet, people who prefer drawing traditional can find using the tablet similar, but now allowing to do work digitally.

Things I have used - Digital


I have used programs like photoshop for photo manipulation and other means of production
I have used flash to create animations.
I have experimented with a graphics tablet, which after becoming familiar with, could be a very useful asset in digital production.
I have used a scanner, which can allow me to scan traditional work onto computers so that I can edit my traditional drawings in digital. This was useful for scanning storyboards or characters.

Traditional 


I have used traditional pencil and paper to draw my storyboard and experiment with character creation.
Although the graphics tablet is used for digital means, it can also be considered linked with traditional, as it's supposed to be used how someone would drawing in traditional means on paper.


Through this I can see that the use of both traditional and digital means of production, they can be a major advantage and connivence to anyones work. I would argue that neither should be considered better than the other for means of production and more so should come hand in hand for anyones work as means of production.