Module Reflection
Throughout this module I learned a lot about the process of animation and how people go about dealing with character designs, colours, environments and storyboarding. I also learned about the technical side of animation like figuring out how to use different animation and digital art software. I put much of what I learned to use during the final project when I had to create an animation piece that fit into my group’s idea and story.
For the first few weeks of the module, we were focusing on things like form and shape, tone and perspective. Here I learned more about what goes into the very basics of creating an animated piece like the general tone and feel of the piece along with breaking down characters into their basic shapes. The actual work here was fairly simple, but it still gave me a better insight on how animations come together.
We moved onto working with colour from here which was somewhat daunting since I knew close to nothing about how to properly work with colour and what colours work well with what colours. Despite this I was still eager to learn more about how to properly use colour in my pieces and I was actually pretty happy with the results of the work I had done for this week.
Moving onto actually using animation software was an exciting yet difficult task. I was happy to actually start animating but trying to figure out certain features and solve certain problems was tricky sometimes. I had fairly little experience animating before this so using more advanced software for the first time could be overwhelming at times, but I think I managed okay and I am pleased with what I have learned so far.
For the final piece of this module, I had to pick the group whose idea I liked most and work with a team to create an animated piece related to the groups title. Originally, I picked the “Space Olympics” group however I changed over to the “Space Zoo” group since I would have had to do Space Olympics on my own. Together we planned out the story in writing, then each picked a clip to work on. We would discuss our progress occasionally to make sure everything was coming together okay. I drew out my storyboard on paper in an A5 notebook, then I redone it digitally and made up my animatic to help me with timing in the animation. After all this was finished, I began creating the actual piece in Adobe animate. I used what I learned and tried a few different tools in Adobe Animate I hadn’t tried before and overall, I think my final piece turned out well.
I have learned many things about the process of creating an animation during this project. I learned how to effectively use the Creative Cloud programs like Animate and Photoshop and I learned the basics of editing with Premiere Pro. In future I will be sure to look back on what went well for me during this module and at the same time, I will keep in mind anything that can be improved for next time.