Reviewing test footage •
•
•
•
Narrative – I will be expressing my first character in my test footage who is named Kalia through body language and facial expressions and things such as blinking. Throughout the animation I will attempt to change facial expressions to enhance a certain type of mood that the character is in. I have learnt that blinking is very important in order to make my animation look realistic and humane. I will get the story across through direct-recorded speech however I plan on doing this after the basic screen action of the animation is complete. Models – I had an incredibly hard time re arranging the models of my characters, I did not take into consideration how hard it would be to move a character yet alone give them realistic legs and joints therefore I had to go back and change the legs of all my characters as is too time consuming and hard to get movement with such complex legs there fore what I have done here I think is a strength as the actual movement and walking looks a lot more realistic. All props have been cut out and edited waiting to be placed into the animation. Consideration of movement – After playing about with my animation for a bit I realized what I normally had which was 15FPS was too slow due to the amount of frames I was skipping every second, therefore I realized it was better to increase the FPS. At 24FPS the animation run a lot smoother and the walking cycle seemed more realistic. I have not attempted to making any lip syncs or expressions as my main aim was to ensure walking would work as if it didn’t my whole animation will have to be re-organized. However I already have an insight of how this will work as the knowledge behind the walk cycle applies to syncing audio or speech as it all needs to be in time taking consideration of every single frame. I had a long hard time trying to use the new tool in flash cs5 named ‘bone tool’ and after hours of attempting to work it out I realized its easier for me to just re-draw the legs of the character and use ‘south park’ movement where the character basically waddles. Camera - My animation will be a lot better after I learn how to make different shot types in flash instead of just a long shot, I have learnt the basic longshot but I intend on using a different angles, shots and points of view of the characters to keep my audience engaged in the animation. The lighting is not a problem as it is all in flash and no variables effect. My next steps is widen my knowledge on using different angles and shot types in my animation in order for me to place it into my animation.