animation;

sample frames & animation explained;

The following are frames that I have used throughout the animation.

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The graphics aspects of this animation is made with Paint Tool SAI. Windows Live Movie Maker is used to combine the frames to make a whole animation.

The main image of the animation is the chameleon (specifically, Pascal from the movie Tangled). Originally the animation was supposed to be of Pascal eating crickets but I have decided to change my original ideas so that it will be done earlier and be somewhat easier.

The animation is basically a chameleon camouflaging, spelling C-O-O-L-O-C-K throughout each change. He blinks every 8 frames. After camouflaging, crickets drop on strings, spelling out 'GO COOLOCK'.

There is a paper texture for the background, so that the foreground (the branch and chameleon) is more distinct.

creation process;

While making the animations, I first made a file for each aspect of the image that will be animated (like blinking eyes, rolling tongue and each individual letters). I then created another file that will be the base for the frames and saved it first as .sai so that I can go back and change it. Once I finished the base, I started creating individual frames and pasting the animated aspects onto the frame and saved the frame in .png. I repeated the pasting and shifting for the next frames, saving them as .png.

After I finished all my frames, I imported them into Windows Live Movie Maker so that I can put together the animation. I changed the frame rate throughout and contemplated on whether to add audio.

Below are screenshots of my creation process:

Sketch;

Lineart;

Coloured + Animated aspects;

Background:

My workspace:

difficulties;

I had several difficulties during my process of creating the animation.

Problem: deciding on my main image/mascot

Solution: brainstormed ideas of renowned green characters; used Google

Problem: what to do for animation

Solution: before deciding on a mascot, I had difficulties thinking of ideas for animation. After I had my mascot, I decided to do animations that were relevant to this mascot (chameleon); brainstormed more ideas; drew some sketches

Problem: which program/s to use

Solution: picked a program that I recognised the most and am more comfortable with; thought of advantages of each program I have

Problem: managing time

Solution: tried allocating a few tasks per day; worked on theory/research tasks during lessons and graphics/drawings at home; made an effort to do a few frames a day

Problem: original idea not working out with so little time left

Solution: quickly thought of a new animation idea; worked hours straight, with occasional breaks

Problem: duration of frames not changing

Solution: researched online for possible solutions and reason for the problem

final size;

The final dimensions of the image is 450px x 350px. Upon conversion to .wmv, the frame width and height has changed to 320px x 240px.

In total, there are 192 frames for the animation, which equaled to 17 seconds, at approximately 11 frames per second (fps).

The size of the file for the animation is 1.1 MB (1 157 516 bytes).

frame rate;

I set the frame rates for my frames at 100ms (0.1 seconds) since 100ms is the standard frame rate for animations. on average, there are approximately 11 frames per second. There are several frames that use a duration as low as 50ms (for blinking) and the longest frame rate is 1 second, so that there is a pause before the animation starts.

image format;

While I was working on each frame, I saved them as .sai. It is the default SAI format, which allows me to keep the layers instead of using a compressing file format which flattens all my layers into one.

For each individual frame, I saved them in .png file formats, which I believe gives the best quality for the frames.

software;

For the drawing/graphics part of my animation, I have decided to use the program Paint Tool SAI. I chose to use SAI because it has many useful features that are similar to Adobe Photoshop, except simpler and more lightweight. It is used solely for painting purposes, so there are many tools that artists traditionally use.

I used SAI particularly because of a nifty feature called the stabiliser, which allows me to create smoother and less jagged lines with my tablet.

For animating, I used Windows Live Maker.

I also used my Wacom Intuos4 graphics tablet to do the drawings for ease and convenience.