Presentation and getting to know Maya animation

This week I had a group presentation on the golden age of animation to present to my course mates. My role in the group was to do some methods of animations they used during the age (1920 to 1950) and any ways they could improve the quality of them. I researched into stop motion, the technicolour strip camera (both 2 and 3 strips) and the creation of animation studios. However, on the day the other person talking about methods didn't show up and so I had 20 minutes to research into Cel animation as well which was not ideal.

Stop motion was used a long time before the golden age, as early as 1897 with the production of 'The Humpty Dumpty Circus'. It involved taking many photos and just putting them together. They could use dolls, clay or Plasticine models or even people as the subject of these photos. Whilst not huge in the age, some people did still use this method. It was incredibly cheap, not needing any cutting edge technology. Big teams weren't necessary for production. It's a simple process. However there were cons to the method, them being that the animations they created were rarely as enthralling as the new animations being produced by Walt Disney or other big names of the day. There were a few gems of the time though such as King Kong in 1933.

Cel animation was very popular during the age. It allowed animators to separate different parts of the animation, allowing them to reuse certain frames or processes such as a walking animation, saving time and thus money. It reminds me of photoshop in many ways, allowing them to keep many layers the same yet just editing a few such as the face or mouth. This was called limited animation. This was very popular for TV animations as it allowed studios to release their work much quicker enabling them to have weekly shows and the like.

The studio system saw a group of people all working on the same project with their own roles. Many people were hired to tween, that is to do the in between frames to make the animation look smooth and polished. The first know studio is that of Barre Studio in 1914 which quickly caught on in the industry. The system helped Disney brothers Animation Studio win the first ever Academy award for best Animated Short Film. The pro's for the system is that it enables work to be produced quickly, leading to weekly broadcasts being viable or longer feature films to be produced. However it came with the downside of having to hire an entire team of people costing a lot of money.

Technicolour cameras enabled people to saturate the colours of their work by splitting them and having them go through different colour filters, red and green initially before they added a blue filter too. It was used between 1922 and 1952 mainly and was originally a tricky device to use. It originally had to be operated by a trained professional in the cinema to keep frames aligned and looking correct. However, over time they managed to improve the process, adding another filter and eventually helping the film The Flowers and the Trees by Walt Disney to pick up the first animated film award.

Since the presentation I have looked at animating in Maya. I have got to know how the graph editor works (just the basics of course) and looked at how to insert and edit keyframes on the timeline. There is still a lot for me to learn but I feel I have taken the first steps in a long path.

Brief and first presentation

In this semester I will be learning and doing several things. I should finish the module with a basic understanding of animation history and principles, planning an animation, key framing, paths, graphs and dope sheets, timing and spacing, weight and mass, secondary motion, anticipation and follow through, deformers, forward and inverse kinematics and blocking. What I will actually create in this module is an 11 second animation using an existing rig and audio of my choice, making the rig animate to the audio and seem correct.

So far we got a quick look into the very first animations and animation methods through history and I now have to give a presentation with my group on the golden age of animation. I am talking through some of the methods they used during this period.

All in all I'm quite looking forward to this module, it seems like it could be a lot of fun and using a preexisting rig makes things a lot easier.