Stop-Motion Reflection

This is my final edit of the stop-motion animation. It was also chosen by the group to be the group's final animation and the one that we used when getting feedback via a survey.

Overall I'm quite happy with my edit, however the animation itself could have been better. We did make quite a few plans as to how the animation was going to look and how we were going to do it, but because we were unable to get a hold of the resources we needed, we had to come up with a different idea on the day of the creation, coming up with ideas as we went along. I'm quite happy with my choice of sound files, as I think they all seemed to fit quite well and allowed me to make the animation a little more entertaining.

For the credits and the opening screen I chose to make them in flash, as I found Windows Live Movie Maker too basic and limited to meet my needs. I am very happy about making the decision to use Flash, as it looks a lot better than anything I could have done using Movie Maker. Also, a lot of the comments that people have made about the video, is complimenting it on the quality of the credits and opening screen.

I think that the music I chose to use was very good, as it complimented the mood of the action quite well, and I also managed to synchronise it quite well with the credits.

For the animation itself, in the end I am quite happy with how it turned out, considering the circumstances that we made it in. The animation was fairly easy to follow and when people watch it, we don't have to explain everything. One part that could be improved was the walk cycle of the main character when he's walking down the road, as he doesn't swing his arms when he's walking, which looks a little strange. Another thing that we could have done better is the backgrounds. Although the actual art work was of good quality and to a high standard, we where rushing quite a bit when printing them out. This resulted in us just printing them off on A3 paper and leaving on the white borders, so it didn't look very professional.

So overall, like I said, the animation itself could have been a bit better but considering how rushed we were, we did quite well. However, the editing I am very happy with and I think it improved the overall professional  level of the animation quite a lot.

Stop Motion Plan

My Stop Motion Plan on Prezi

This is the plan I made for the stop motion animation.

Flash Animation Reflection

Using the feedback I received from my class I have improved my animation. One of the comments made about my animation was that it wasn't very linear. So what I have done, rather than having a static view and a few rollover animations, I have made it so that there are buttons to go to the next/last frame. Another comment made about my animation was that it needs more animations. This was because only a few of my frames in the comic had rollover animations. So what I have done now is made a rollover animation for every frame. The last suggestion to improve my animation was to add a title and end screen. So what I have done is made a title screen with a play button and an end screen which has a play again button.

Overall I think I did quite well with my animation. It had a good use of buttons and rollover events and most people agreed that the story was quite good and easy to follow. I am also very happy with how the artwork turned out, I think it's to very high standards and some of the best artwork I've done in flash. All the goals I set for myself after receiving feedback I have achieved, so I am happy to have achieved what I set out to do.

Looking back on it now, by using my comic strip for my animation I was preventing myself from being able to create a fully linear animation. If I were to do this again, I would start completely from scratch, and make a fully linear animation, rather than use something I had made previously.

When comparing it to a professional example there are a few things I notice. The first is the aspect of sound, many flash animations are accompanied by sound and music, often making the animation more enjoyable. There is also the aspect, as stated above, of the animations being much more fluid in professional examples, whereas in my animation the action was more repetitive and simple. I also notice that the artwork itself is often a lot cleaner in professional examples, where there are no mistakes and things look as they should, whereas in mine some parts of the art are a bit wonky and warped. Overall however, my animation as a whole wasn't far off from the level of a professional and I am happy with the results.

Here is a professional of a flash animation:

And here is my final animation: