Today's Lesson

In today's lesson, we talked about how to add sound and we practically just played with Garage Band. This isn't the first time Ive used the program, but I havn't used it for ages and I think I just need to play around with it a couple of times to remember everything about it. I think it is pretty amazing how you can make sounds into a song. So Mr P showed us how to make an animation and then add sound. He did his with a flying dude but I chose to do a Space ship. I have my animation of the space ship, but I saved the file with the sound but when I tried to open it on my home computer, it wouldn't work, so I think I have to save it as a different file next time. The Space ship animation isn't that special, I just copied the animation from advanced-ish and copied it a million times and added Key frames and made it go across the page. HA. Nothing much, just what you usually do in an animation which is SOOO cool. When Mr P first showed us, I was so excited, and then when I did it myself it was even more exciting!!

Oh and also, he said by the end of next week, we should have our idea ready and set. I still have NO idea what I am doing, so I need to THINK THINK THINK! Also, even though I said that I will probably do Stop Motion for my assignment, I am still thinking, because all of this animation-ish stuff is really fun. I am still deciding!

(http://myevilmind.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/garageband3-startupwindow.jpg)

The Boucing Purple Cookie

Well, last week I said that I forgot to save the bouncing ball file as a .mov, but I actually lied :O
Because I didnt have my USB that day and the sign in thingy didnt work for me and so I just ended up saving it onto the desktop, but now I have to find the right mac that has the file on it, and I thought it would be easier to just do another one. The one that I lose was basically the same except the ball was yellow with black spots. So here is the new bouncing ball!

The Basketball Dude

So I stole 'The Stickman' to be my main character, and the ball technique from 'The Bouncing Ball' and created *drum roll please* 'THE BASKETBALL DUDE!' Yep, That's right, it features Stickman bouncing a Ball!!! This was fun to create because I had to make the arms move like I did in the Walking Lady and the Ball bounce like I did in The Bouncing Ball. This animation is really simple, but affective and I was pretty pround of myself when I had finished. Here it is!

The Walking Lady

So as I said before, there is not only one Emu and the Frog, there is TWO! The other one is called the 'walking dude'. In this one, we were introduced to the truck symbol and the key frames. You can only do this on Advanced-ish! So this is how you do it:

1. You make approx 4 frames of what you want. (Arm up, arm middle, arm down, etc)
2. After you have finished your 4 frames, copy and paste them until you have about 10 slides. After this, copy and paste those 10 slides how ever many times you want them (how long you want your video to go for.)
3. Put a Key frame at the start and the end (the little plus sign next to the box) You can also put a key frame in the middle as well if you like.
4. Click on the truck (which has move on it)
5. Go back to the first frame and drag it to where you want it to start
6. Go to the end and drag it to where you want it to start
7. Play your animation!

*If you have an extra(s) keyframes, you can make your picture go bigger or smaller or move them so they can be curvy

*TIP* Make sure you do all your drawings in the foreground

*TIP* If you want a background, make sure its in the background, and you will also have to repeat the frame like you did with the walking dude

And what it turns out to look like is:

The Bouncing Ball

When I finish an animation, I have to remember to save it not only as an animation-ish file, but also as a .mov. Another update is that I have organized my USB so that all of the stuff from photoshop has gone into a file that says 'TERM 1'. Its wayy easier to find stuff now, and when i start to get loads for files, it will definetly save time. So this is the bouncing ball. I just followed the link on Blackboard, and at first I thought it was gonna be really really hard, but it wasnt as hard as I thought it would be. Basically the main things that I had to concentrate on was that when the ball was just about to hit the ground, it would be a portrait oval, but when it was on the ground, it was a landscape oval. So the ovals were one after another going, portrait, landscape, portrait, then normal again. It was pretty fun doing this the first time cause I was so amazed at the finished product. Another thing that I had to focus on was how to make the ball appear to move faster and/or slower. I did this by placing the ball different lengths apart. At the start when it is moving quickly, the ball would be closer together than when it is moving slowly. I forgot to save it as a .mov, so I will post the bouncing ball later!

Down to Business

So today, Mr P said that every person that learns Animation-ish in collage and tafe and stuff like that learn how to 'Bounce the ball' and 'Do the Walk'. He also said that those two exercised were equivalent to the Emu and the Frog. That got some groans from some people in the class! So for the next two lessons I will be working on those exercises, just doing them over and over again, and I will post what I have done. Again, this lesson we use the bamboos, and honestly, I really dislike them and prefer to use the mouse pad, but what I really prefer is the mouse! Usually I will just draw with the tablet (if its lucky) and then do all the clicking and moving with the mouse pad. Its kind of a system I've got going on, but I am pretty sure that when we are in the middle of the term, I will be using the Tablet like I've been using it my whole life! And that anything else I use will feel really weird.

BambooS!

The Bamboos finally arrived!!! We have been waiting all year to use them and finally we can! It was soo much fun when we got to take them out of their precious little boxes and then take the plastic off and then put them into our newly bought 'tupperware'! It was soooo cool! and then when we used it for the first time (since last year) :O it was just sooo much fun!!! It was like Christmas all over again! So Mr P explained some stuff about them, and apparently there is nothing in the pen except for a magnet. So that means that there is a magnetic field around the pen and the tablet which is pretty cool. Sometimes when you use them they get pretty annoying though, but it will just take some time to getting use to. Also it got me thinking that if it is just a magnet, does that mean if I got another magnet, that it was do everything the pen does!? We had to change the setting on the pen for the right clicks that we wanted, but this gets annoying because the next lesson when you pick up a different one, sometimes the settings are different and you have to redo them again! But it would be even cooler if the Bamboo objects were coloured!!

(http://z.about.com/d/graphicssoft/1/0/i/T/5/Bamboo_Pen_and_Touch_Overhead_1.jpg)

Term Two

This Term in Creative Media, we are doing Animation-ish and I stop Motion. I have had some previous experience in both of these programs, with Visual art this year using Stop Motion and Animation-ish last year in Information Technology. In the first lesson, Mr P practically just showed us what we can do and what we will be doing for our assignment and stuff like that. Last year I think it was, or maybe a few years ago I remember that one minute short film festival and that Mr P said that if you don't have an idea, you can look at titles of songs or the lyrics of songs to get an idea, so when it comes to thinking of an idea, I think I will do that. I have tried to do that method of choosing before and found it really hard, but I don't know yet, I might do something from a dream or from an inspirational something or just something really random! I'll keep you posted when I decide! Mr P also mentioned that we get to work on this for both of terms 2 and 3. We could either do two different videos, or just do one overall. I think I will end up doing one overall, and end up choosing Stop Motion, because when I did it for art, it was really fun, and also, I really suck at drawing, but on the upside, if I do choose Animation-ish I could choose an easy creature like stick figures or something like that. I could also use pictures of the Internet and incorporate them into my own ideas. TV episodes and movies are also good for thinking (or stealing) ideas!

(Pictures: http://img.brothersoft.com)