Animation Principles
3: Cycles
The aims of this exercise were to introduce us to the process of making a seamless loop Animation, as well as the basic concepts of cloth dynamics. Our objective was to create a short Animated sequence involving the dynamics of cloth that demonstrates the principles of wave action - and I think the best way of showing this would be with a flag blowing in the wind.
As Animators we are encouraged to better ourselves by not only studying good Animation, but also bad. I researched existing flag Animations on Youtube for inspiration, and came across one bad example in particular that I could easily fault. Although smooth and with nice waves, this student's Animation has several flaws including the size of the flag changing constantly and also the timing of the waves are completely different at the tip from the start - it should be one fluid motion but the waves are all over the place and they don't follow through at all.
By critiquing this Animation it helped me to mentally prepare myself for making my own, knowing exactly what I DIDN'T want my Animation to look like and what flaws I wanted to avoid. I will ensure that the waves of my flag follow through at the same pace and that they are parallel at the top and bottom.
By critiquing this Animation it helped me to mentally prepare myself for making my own, knowing exactly what I DIDN'T want my Animation to look like and what flaws I wanted to avoid. I will ensure that the waves of my flag follow through at the same pace and that they are parallel at the top and bottom.
Of course I also looked into real flag movement by browsing through first hand videos on Youtube. I came across this very helpful playlist of clips, the first one of which was my main inspiration and reference for my Animation. I loved the ripples across the flag and how the corners slightly overlap at the end of each wave, and will try to feature these aspects in my Animation.
I decided to work on A5, setting my lightbox up with some masking tape to keep the paper in place. I drew out a base template for my Animation, tracing the pole of the flag onto each page as that remains a constant.