Illusion of Life Week 2
Loops and Repetition
Aim
This week, we worked with loops in order to understand how loops can contribute to various kinds of effects on the viewers. I wanted to use the weekly topic in order to explore how loops can work according to a scene in my studio 3d animation concept. As in week 2, I was still deciding upon the final scenario, look, feel and aesthetics of my animation and as the 3d models were yet to be built after research and planning, I decided to work on a simple starting establishing scene, which I was sure of. The starting scene is of a bird simply walking on the pavement on a street and a man coming out of a watch store. So, I decided to create loops of the same. As most elements in this scene were supposed to move in loops.
Method
In order to explore the concept and create a response for the concept, I started out by thinking of the movements involved in the first scene of the animation. I realised that in the first scene, there are various moving elements, such as a bird walking on the pavement, clouds, a bird flying in the sky, opening of the shop’s door by the man and so on. After recognising these elements, I worked with hand drawn frames with a pen tablet in Photoshop and started to loop them.
At first, I looped all the elements individually and then, I combined them all together in one finished scene which gave the appeal of a fully finished final scene.
Result
Testing the loops in this week’s response, even before moving to the actual 3d environment enabled me to understand the scene better. It also helped me understand the timing, pacing frame rate and the amount of time actually required to keep the loop playing. In the end result, I had four various kinds of looped animations and one of them with all the small animations coupled together.
Reflection
Just as we learnt in the lecture, loops can be used for various methods, for introducing humour, complexity, for dramatic effect and so on. I learnt that this exercise was beneficial not only for this studio project, but also overall, in a general 2d or 3d animation workflow. It not only does help in creating some kind of effect upon the viewers, but also aids the animator in terms of saving time in places where things are required to be repeated. In addition to all this, I realised that this exercise may also be fruitful in terms of saving overall rendering time in a 3d environment.