Project 2 : Stop Motion Frame Animation

D U E : 

[Feb 11]

★ 1.) COMMENT on at least two of your peers' assignment entries

onto their blogs! You should have an Blogger account to do so now!

You learn just as much from others, if not more, than yourself.

★ 2.) If you have not delivered me your reading questions
for Walter Benjamin, please do so by this date.

★ 3.) Project 2 [Stop Motion Frame Animation].

You will still remain in your respective pairs to a degree.

Ramifications to be explained below!

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WORKSHOP TIMES

Remaining as they are. Email me anytime.

Dillon in the lab. Myself 1-4 on Friday.

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A S S I G N M E N T  2 .

"Stop Motion Frame Animation"

aka. SMFA aka. Something Mother Frickin' Awesome.

[Above two.]

4:3 ratio examples of the

general aesthetic that you will

feel comfortable for this project.

Food for imagination.

[Below!]

A set of examples for which to think

of diptych animations similar to scale!

Using a special feature called "frame

animation" in Photoshop CS6.

(All PS beyond CS3 have this.)

Thematically, they are similar (though constructed

completely separate from another, as individuals).

(By the way, to embed video vertically like this...

Copy the embed code from Youtube/Vimeo/etc

and punch in place of the normal dimensions

tallscreen dimensions. This (for the blog)

measures to 320(w)x640(h).

For some reason or another, quality is lost

through embedding in that fashion. Do note.)

There you have it. Each group has two images for a diptych, and of course, two members. One member shall take one Photoshop file a piece and animate it! Using the aforementioned 'frame animation' feature on Photoshop CS6. Each iMac in the lab should have CS6 installed.

Ever hear of or adore programs such as Flash or After Effects? Photoshop animation is a very effective vessel towards realizing a workflow in those time-to-time complicated environments. Think of the frame animation feature as the very fundamentals of animation. Like Brad Bird says, 'you are an actor in a moment for a long time'. If you know little of animation, here is a great place to start. If you are more seasoned, there is never a bad time to brush up on basics while inserting the theory you are reading.

Rules.
-Two animations per group. One for each image.
-Approach similarly to last time. Work together on both or split ways and go one-on-one.
-MUST be 10 seconds. Commonly, the time extent would be a democratic choice. However, you are working with a partner, so you are in a dictatorship with said partner. As well, 10 seconds in a week should be enough to keep yourself active. The length is important as the animations will ultimately be side by side.
-Export frame animations at 1080(w)x1920(h) resolution from Photoshop.
-Export as Quicktime file.

Q : My file size (exported video) is incredibly large and takes far too long to upload to Youtube/Vimeo/etc. How may I remedy this?
A : While all your animations are 10 seconds, it should bypass this issue. If not you may alter settings to be at "H.264" at Medium quality on export (a screencap is below). This is usually reserved for longer frame animations, which have extended up to 8 GB in size for 50 seconds. Jinkies.

-Must be uploaded to a video aggregate site (Youtube, Vimeo, etc) and embedded to your blog by due date [February 11th]! Preferably embedded in the format I utilized above, but not necessary. See that [COMPOSE] [HTML] duo of buttons at the top left of editing Blogger?

Top left. Below orange [B].

You will copy the embed code from your original video page onto Blogger and paste it via [HTML] to get results. ALONG with a more abridged artist statement from your diptych project. This may not be in as much further detail than your diptych image(s) as the visual content is the same, but strive to think how the meaning changed with video!

We will go over in class, but additional consider THIS artist when developing ideas : http://www.tinkin.com

This is Photoshop CS6, and since it is in its rather infancy as a version, there are lesser tutorials about it. Yet, I'll reiterate that the frame animation feature has been available since CS3 so a tutorial you will find at latest CS5 will be of great use. HOWEVER, I took a screen cap and will explain base mechanics.

[Below is an abridged version of an in-class demo of the program!]

1. OPEN your Photoshop file in Photoshop!

2. Look towards the bottom left. There should be an option

for TIMELINE. Select it. There may be another option to

decipher between VIDEO and FRAME ANIMATION.

You want FRAME ANIMATION. Select that. You will

get at the bottom a single frame to work with.

3. Think of animating this "literally" like a stop motion

animation in reality. You will tediously place each little

object in its place... Then take a snapshot! (Repped in

the program as a 'frame' or 'one of those boxes'.)

 Arrange one by one your layers throughout the timeline

that you want to be seen in that moment in time.

4. When done with a frame, click "paper" icon to make a

duplicate frame of the one you have before. OR... look for the

"fading circle" icon to TWEEN. Basically, edit a

second frame to be the end spot of your first frame...

Highlight both frames... select TWEEN... And add

however many frames needed to smoothly animate

in between the two! It takes not long to understand.

5. Recognize how long each frame is. Mine is 0.1 seconds a piece.

That means 10 frames per second. And 50 for 5 seconds, the MINIMUM

amount needed for the assignment. The "0.1" can be edited as well.

6. When ready to put online, go to FILE -> EXPORT -> RENDER VIDEO.

These are the settings you should need.

Most important is to figure out the bare bones of animation using Photoshop for the project. You will want to know how to place your layers in the frames, tweening, durations, movement, etc. Essentially the animation tool allows you to use your layers in an image to animate between them- it is really that simple - the complexity is in figuring out the various tools and using them effectively. Watch tutorials as many times as it takes to figure out how to animate something. Attend office hours and Dillon's hours. Have fun and get started immediately! If you put this off until the last minute *cough* you will regret it thoroughly.

Good luck.

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