Understanding the Problem
Statement of Intent
For this assessment task, I intend to create a short ~1m animation of small simplistic characters, in Adobe Animate. I intend to implement a short story, with simplistic backgrounds and a simplistic art style.
Gantt chart
Planning and Designing the Product
Idea generation / storyboard
Producing
Logbook
01/09/2023
- I spent time sketching the character designs in a simple style.
- I came up with a general plot. The animation plot involves the person entering the frame, followed by the mushroom descending from above, resulting in her getting startled.
- The character then throws a seed out of the frame, which the mushroom starts running towards. The character exits the frame.
09/09/2023
- I have sketched up my character designs for the person, and I have begun to create the final model.
- I also have started creating the mushroom model base, for later.
12/09/2023
- I experimented with my (unfinished) character model, in Adobe Animate. I used the parenting tool, to move the prototyped legs around to create a walk cycle.
- I worked on my models yet again.
15/09/2023
- My person’s model has been created, and I created a simplistic background in Animate.
- I worked on finishing up the mushroom, and I adjusted my Gantt chart for my mistiming.
- I ran into an issue where I forgot to separate a part of my mushroom into another layer, causing some of my progress to be lost.
20/09/2023
- The mushroom model has been created, and the person model has been finished. I moved on to start creating the actual animation in Animate.
- Because of my layer separation strategy, animating became much easier for me to do.
26/09/2023
- I created more of my animation, and I experimented adding dirt. It unfortunately made it look worse, so I scrapped the idea. I worked on more animation, moving the main character to jump, when the mushroom descends.
- Animate crashed after this, so again, some progress was lost.
28/09/2023
- Today, I worked on the person’s exit animation from the frame, as well as animating the mushroom’s interaction with the seed once it reaches its destination.
- Animate worked quite well today, and I also found my drawing tablet, which I believe made things easier.
- I also created a ‘seed’, which took no time, around 10 minutes.
05/10/2023
- Today, I’ve finally completed the animation. The mushroom reaches the seed, jumps on it, and plants it into the ground.
- I worked on my documentation, and I also got feedback from my friends, who said that my walk cycles were off, so I will redo them.
07/10/2023
- Today, I redid my walk cycles, and did some general finishing touches.
- Animate again, crashed today. I did not lose much progress this time, fortunately.
- I added walking, whooshing, and growing SFX to the animation as well. They are all royalty free under the Creative Commons license.
Evaluating the Product
Progress evaluation
I am making good progress so far, however Adobe Animate is quite a pain to use, in my opinion. I have had struggles with it, and it is hard to create detailed and quality artworks in it. Still, I have kept going, and so far, I am actually up to date with my Gantt chart. My Animation is about half-done, and I believe I will have time to spare if I keep the pace I am going at. I do want to make my mushroom and anything after more simplistic though, since my person took quite a bit of time to create.
Final evaluation
Despite facing some challenges with Adobe Animate’s usability and occasional crashes, I persevered, and the results, look acceptable. I struggled with Animate, but I believe that this is still pretty good, considering my non-artistic skillset.
I successfully designed and modelled characters, with the final quality significantly improving from my initial sketches. Feedback from my friends and using their suggestions also improved the project’s quality. I also added SFX to make the Animation more engaging.