Animal Project Part 3

3/30/21

goal: study behavior, create storyboard

Before creating my storyboard, I went to Youtube to further study the behavior of the bog turtle. This would give me a more refined understanding of what types of behaviors I want to include for my animation.

Behavior:

1. makes slow, but sudden (?) movements — almost like a choppy motion
2. it went head first in the water and then peaked back up
3. the video ended with the turtle half submerged in the water with the top of the shell and its head above water. it looks like the head is looking up.

Behavior:

1. front legs looked like their tucked into shell — kind of reminds me of a sitting cat
2. neck extends pretty far when reaching for food
3. when eating the worm, it snapped its head back in a very sudden movement
4. used its front leg to help hold down the worm when eating

1. water is deep enough for them to fully submerge, but it looks like it spends most of its time half in/half out of water
2. can have head fully in shell
3. when they were placed in the water, they had their head in the water for a few seconds before going above water

1. it tilts its head and quickly extends its neck forward when eating food
2. snapping-like motion
3. doesn’t have firm grip on food — food somewhat floats away in water after biting

Storyboard:

Before creating my storyboard, I created a list of behaviors that I could explore in my animation. I referenced my short story written for part 1 to help me:

1. basking in the sun
2. eating worms, berries, duckweed → i find the movement of the turtle’s neck when eating really interesting
3. swimming/walking in the water
4. walking on land
5. mating, laying eggs, protecting eggs → uncomfortable to animate two mating turtles?
6. escaping from predators → there aren’t many videos of turtles escaping, I’m not sure how often they escape since they are so slow
7. hibernating → this may not show behavior well since there is very little movement

Storyboard idea:

1. Scene 1: a wide view of the habitat with the title → slowly zoom into the water
2. Scene 2: turtle slowly emerges out of zoomed in water
3. Scene 3: turtle comes out of water and into land
4. Scene 4: top view of turtle shows it approaching person

Reflection:

1. I think having the three different points of view (side, top, 3/4) is effective in making the animation engaging
2. I am not sure if the narrative is too simple/straight forward? How can i make it more engaging?
3. The narrative focuses on the turtle until human intervention comes abruptly at the end
4. can this last 20 seconds? should i have more scenes?

Class Notes 3/30/21

Q’s Feedback:

1. use micro and macro levels
2. consider atmosphere and behavior
3. storyboard is simple but effective
4. consider emotion — peaceful, scary, etc. is there a change in emotion overtime?
5. have sound of footsteps before shoes appear in frame

4/1/21

goal: start creating components in illustrator

I used the head from my Part 2 project as a starting point. I created 6 frames of the turtle emerging out of water.

Class Notes 4/1 After Effects Tips

Margot’s AE session

4/6/21

My first iteration is (supposedly) the title screen in the sky that pans down and into the habitat. Then there is a hard cut to the turtle coming out of the water from the assets I made for the previous class.

Because I was unhappy with the choppiness of the turtle’s movement, I decided to try using more of the After Effects animation features instead of relying on frame by frame animation.

4/8/21

From my previous iteration of the turtle swimming up, I refined the color choice and changed the movement of the water. Before, I was using frame by frame animation for the water, but decided to create one frame that animates using turbulent displace as shown in this tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq7BEhiHcKU&t=138s

Daphne’s Feedback:

1. nice use of colors

4/13/21

I decided I wanted to work with translucent water to show the turtle both above and below water. Because of this, it would double the amount of colors in my turtle, so I had 8 colors. I removed the salmon color and the highlights of the turtle to focus on how shadows can emphasize form. 6/7 of my color options are used.

Because I could only have one more color to spare if the turtle was both above and below water, I decided to keep my first scene fully underwater. I depicted the habitat through a rocky/muddy ground and grass underwater.

Because I had another color to spare, I used my next scene to explore the turtle’s behavior above water. I established the scene used duckweed and grass. This scene serves as a transition, for it ends with the turtle approaching the duckweed.

In my next scene, I have a top view of the turtle swimming under duckweed. In my final, I plan to have the turtle eating one of the pieces and zooming out to see a pair of shoes.

3/13/21 Class notes

Q’s Feedback:

1. Scene 1: too much contrast between yellow and blue. Either darken pink or lighten dark blue

-Because my illustrator files don’t always update (thus forcing me to create a new illustrator file and reanimate assetts in after effects), I plan on not changing the colors.

3. Scene 2: get rid of most of duckweed and integrate it with grass more

-I plan to make the grass and duckweeds more cohesive with each other so the habitat is more cohesive.

4. Scene 2: ripple looks like flicker, thin out ripples

-Because I only use two frames to show the ripples, I plan to add another frame to reduce flickery motion. I will also refine my frames so they ripple becomes thinner overtime.

5. Scene 3: move duckweed more individually in middle

-I plan to ungroup the clumped duckweed in the middle that will move in the water the most when its closest to the turtle.

3/15/21

Changes I made:

1. I added the title slide in the front that starts from behind turtle and moves upward.
2. added another frame for the ripples
3. had the turtle eat a piece of duckweed by extending its neck and creating multiple assets of an individual duckweed being eaten

For the audio, I recorded several iterations of bird noises and traffic outside of my house as background noise, swishing water in my bathtub, and stepping in water in my bathtub.