Some common Stuff we overlook in Animations. Squash and Stetch, timing and spacing.

 Hello People and welcome to another edition of animations on Hypefroactive. Today i'll be talking about some basics that we regard as common but plays a huge role in understanding animations with focus on the bouncing ball. So here we go.

A lot of things make up animations and animations demands alot of things as well. Chief amongst them is the principles and a clear understanding of how they work.  It’s ok to move a ball from point A to point B, but what if you were asked to put a hold on it somewhere in the middle at point C and apply a squash and stretch to it during the whole process. Now, that would appear to be a BIG DEAL and yes you are right it is because you don’t just put the squash and stretch anywhere you like and the ball starts bouncing with the cartoony appeal that squash and stretch brings. Also you have timing and spacing to contend with in the process, then the moving hold and poses. And you can get away with keeping away from exagerations and still come out squeaky clean if you like, as it would not affect the short that much. So what is the point I’m trying to make? I’m saying you don’t need to apply all the principles all the time. It’s like making stew and using the same ingredients in cooking some other kind of soup. That wont work, because the soup would define the ingredients to use. Same thing applies to animation. The principles employed in creating a walk cycle would be different from that needed to create a jump or somebody falling off a cliff or somebody trying to get off a chair and begin a walk. The order to applying them would differ as well. The only thing that any of these would have in common, would be flow. Without flow, the animations wont be appealing as you hope they would turn out to be.

There are a lot of things still murking in the dark waiting to happen to that short you are planning, but wont come out until you get there. So youtube or any other tube wont save you from this one. These are the type of things that you encounter while trying to animate a short that’s not quite coming as you intend or imagined it and after a few hours to some days, you are like “hey, I think I should be doing something better with my life”. But the truth is that you went about it the wrong way and that’s why you were stuck and probably would stay there for a while until you get a proper hang of how to go about this.

What you see in this short is a cartoony bouncing ball https://youtu.be/Lga4M0pD2bs. But it goes beyond that because everything you see there and a little more applies to character animation. If you know how to go about applying this then creating a cartoon shouldn’t be much of a problem. And if you dont not know what I’m talking about up till now, then get a mentor or a school and learn how to animate properly. Opportunities abound in this wonderful profession and the potentials are limitless. Arm yourself properly, be an Animator.

If you've got any problems or would want to be an animator but dont know how, then send me a mail here chimatic@gmail.com.

The Business Side of Animations in Africa.

Hello Guys and welcome to another exciting edition of Animations on HypefroActive. Trust you guys are good and are keeping up with the struggle. Ok, today i wont be talking about any shot that i did and i'm thinking introducing something new from the outside of this blog in the future since it's beginning to look like i'm sounding the same already. Anyways, today i'll be talking about the Business side to Animations.

Animations in Africa still is in it's teething stage trying to crawl because the knowledge is not yet spread even if artists know of the animation principles. One thing is to know about these principles and another is to understand how they are applied. Now Animation is Art and you don't rush Art if you want the best out of it. And that's why you see the Big Studios churning out very beautiful work because Artists working on a project are been divided into groups and assigned different duties with a sense of specialization. And the result is what you see when it's all said and done in a packaged DVD or in the Cinemas as these animated features go beyond boundaries breaking box offices and raking in millions of cash in dollars.

The thing to understand here is not just the fact that it's an Animated feature so it will sell, or that because it was heavily invested in, or created with the computer. This is 2015 and people have seen a lot of animations looking at local TV and Cable channels. They know Tom and Jerry, they've seen Kung fu Panda, Ice age, Toy story etc. And they'll be expecting just about the same or very close quality in Animations when they look at yours. Even if you kill the quality because you are trying to manage quality against production time, these maneuvers will be seen and understood. People will know why you did what and this is quite different from not knowing how to Animate at all. Afterall, you are altimately creating these animations for an audience. Again, take for instance, the Animation series called NARUTO. It's a Japanese cartoon series with a wonderful story line and good enough animations to go with it. They probably would have done better but because it's a series, they have to play down on the quality of animation if the movie has to hit the screens on time.

There is no magic or shortcut to it and until we start seeing things from this perspective, the Animation business will continue to crawl in Nigeria and Africa because nobody wants to buy a product that doesn't have value and that goes to most of our animations. Look at our Music Industry, Nigerian songs are been played in Clubs, in and out of Nigeria. This wasn't happening some ten or twenty years ago but it's possible now because our music artists have bridged that gap. They understand and know what people want and they give it to them. From the lyrics, to production and message, the audience just gulps it in when these songs hits the streets. This is no different from the Animation Industry. Now whether Pixar, Dreamworks, Imagi, Bluesky, Disney etc animates better than us wont really matter. What would matter is that we know how to animate at all. In the real life, asides skill, alot of other things will come into play like man-power, supervision, staff strength, capital, global network etc and that is why they are refered to as BIG Studios.

Conclusion
There is Big Potential for Animations in Africa and the surface of it has not even been scratched. At the moment we are an entertainment consuming continent relying on the outside world for short Animated Movies, Animated Adverts and almost about anything that spans between 3D games and apps. The African Companies that engage the services of these international studios are not convinced that we at home have come of age in delivering to them what they want done, The tide could turn around if African Animation Studios would undertake proper Animation lessons to understand and apply the fundamentals of Animations and in turn encouraged with resources or some form of investment  that will aid in the effectively running of the Animation Studio.

My Character Animation Ad.

Hello Guys and Welcome to your favorite Animation blog, HypefroActive. Geez, a lot has happened and plenty more is lined up on the way but the good thing is that, it's all for the good. Ok, as you know i've been away for some time and again as usual i apologize and hope to improve on my service and communication skills in time to come. Because when you look at it, good or bad i really shouldn't have gone for that a long time, so again i hope you accept my apologies and we can go back to been friends, reasoning and seeing things from the animation point of view and ultimately moving forward.

Well, i did promise to do a fight animation some time back and i've reminded us of that on several occasions but i still haven't done it for some reasons beyond my control. But i will get it done. I just have my hands filled at the moment plus a lot of things coming as snags to take care of. Amongst those "small things" ladies and gentlemen is the "Animations to facial Expressions". I have been battling how to do this right for a while now, just like the Big boys get it done in the Big Studios and much progress have not been made until now. Granted, in my previous shots, there are change of expressions from extreme to extreme poses, but these things are wrongly applied, so they don't really tell the story like i want it to, for the most part anyways. However, after a series of head breaking researches carried out under the most stressful conditions, this research is finally yielding the desired results. An enhanced low poly model, created in 3dsmax and rigged with the CAT rig is what will be doing the talking when you click this link https://youtu.be/aaXIf9HOayo

Another cool thing about this animation is that it's done with the CAT rig and unlike my many other anime shorts that i've done, i didn't kill myself animating this character. As you can see, it's an Ad that i intend to put out there whose purpose is to sell my services. Now in creating this i did a lot of things differently. such as planning the short, drafting a brief and sticking to the brief. That's the main reason why the animation is looking different from my other animations asides the fact that i've improved quite considerably from before. And you could call it an upgrade from my previous jobs. Anyways later in the week, i hope to bring something exciting here and on this blog so, stick around and happy animating.