The 2D to 3D experiment continues

My son has a gift - spacing pass WIP from Frank G on Vimeo.

Animating in 3D using a 2D Flash animation as a guide

I'm learning a lot (the hard way) about animating in 3D compared to animating in 2D.

Don't let the computer be the animator! It's a tough struggle and teaching me about persistence.

Here is the 2D Flash animation I'm working with and a 3D 'blocking pass' that I'm just starting to break down. Keeping the arcs and spacing in the body turns are a real challenge.


My Son has a Gift - 2D from Frank G on Vimeo.


My Son has a Gift - 3D blocking pass from Frank G on Vimeo.

My Sun has a gift

The 11SecondClub has a monthly competition. The dialogue is from the July comp. I tried to take a simple character design and focus on the animation performance. This was a test run with just the main character's head. The colour idea came from the Adobe "Kuler" web site. When I played the animation, it made me think of a planet talking about his sun. Inspired by Chuck Jones.


Solar Pow Wow from Frank G on Vimeo.

Home made peg bar - animation and scanning

We have a hole punch at school that matches the pegs on our light boxes, so I go to school and punch 500 sheets of paper (recycled)at a time.

Last summer holidays I ran out of punched holy animating paper, so I made my own peg bar out of a plastic ruler and some sawn off paint brushes, and taped it onto the light box disc. The home made pegs matched a standard 2-hole paper punch you'd find in any office. The result isn't as stable as the 3-peg hole punch that matches the animation disc pegs, but it still worked and kept me "moving forward".

The benefit of making the peg bar from a thin plastic ruler was that I could take the peg bar to my scanner and tape it on. So when I scanned my drawings into the computer they stayed 'registered' (in place, held by the pegs). That sped up the scanning and kept the animated movements to the ones I had drawn, not movements due to the drawings being out of alignment.

At school we make registration bars for the scanners out of thin plastic rulers. We punch through some plastic with the animation 3-peg punch. Collect the punched out plastic bits. Then glue them in place on the thin ruler. The punched out bits are only a few millimetres thick but thick enough to register the drawings being scanned in alignment.

Gran - line test

I had a good look at the "Gran Scuttle" line test (below), and realised that Gran just launches off into the walk. I guess that covers the physical action I'm after. But it doesn't show her thinking or preparing for her scuttle. In this line test, I've added a rough background to give her a motivation (get to the gate). The obstacle that she has to overcome is her own age limited physical restrictions. Her infirmity. So she takes 4 seconds to: Do a walking stick check, take a deep breath and ... place her stick (ready for the first step).


gran prepares from Frank G on Vimeo.

Narrative Comic - Chess

In our narrative / comic book class, we had to develop a story for 2 to 4 pages.

Terry asked us to challenge ourselves with the design. My aim was to produce a greyscale comic that gradually gains colour as the story unfolds.

EAP 1 - "Gran 2 Step"

gran scuttle - line test from Frank G on Vimeo.

This is my first attempt at an Essential Animation Principle (EAP). It is a perspective walk of an elderly lady who requires the support of a walking stick. The line tests shows about 8 steps and some added thinking as she sets off. But to get this assessment task done on time with key frames, colour and inbetweens, I have animated Gran only taking two steps. Hopefully you can see her personality in the way she moves?

Gran 2 Step from Frank G on Vimeo.

Jelly Shots - Interactive Flash Animation

I promised myself I wouldn't make a shooting interactive game. From that point, it was all I could think of. The original concept was to have jellyfish change colour when clicked by a box of jelly crystals. But that got boring quite quickly.

Some added influences that came into play were an Aardman jellyfish animation on animalssavetheplanet.com, and that I was in a group of animators making animation for Surfrider Foundation Australia for one of Jane's class assessments.

I thought combining the interactive Flash assignment with the production of animation for a community group, or non government organisation (NGO), made sense.