Animation

This is my animation which accompanies my Final Major Project. I created it using Flash, which is compatible with Illustrator files - so it suits my work better than After Effects (which is better with Photoshop files). It was my first time using the software, so it took quite a long time to do - but I really enjoyed the process.

As the theme of the animation project was transformation I decided to have my animals merging in and out of each other. This meant matching up all the right pieces and then adding a 'shape tween' to make them transform from one shape to the other. This had to be done with each individual piece and then 'shape hints' had to be added to guide the transformation. As I was new to the process it took a long time to do - I was in every Tuesday for the entire length of the project, trying to make it work best I could. There are still little details I would change to neaten the shapes and transformations up, but as a first try I'm pretty proud of it!

As my Final Major Project is inspired by a Finnish fairytale, I chose a beautiful Scandinavian folk song to accompany the animation. I also thought the music fitted the gentle transformations of the elements.

In the future I really want to do more animations - they don't all have to be as long as this, just some small ones of individual pieces would be really nice. I'm probably going to buy Flash when my bursary comes through, might as well make the most of being a student while I still can!