Claymation/Stop Motion Animation

Let's take a look at a few stop motion animation pieces:
Some Stop Motion Animation Examples-

Balance
Zero

Blends of Stop Motion and Real Life-
Address Is Approximate from The Theory on Vimeo.
Only in Dreams

Metamutography-Blending Clay with StopMotion
Samsung is amazing!
Vimeo- Quadratmeterboy

Claymation
Pingu Goes SnowBoarding
Mound

Animated GIFs using Adobe Photoshop

Create an animated GIF in Photoshop from the Adobe Learn and Support site

Learn how to use a series of photos and frame animation to create an animated GIF.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to turn a series of photos into a looping animated GIF using Photoshop.

This technique works well for creating a timelapse animation using series of photos taken from a DSLR or point-and-shoot camera, or even a mobile device. For the example, we used a series of photos taken with burst mode from an iPhone. Download photos from your ball animation
Tip: You can also use this technique to create an animated GIF from a short video.

Step 1 of 5

Import a series of photos

Open Photoshop and go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack.
Click Browse and locate the photos you want to use. While holding down the Shift key, select all the files and click Open.
Click OK to import the photos into a single layered file.

Note that a number of new layers have been created in the Layers panel on the right side of your workspace.
These individual layers will become the frames of the animated GIF.

Optional: Import a Video

If you're starting with a short video, you'll first need to convert the frames of the video into individual layers. Go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers....
Locate and select the video file you want to use and click Open.
Click OK to convert the video frames to a single layered file.
Note: Photoshop may not be able to fully import a video that is too long. Use the options in the Import window to limit the amount of frames imported. You can select to import the entire video, or choose just a segment of the video. You can also limit the amount of frames imported to a set interval, such as every 2 frames.

Step 2 of 5

Open the Timeline

Go to Window > Timeline to open the Timeline panel.
Click the arrow on the button in the middle of the panel and select Create Frame Animation. Then click the button to create a new frame animation.

Step 3 of 5

Convert layers into animation frames

Click the menu icon from the upper right corner of the Timeline panel. Click Make Frames From Layers.
This will convert all the layers in the Layers panel into individual frames in your animation.

Click the Play button from the bottom of the Timeline panel (or press the Spacebar on your keyboard) to preview the animation.
Note: If your animation is playing in reverse, click the Timeline menu icon again and select Reverse Frames.

Step 4 of 5

Set the animation to loop

Click the repeat menu from the bottom of the Timeline panel and select Forever. This will create a looping animation.

Click the Play button from the bottom of the Timeline panel (or press the Spacebar on your keyboard) to preview the animation.

Step 5 of 5

Export the animation as a GIF

Go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)...

1. Select GIF 128 Dithered from the Preset menu.
2. Select 256 from the Colors menu.
3. If you are using the GIF online or want to limit the file size of the animation, change Width and Height fields in the Image Size options.
4. Select Forever from the Looping Options menu.

Click the Preview... button in the lower left corner of the Export window to preview your GIF in a web browser.
Click Save... and select a destination for your animated GIF file.

Done!

Congratulations! You have just created your animated GIF.
Note that you can also use this technique for any layered Photoshop file.

Ball Animation

Animation- Bouncing Ball Explained
TED Animation Basics: The art of timing and spacing

Animation Assignment #1- DOT

Animation Assignment #1- DOT

Develop your idea
Make your DOT do something... it can turn into something, go somewhere, or... dot dot dot...

1st Play with toonator.com and develop your Dot animation idea. Try 3-5 variations of your dot on "Toonator" and post a least 3 to the Class Sharing Space. Then select your best idea and turn it into a flip book...

Flip Book:
You will be given a little flip book/note pad and a pencil. Some pages of the flip book may have graphics, some maybe blank. You can incorporate the graphics into the animation or not.

• Save the first page for your name and title, but do that last.
• Best to start from back to front.
• Consider what you want your dot to do. Choose your favorite/best from your Toonator idea development. Maybe ask some of your classmates to help you decide from you top 3 ideas.
• You can alter your concept from your digital draft if it works better for your Dot concept.
• Draw a dot on the last page.
• Then flip a page and draw the dot again, but alter the placement, size, or shape of the dot slightly.
• Flip the page again and continue until your dot does something or goes somewhere.
• To make the movement slower, keep the changes very tight/close to previous. Alternately, to make the movement more rapid, draw the dot further from page to page.
• Have fun!
• You can use color too!
• Be creative! 
• Remember that you have no limits other than your imagination. And the length of pages in your flip book.
• Draw minimum of 50 pages...
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zDtAjQpT3Ofr_pkD3r1pZsPUueuCQCZrB9dGz0Q_pmQ/edit?usp=sharing 

Bone Tool- Weight Paint

To learn about "Weight paint". This is a mode (Like object mode) where you can select each individual bone and paint the area on the mesh you want to be affected by each bone. 

As long as it's part of the same mesh as the body, select the head bone in pose mode, right click on the mesh, go into weight paint, paint the hat, then select that bone in pose mode and see if it moves now. That's kind of a quick explanation, but this tutorial probably does a better job:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_sfan8OchA

Some of the best tutorials under the animation section of blendercookie.com. Watching these are pretty inspiring because they show just how in-depth one can go into rigging and animation. I've seen everything from rigging pistons to jumping balls to spiders.

Animating Gingerbread men tutorials. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwTyGvog27I

Bone Tool Tutorials

Basic Bone Tool-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcNGeIV0BsU

More Advanced Bone Tool-

Rigging a snake with Bone Tool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFs2lTu-etI

check out rigging on BlenderCookie.com
http://cgcookie.com/blender/2011/12/12/blender-introduction-to-character-rigging/

Blender Tutorials

Here are a 5 tutorials that I recommend. I tried adding them to the blog but the original email inviting me to edit is broken.

Mirror modifier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjSmkHnGrlA

Mesh-Modelling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1DnYxd3iTw

Modelling from reference images: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXA3so_FUF8

Materials: http://youtu.be/n182T7ne6PE?t=1m8s

Lighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF2ugsuyHu8

Also a note that many tutorials are now working with "Cycles" which is a different render engine inside blender. For the context of this class, students should realize the difference so they don't end up watching tutorials that feature this. The render engine we will be using is called "Blender Render" and is the program's default. 

For any keeners, here are the sites that I go to for more in-depth learning:

https://cgcookie.com/blender/category/tutorials/

http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/

http://blenderartists.org/forum/index.php