Animate aka Flash is Working!!

I just reinstalled Creative Cloud (thanks to Taylor!!) AND FLASH AKA ANIMATE IS WORKING.
LIKE IS THIS A DREAM?!!!
I'm still a bit worried that it wont work the next time I open it and it's like a trial or something. BUT IF this program decides to actually work at HOME for me, then I will have a much smoother time doing my experimental animation project this coming term :D
For once, something this break is going RIGHT. I did put a lot on my plate for the first week of the project back at course, but I may just try and stick to the production schedule as it will challenge me in terms of time management (since I may be able to do it at home as well).

Yes, this is a screen shot of Animate, but this is so exciting to me! I might not have to stress in course available hours to get this project done!! (touch wood) Don't want to jinx this D:

Animated Assets 006 Plus Stressing

This post was written on Sept 30, but the internet wouldn't work, so I couldn't post it until now.

So yesterday was a nightmare. I've been quite busy lately, so I wasn't able to start the animation process as well as turning them into sprites until yesterday. I managed to animate the mushroom and flower which both turned out nice. BUT as I have a cracked version of Photoshop, I can't install the Sprite Sheet Generator D: Let alone the internet wasn't working all day, so I couldn't even do research for my other assessment.

Taylor offered to turn my assets into sprites (I have no way of doing this) so at the moment I am trying to send the Photoshop files to her. Unfortunately the internet keeps breaking up, so I don't know when they will send >.< !!!!
I'd be able to do this all at course just fine as I'd have the resources. I can't work at home efficiently.

Here are my animated Mushroom and Flower. I simply transformed the mushroom to squash and stretch. This is due to the fact that we are going for a cute factor for our game & I feel like this method helps. As for the flower, I only painted up 4 frames (Each flower took 20mins, so it was pre fast). I didn't want the animation for this to be smooth as it wouldn't compliment the water colour style as well as the amount of detail in it. Both animations are loops, so if I'm correct, there wont be transition_f or transition_b. It'll more like idle to moving state and back to idle.

Animated Assets 005

Today I'm finally starting the animating assets process. I've done concepts for flowers and mushrooms and have shown the group. I didn't get much feedback, just which ones they like. I've been quite busy the past few days, so I haven't had time to do this...also I haven't been looking forward to it as I got quite confused in class. But thank goodness Lena uploaded video tutorials and hopefully it all goes well!

I asked the team if they want borders or not. I've mentioned on a previous post that this would be a neat way to portray our game emerging from a book or something along those lines. The border I have in the image is a bit too thick. I have a feeling the group won't like the border idea too much, so I might make a start to animating the mushroom with no border for now.

Animated Assets 003

I tried painting these mushrooms with minimum outlines and they came out quite nicely. They may be a bit too complex for our game, but I'll see what the team says :)
They were fun to paint! Pretty colours too waaaah~

Some more inspiration/ references :)

References
https://www.etsy.com/nz/listing/272933232/mushroom-wall-decal-watercolor-fabric?ref=market
https://www.etsy.com/nz/listing/400437481/mushroom-watercolor-painting-butterfly?ref=market

Animated Assets 002

I'm still rather new to water colour, especially digitally. I had a go with some water colour brushes that Mikayla shared with the group. They look, alright? But I know I can do better and make them look a lot more appealing. Perhaps by adding more colour or contrasting colours into them.
These concepts are simply trying out the brushes and colours. I added a white border to show my idea of them being 'cut out' from a book. It doesn't work just yet as it would look more tied together once compiled with the environment. The red mushroom looks more 'watercoloured' than the other mushrooms.

I had a look at some water coloured mushrooms to get a better sense of what to do. These mushrooms don't have an outline, but I think our game will do better with objects that have outlines if in the foreground. Elements within the background can probably go without outlines, so the focus is more on the fore and mid grounds. 

I will try more complex approaches to watercolor the mushrooms in photoshop. Even if it is a tad too complex, simplifying it shouldn't be too difficult. Trying different brushes will also help determine the look an style of the object, so I will try as many as I can.

References
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-watercolor-illustration-mushrooms-colored-orange-cap-boletus-butterfly-image58171282
https://www.etsy.com/market/mushrooms_watercolor

Animated Assets 001

I'm finally carrying on with the second assignment for Team Sprout which is to build animated assets for our game. I told the team last week that we should aim to have a final style as well as a colour palette for our environment by ...today HA. We've all been quite busy, but now that it's the holidays, we can get a crack on with this assignment.

Today I'll paint up some mushrooms and have a look at colours. We're also going for a water colour look which is going to look really beautiful (it will because Team Sprout have amazing artists). I imagine there to be a white outline around the assets as well as the environment, as if you've cut out the image from a book and it has a border. At least this is what I imagined when Team Sprout were having the meeting. I'll give it a go and see if the team like it :)

On another note, I've been looking at some art from Winnie the Pooh and Peter Rabbit. I had an idea where the start of the game where the forest is burnt down, could be simply black and white and as the game progresses, colour is brought back as life is put back into the environment. This would be a mission to carry out, but it's just an idea for now :)

I like the how the image isn't fully coloured in. There's negative space surrounding the image of the characters Pooh and Piglet which I reckon would be neat to try out for our environment.
I really like the desaturated colours as well.

For Peter Rabbit, I like the fainter outlines as well as the colour being slightly more vibrant in different areas. The elements in the background are faded more than the elements in the foreground which I find very interesting. It helps the viewer focus towards the foreground which would be an advantage to our game. 

References:
http://cartoonsandcereal.breannaperrelli.com/winnie-the-pooh-and-vinni-pukh/
https://lit4334goldenage.wordpress.com/category/books/winnie-the-pooh/
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/beatrix-potter-peter-rabbit/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Peter_Rabbit

Production Schedule

So animate wouldn't download last night D: Apparently there are some files missing that are required to download animate. I have written my production schedule based on the assumption that I will only be able to access animate at course. I will try to get animate during the break which will hopefully work as it will speed up my work flow greatly! On the assumption that Mondays and Fridays are the only days that I can animate, I have only filled out these days for my schedule. Working only two days during the week is very insufficient. I will try to use Wednesday and Friday afternoons if available to keep up to track.
if animate decides to work with my PC, I will make a new production schedule to better fit in with working at home.