I was able to produce two proto-animations of sorts, essentially exploring my use of two different styles of Flash animation: frame-by-frame and symbols/tweens. These are relatively short gifs which depict a Crusader of my design swinging a sword and each has its own positives and negatives.
.
Crusaders from Eughan Wooding on Vimeo.
Within the symbol or tween animation, I will say it was much quicker to do as the tween usage means that the symbol is generated between two separate areas by the computer. Essentially if I placed it at A then selected 20 frames ahead and placed the symbol at B then the computer would animate the transition of the symbol from A to B in those 20 frames for me. While this would certainly help given the time constraints I face, I don't feel that the animation is good enough to warrant its use. The movement is too basic to fully capture the fluidity and realism within the battles that would be portrayed during my explanations. Additionally, time might become an issue in that I would have to generate a library of symbols in order to make my work efficient but I don't have the time to build up a library of twenty army positions for a tween.
With this in mind, frame-by-frame appears to be the better choice right? Well the issue is that while it does, in my opinion, look better and less rigid I must acknowledge that it takes a long time. While the tween took two hours - most of which being me deliberating over character design as I did the tween first - the frame-by-frame took nearly 4 hours of continued work; producing a longer high-quality video would require more time and perhaps even animators, neither of which I have at my disposal.
So what am I to do? Well the most logical step to producing a video at this rate seems to be an animatic. I am aware that time is a massive issue with producing animations, especially as a single creator. My experiences with my previous Project on animation reinforced this fact to me, since my final animation wasn't complete in the end.
I am aware that some creators use animatics for their fast yet visually engaging style. People like ExtraCredits (who I will be looking into at a later date) and many animators on YouTuber aiming to update their fans without having to focus on fully animating it. Plus animatics typically come before a full animation within the planning process therefore this just means cutting out an extra step and therefore making my content easier to manage time-wise.
Character Design
Within my animations, I am aware of some flaws within the context of my character design and the Crusades - specifically in regards to the periods I am willing to look into for my project - in that the design I went with perpetuates some misconceptions surrounding crusaders. This isn't necessarily a problem in these proto-animations but would certainly render my content inaccurate if used in the future.
For starters, not all crusaders wore the red cross. In fact, only the Templars and other religiously devote/founded factions really did although there are likely some accounts of particularly pious individuals adding crosses to their attire. Throughout the First, Second and Third Crusades it is more likely that soldiers bore the appropriate sigils of either their house or the houses they swore fealty to. Additionally, the helmet poses some more issues in that the latest period I have considered for my video is the Third Crusade which occurred between 1189-1192, in which many agree is out of the time in which Great Helms were used - although some perhaps had begun to be used as they are recorded in the 13th century, relatively close to the period. The trope of a crusader in a Great Helm is so common within today's depiction that even a quick Google search reveals that the majority show the iconic helmet.
Lindybeige and the correct helm:
Below is a video by Lindybeige, who I often watch. In the video, he explains the three most common helmets used within various Crusades and only just misses my period of focus but his video provides some helpful information.
.
.
Notably, within Lindybeige's video, he explains something which I already presumed which was the commonality of the first helmet in his video. The version he has uses a faceplate however he notes that the most commonly used versions would typically consist of just the top half and the nasal piece or nose guard.
These are based off of the Norman style of nasal helmets given their influence around Europe, many pieces of armour even being developed in Italy which was considered a hub for trade and smithing/manufacturing. This appearance is certainly one which I have seen in my studies of the Crusades, crusaders appearing in tapestries and artwork at the time without full face helmets. The rounder helmets would also have been more useful in allowing the crusaders to see enemies as they were open but also take more damage to the head as the 'bucket' style of the Great Helm and many more usually meant strikes to the head received more force and therefore hurt more, whereas a rounder helmet has the benefit of a weapon sliding off of it.
Some links used:
http://www.eduref.net/kct/kids/crusader/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_helm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Crusade
No comments:
Post a Comment