The document describes two experiments conducted by Sumiah Rose to practice pixel animation. In the first experiment, she created a ninja girl character but struggled to animate the legs walking realistically. In the second experiment, she focused on animating a stick figure walking by copying a step-by-step template, though the animation was still imperfect. She reflected that stripping animation down to basics helped her focus on the walking motion, and adding a simple moving background was a good first step towards more complex animations for her video game project.

1. Experiments
Sumiah Rose

2. Process – Ninja Girl
For this experiment I wanted to create a character that walked. I wasn’t too bothered about creating a background or a game structure
surrounding it. This was due to the fact that in my Irn Bru project, I found the whole process really hard to understand, so I didn’t want to
overwhelm myself in trying to create a whole world and concept behind this character, especially considering it was an experiment and not the
final product.
To create the look of my character I looked online for other characters similar to the one I wanted to create. This was so I could have a template
for my character and also an image as a guideline to follow when drawing the character out as I find it quite hard to draw using pixels.
To create our experiments we were using Photoshop. To get the software to let you draw in pixels you have to open a new document and set the
sizes at 120x80 pixels. This creates an extremely small canvas to draw with (as to get pixels you have to go really small). To actually be able to
draw you have to use the pencil tool set at 1 pixel and the eraser set at one block. I find using pixels to draw really hard as you can’t create
smooth edges e.g. circle, as what you’re drawing with is small squares. I also find it a very slow process as I can’t draw too fast as the squares
wont go in the right place and I have to erase and start again. To create an animation, you have to go to the window on the menu bar at the top,
select timeline and then click on the three small squares. This enables you to create a timeline that you can use to animate your drawings. To
make it work you have to make sure that only certain layers can be seen at certain times on the timeline.
Once finished with the drawing you have to change it back to normal size so it can be exported and not still be in pixel form. To do this you go to
the menu at the top, select Images-Image Size and reset it to 1080 making sure that nearest neighbors is selected. This smooths out the pixels
and makes your creations look like actual animations. You can then export the GIF.
I found that when creating my character, drawing the figure out was fairly easy. I didn't have to focus too much on creating different parts of her
body in different layers as I just decided to focus on having her legs move. So I was able to easily draw out the top half of her body very easily. It
started to get difficult when I had to start drawing out the legs. I originally started with drawing out the legs separately and trying to get them to
move that way, however I couldn’t get one leg to look right. I tried lots of different ways to draw the leg but it still looked very weird and wrong. I
then decided to try working with creating two pairs of legs each going a different direction to mimic the motion of walking but more simply.
However doing this didn’t actually work either. It ended up making the character look like she was sort of galloping. It didn’t look life-like or
realistic at all. However instead of trying to go through the process of trying to get her to walk normally, I just decided to leave it, as it sort of
worked. I also decided that in my next experiment I would work on improving my characters walking but on a much more simple level e.g. stick
man.

4. Reflection
The elements of my experiment that I will aim to include in my final project is the detail of the character.
Although the character doesn’t actually show that much detail, it is the level of detail that I hope my video
game will maintain throughout. I think setting this level of detail will be a good aspiration for me when
creating the final product. I know that trying to aim higher in the detail and keeping that level consistent
throughout the video game will be near impossible for me to do within the time limit. On the other hand
aiming for a lower detail quality will leave me with more time on my hands than needed and a low quality
video game.
The detail of the character isn't much but it gives a more personal approach to the players. This I feel is
needed for the players to be more interested in playing the game.
I think I will also keep the element of just having the legs move on the character, I think this will make it
easier for me to create, as I don’t have to also be thinking about arms, weapons and facial expressions.
In my next experiment I want to focus on developing my walking animations as I think this is an important
aspect of the production. In my video game I would like for the character to walk as realistically as possible
as I think having a character where one of the main characteristics are off it would just distract the player
from playing the game properly.

5. Process – Stick Man
The process to this experiment was pretty much exactly the same as my first experiment. To
create our experiments we were using Photoshop. To get the software to let you draw in pixels
you have to open a new document and set the sizes at 120x80 pixels. This creates an extremely
small canvas to draw with (as to get pixels you have to go really small). To actually be able to
draw you have to use the pencil tool set at 1 pixel and the eraser set at one block. I find using
pixels to draw really hard as you can’t create smooth edges e.g. circle, as what you’re drawing
with is small squares. I also find it a very slow process as I can’t draw too fast as the squares
wont go in the right place and I have to erase and start again. To create an animation, you have
to go to the window on the menu bar at the top, select timeline and then click on the three
small squares. This enables you to create a timeline that you can use to animate your drawings.
To make it work you have to make sure that only certain layers can be seen at certain times on
the timeline.
Once finished with the drawing you have to change it back to normal size so it can be exported
and not still be in pixel form. To do this you go to the menu at the top, select Images-Image Size
and reset it to 1080 making sure that nearest neighbors is selected. This smooths out the pixels
and makes your creations look like actual animations. You can then export the GIF.

7. Reflection
In my last experiment I said I wanted to focus on the walking element of my animations. To do
this I decided to strip the animation to its bare minimum and work from that. By that I meant
use a stick man.
The stick man was the best choice for this as there was no detail that I had to create for the
walking to look believable. This really helped me as I could fully focus on the animation. I found
trying to animate the walk really hard to do freehand as I just wasn’t sure what should go
where, when. Eventually I decided freehand was too hard so I decided to go ahead and use a
template, the template included a step by step picture animation of the stickman walking. I
simply copied the images and then animated them. However despite doing this I still found that
the walking looked a little off, but I had spent too long trying to correct something that I didn’t
think I would ever be happy with.
I also wanted to push myself a little further so I decided on creating a background. I chose a very
simple design for this as I wanted to focus on the animation aspect of it. Making the background
‘move’ past the screen and for it to look believable is actually really hard. However I did find it
easier with such a simple background. In my real video game however I would like to do a more
complicated background, just to push myself a little.