Here are the remaining pictures.
Also at the end of this post, I give a quick summary on how it was created.
Whew. That's hot work.
You can massage my right thigh first. It's very tight.
I did keep my promise about the massage, but unfortunately there was no one to press the camera stutter.
If anyone is interested, here are the steps involved in the animation.
It's actually a lot of work and I am surprised it was finished in time for the November contest.
It's quiet at work right now, so I have some time on my hands.
The clip is only a few seconds long, but a lot of hours went into it.
Research
I don't know how to do a back flip and have no idea of the mechanics.
I did find this one interesting site on WikiHow - How to do a backflip - http://www.wikihow.com/Do-a-Backflip
The animations there were used as a guide.
Choreograph the Flip
How many unique images are needed to get the right effect?
What images can be reused. For example, images of the upward arm swing can be reused on the downward swing.
Also the tuck while in the air can be reused with a 90 degree and 180 degree rotation of the image.
Also, since the gif will loop, you want to ensure that the end of the animation returns back to the original position.
The end result is that 12 unique images were needed.
With reuse of some images, the 12 images would result in a 22 frame animation.
Photograph
Out of the choreography, 12 poses are required.
Daria is posed in each of these positions and photographed multiple time.
That way, when the frames are stitched together, the picture that shows the best continuity can be chosen.
Approx 8 pictures were taken of each pose resulting in 96 pictures.
Daria is actually posed lying her side on the floor. The camera is held above her.
Image Manipulation
I use the free product called GIMP which has most of the features of Photoshop.
For each unique image, the floor around Daria is made transparent. This layer is then placed over gym background layer.
The layers are placed in order, and some layers are duplicated and moved into the positions where they are reused.
The end result is a raw 10 fps animation.
Adjust the Timing
In a gif animation, you can control the time each individual frame is displayed.
The default is 100ms resulting in 10 frames per second. At that rate Daria would be doing a flip every 2 seconds.
So the timing is adjusted to add the natural pause points, for example, the starting position, the top of the arm swing, and sticking the landing, before standing slowly up.
V.I.P
