Animating can be a time consuming process, especially when multiple parts are working in tandem with each other. The Human form, a complicated system of sub-systems, can be broken up into different segments and controlled in a variety of ways based on the “Parent to Child” hierarchy, with a central item influencing the movement or direction of a subjective item (i.e.: arm-to-hand movements). This understanding is replete in 2D animation to 3D animation, the study of ergonomics, robotics and kinetics, linking strategies and flow-charting as well as a near infinite amount of other disciplines common in both commercial and industrial realms.

Enduring Understandings
Students will become familiar with the concept that the process of animation is a system - a series of events in sequential order, that produces an illusion of movement or motion. And, the students will understand how to manipulate the system in order to generate custom animations based on a principle of “parent to child” heirarchy.

Manipulating the Mannequin
The student’s task is to locate, on the Internet, images of the classical artist training model – the Wooden Mannequin. Any image of the Wooden Mannequin can be acquired, but is important to keep in mind that a higher resolution image will produce more stunning results. Once an image has been acquired, the Pen Tool will be used (in Photoshop) to extrapolate the Mannequin from its surroundings. Also, the Pen Tool is responsible for cutting around, and through, certain parts of the Wooden Mannequin as this will allow for different sections to be severed from others. For instance, severing an arm from the torso will allow the artist to freely move the arm around, in a variety of directions, when assembled in applications like Adobe Animate. Remember to slice around the elbow, knee, neck, wrist, ankle, and waist joints. Once these items are extrapolated, the different sections should be relocated to different layers in Photoshop. Make sure that the layers are named appropriately. Once this is done, the Wooden Mannequin is ready to be brought to life. By using Adobe Animate, it’s time to make the Mannequin walk, dance, jump around, or whatever.

A bit of advice: Instead of piecing the mannequin together on the stage, instead create the mannequin as it's own movie clip. Create the background as it's own movie clip. Drag both movie clips to different layers on the stage. This means that both movie clips are a minimum of 1 minute apiece.

Activity Steps Rubric

• Create a new folder in your Adobe Animate folder and title it "Mannequin"
• Download this image of a Wooden Artist Mannequin, saving it to your "Mannequin" folder.
• Extrapolate the Wooden Mannequin from background using Adobe Photoshop (10 pts)
• Using the Pen Tool (in Photoshop), sever the body segments - MAKE SURE THE PEN TOOL IS SET TO PATH (NOT SHAPE)
  • Separate the body segments onto separate layers - It is recommended to really take a good look at how the body is connected. For instance, the knee is actually connected to the lower leg (not the upper leg). The ball joint at the hip is connected to the upper leg. I would keep these connected instead of separating the ball joints out. Watch this video on how to "extrapolate" your image, using the Pen Tool to separate your mannequin from it's background and the individual body parts from each other.
• Name the layers appropriately (Call the left hand layer "Left Hand") (10 pts)
• Turn the layer (with the entire mannequin and the white background off)
• Save your Mannequin as "Mannequin.psd"
• Import layers into Adobe Animate (Import into the Library and then choose your Mannequin.psd file) (10 pts)
• Create a new Symbol in the Library and title it "Mannequin 1"
• In the "Mannequin 1" Symbol, piece together your mannequin using the imported body parts. 
• On each body part, right click on it and choose "Convert to Symbol." This will create a lot of symbols in your libray titled "Symbol 1," "Symbol 2," etc - This is okay.
• Create your bones according to this graphic: (The best practice is to start your bones at the top of the waist - where the red dot is on the mannequin image below and work your way up the torso, up the neck, to the shoulders, down the arms, etc. Then, move from the waist down the legs in the same fashion).
  
  
• Perform bones animation sequence so that the mannequin dances, sits, does jumping jacks, push-ups (whatever you can come up with) (10 pts)
• Clone two more mannequins from your original (so that you have three total). Animate these mannequins differently. (30)
• Animation should be no less than 1 minute (not frames), at 24 frames-per-second long in real time. (10 pts)
• Create an animated background for your mannequin (it could be a dance floor, a scrolling background - pretty much anything that would create that illusion of movement) (10 pts)
• EXPORT YOUR WORK: In order to wrap things up. Be sure to EXPORT your work as “Mannequin MOVIE” and be sure to render that movie to your “Mannequin” folder (be sure to export this as a Video/Media file using Adobe Media Encoder - just like our last three assignments)  (10 pts)