Paper London

Paper London Animation from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

In this class we were shown more of the animation presets in After Effects, this class also made use of the camera option during the animation. I had already created an illustration from some images I took of a trip to London but decided to use another illustration I made that day.
I originally wanted to use the camera to pull through the layers to look like the viewer is walking through streets in london but because I ended up using a move fixed image that had too much detail to zoom in that far. I'm really happy with the end result and that I managed to combine some work I did outside of uni that was inspired by the task for the class.

After doing this I want to create a set of worlds with similar zone outs to this but with images of York. The end result might be interesting especially with the comparison between modern London and a more historic York skyline. 

Notes:
toggle switch 3d, 2 views top and front - setup
Effect > colour correction - also good for editing in future
Layer > New Camera - make sure one view is active camera

Handdrawn Animation

Heart Animation from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

For this After Effects class we were asked to create an image or word that has been drawn digitally or by hand. The image had to be traced over and saved as jpgs so we could then import into After Effects as a jpeg sequence.  My drawings were created by hand then transferred into illustrator, the specific brush tool is one I downloaded that replicates a marker pen. The tracing animation is created by using the image mask tool and using the pen tool to draw around the drawing outline, the lines thickness needs to cover the whole pen outline so when the mask excludes the background it doesn't crop a bit out the design. To make the animation look like it was drawing the heart I then used the effect Generate > Stroke.

Fox Rotoscope from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

In this class we used the mask layer and the pen tool to cut out a moving object from a video. After tracing around the character in one frame I clicked the stop watch on Mask Path so it would move fluidly in the animation through the whole video when I adjusted the path each frame.

After successfully tracing around my character in the 2 second clip we had to stretch the 2 seconds to 10 seconds in a new composition, however I only stretched it to 5 seconds so the jumping movement would still look natural. After editing it to 5 seconds I looped the clip to last 10 seconds. I then added a background and animated that so it moved slightly as well, adding a a green overlay on the fox video so it looks slightly handdrawn.


Rotoscope Fox Experiment from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

After the class I played around with adding wings to the fox which I will edit further later so they have texture on top to see if I can make it fit in more with the animation.

Bubble Man from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

For this animation lesson I just wanted to use basic vector drawings so it was easier to animate it all. They were all relatively easy to piece together at the beginning and had to be on different layers so I could animate seperate pieces on the character.

After getting to a point where I was happy with the final animation I grabbed some texture for the character and the background and overlayed it on certain layers using Track Matte.

Some shortcuts from the lesson:
t = transparency
p = position
r = rotation
s = scale
a = anchor point
u =  to show key frames

After finishing the class I also added sound to make the animation short more engaging and exciting.

Animating Type

During this lesson we were taught the basics of type animation -  how to move type across the screen and how to spin and manipulate the type.

Because I learnt how to animate type in my own time (see here for tutorial) I decided to use this time to try and perfect the techniques I knew and created a title page for my animations so they end professionally. As I mentioned in an earlier post where I created typefaces, I wanted to edit and look deeper into parts of the designs I created. I did so with the origami-like text to the left where I played with opacity and drop shadows. I ended up using a combination of the two for my final clip. The triangles in this clip are animated using the x rotation tool which can be used to rotate an object once the layer has been made into a 3d layer. The spinning isn't obvious on this clip because it fades into the transition. Below is the  animation I am very happy I was able to include my own typeface into the clip because it makes the animation a bigger reflection of my work.

Short Title Animation from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

Below is a short clip of my initial work in the class where I played around with spinning letters. It is very simple to do, the method is the same way as spinning an object but it is under the text option.

Text experiment from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

Animation Methods

In this lesson about animation we learned how to animate in Adobe Photoshop. We started off with creating a frame animation. For this I created a ball which bounces off the screen. After creating the shape you have to alter it on different layers e.g. move it towards the edge of the screen.

To create a frame animation I followed these steps:

1. File / New / Size = 300 x 100px

2. Layers / create new layers and add artwork (at least 5 layers)

3. Select all layers

4. Window Menu / Timeline / Create Frame Animation / Select frame

5. Timeline window menu / Make Frames from Layers

6. Change Loop options to Forever

7. Select all frames / Change frame times to 0.1sec

8. File / Save for Web / Gif / loop forever

We also learnt to animate using video layers- as you can see below:

 
To create this clip I followed these steps: 
1. File / New / 960 x 540px Square pixel

2. make sure timeline is open

3. Layers menu / Video Layers / New Blank Video layer

4. Timeline window menu / Set Frame Rate / set to 12fps / Ok

5. Timeline menu / Turn on Onion Skin / Zoom layer to fit timeline

6. Playhead settings button / turn on Loop Playback

7. Draw artwork / new frame / draw next frame / new frame etc

8. Shorten work area to suit / play animation

9. Layers menu / Video Layers / New Blank Video layer

10. add another animation

11. File / Export / Render Video / Quicktime - jpeg medium quality - 24fps

The onion skin setting allows you to see the previous drawing you did so your character or object can transition smoothly.

Jump - Hand Drawn Test from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

Thirdly we learnt how to animate hand drawn work to do this I followed these steps:

1. File / Open / Jump.psd

2. Select all layers

3. Timeline / Create Frame Animation / Select frame

4. Timeline window menu / Make Frames from Layers

5. Change Loop options to Forever / Play

6. Select all frames / Change frame times to 0.1sec

7. Crop image to fit better

8. File / Export / Render Video / Quicktime - jpeg medium quality - 24fps

 
Video Rotoscope Experiment from Phoebe Whitehead on Vimeo.

Video Rotoscoping was the longest of all the animations to create because of the detail needed to create something realistic. At the end of my experiment you can see the person I traced in the video. This is a great method to use when wanting a character or moving object to be extremely realistic in their movements. I definitely would like to use this method again in a project.

Steps to create the video rotoscope:

1. File / New / 1280 x 720px Square pixel

2. make sure timeline is open

3. Layers menu / Video Layers / New Video layer from file... / Lock this layer

4. Timeline window menu / Set Frame Rate / set to 12fps / Ok

5. Layers menu / Video Layers / New Blank Video layer

6. Timeline menu / Turn off Onion Skin / Zoom layer to fit timeline

7. Playhead settings button / turn on Loop Playback

8. Draw artwork over video / new frame / draw next frame / new frame etc

9. File / Export / Render Video / Quicktime - jpeg medium quality - 24fps