This week, we continued animating and I began to transfer some of the image sequences from the animation server onto my hard drive to start putting them into Adobe After Effects. Martha set up a shared google drive which we all started to upload the image sequences and all footage to just in case anything was lost from our separate hard drives or devices. We also kept track of what animations I had put into a composition so far on the shared spreadsheet.
Shared Google Drive Folder Example
On Tuesday, I met with Aaron and Martha to discuss deadlines and how the animations were looking so far, and everything seemed to be on track apart from the inky effect Martha had wanted for the final animation as we didn’t have a fishbowl to create it in, so I proposed we looked for overlays instead of making our own in the interest of time.
Martha, Michael and I all met up again on Tuesday in the animation department after me and Michael got back from our modernism seminar to photograph the scrumpled baking paper on the light boxes to use as overlays for the animations, so that they would look like they were behind a layer of parchment and more like authentic shadow puppets. I did struggle to change the colour of the baking paper overlays from blue to an authentic warm yellow digitally, but Martha told me the graphics department that were working on the credits for her film put a stronger yellow beneath the overlay and then changed the opacity of the overlay to let some through, which I tried and it worked really well.
Baking paper texture original example
On Thursday I got a train to Newcastle, as I had plans to see family over from Ireland for Easter. I had of course told both Martha and Michael this was happening far in advance and assured them I’d be able to work on my laptop from home, as the majority of the animation was done and the main task was to now put all the components together on Adobe After Effects. Before leaving I went into ECA at 11:30am to make sure I had all the image sequences I needed backed up to my hard drive from the animation servers, although they were also on the shared google drive in case I’d forgotten anything, then left for my train at 12:30pm.
Here’s the wolf and forest sequence I had worked on before leaving for home:
On Friday I had the majority of the second animation put together. I decided to focus on this one as I had all the image sequences for it available and I knew it would be by far the most complicated to construct on After Effects due to the amount of puppets and different movements involved , so working on it first would allow me the most time for trial and error and hopefully would help me get the hang of putting the next compositions together quicker. It was very fiddly and time consuming – for each individual puppet and background I had to mask out the background colour, position it to scale within the frame, duplicate and line up each layer of repeating motion (eg for the sheep), keyframe the movement of the sheep and wolf to move realistically within the context of the scene (which was even harder if the setting was also moving) and time this all up to the narration.
I sent a version of the second animation put together with no effects to Martha to see if she was happy with the placement and timing of all the puppets and individual movements, which she mostly was apart from the timing of the inversion of the bush which we decided to have come a bit later to see more of the wolf walking towards the sheep.
Here is the section before the timing fix:
On the weekend, I played around with some effects on the second animation. I found a way to use 3D layers on After Effects to have a central light source cast a shadow of the animations layers upon the scrumple overlay, giving a more authentic diffused, warped shadow effect on the edges of the frame, as well as a central light source like in an actual shadow puppet theatre. I tried a couple of versions of this and sent them to Martha – she really liked the central light source but thought the shadow was too blurry, so we decided to play around with effects together when I got back as this was quicker than me sending ideas over WhatsApp.
3D Layer view of the object casting a shadow on the textured layer
Here is the wolf animation with the central light source but no shadow blur: Wolf Animation Test1
Here is the wolf animation with the central light source and shadow blur: Wolf Animation Test2
