Animations

Here are animations i have created using the skills i have learned.

Camera in AE

3D plane

FMP SPECIALISM

 

Im not sure why but Premiere has been exporting my 1024x576 as 720x576 and thats not the resolution i would like... so i will try to export with After effect. 

 I have succeeded the export with After effects.

creating a 2 and a 1/2 D house using 3D layering in AE

Create separate pieces in Photoshop

house front, house side, roof, roof center piece. Save a PNG or photoshop document to reserve transparency.

import photoshop documents with images into AE

put into composition

turn on 3D layer button (the cube)

put the separate images together to construct a 3D house

once house is constructed  go to layer- new- camera. You can then navigate and rotate around in the camera view to see the 3d house properly. IMPORTANT NOTE: If the camera is not moving around the object itself and doing something weird with the perspective, go to Layer - transform - Auto orient and this need to be switched OFF to work properly.

parent the layers to the main image

Working in Photoshop

Photoshop

The photoshop interface-

Freeing up a layer (unlocking) - Double click ont he layer and click ok.

Removing white background- Use wand tool and select white background, then delete

Removeing the white background so that other programs can read it.

To hide the marching ants (ctrl + h)

magic wand tool click on white background - select inverse

Add layer mask-

Go to channels- hide all other layers (rgb,red,green,blue) the view will show the white as the visible and the balck as the transparent (grey tones are semi transparent). This helps you to see any unwanted dots on the background which has been missed.

 You can clean up the bits not wanted with a black pen, any black pen will turn transparent and the white pen will bring back the white background.

 Cleaning up rough drawings

I decided that instead of print screening and using up a lot of time i would use a program called Camstudio and record what i am doing on my screen.
So this is the process i will go through to clean up and remove white background from a rough drawing.

 

Batch Scan  (scanning in multiple images with a scanner and importing them into Photoshop)

Open Photoshop - file - Automate - Batch - choose set - choose the action

Trying a non linear approach (personal experimentation)





Digital Cel animation

Toon Boom STUDIO


Interface

using the brush and the pencil tools

changeing the brush into a pencil type line

Animating with cells, camera layer and pegs

Draw a body with no head and add a colour palette.

rename the palette whatever you like. colour. turn on the auto light table to be able to see the other drawing layer.

Create a new drawing layer, then draw a head facing forward, right and left

right

left


Extend exposure to 50 or the same as the body layer.

The global in the library saves whatever is put in there, so if you access it from another computer and it is on the same server you can access your work. The local however you can not.



CAMERA

                                              First switch to scene planning mode

create a peg and put the head layer and body layer inside it.

this way the head will be attached to the body and we can move it as a whole instead of the head moving separate to the body.

key frame and move the character using the motion tool arrow button.

.................just a note-

The local library is where you can store the head or body layer so you can bring it out and duplicate it to create another character.................

I realy prefur the Toon boom animate version of the camera tool as it is much smoother and makes more sense in hoe you use it.

ROTATING!


Cells-

Using cells you can replace a head with another head. like the forward position head can be replace with a side view head just by selecting form the cells.

Add a camera peg so that the camera can be animated.

Toon boom Bones

create a character or in this case arm on a drawing layer and extend the exposure to whatever required, in this case it will be 60.

make the bones on the character with the bone creator tool (kite with the plus). With joints (arms and legs) go down, working from the top of the arm to the bottom where the hand is. With torso and head work from bottom to top.

You can change the influence the bones have on the objects near it using the bone influence tool (kite surrounded by marching ants) Influence has to be changed to elliptical on the drop down list.

Screen shots of creating bones on a character:

parent legs and arms to torso using the parenting tool (2 kites and arrow).

I would say that TB Studio's Bone tool is very easy to use in comparison to TB Animate. Their is only one problem however, if you have a character walking and you want the right arm in front of the other layers so it is in front of the body and not behind, i have yet to find out if it is even possible, the tutor had told us that even he is unsure if it can do it. This is a big problem with the program, in TB Animate it takes time to set a up the bones but it is a lot better as it works in layers and if i need a body part in front i just move the drawing layer above the ones i want it to be in front of.

After Effects

Basics of After effects Part 1



Interface-

1. Arrow tool- select anything.
2. Pen tool- used to create masks around objects.
3. Hand tool- used to grab and move objects.
4. Project tab- all project files are imported to here.
5. Composition area tab- where the project takes place, all the objects in the timeline apear in the composition area.
6. Timeline- drag objects from the project tab to here to show objects into the composition area.


Importing into After Effects-

 File - Import - File

Keying

Using the keying tools you can key out any color you do not need, for example the white background in this image is not needed, so i will use color key to select the color white and then any white will disapear from the image.
Depending on the type of keying tool you pick there will be either a lot of options or less options, the more options there is the better but also the more difficult to use.

If there is still some white edging left around the image, you can get rid of this by using matte choker.

Creating a mask

If you want to make the wheels move but leave the rest of the image untouched then using the mask tool will acomplish this. First duplicate the layer, then select the wheels using the pen tool, a mask will then be created.
A mask selects only what is inside them mask and everything elese (the rest of the car) goes invisible to the viewer.
To invert the mask (select everything but the wheels) click on the masks properties and tick the inverted box.

To loop in AE

 Using the Camera to create a 3D set

Adding lights-

you can add a spot light or parallel light which mimics sunlight. You can change the intensity of the light and feather the cone to create a softer look.

For objects to cast shadows you have to turn on cast shadows in the material options of the object you want to cast the shadow.

This concludes all we got taught in the lessons, it has been rather interesting and i feel i have learnt a great deal, i enjoyed 3D plane because it is 3 dimensional but much easier and less stressful and time consuming than using Maya, it also creates a paper cut out look which i quite like. I will be going on to learn maya in the future as i think all programs can be useful once you look in to them, even Toon Boom studio was useful in some aspects like puppet tool, with exception of the camera tool which i found to be disastrous in comparison to Toon Boom animate pro.