Yay! as of now I was able to finish my second assignment early in time for my trip...although there is still some I'm not happy with.
First completed was the Temporal and Spatial Montage from week three. For this task we were supplied wioth 5 images and we had to animate at least one character from each picture to jump over a wall (which were also supplied with) in aftereffects.
The first step in the process was masking all the chracters I had wanted from each image. Since this was similar to photoshop's selection tools I did not have too much trouble creating a mask using the standard pen tool. Thinking back I had favoured using the standard pen tool all throughout the masking rather than using the gradient pen to create curved outlines. While less fidgety using only the standard pen to create curvews made the mask harder to animate of edit because all the higher number of points needed to create curved lines.
After masking I then opened the wall picture in photoshop and separated the wall in the foreground of the image from the background by layer via crop. The half of the picture was then saved as separately so that the characters can later bee seen 'jumping' behind the wall rather than in front - by jumping 'behind' the wall it adds dimension to the whole video and will appear realistic.
A new project was created in after effects, composition settings etc. and all the images were imported and places into the composition. The images were then scaled down as there too large for the composition size.
The images were then ordered according to the sequence I believe I had wanted for my composition (it changed quite a lot as ideas for the final video was developed). When ordering images/vidoes whatever is ontop while be the top layer. Therefore the fore wall from the 'wall image' provided was placed at the top of the list, all the character in between and the background behind them. This resulted in the characters jumping behind the wall but before the background from the image - had to be very careful about lining up the two halves of the wall image though.
To animate in Aftereffects keyframes are used to change the values of the object and it's effects against the time. Usually movement between these 'keys' are linear - since the animation could be represented as curves - and the shift from one key to another animation segment is constant. However there are other key types such as Hold - where the animation is held at the point until it snaps into the next section, Ease in - where just before the next key frame the animation slightly slows down, leading to a smooth transition into the current frame, Ease out - a smooth exit from the frame, slower beginning into the next keyframe, and the combination of both ease ins. Although it's easier and generally more natural to use the ease in key I found myself more comfortable using numerous keys to achieve the same affect so that the timing can be edited and perfected exactly later.
When picking my characters I decided for the most abstract poses so that I could have a bit of fun trying to to get them to interact with each other in the video.The first character I had animated was a female wearing exercise gear and also in starjump pose. I used the position keyframes to make her jump in growing jumps to the other side of the compositions in simulation of a daily exercise. Then just for the fun of it I picked I 'skater' dude and had him leap over the girl as she reached the end, using a bit of rotation animation. Then there was a guy who was seemingly sliding, so I did exactly that. I had the character skim through the air by lengthening the distance between where he left the ground and his landing. This also meant I had to change the path and 'strength' of the man's jump in comparison to the other character's that it would seem natural when he 'skid'. Later on, after the due date of the 1st assignment, I went back and made one of the men jump the dog character..just a crazy idea that pooped up while watching the telly. So that the man's leg could be over the side of the dog for the ride I created another mask to cover the dog's hide in the shape of the leg - this had to be timed as the dog would have had a hole in it's side when I first jumped over the wall.
Motion blur - an effect that picks up on fast movement and creates a speed blur - was used so that all character's jumps would have that realistic touch.
When creating this video the hardest part was not the actual animation but preparing the images and creating a concept before beginning - the animation only takes a long time to complete but it's not that difficult at this point.
link to task 2 - http://www.vimeo.com/14921858
-we were also taught how to create solid shapes in the Tutorial which can act both as backgrounds are as characters in themselves
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