The first two animations were tests with the melting one utilising the smudge tool in photshop, and with the second one I gave a whirl of morphing. The third and fourth animations I specified to the script of Lost Boy with the part "I felt like my eyes were bulging out of my head". I have been reading some books which include Timing for Animation by Herald Whitaker which is really starting to help me understand what makes a good 2D animation, it has a lot of the technical jargon of old-school cell animation that I want to learn including bar sheets, timing and spacing, anticipation, and animating in firsts or halfs. I have also been reading another book called Hybrid Animation by Tina O'Hailey which is helping me understand and think laterally about what I need to get the look of Lost Boy with a lot of examples of animations that have done a good job of juxtapositioning 2D with 3D.
Further to animating in photoshop I wanted to do some tests in After Effects. I rendered just the lines from photoshop as a .png sequence and brought these into after Effects to play around with. I think some of the effects could really capture the emotion that I am going for in that scene - by having the energy be in the line work,
To put what I am learning with 2D animation into effect with Lost Boy - I think my recipe will be as follows;
- Have the character models texture look sketchy/ illustrative,
- Render out the character doing its animation and if needs be render the background separately with passes.
- Import the render of the character into photoshop as frames
- Rotoscope over the frames by drawing in the linework in photoshop using the animator's toolbar,
- Export the drawn linework as a png sequence for transparency,
-Bring into after effects and if the emotion calls for it - add the effects that capture its essence - either on just the line work or the line work and the animated model.
Doing it this method with rotoscoping I think would really capture the style that I am going for with Lost Boy, it could be possible if I get the texture of the character model to look a lot like the designs to actually have parts of the animation be 2D - in that its not limited to just the linework, for example for the part where my head turns into a rocket I could 2D animate that part with the present Graeme talking before hand being animated in Maya and then having it switch to 2D. There is things I need to be wary of if going down this route - I have to make it leak seamless between the switch of 2D and 3D and not jarring for the audinece as I dont want the viewer thinking "what changed in this part", rather than being invested in the story.
I need to be really organised with Lost Boy especially with using my time efficiently as rotoscoping is very cumbersome to draw over every frame, which means I would have to have everything rendered with due time to draw over all the frames,
Next on the agenda...
- Start modelling the present Greame, followed by Young Graeme and Mrs Pratt,
- Start rethinkng parts of the stroy to amp up the exageration.
- Do desings, sketches, thumbnails of new story ideas
- I would like to continue with 2D animation and experiment with blending modes by adding the animated experiments here on top of each other, I would also like to
- Download a free trail of Twich by video Copilot to experiment more with 2D.
- 2D animate the head turning into a rocket
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| 1 Melt Morph - photoshop, Animators Toolbar |
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| 2 Crazy face morph - Photoshop. Animators Toolbar |
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| 3. "I felt like my eyes were bulging out of my head" Lines & Colour, Photoshop - Animators Toolbar |
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| 4: "I felt like my eyes were bulging out of my head" Linework Photoshop - Animators Toolbar |
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| 5: "I felt like my eyes were bulging out of my head" Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Wiggle Gelatin |
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| 6:"I felt like my eyes were bulging out of my head" Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Griddler |
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| 7: Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Displacment map with a scrathcy texture |
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| 8: "It was like a wave of axious energy" Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Ripple 1 |
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| 9: "It was like a wave of axious energy" Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Ripple 2 |
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| 10: "It was like a wave of axious energy" Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Ripple 3 |
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| 11: Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Turbulent-Displace 1 |
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| 11: Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Turbulent-Displace 2 |
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| 11: Photoshop - Animators Toolbar & After Effects - Turbulent-Displace 3 |
