First attempt with 3D

The AfterEffects workshop with Mike proved useful.  I had been looking at the Video copilot 3D tutorial Chris had put up on the Tech form.  I showed Mike the 2D compositions I ahd produced and explained I would like to create a 3d walk through effect.  He gave me a quick run though how to create camera layers and also how to parent a light to the camera to start creating shadows.


He recommended i switch off the Camera auto orientation.

As I had developed all my album animations as separate compositions this enabled me to use these to create a new compositions using 3d layers.  I had to adjust some of the animation and also learn how to use cameras, lights and shadows - All quite a lot trickier than it first appears!

Work in progress

This is the first attempt at almost sixty seconds.  I am reasonably please with the sequences and flow between however  want to try making the motion 3d so I can explore using a cameras and lights.

Creating dry ice or fog in After Effects

The Clash Black and white grainy London calling cover was before the Unkle album cover and this gave me an idea.  An effect which i would like to achieve was to get the Futura characters to appear through some dry ice or fog. 


I found this tutorial on line which did not use plug ins and basically followed it - it was actually relatively simple but really effective.

Some screen shots of how I did this are below.

When I added the Fog composition to the Unkle one I scaled the Fog one up and masked and feathered the edges so the Fog would not appear 'oblong shaped.

Tips with After Effects

Fortunately I had set each of my 'Album Cover' compositions as nested compositions.  I needed to copy three of these nested composition, reverse and speed up to get a rewind like effect.  I found these features:


TimeWarp Effect

I found you can also Time reverse a layer however when I tried to do both it would not work.  I tried Time recerse the layer then applying the effct and also the other way round but neitehr worked.  For now I am just going to speed effect up.  It is so fast you can hardly tell the difference.

Type workshop week 3

We discussed our Brand choices:


The best examples :

• Identified details
• Interesting to see the material in context (substrates)
• Interesting to understand the history/context -opportunity to explain
• Technical analysis - construction and terminology
• Use bullet points and arrows rather than paragraphs to describe
• Critical engagement - deconstruct the type - What are the characteristics of the product- Do they fit?  What does it really mean?
• Eg Serif - aithority, make connections

Ideas for Type journal

Look at Yellow pages ads

Record clever pieces of design

Exercise - 550 words

A5 flyer double sided

Preparation

Hierarchy  - What will grab their attention

Think purpose. who for, what is important in that context.

Promotional -event

Which info will go on which side

Initial 

Interim Evaluation

Plan - creating assets ready to import in AE

By the 12th Jan I had experimented with the Sticky fingers idea and animated it for the progress crit.  At the time I was not sure whether to take the moving image this way however once I had chosen all the Albums I now could visualise how to make each one move in a similar fashion.

With The Led Zep album cover I tried tracing it in Illustrator however the actual scanned album did work better.  I found the nearest font to the Physical graffiti was Lucida Bright Demibold.  I used this as  a strating point then manipulated each letter in Illustrator to recreate the desired effect so I could spell Peter Corriston.

In Photoshop I created colour fill adjustment layers to 'darken' the windows gradually.

The next step was to ensure I had created all the assets for each of the other Album Cover.  I scanned the albums in where I could as this provided a more authentic feel than photographs.  I used a variety of techniques in both Illustrator and Photoshop.


Pink Floyd

The inspiration for this was obviously the front cover but also the 'soundwave' on the inside of the cover. Initially I tried to create a screen wip effect to make the script handwriting 'appear'.

However Lorraine directed us to a  tutorial how to write text on i After effects so I followed this to produce the effect I eventually came up with.  I actually recreated the Darkside of the moon in Photoshop as it was easier to manage the transition to 'Hipgnosis', 

The other images were mainly manipulated in Photoshop.  Where I was replacing text with Designers names I tried to work out the closest match to the original Album cover so the effect was quite cryptic and would only be noticed by people in the 'know'.

I also labelled all the layers which proved essential when importing to Aftereffects.

I used the magic brush to cut various heads from other photos and album covers to create the PetShop boys sequence. 

Deciding on the music selection was crucial before I started moving images.  To keep the whole project authentic I only selected tracks off the albums used.  As I have between 4 and 6 seconds per album cover max I chose the most recognisable parts of songs and with as simple a rhythm as possible.

Storyboards - 60 seconds

I did start storyboarding however given there was less than ten days to the deadline went straight into After Effects at this point and never returned to the story boards. 

I am not going to pretend I did them as I can evaluate the project on this basis and whilst I may get extra marks for doing them this is not going to enhance my learning.  Quite simply I ran out of time...

Blue Monday - New Order

The cover and the code.  Thought it would be neat to use the colour code he developed to spell 'Peter Saville'

Cover history

UAG

The Alphabet Colour code 73 BLUE monday

And

Once I have worked out each letter I created each one as a separate layer in Photoshop so than I could animate the change from the original to spell Peter Saville.

peter-saville-new-order-colour-code

After Effects workshop 5

• Additional key framing techniques
• Simplifying compositions by 'grouping' layers together
• How to add sound to the compositions.

Can apply these techniques to any layers

Working with accelaration and decelaration

Easing in and easing out

Select the first keyframe

Animation menu

Key frame asst.

Ease out to accelerate away from he key frame

To ease in select last keyframe

To ease in and out select both first and last key frames then select Easy Ease

Using the Graph Editor

On the toolbar select Graph editor

Gives and opportunity to change the speed 

Can deselect keyframes using handles

Can use purely the Graph Editor instead of easing out/in

Pendulum

Select solid layer then double click elipse to create a elipse

Consider how the object will rotate around the acbchor point

Use the Pan behind tool (y) select anchor point then move as appropriate

Simplify compositions using multiple layers and groups

Parent/Child relationships

Allows you to link layers together

Ensure the layers are positioned how you want them to appear

Establish parent/child relationship using the parent drop down menu next to the layer switches.

The drop down menu shows each of the other layer names.

Select the parent for each layer as relevant

The child layer can be animated independently however always bound to the parent.

Reminer- to get object to follow path - AUTO-ORIENTATE

Can use Rove across time for key frames

Nesting Compositions inside each other

or can create a new comp then nest into a 'main comp.

Audio

Sound files  -AIFF or WAV

File/import/open

fixed length

use RAM preview to playback sound

Ensure when add to render queue that audio output switched on as below