Sunday 22 July 2012

Updated animatic

Well, semester has started again, so I guess it's time for another update on going ons. I haven't really been updating my animatic since I started animating, since I am doing it on paper, and have barely any time anyway, so I thought I'd do it when I start scanning stuff in. But according to Susan I should be constantly updating it, in order to see how the shots fit together. Which I totally get, but I didn't think I'd have time, considering Aftereffects, timing, rendering... well she said she would show me a quick way, so we'll see. I mass updated it this week anyway, just to see my progress:


It's depressing.

I tell myself that I haven't yet put in the slapping bits near the end I animated but couldn't be bothered timing, and a section in the middle that I did in Flash, but that's still nowhere near halfway.

Good news though, is I have a couple of helpers for colouring the animation. The need for newer versions of Photoshop made it difficult for some, but I am lucky, I have some very nice friends. :) I might also be enlisting external help for backgrounds as well. I have completed a few already, but not enough. My friend Michelle is super talented, and I have asked her if she could do a couple of the bigger backgrounds I haven't the time for. She is yet to confirm though. She has a blog here: http://meshellfish.tumblr.com/

Some of my backgrounds:
I have changed the style of the backgrounds to a smoother look.
This was faster for me, using gradients for lighting instead of hand painting it.
Much neater style, compared to my previous look for this.


Which reminds me, I have to source some playing card designs. No way am I designing 52 cards... but the court cards I might have to do, to have them look similar to my Jacque/Death design. Gah.

On the sound front, Nick is currently inputting his ideas into Musescore. His new piece... I don't quite feel it fits either, but the midi in Musescore isn't that good... or maybe nothing will ever please me. Either way, it would be unfair of me to ask for another, so we are just going to work this piece vigorously. I am disappointed that Adobe Audition doesn't have midi support though, since I have it at home and it would thus be more convenient than Pro Tools. Quite a let down really.

In other news, I am ineligible to showcase my animation in the COFA Annual, as I am not a final year student. It makes sense now that I think about it, and I don't mind really, since that means I have time to develop something that is actually any good for next year. It's all part of the learning journey.

Tuesday 10 July 2012

Scanning and colouring

Method:

  1. Open up Photoshop.
  2. Scan in all frames of the animation.
  3. Copy and paste everything into one file as layers (bottom to top numbering).
  4. Rotate, crop etc.
  5. Open Timeline (or Animation) panel.
  6. Time out animation according to dope sheet.
  7. Chuck on Levels and Black & White adjustment layers.
  8. Group all layers.
  9. Set group to Multiply.
  10. Fix up ugly bits in lines.

Colouring instructions (for my colourists):
For my dear colourists,
the outline you receive should already be cleaned up to something like this
with aforementioned Levels and Black & White layers.

  1. Fix up any holes in the lines (black, approx 3px, 99% hard).

    For Step 1, what I mean by holes...
    ... and how you fix them.

  2. Create new layer beneath outline layers.
  3. Trim to same length as corresponding outline layer in the Timeline. (<= just ignore this if you don't have Timeline)
  4. Magic wand (w) to select background (outline layer). Try to get as close to the line as possible by adjusting the tolerance value. The bits leftover use Shift + Select. The reason for this is because the adjustment layers for the outlines don't affect the outline layers themselves, which you are making the selection on. And those layers are messy.



  5. Select inverse.
  6. Fill (g) black to create a silhouette (colour layer). This is to compensate for the scratchy pencil outline. Random black pixels look better than white ones.

  7. Lower opacity so that the lines are visible again (colour layer).
  8. Magic wand (w) same colour areas (outline layer).
  9. Fill (g) with corresponding colour (colour layer).
  10. Repeat from 8 until all areas are coloured.
  11. Max the opacity.
  12. Manually colour in with the Brush (b) any bits missed.
  13. Repeat from 2 until all frames are coloured.

Example of how the colour layers are meant to end up; the outline layers are the top half, the colour layers at the bottom match their corresponding outline.

For those without Timeline, this is the basic layer structure you're aiming for.

Notes:
  • Make sure you are on the correct layer.
  • Just because the marker cursor thing is showing a certain layer on the Timeline doesn't mean the layer is actually selected.
  • New layers start where the marker is on the Timeline.
  • Useful shortcuts:
    • Magic wand => w
    • Brush => b
    • Fill => g
    • Eyedropper => hold Alt while on Fill or Brush
    • New layer => Ctrl + Shift + n
    • Brush size => [ and ]
    • Trim to end of marker thing (I set this one myself) => Ctrl + Alt + d

Colouring instructions (pseudo-code version):

while (curr < numFrames+1) {
     if (holes in curr) {
          Fix up holes in the lines (black, approx 3px, 99% hard).
     }
     curr = next frame
}

while (frames != coloured) {

     Create new layer beneath outline layers.
     Trim to same length as corresponding outline layer in the Timeline.
     Magic wand (w) to select background (outline layer).
     Select inverse.
     Fill (g) black to create a silhouette (colour layer). #This is to compensate for the scratchy pencil outline. 
                                                                                #Random black pixels look better than white ones.
     Lower opacity so that the lines are visible again (colour layer).

     while (frame != coloured) {
          Magic wand (w) same colour areas (outline layer).
          Fill (g) with corresponding colour (colour layer).
     }

     Max the opacity.
     Manually colour in with the Brush (b) any bits missed.
     curr = next frame
}

Sunday 1 July 2012

The problem with not having your own room

People keep stepping on your pegbars. Which keep breaking.

Digital animation

Hello, I have officially spent an entire week on a single shot and I feel like jumping into a very deep hole at the moment. So right now I am jumping into a very deep hole investigating ways to animate digitally, as I figured I could get away with it for the fast shots where the kids are small in frame, as they would zip by too fast to need much detailing or accurate in-betweening (my main issue with the digital method) and I could do faster timing. Hopefully.

So I've been doing some experimenting. I would want to be drawing in Photoshop by preference, naturally, but the timing is terrible. I remembered reading somewhere about having After Effects open and using both at the same time, but Aftereffects does not seem to pick up new layers added after import. And After Effects does my head in anyway. A favourite artist/animator of mine (http://qinni.tumblr.com/) recommends timing in Flipbook first, except I don't really want to buy more software even though it looks like a cool program.


Then I came across this: http://joshuakahan.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/flash-to-photoshop-importing-flash-animations-into-photoshop/

It looks promising, as I have had a little experience with Flash and the timing is GREAT. Now I just have to relearn it...

... and, aside from a couple of d'oh speed bumps (not setting stage dimensions before work), Flash is working out very well. I have the key poses of a running shot very roughly sketched out in Flash, then exported to a PNG sequence which can then be imported as a Video Layer into Photoshop. I wouldn't do this for a slow, zoomed in shot however, as I am not precise enough with my Bamboo tablet.

In other news, I give up on inking. I have done three shots so far, and although comparatively speaking it doesn't take too long (I reckon I could probably fit 5 shots into a day's work if I tried) I am unimpressed by the wobbly, ever straying line I keep producing. Sooo... I would like to just apply some Levels adjustment to my pencil drawings and hope for the best... man, if I decided this earlier I would have made the lines cleaner/darker! As it stands, I probably won't be able to do a clean paint bucket fill for colouring... bleh.