Timing

The best way for timing out frames for me was in After Effects I found. Originally I was going to do it in Photoshop, but since most of my colouring people didn't use Timeline anyway, and also a host of other issues with After Effects not interpreting the layers right that I can't remember right now, After Effects was the way to go.

The files had to be really clean first however. I separated each shot into two separate files, colour and line. I got rid of any groups, and made sure each layer was on max opacity; it screws with you later otherwise.

Also important was to get rid of any Timeline information remaining on the Photoshop files. I couldn't figure out a nice way to just turn it off so I had to first switch it to Frames and then back to Timeline, so that all the layers would be active at once, then duplicate it to a new file. Frames puts everything on zero opacity though so had to remember to max that.

Or you could just duplicate twice. Whatever floats your boat.

So that way I get clean, consistent layers to work with in After Effects. You know, there is probably a way to clean up stuff in AE anyway, but I couldn't find any, so it was just neater to have everything there on import.

On working in AE, I gotta remember to do this:

• Set durations of pre-comps
• Set pre-comps to 25fps

Plus these amazing shortcuts:

• [ or ]  -->  Move In point or Out point of selected layers to current time
• Alt+[ or Alt+]  -->  Trim In point or Out point of selected layers to current time

Plus if you want to preserve the blending mode effects (like the transparency from Multiply) in a pre-comp, collapse transformations. I don't know why that works, but it do.

Animating the laugh

As the only piece in my animation that I was syncing to audio, animating the laugh posed a couple of new challenges I guess. I had a rough idea in my mind of viewing the audio as a waveform and writing down the timings of bits, and then maybe roughly testing out the timing of some keyposes, but which software? Doing it directly in Photoshop was my first preference, but although you could bring in audio, there was no way to view the waveforms, so it lacked the precision I was after. Next I tried Premiere Pro and Flash. Premiere was irksome, and I never liked it anyway, so I gave up on that. Flash would have been ok, except the recording was a bit on the quiet side, and so the waveforms were invisible. There seemed to be a limited way of resizing the timeline, plus I couldn't get the audio to play, so I ditched that and went to Audition, which was the logical first choice, come to think of it. So I ended up using Audition to find the exact time I wanted, then timing it out in Photoshop.

I had only a faint idea of how laughs really went, taking them all for granted as it were, so Youtube came into handy there. Although most of the footage tagged with my search terms were of babies, I could see that, contrary to prior assumption, the mouth did not really change shape with each syllable, and head bobbing was minor. I chose to accentuate the head and shoulder movement (exaggeration, booyah), and moreover recalled the use of a figure 8 motion path for the animation of a laugh in one of them books I read; most likely  the Animator's Survival Kit. I haven't consciously done that figure 8 thing yet so I thought it'd be good to give it a try.

Now I just need to get all this information down on paper. Which will take ages. Which I might not even get done this week because I have another assignment due. Which sucks because I am SO CLOSE to finishing all the character animation for this thing. 

2 MORE SHOTS!

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

}