15th May 2008
We looked at a few techniques for test animation today. We followed an online tutorial to produce the following. We changed bits of it to make it our own.
We then looked again at displacement maps. We used a displacement map to give the impression of a picture underwater. We used this effect to create the water pool in the swimming pool tutorial we designed a few weeks ago.
A displacement map, works by distorting the layers beneath it depending on the colour information in the map. We first created a fractal to resemble water. We did this using the “string” type in the fractal noise settings. We created two of these layers and made one layer and Overlay. We then precomposed these to use as our map.
We then created an adjustment layer and added a displacement map effect to it. We then used the map composition we just created as the layer map. We then turn the opacity of the map compostion down to around 20%. This is the finished result.
monday 12th May 2008
Today we did some more motion tracking using the leaves the we created on the last lesson. Firstly we went out and filmed some more footage to track. We wanted flat surfaces so we filmed buildings and signs.
We used the same technique as the last lesson, but this time we added a ramp effect to the colours of the leaves. This is the first one we did.
In the next shot, we decided to have a couple of areas where the leaves were growing. The first above the doorway, the next on the big wall next to it. We used the same technique as before for both. For the second, however, we wanted the vines to become transparent when it grew across the window. Do to this, we had to create a travelling matte. We did this by created a new black solid at tracking it to the window using the same technique as before. On the leaves layer, we then selected the new black solid as the matte layer. Here is the final result.
We then wanted to have a transition between the two clips, so we thought we’d use the tree as a wipe. We did this in the same way as the window. We created a new solid then added a mask to it that was the shape of the tree. We then tracked this solid to the tree itself.
8th May 2008
Today we furthered our work with motion tracking by looking at perspective corner pin tracking. Using this method, you can track the 4 corners of an object. We decided that we wanted to create the impression of 2D leaves growing over a sign. Firstly though, we had to create the animation of the leaves growing. We downloaded a stock picture of some flowers and in Photoshop separated the flowers, leaves and vines onto separate layers. We then animated these items using strokes and scale keyframes. This is what we came up with.
We went out and filmed a simple pan past a parking sign to use as our footage. This is that footage.
The first thing we had to do then was track the four corners of the sign. We then applied this track data to the precomposed flowers layer we’d created. To add more to the image, we used a lens flare effect. We also used the tracking data to position this.We then decided to create a vine that grew up the pole. We did this by drawing a path and adding a key framed stroke effect to it. We then animated some leaves growing from the vine. We motion tracked to pole to keep the vine in place.
This is the final result.
1st May 2008
Today we experimented with motion tracking in after effects. Firstly we recorded some simple footage of the building. We did a simple pan to make the motion tracking easy.
Motion tracking works by selecting a group of pixels and for after effects to look for within a given area. You also select an attach point for objects to hold on to. We selected the top left window because it is a point that remains constant throughout the clip and is reasonably well defined.
Once we had created the track data, we assigned this to a new null object. This would be the point that the rest of our footage would follow.
We then created some simple smoke the same was as we did in the titanic title sequence. We used the particle playground, gaussian blur and tritone effects to create the effect. We then attached this smoke to the null object and adjusted the anchor point to make the smoke appear as if it was coming from a window.
