For this project, I shot several scenes of my family at Thanksgiving on an HDcam. Then, I took those shots into Final Cut, and strung them together using a few transitions. I exported that sequence into After Effects. I then created a motion path on a null layer (with a temporary picture of a 2d leaf attached to it). I used a lot of ease-in, ease-out transitions to make the motion look more realistic. In order to create a 3d leaf, I took a picture of a leaf into photoshop, masked the edges, and converted it into a 3d postcard. I took that postcard into a separate After Effects Composition, and made a series of 3d rotations (aligned to the current positions that the leaf would be in along the path). After exporting that composition, I brought it back into my first After Effects Composition. I then got rid of the 2d leaf image, and instead, attached the 3d rotation leaf to the motion path. After adding a few size keyframes to the leaf, I also keyframed masks around objects for the leaf to fly behind. Finally, I added a hue/saturation effect to the leaf, and a motion tracked lens flare to the star on the Christmas tree. Thanks so much for reading my long explanation, and I hope that you enjoy "Fall."
Pitch:A peek into the life of a falling leaf.The audience will watch this leaf and become a part of its story as it flies throughout a series of scenes and events, eventually coming to rest upon the ground.I would like to make the leaf’s movement through the air as realistic as possible, and transitions between scenes will be seamless.The entire piece should be between 1 and 2 minutes in length.
Proposal: The sequence will start with the leaf detaching from an autumn branch.This leaf will swirl through 5 separate scenes.I will shoot each of these scenes in HD, so they match the image quality of the leaf animation.In order to create a ‘seamless’ transition between scenes, I will have each scene slide to the left as a new scene slides into place; the leaf will fly continuously over the break between the images.I intend to use animated masks to allow the leaf to fly behind and swirl around certain objects within a scene.The leaf will fly around people, trees, and even hover over our Thanksgiving dinner for a little while. Eventually the leaf will wind up resting on the ground in front of the tree from which it detached in the first place.
In order to make the leaf’s movements look more realistic, I will first take a maple leaf image into after effects and rotate it in x, y, and z space using the 3D manipulation.Once I have created a variety of rotations for this leaf, I will export the composition, and bring it back into After Effects as footage.I will then use the puppet tool to make the leaf look more flexible, like it is being blown in the wind.After that, I will export the puppet tool leaf as it’s own composition.Finally, after I have created a motion sketch throughout each of the scenes, I will bring the puppet-tooled footage of the leaf into the final composition.
Here is some footage of falling leaves that I will refer to:
1. Jpeg image of leaf masked in Photoshop (2 layers)
2. After Effects: 3D rotation of the leaf, puppet tool manipulation of the leaf, motion sketch of the leaf
3. Theme music (to be found at: http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?genre=Classical)
4. Footage from 2 Thanksgiving parties
HD, 29.97 fps
5. Particle Effects: tree “sparkles,”snow
Storyboard:
Scene 1- CU of leaf attached to branch blowing in the wind, eventually detaches and swirls away
Scene 2- WS of a couple standing & looking at a sunset, 2 trees in the shot, leaf swirls in from the left and flies around the first tree, flies back to where the couple is standing, and, as the leaf swirls around them, the man puts his arm around the woman, leaf flies away and off the screen
Scene 3- MS of a kitchen, Grandmother is cooking Thanksgiving dinner, leaf swirls in from the left side and hovers over the food, flies behind grandmother and off to the right
Scene 4- MS (tilted up) of 2 brothers looking at a Christmas tree, leaf enters the scene, older brother points up at the star as the leaf flies between them and around the back of the tree, leaf makes a loop around the tree 5 times before flying out of the scene
Scene 5- starts out as a WS of the original tree and a children’s swingset, leaf flies into the scene and around the tree once, leaf glides closer to the camera as the camera tilts down to follow the leaf to its final resting place upon the grass, end with CU of leaf on grass
Schedule: Class Project Due Date: December 3rd
Week 1- preproduction, finalize storyboard, plan out motion of leaf, acquire assets, begin animations of leaf
Week 2- finish 3D leaf rotations, finish puppet tool leaf manipulation, shoot Thanksgiving footage, begin integration of leaf into footage
Week 3- finalize leaf motion within footage, finalize masks, create and perfect additional particle effects, set music to composition, and be sure to polish it all up!
So for this project I actually made my friend disappear......just kidding!
I filmed some footage of my friend, Karen, standing in the middle of a field and pretending to be a witch. Then I filmed the same exact frame/scene without anyone standing in the field.
I captured both of these clips into Final Cut and cut them down to take them into After Effects. Then I placed the clip of Karen in the field at the beginning of the timeline, and shifted the empty field to the last half of the timeline. I then drew an inverted mask over Karen at the moment when she was supposed to disappear (the mask is offscreen before this moment). This mask is keyframed to follow Karen's movement, and eventually grows to cover the entire screen. I expanded and feathered this mask to make the transition more natural.
After I was done masking and putting the two clips together, I created two new shape layers for my particle effects. I applied CC Particle World to these layers. The first particle effect I worked on was the red smoke. The very first thing I did was to line up the floor grid with the actual ground plane in the scene. I changed the particle type to faded sphere. Then I played with the birth and death colors, longevity, birth rate, velocity and opacity. I keyframed both the birth rate and the opacity throughout the scene.
The second particle effect I worked on was the sparkles. I copied over all of the ground parameters (X, Y, and Z space), as well as the emitter parameters. I changed the particle type to star. Again, I played with the birth and death colors, longevity, birth rate, velocity, and opacity. I keyframed the birth rate, velocity, and opacity of the stars throughout the scene. I also added a bounce effect to the stars when they hit the floor.
I then rendered out the animation and added both the music and credits in Final Cut.
For this project, I captured some footage that I had from a trip to Disney World into Final Cut, and cut it down to a 9-second clip. I then found a picture of Stitch on the internet and cut out a mask for it on photoshop. Next, I took both the clip and the Stitch into After Effects. I created a motion tracker linked to a null layer for the Disney World clip. Finally I used the null layer as a parent to the Stitch picture. And I wound up with what you see here.
I started out by creating a textbox on the stage, and typing my name. Then, I scrolled through most of the fonts until I found one that I liked. After selecting my font, I changed the size of a few of the characters, as well as the height and width of my name as a whole. Once I created the right look for my name, I keyframed its position. I then created a mask from the text, and ran an image of tiger stripes behind the mask. As the mask increases in opacity, the opacity of the original text decreases. (The same thing happens in reverse when the image fades back to the original text. Finally, using the pen tool, I created a path for the text to follow and exit the screen. Hope you like it!
This project was particularly frustrating for me.....my first attempt at a 3D Dragon wound up looking more like a 3D pencil. So then I started over.... I decided to model each individual part of the dragon in Google SketchUp. Then I had to export each individual model into Photoshop and save it as a psd. My first problem occured here: the tail would not retain any of the colors or textures that I used in Google SketchUp. I tried to fix this problem by re-modeling the tail 3 times, and exporting it in a variety of ways, but I never actually figured out what was wrong. So I decided that the dragon looks better with a gray tail. After saving each model as a psd, I imported the files into AfterEffects. The plan was to create snakelike a path using the head of the dragon, to orient the head to the path that I created, then to parent each individual body piece to follow the head, and rotate each piece in turn. However, when I tried to parent the body piece to the head, it jumped all over the place. I decided it might just be easier to move the piece manually. That took a really long time... So i decided that my Dragon should actually just be a baby dragon this time. Hope you enjoy!
