Applied Animation: Testing Style and Animating with After Effects

As I was wanting to produce realistic human movements for my animation, I thought it would be best if I gave Rotoscoping a try. This way I can obtain a degree of realism that I am happy with, without spending too much time trying to perfect the movements by hand drawing them. This also allows me to have more time to experiment with After Effects, which is my main focus of this project, as I want to become more comfortable with digital programs to broaden my skills.

To get started, I collected a couple of reference videos. From these videos I would then be able to start animating, but first I wanted to test out the style in which I would create the animation.

Experimenting with Styles in Photoshop

I wanted the style to be consistent with the titles I had previously created, so I stuck with the original colours I used, and that are also featured on the book cover. I think this works well. I am able to differentiate between different objects and materials by using a range of different monochrome colours, and I like that it doesn't look too simplistic. Instead it is just detailed enough to explain what is happening in the scene. 

Because I was pleased with how the test went, I decided to do a "quick" trial run in After Effects. I imported the Photoshop file and tested the shot of zooming into the camera's view finder. 

After Effects Test One

I think my first attempt went well, although I'm not quite sure what happened to some of the edges in my drawings. I also found that the more I zoomed into the components the more pixelated they looked, so it might be a good idea to experiment using Illustrator to produce some of the components for this scene in particular, as I can create vectors, that won't look pixelated when I zoom in on them (The camera especially). 

Next I wanted to test actually zooming into the car, so I went back into Photoshop to draw the outside of the car. Once I had done this I created a new project in After Effects and imported all of my Photoshop components. I then realised that my original ones weren't on separate layers. I went back and made sure that everything I needed was separate to allow me to create a more 3D space within the car. Once I had corrected everything I was ready to go.

After Effects Test Two

I'm very pleased with how this went. It's obviously not perfect as I shall have to extend the drawing for the inside of the car to fill the white spaces, but it has been a clear indicator to me that I want to achieve is possible, and by the looks of it will work well, too. I found that when I lined everything up in the composition, that the inside of the car extended past the car when I was viewing it from the outside, and to correct this I put a mask on the inside layer so I could "cut" out the parts I didn't need, without having to edit the original document. When it comes to animating this scene properly, I know now to draw the entire space that will be within the car, and to make sure I do so on separate layers. I also know that I shall have to slow down the speed of the camera, as this test is moving a little bit too fast. But all-in-all I think I've made a good start.