Responsive Collaboration: Puppet Animation Tests

Tyler managed to finalise one of his character designs, which allowed me to get started on testing how they were going to be animated in After Effects. The first style I tested was making the separate layers into a hierarchy, and setting the keyframes for each movement I made. For the second test I tried using the puppet plug-in.

Test One - Layer Hierarchy

Test Two - Puppet Tool

I watched a series of YouTube videos about the plug-in and how to use it as I had no idea; The only reason why I knew it existed is because Oscar had been using it for one of his recent projects, and I thought it could be a good feature to test for my own work. The process itself was relatively easy to do, but I don't think it worked particularly well in this test and I think this is down to the components being on separate layers. I think if this technique was to work well, the different parts of the arm would have to be drawn on one layer, rather than being broken up into several (hand, forearm, shoulder).

I showed the tests to Tyler and explained that if we liked the style of the second test we could easily re-draw/model the character design, but we decided that we prefer the first test anyway. I think it's more fitting to the paper cut out style that we were striving for. So for in the future we are going to have to consider how the components of the character are going to move, and make sure that the edges are rounded/neat so that when they are animated there will be no gaps or 'ugly' edges.

Scene Look Test

I decided to create a look test, considering I have not yet had the chance to so with a character. I really like how it's coming along and the overall aesthetic, and how the character sits nicely in the environment. These tests have made me really eager to get started with animating.