Thursday 5 May 2011

FINAL ANIMATION VIDEO


Here Is my final cut for my cell animation it run at at 12 frames per second for 33.5 seconds consisting of 402 separate JPEG images. Here I have added in the 3.5 second end credits and cut my song in audacity this lets me cut the music exactly to 33.5 second   and also I can use effects tools to add a fade out so the music towards the end help with the story of the lost lonely UFO after its lost the signals and the Signals start over again sending radio waves into nothingness. I think this helps to make the animation not just visually but audioly sound more professional.



In this project I have learnt many new skills as I have never done any sort of animation work before. I learn how mamny frames it takes to make an image seem like its moving with out seeing individual images, I also learnt how to animate the film in after effects to make the images play as continuous footage.  I also learnt hot to cut and make audio tracks. 

Im really happy with the out come of my first ever animation as I have never worked in this field before. I like the effect the rayograms have given the animation and it helped tie into my Sci-Fi theme of space, time and UFO's as the black white and grays give a ghostly spacey feel to the whole animation. The only down side I found of using rayograms was that I found it restricting into what I could or couldn't to for each scene, also the out comes of rayograms is very hit or miss with having to time each image and exposure just right to get the perfect image. Also Another down side to doing cell animation and separate images is that I havent been able to use many of the effects and tools in After Effects. But all in all I feel from the very start I have followed from my mood boards and 3 words to sum up my song Time, Travel, and Space., have all linked in really well to my final out comes and i'm really pleased with my Final Video for this project.

End Credits

For the end credits I made "Animation by Jack Brough" look as though its flying out of the earth and keep getting larger and larger as thought its coming towards the screen as though its 3D.






Here Its got to the point where I couldnt actually make the text size any bigger in Photoshop so I made the the text more see through by changing the opacity of the text to make it fade out so it looks like its gone through the camera 




19 - 30 seconds final animation

To make the final 11 seconds of the animation I played all of the previous scenes in reverse  apart form the UFO reading the numbers and radio signals I changed this to the UFO flying into the lonely empty galaxy swirl to find there was no signal any more and it was back to loneliness. 




To create the final animation I used after effect to do this. I started a new composition which I changed the time duration of my going to composition > composition settings > duration. I changed this to 30 seconds for my animation.



To change The frame rate to 12 frames per second I right clicked on the folder with all the images on and when Interpret footage > Main >  Frames. I then changed it from 30 frames per second to 12. This allows the footage to fit the duration of the film properly. 




This is the first video I made with the music with the animation as a whole. In this I decided I needed a few more end credits and and the music sounds odd as it just stops dead so needs to fade away more. 



15.5 - 19 seconds image development for final animation

I now want the UFO look like its visiting earth where the signals had come from and want to make it look as though its flying in and out and around the earth exploring. 






To make It look convincing that the UFO is flying around earth and flying in and out I had to make the UFO change scale as it flew into the earth and then as it came back out gradually enlarge it. 

10.5- 15.5 seconds images development for final aniamtion

To make the UFO look like its flying through space I took a rayogram of stars in space and canned it in. to make the image bigger and longer so it could continuously be dragged across the frame to make it look like its moving through space. I did this by keep rotating the image by 180 degrees and laying them on top of each image and then using the clone tool again to blend the lines so you cant tell its 4 separate images. 


I next took the image of the UFO that I cut out of the galaxy swirl using the magnetic select tool. I then gradually dragged this though the frame from the right side to the centre. I then made this bob up and down to the music. 








To make the UFO look as though it is flying off the screen again I did as I did in the previous scene by making it fly downward in a curved arch and the gradually off screen.


This is what 66 images played at 12 frames per second looks like for this scene.  


5-10.5 seconds image development for final animation

First I got my rayogram image and scanned it into the computer. I then just altered the levels of the black and white to make the galaxy  swirl darker and the space shit lighter. I did this my going to adjustments > levels.



Next I got the image of numbers rayogram fand scanned it in as well. I altered this in photoshop as well by selecting parts of the numbers with the magic want tool and copying them across to make the length of the lines longer. I did this so all the numbers would flow through the galaxy swirl without seeing any edges. 




So the numbers image would be visible through the galaxy swirl i had to put on a layer blend onto the image. You do this in a drop down menu I selected screen wash as it didn't make image to dark or to light and gave a ghostly feel to images. 





Then through 24 images which last 2 seconds I slowly drag the number image through the UFO and galaxy swirl to make it look as though the UFO is decoding the radio signals and its reading them raining through the galaxy. 


New matrix style rayogram. I had to have this inverted thought to make it work to be visible through the UFO galaxy swirl 







After 24 images the next 42 images which last for 3.5 seconds played at 12 frames per second I change the types of numbers raining down to a more matrix style number rain. i always change the direction in which the numbers are falling. again to give the illusion the numbers and falling and the UFO are readin them I slowly drag through the numbers through the UFO image with a screen layer blend on it. 

in the final 0.5 seconds I make the UFO fly out of the galaxy following where the radio waves signals had come from. i did this by using the magnetic select tool to draw around the UFO and copied it onto a new later. and the just cloured in the hole left by the UFO using the clone stamp tool. to make the UFO look like its flying I just moved it down though each frame flying in a curve making it disappear off screen.

2-5 Seconds image development for final aniamtion

Sticking to the same A5 size canvas as before in the previous 12 image for the first 1 second of footage. I changed the background colour to 100% black to give the illusion of space and nothingness.

I then used an image of the earth from the internet: 
OMA. (05/10/07). The World. Available: http://www.eikongraphia.com/?p=1499. Last accessed 5th May 2011.

I centered this in the middle of the page to make it look more isolated in the middle of space not near anything. I purposely didn't put any stars or anything behind or around it as again it gives more to the illusion of nothingness and isolation in space.





The next stage was to add in the radio waves from the first 12 images and start sliding it in from the side so on each image in this sequence i moved the radio waves further wand further in. This gives an illusion that the signals are flying through space to far off galaxies.




Another wave I gave the illusion or the radio waves flying our from earth and flying through space is by adding rings getting larger and larger on each image adding one more onto each image. This gives and Illusion that the signal is pulsing out of earth. 






To make the rings to look like they are pulsing they go 12 rings out and then 12 rings back into earth and this is repeated through out. 








one final effect I used to make the radio waves look like they are pulsing through space is by making them flash I did this by just adding and removing the view of the layer on separate images so its on in the first image off in the second back on in the third and so on...


This is how the 48 images look as a sequence which last for 4 seconds played at 12 frames per second. 


Image development for final animation

First I took a scanned image of a rayogram i had created and opened it in photoshop on a A5 size art board. I changed the size of the image from 300 dpi to 72 dpi (dots per inch). I did this by going image>image size.


I positioned the rayogram on them bottom right hand corner and used the clone stamp tool to copy the grey background behind the satellite. the clone stamp tool works by finding the area you wish to repeat and copy then whilst hovering the mouse over it alt>left click to select it. Then use it like a paint brush just remembering to keep selecting the grey areas. 




Once I had coloured the background. I placed an image of a radio wave from the internet:
BEEZLEY, Brain. (18/12/10). Postdetection Filter for HD Radio Signals.Available: http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/ibocfltr.htm. Last accessed 




I then used the magic wond tool to select the out line of the radio waves, this only selected a section so I selected the rest by going to Select on the tool menu > select similar which highlights all the similar areas that had already been highlighted. 



I then copied this onto a new layer but the outline was still green. So I re-highlighted the waves using the magic wond tool and changed the colour by going to Edit on the tool bar > fill > colour and then selecting white. This ties into my black and white rayogram themed movie. 



I then positioned the waves on my image where it would be coming out of the satellite and saved the image as a JPEG. I then did this 12 times but each times kept enlarging or shrinking the size of the image and moving and rotating it up or down. This gave the effect it was being shot out of the satellite.



This is What the 12 images at 12 framers per second looked like in a sequence.