KIB105 week eight exercise

Reflection

This is the last weekly exercise for this unit in this semester. But as always, I have learned a lot in this week through this one. The exercises in this week focus on motion track. In the first exercise, I only need to use transform as the track type. This is an easy model. I just need to place a track point onto a spot where usually to be a corner of something. The motion track will automatically create a key frame in each frame and track this spot’s motion in order to stick with the target in the video. I can then edit a target such as a text or picture under the Tracker menu to make this text or picture move with the track. I also need to work with the position and perspective of the object because they won’t match the context. I used to Corner Pan to change the perspective. The important thing is you can’t change the position of the objects that has been tracked now because the position has been animated in each frame. You can only change the Anchor Point to move the object. By doing this, I could create something that does not exist in the video but looks like it does. I made two texts on the building and graffiti on the wall for the first exercise. The second exercise was harder and a lot more time consuming than the first one. It was still about motion track. The harder thing is to use perspective corner pan as the track type. In order to track the computer screen, only one tracker is not enough. Perspective corner pan provides a very fixable control to track the computer screen. But the hard thing about this tool is the corner pan tracker won’t track the object very perfectly. I had to manually adjust them frame by frame. It is a time consuming job. After that, I edited a picture as a target for this tracker and the result turns out good. I can also turn this picture into a separate composition. By doing that I can edit this composition separately and all the animation under that composition will move with the picture in the video. It is a very strong technique that can be use in many other projects.

Analysis

I think both of the video works ok. In the first one, the tracker does not move completely as the building in the video. The single tracker sometimes needs to be adjusted frame by frame. Motion Blur needs to be turned on for motion tracker otherwise the object won’t look fit into the background very much. When doing the perspective corner pan, I need to be very careful when I analyze the video. If I analyze forward too much I will need to spend more time on adjusting the positions of the trackers. They won’t be able to stick with the object for too long. So need to stop the analysis very often and I think this is the better way to do it. Pre-compose is very strong function. This function creates so many possibilities when tracking the objects. I think I could put a video into another video by using this function. I will try this later. Anyway, I like second video I made for this weekly exercise.

Understanding and Comprehension

Motion tracker is the very necessary skill to learn as an AE user. I knew many creative projects edit from several different rendering layers. All of them need to be tracked into the basic background and merge as the final product. Both of characters and background can be tracked into the video. I will use this tool in my final work. Pre-compose is another important tool I learned this week. It helps me to use this software in many other ways. I think it can be used in many situations not only in tracker. Any animated lay can be transported into a pre- composition. I can open another composition window for this layer and animate some other effect for this object which will automatically move with this object in the video. It is very helpful.

KIB105 week seven exercise

Reflection

In this week, the exercise is to extract and integrate a motion from a music file. I needed to convert audio to key frame which creates an audio amplitude layer. This layer contained the key frames responding to the audio level. And then I can copy the audio key frames and paste them at the attribute of the object which I want to animate. By doing that, the object will change with the music. However, this method can only be used on rotation and opacity because rotation and opacity only has one attribute just like music. But position and scale has two attribute which is X and Y. So I want to extract their motion from the music file I need to add expression for them. AE has a lot of expression. The one I used here is a very easy one but the expression needed to be changed a little. The expression will automatically move the centre of the object to coordinate (0, 0) which is the top little corner of the composition. So I need to change them manually. Another thing about copy and paste the key frames from the audio is the key frames copied from the audio won’t change the object’s motion very much. The max influence won’t be 100. So I need to change all of them by changing the value in their curve. I also used two masks to make the character’s top half of body to move just like the tutorial video showed. And a dog moved as a sequential layer.

Analysis

The motion of the objects is very funny. This is a piece of music with lively rhythm. This made the objects move rapidly as well. This reminds me the effect from some music player. I think they use the similar technique as well. But I was able to achieve this in my work. I will try to do something like this later. The sequence layer function is another useful tool. It could make an object move in the scene very smoothly and easy to adjust. The dog in my video moves as a sequential layer and each of them also has the same motion as the music. I was sure if I can achieve this at the first place. But I did. I was happy about this.

Understanding and Comprehension

I have learned three very important techniques this week. One is to copy the key frames from an audio resource and paste them into the rotation or opacity of another object. Another one is to type expression for an object. This could use at many other ways not only with the audio. I searched After Effect expression on Google and found a lot expression some of them have very strong ability to control the animation. Sequence layer is the third technique I learned this week. This tool could help me deal with some specifically animation very easily. I can’t wait to try these functions on my final project.

KIB105 week six exercise

Reflection
This week I worked with the curves effect, level effect, saturation and multi-mask layer in AE in order to create a composition which incorporated temporal graffiti. I animated the graffiti reveal and disappear on a wall. In order to achieve that, I used multi-mask layer as required. I found three graffiti pictures on Flickr first. They all have creative commons of course. I cut them off first and changed the layer mode to “Multiply” to achieve the stencil effect. By doing that, the graffiti could blend into the environment. However, they don’t look perfectly on the wall because of the different color, contrast and perspective. Some of them have too much color so I have to reduce their saturation by using the saturation tool (Effects>Color Corrections>Hue/saturation). And in order to change the light and contract of an image, I used curve to achieve that. Because “Multiply” mode will delete the color area between grey and white of the picture, I have to adjust the curve of the picture to change the color for this area to fit them into the background. And also make the black not too dark due to the reflection and refraction in the environment. I am familiar with Photoshop so these tools were easy for me to use in AE. Perspective is another question that I was facing. In the end, Corner Pan handled that problem perfectly. I don’t need to turn the layer to 3D mode because Corner Pan will create a prefect perspective for me. I used three different ways to animate the three graffiti. I created two masks for the first one and animated the second mask’s Mask Path to make the spray effect. I did about 15 masks for the second and try to animate the graffiti to reveal on the wall piece by piece. For the third I just animate directly on the ordinary mask.

Analysis
The effects of the animation are not obvious enough. This is caused by the speed of the animation and the control of the mask. I was a little confused when I made 15 layers for the second graffiti. I animated them at the same time and drag the key frames for each of them one by one. But once it’s done, it was hard to adjust later. That’s why I feel the animation for the second graffiti was a little bit stiff. That use of Corner Pan is very important in this exercise. Usually the perspective of the picture you found on the internet does not match the one for environment that exist in the project. Need to use Corner Pan to adjust it. The use of Corner pan in this exercise was ok. The use of curves effect, level effect, saturation was fine as well. You can’t see the edge of the images on the wall.

Understanding and Comprehension
Some skills I learned from this week are very important. The use of color correction is almost needed in every project. I think Corner Pan could be used in many situations. This tool is similar to the free transform tool in Photoshop. Both of them are very strong and useful. Multi-mask creates so many possibilities for animator. For example, moving handwritten animations, blubbering animation, water droplets, the growth of a seed and many other different techniques can be demonstrated through this technique.

KIB105 week five exercise

Reflection
In this week, we start working with text and digital audio. The requirement of the exercise is to make a composition in After Effect (AE) exploring the relationships between 2D text and digital audio. But the 2D texts were not created in Photoshop (PS). They need to be directly created in AE. The text tool in AE is quite like the one in PS. click the tool and click the scene it will allow people to type text on it. And it is very convenient to adjust size and font later. Text could be seen as a layer in AE. It also can be animated by changing the transform of it (position, scale, rotation and opacity). AE also has a very strong function. It stores a lots of pre-define text animations. I can just drag the icon into the text layer need to be animated. I can also change the length of the animation by dragging the key frame. These animations could be easily found under Effect&Presents. They are in Effect&Presents>Animation Presets>Tex>animate in and animate out. Animate in means animate the text to appear on the scene. Animate out is animation that makes the text disappear. But you can’t see these effects in AE. You have to check them in Adobe Bridge by clicking right mouse on Effect&Presents, and choose browse presents. There are about 30 choices. It is very useful. Another very important aspect I learned from this exercise is the use of 3D camera in AE. It is a very strong function. It was hard to understand at the first place. By turning the layer into 3D mode, it will have new attribute-Z axes. 3D camera could also look though the scene from a 360 degree perspective. By using this function, a lot of possibility can be achieved. I could make the camera moving around the scene or I could make the text layers moving themselves in 3D mode. I chose to use top view when I was using 3D camera. This view provides a clear view of the distance between each layers and the distance between layers and camera. Animate the text to support the digital audio is another big challenge in this exercise. I wouldn’t type every word I heard from the man’s speech in the audio and animate them as a subtitle. I will just pick up the key words in the speech and animate them. Timing is key aspect to control in this exercise.

Analysis
I felt the control of 3D camera is at the elementary level. Really need to do more exercise about it because I plan to do my first assessment with 3D camera. Some key words are not strong enough to push the narration. The animation is not very smooth and the animation itself is a bit boring. The combination of animation is not abundant. I had three words travel from the same direction. I thought the echo will be strong but it turns out a bit boring. I chose to pick up the key words from the speech in the audio. But sometime the key words are not strong enough to highlight the sentence and push the narration. So I typed some longer sentences to support the audio in the end of it. I wanted to make some change between the lengths of texts. I felt this will increase the richness of the video.

Understanding and Comprehension
This exercise is a very important one. I not only learned how to make a video to support an audio resource but also get to know the 3D camera in AE. Both of them will take very important roles in my first assessment and future studies. After the exercise I realized that rhythm of the video is very important. If you are making a 20-30 second video, you can’t make a video with rapid rhythm from the beginning to the end. There needs to be couple seconds slow for the audience to break and memory what they have seen. I think this is very important for every video I am going to make in the future.

KIB105 week four exercise

Reflection
In this week, we were told to design a video for an advertisement. Because there are strict constraints of a client brief required, the objective of the project is much more obvious than the first two exercises. This could be hard for me because this video is about making some people jumping in the scene or some buildings flying around. It’s a TV campaign. But the good thing is requirement for the project is very clear. “The crazier the better”. So I have a clear direction to design my project. I searched some picture with Creative Commons first on Flickr. It is a very strong website. I have a personal account up there myself. You can always find the picture resource at that website. But need to be careful about Creative commons. If we want to use the picture in our project from other people, we can only use the pictures with creative commons. And I created some pattern and prize in PS. There were about 20 pictures and it was a bit hard to manage all that. I have seen some advertisement like the requirement so I just try to make a video approach that. In order to make the video, I tried to make the transform of the objects changing very quickly specially the scale and position. And it worked. But because there were too many layers, so I had some trouble when I was trying to place them. The length of the project was required as 20 seconds. So I need to have a clear idea about the content of the video and present as much as I can in these 20 seconds.

Analysis
I feel the animation I did for this project is not mature and smooth enough. Sometime the object came in with a good speed but disappeared or left a bit slow. The use of and select of position, scale, rotation and opacity is very average. In order to create a crazy environment, I try to animate the position and scale as my first primacy. But after I animated some objects, I felt I couldn’t animate everything with this strategy. The video will look so boring with this. So I changed my mind. And I found rotation could also contribute well in this situation. I spend a lot of time on the choice of font and the color of the text. In order to make them crazy, I choose to use red and large size for the texts. And I used the word “only” to increase the sense. The length of the project was required as 20 seconds. So I need to have a clear idea about the content of the video and present as much as I can in these 20 seconds. I felt I spent too many time at the beginning and the end is a bit hurried. The rhythm of the whole video was ok I thought.

Understanding and Comprehension
This exercise is the first exercise contains client brief. This makes this exercise every different with first two. The first two assignments were all about my idea. I can do whatever I want about the buildings and people. But this one has some strict requirements such as length, content and style of the video. These limited my mind when I try to design the project, but I felt it also made the project easier to do. Because I had a very clear idea about the objective of this project and I don’t need to do extra thinking about the direction of the video. This is the first video I made for some specific purpose. I felt it was very interesting and challenging. I am looking forward to the next exercises.

KIB105 week three exercise

Reflection
This exercise takes a step forward then the first one. The difference here is that human being is much harder than buildings to mask. But this time I mask the object in AE inside of PS. I felt the pen tool in AE is just like the one in PS. But I never use pen tool to mask object in PS. AE might take more time to mask the objects, but this provides more flexible and superior results. I can always go back and adjust the mask when I want. But the tool might take a bit longer to get use to it because once I click the wrong spot it will create a new mask and sometime I didn’t notice it. And this exercise helps me realize that AE also has the same curve system as Maya does. I am familiar with the animation curve in Maya, so I could pick this up very quickly. It also has ease in, ease out and easy eases these three helpful options to choose which makes my life easier when I am adjusting the curve. I also learn to copy and paste the layer and place it in a different order. So I can make a person jump over a wall from another side. During this week I have learned more about AE. I have learned the mask tool in AE and also made a new discovery of the curve system.

Analysis
I think some of the characters in my work do not jump very smoothly. But I did make some of them jump over from another side of the wall. The use of curve is not good enough which costs the quality of the animation to reduce significantly. I was always confused with ease in, ease out and easy ease. Can’t remember the function of them so I have try each of them most time to pick the one I want to use. My ability of using the pen tool is not strong. I need to do some more exercise about this. Next time I will do a quick mask first and then add spot when is necessary later. Otherwise there will be too many spots to edit later. This idea also works with the key frame of animation. I will only set up the key frames that are really necessary. Too many key frames will make the animation curve too hard to control. Another technique about copy and paste the layer is useful. But sometime I would get confused about the connection between different layers so I need to be very careful when I paste the key frames.

Understanding and Comprehension
This exercise continues from the first one. The objective of this exercise is to gain the ability of using the pen tool in AE. Also participate in the further study of layers and animation curves. In order to achieve the requirements of the exercise, I start to animate more attribute than only work with position. By going through this exercise, my capability of using AE has extended. I have achieved the requirements of the task and explored my knowledge of this software.

KIB105 week two exercise

Spatial montage



Temporal Montage



Reflection
Here is the first weekly exercise I did for KIB105 animation and motion graphics . This is the first time for me to use After Effects. I have used Photoshop and other 3D software for years but I have never used any video editing software before. So I was a bit worry about it. But through the first weekly exercise I felt released. Because I found one of the most important techniques in After Effects is to work with different layers of pictures or videos and then animate or edit them. This is quite like Photoshop which I am familiar with. But there are also huge differences between these two. In Photoshop we only need to deal with layers or effects for still images. But in After Effects, we need to work with not only the still images but also animate them by changing the transforms of the objects such as position, scale, rotation and opacity. I think once the creative work relates to animation it becomes much harder. Sometime it’s very hard to create a smooth animation. There are so many theories about animation. I think the limits of human beings’ eye to accept a moving object is small. It can’t be too quick or slow and the speed of the motion can’t be the same otherwise the animation will become boring and illogical. Although I have studied 3D animation and hand drawing animation during the last couple of semesters, there are still so much more for me to learn in this unit. As a 3D animation student, it is very necessary for me to learn software like After Effects. Every animation project will need to go through the animation editing software. There are so much visual effects that these softwares could provide. So I am very excited about this unit.

Analysis
During the exercise I found the most difficult technique is to control the transform of the objects. The idea about putting different layer together in order is not hard for me to understand because the previous experience of using Photoshop. Cutting the buildings from the background is a time consuming task because some of them are in a complex environment. I could only use the slowest method. I created shadows for the buildings in order to make them look more real in the picture. I also changed the light, level and color for each of them to make them fit into the landscape. But animate the object moving in the scene in not easy. I feel the movement of the buildings in my work is not very logical and smooth because the speeds of the objects are almost the same from the beginning to the end. I really need to work with that in the next few exercises. I also found opacity is a very powerful attribute to control objects. I chose to light up the landscape in the last couple seconds in the animation in order to create more effect.

Understanding and Comprehension
This exercise gave me a basic introduction of After Effect (AE) and the relationship between After Effect and Photoshop (PS). I understand that AE is very much like PS. They all start a project with working on each different layer and then combine them together. I also get the idea about animating the transform of the objects in the scene. This could be the easiest animation in AE, but it’s necessary to learn at the beginning.