Hello guys and girls and chaps and chappettes, been smashing away at the chase scene. Andy suggested adding some slight rotation/wobble to the body to give it a little more life — similar to what we had in the original animatic! It took a while to figure it out but I finally managed to come up with something:
Version 20
No head or anything as yet, as I wanted to ensure the body was looking good without any distractions... I think it's getting there, most definitely, and adding the wobble really does improve the whole thing.
The next challenge was the head. I asked Andy for some advice on what it should be doing and he suggested having it slightly follow the orientation of the body but delay it slightly, by just a few frames — so that as it rotates one way the head is just slightly lagging behind. It's quite tricky to accomplish in such a short amount of frames but I'm going to keep playing around with it.
We spent a fairly frustrating afternoon trying to figure out exactly what the head should be doing — we tried about a million different things but only a few of them seemed weren't too painful to look at. We've still not reached a decision on the head so I'm posting up a few of the ones we came up with so you guys can examine them in your own time and see if you can come up with any ideas...
Version 21
In this first version there was no rotation or anything applied to the head — simply an up/down forward/backward sort of bobbing going on. I thought it might be an idea to try and get an idea of the vertical movement before worrying too much about any rotations and such — proving to be trickier than I thought. It's quite difficult to figure out how the head should be moving in this scene. In an ordinary walk cycle a bird's head is kept mostly still, mostly level, until the body moves ahead and the head thrusts to catch up as the bird steps down. This is quite tricky to achieve in this sort of cycle... obviously the movement of the legs is a little different, and it's hard to figure out whether the head would stay level or should be pushed up/down by the body. Here we've just got it opposing the body — travelling downwards as the body rises and then moving upwards as the body drops (effectively keeping it level). The head bobs forward as the body is at the highest point. I'm not sure if it really makes any sense? Perhaps it will look better if we can figure out the rotation?
Version 22
This one's pretty much the opposite of the above version — the head bobs forward and moves down as the feet go down, more like in a conventional bird walk cycle. I think it looks, er... really weird though. Doesn't seem to work. At all.
Version 23
Here, on version 22, I've tried applying Andy's suggestion (with a slight alteration) — I copied the rotation of the body but rather than shifting it to the right, I simply reversed the rotation of the head. Unfortunately I don't know if the exact rotation will work with the head — it gives it this weird sort of round and round motion. Just looks a bit peculiar.
I don't know. I think the problem, as we identified earlier, is that the head is a little too... mechanical. The body, legs and feet are all moving continuously in quite a rapid, frantic motion and in contrast the head is quite controlled and steady. It's just difficult trying to figure out exactly what to do with it.
It's a tricky one, to be sure. If you guys have any suggestions or ideas of your own please let me know! :]
Showing posts with label after effects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label after effects. Show all posts
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Scene 11 V17 — V19
Just a quick update on the crow's running cycle! :]
I was messing around with the previous wings and I was really, really struggling to get them to work — even spreading them further outwards still looked really awkward and the movement just wasn't working. (I've got a couple of examples of the other things I tried; will update this post with them later when Vimeo finally finishes processing them)
I can't really pinpoint exactly what was awkward about it, I think it was just the angle of the wings (so mostly my fault, the way I'd drawn them). The whole thing just looked off balance and the movement, I think, was very mechanical. The angle of the wings sort of made sense if they were straight up in the air but spreading them further apart
I was talking to Sam and we were both in agreement that it was going to be very, very difficult to make it work — he then suggested that I try something similar to what I'd done with the crow's front flight cycle, just having them flap up and down (or forward and back) as if she was trying to fly away.
The beauty was that I didn't even have to draw yet another wing — I could just use the one from the front flight cycle. As Sam said, it was ready for me, so why not just use it?!
I decided not to colour the wing or anything at this point, I just pinned it to the crow's body, stuck some puppet pins in it and animated it on the fly just to see whether it would work.
Version 17
And, hopefully... it did! Sam and I both agree that this is already a zillion times better than what we had before — I'm still not sure whether it makes sense but it's definitely an improvement whilst still maintaining some level of continuity. The beauty is the ease at which this can be manipulated — if it looks like the crow's wings are slapping the scarecrow in the face we can just rotate them back a little without screwing up the animation.
Version 18
At this point I coloured and mirrored the wing just to give a better idea of whether or not it was working; I also altered the crow's head bounce at this stage so it was a little smoother. I'm concerned that it possibly looks a bit mechanical now though, so I might continue to mess with it a little and try to liven it up some.
I think that this gives us a better indication of whether or not this will work. I think, at this stage, it's looking like a viable alternative for this scene!
At this point we showed it to Ron who gave us some very helpful critique, saying that the wings were looking fine but suggesting that it looked a bit odd due to the exact mirroring of the feet. They're perfectly symmetrical, which of course nothing in reality is! He suggested that we delay one of the feet by a few frames just to break it up a bit. He also suggested altering the head bob so that it comes forward and backwards in addition to up and down.
Taking into account his suggestions, this is what I came up with...
Version 19
I think that offsetting the feet has made a huge difference and looks much better. It's still got a lot of work, though — the head bobbing, in particular, I will admit was a last-minute rush job that I slapped on there without too much thought so I'm going to look at tweaking that. I think it's a bit mechanical — it moves a little too much in synch with the body when it needs to be sort of held steady for a while before suddenly coming forward/down, so I'll look at messing with the timings of that today.
Now that the feet don't move quite in sync I think it might be an idea to maybe get a little rotation in the body going as well? Kind of similar to what we had in the animatic. I don't know, something about the running looks pretty off to me still but I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's just because the scene has nothing else going on — once we get the scarecrow in there it might start to come together a little more!
Oh, and I'm really sorry Sam — I know you're working on getting the scarecrow in there already but don't worry, we can just copy the new crow animation over so nobody has to re-do anything ;]
I was messing around with the previous wings and I was really, really struggling to get them to work — even spreading them further outwards still looked really awkward and the movement just wasn't working. (I've got a couple of examples of the other things I tried; will update this post with them later when Vimeo finally finishes processing them)
I can't really pinpoint exactly what was awkward about it, I think it was just the angle of the wings (so mostly my fault, the way I'd drawn them). The whole thing just looked off balance and the movement, I think, was very mechanical. The angle of the wings sort of made sense if they were straight up in the air but spreading them further apart
I was talking to Sam and we were both in agreement that it was going to be very, very difficult to make it work — he then suggested that I try something similar to what I'd done with the crow's front flight cycle, just having them flap up and down (or forward and back) as if she was trying to fly away.
The beauty was that I didn't even have to draw yet another wing — I could just use the one from the front flight cycle. As Sam said, it was ready for me, so why not just use it?!
I decided not to colour the wing or anything at this point, I just pinned it to the crow's body, stuck some puppet pins in it and animated it on the fly just to see whether it would work.
Version 17
And, hopefully... it did! Sam and I both agree that this is already a zillion times better than what we had before — I'm still not sure whether it makes sense but it's definitely an improvement whilst still maintaining some level of continuity. The beauty is the ease at which this can be manipulated — if it looks like the crow's wings are slapping the scarecrow in the face we can just rotate them back a little without screwing up the animation.
Version 18
At this point I coloured and mirrored the wing just to give a better idea of whether or not it was working; I also altered the crow's head bounce at this stage so it was a little smoother. I'm concerned that it possibly looks a bit mechanical now though, so I might continue to mess with it a little and try to liven it up some.
I think that this gives us a better indication of whether or not this will work. I think, at this stage, it's looking like a viable alternative for this scene!
At this point we showed it to Ron who gave us some very helpful critique, saying that the wings were looking fine but suggesting that it looked a bit odd due to the exact mirroring of the feet. They're perfectly symmetrical, which of course nothing in reality is! He suggested that we delay one of the feet by a few frames just to break it up a bit. He also suggested altering the head bob so that it comes forward and backwards in addition to up and down.
Taking into account his suggestions, this is what I came up with...
Version 19
I think that offsetting the feet has made a huge difference and looks much better. It's still got a lot of work, though — the head bobbing, in particular, I will admit was a last-minute rush job that I slapped on there without too much thought so I'm going to look at tweaking that. I think it's a bit mechanical — it moves a little too much in synch with the body when it needs to be sort of held steady for a while before suddenly coming forward/down, so I'll look at messing with the timings of that today.
Now that the feet don't move quite in sync I think it might be an idea to maybe get a little rotation in the body going as well? Kind of similar to what we had in the animatic. I don't know, something about the running looks pretty off to me still but I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's just because the scene has nothing else going on — once we get the scarecrow in there it might start to come together a little more!
Oh, and I'm really sorry Sam — I know you're working on getting the scarecrow in there already but don't worry, we can just copy the new crow animation over so nobody has to re-do anything ;]
Sunday, 22 April 2012
Scene 11 V11 — V13
Hey guys!
Following my previous post here're the first few attempts at getting those wings onto the crow. I'm afraid that, even though it's a relatively simple thing, it's actually been causing me some problems. I don't know if it's just where I'm so tired but I'm just having trouble trying to figure out exactly what they should be doing...
Version 11
First attempt — not too sure, it just seems really off to me. I think it might be because the shoulders seem too static — also, perhaps I got the movement of the wings the wrong way around? they sort of flex upwards as her body rises which I don't think makes too much sense... they should probably flex up as she drops to the ground, where the wind resistance pulls them upwards. Or something...
Version 12
Same sort of thing, only now the wings are slightly spread which might look a little better. I definitely need to limber up those shoulders a bit. Again, some problem — think the wings are backwards — they flex outwards as she rises up rather than the other way around.
Version 13
Sort of a combination — tried to speed up the wings a little to make them slightly more frantic and got them to sort of bend backwards/downwards as she rises. I think it makes more sense but it still looks REALLY weird to me — something about the wings just doesn't match up with the whole scene. Maybe it's where I've been staring at it so long but it just seems really hard to watch? Seems to be a lot going on — maybe with the wings it's just too "busy"?
I'll keep playing around with it a little, but any critique or thoughts are more than welcome... as always :]
Following my previous post here're the first few attempts at getting those wings onto the crow. I'm afraid that, even though it's a relatively simple thing, it's actually been causing me some problems. I don't know if it's just where I'm so tired but I'm just having trouble trying to figure out exactly what they should be doing...
Version 11
First attempt — not too sure, it just seems really off to me. I think it might be because the shoulders seem too static — also, perhaps I got the movement of the wings the wrong way around? they sort of flex upwards as her body rises which I don't think makes too much sense... they should probably flex up as she drops to the ground, where the wind resistance pulls them upwards. Or something...
Version 12
Same sort of thing, only now the wings are slightly spread which might look a little better. I definitely need to limber up those shoulders a bit. Again, some problem — think the wings are backwards — they flex outwards as she rises up rather than the other way around.
Version 13
Sort of a combination — tried to speed up the wings a little to make them slightly more frantic and got them to sort of bend backwards/downwards as she rises. I think it makes more sense but it still looks REALLY weird to me — something about the wings just doesn't match up with the whole scene. Maybe it's where I've been staring at it so long but it just seems really hard to watch? Seems to be a lot going on — maybe with the wings it's just too "busy"?
I'll keep playing around with it a little, but any critique or thoughts are more than welcome... as always :]
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Scene 01 crow flying V8
Started making a start on the crow's flight cycle — although I know Jae hasn't completed the run cycle yet I thought it might be a good idea to start it in advance, just because it's a really tricky scene and it will allow more time for tweaking and refinement :]
I'll admit that I've been dreading it for quite some time (I'm sorry!) just because I imagined that it would be horrendously difficult and that I'd make a right pig's ear of it. I was pleasantly surprised, however — by no means easy but it wasn't quite as soul-destroying as I'd thought it would be. I did do a bit of a shoddy job though...
There are some glitches and timing issues with it of course — I really wish I could get the wings to hit the top of the upstroke a little more smoothly, but it's quite tricky with getting it to loop.
I don't think too many of the major issues will be terribly noticeable, bearing in mind that it won't actually be stationary on screen, it will be moving an awful lot at quite a high speed (with some cleverly placed motion blurring :P). I'd like to see it in action before I start making too many tweaks and refinements — learned that the hard way after the previous flight cycle...!
I'm thinking it might be quite nice to have the crow start lying 'flat' at the beginning of the cycle, then maybe rotate/swing her body forward as she flies into the camera? I might have to make a new puppet for that or we might be able to get away with simply rotating this one on a 3D axis... it might look really bad, though, so I'll have to do some playing around.
Oh, don't worry Jazzy, I'll look at adding the face once I've figured out all the movements and such ;]
I'll admit that I've been dreading it for quite some time (I'm sorry!) just because I imagined that it would be horrendously difficult and that I'd make a right pig's ear of it. I was pleasantly surprised, however — by no means easy but it wasn't quite as soul-destroying as I'd thought it would be. I did do a bit of a shoddy job though...
There are some glitches and timing issues with it of course — I really wish I could get the wings to hit the top of the upstroke a little more smoothly, but it's quite tricky with getting it to loop.
I don't think too many of the major issues will be terribly noticeable, bearing in mind that it won't actually be stationary on screen, it will be moving an awful lot at quite a high speed (with some cleverly placed motion blurring :P). I'd like to see it in action before I start making too many tweaks and refinements — learned that the hard way after the previous flight cycle...!
I'm thinking it might be quite nice to have the crow start lying 'flat' at the beginning of the cycle, then maybe rotate/swing her body forward as she flies into the camera? I might have to make a new puppet for that or we might be able to get away with simply rotating this one on a 3D axis... it might look really bad, though, so I'll have to do some playing around.
Oh, don't worry Jazzy, I'll look at adding the face once I've figured out all the movements and such ;]
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Scene 4 Revamp
Hey guys, this is just scene 4 with a slight adjustment that Jazzy requested. The glider now peers over the top of the hill slightly at the end of the scene. This should now be the finished version.
Monday, 16 April 2012
Scene 13 Finalised
Hey guys here's scene 13 finialised! Sorry for no uploads over easter but I hope these next few posts make up for it! :)
Scene 12 Finialised
Hey guys here's scene 12 finialised! Sorry for no uploads over easter but I hope these next few posts make up for it! :)
Scene 4 Finialised
Here's Scene 4 all finished and ready for final use! Sorry that I couldn't do any work over the summer but I hope these next couple of posts make up for it! :)
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Scene 07 V7 & 8
Don't worry, I've not been ignoring any feedback on this scene! Just been doing other things... but here's an amended version. Huzzah!
According to what Jazzy said I tried to have the crow turn her head as she enters the screen, then look the other way towards the centre. She then faces forward as she leaves.
Version 8
To be honest I'm not sure I like the results. I know exactly what Jazzy means and what she wants and it looks fine in my head, but I think the problem is that there's a lot of movement happening in a short space of time, so it doesn't really read? Maybe it's just me? Something about the head turn in the middle looks really off to me.
I did a quick render of the previous version without all the distracting lighting effects as well:
If you watch at full quality you can see that her head is turned away as she enters the screen, then she turns to face the other way near the centre.
I think the biggest problem is actually the beginning. There's not a lot of space to play with as she enters the screen, so the head turn is a bit too quick. Perhaps we could try removing the complete head turn as she enters, and maybe just have her turn her head to face forward towards the end as she exits the screen? It might give the same effect — and I could also alter her expression, as suggested, to look more confused or irritated. Would that work?
Sorry if this makes no sense... my blog posts are getting far less coherent these days :P
According to what Jazzy said I tried to have the crow turn her head as she enters the screen, then look the other way towards the centre. She then faces forward as she leaves.
Version 8
To be honest I'm not sure I like the results. I know exactly what Jazzy means and what she wants and it looks fine in my head, but I think the problem is that there's a lot of movement happening in a short space of time, so it doesn't really read? Maybe it's just me? Something about the head turn in the middle looks really off to me.
I did a quick render of the previous version without all the distracting lighting effects as well:
If you watch at full quality you can see that her head is turned away as she enters the screen, then she turns to face the other way near the centre.
I think the biggest problem is actually the beginning. There's not a lot of space to play with as she enters the screen, so the head turn is a bit too quick. Perhaps we could try removing the complete head turn as she enters, and maybe just have her turn her head to face forward towards the end as she exits the screen? It might give the same effect — and I could also alter her expression, as suggested, to look more confused or irritated. Would that work?
Sorry if this makes no sense... my blog posts are getting far less coherent these days :P
Scene 19 [flight cycle] V10
Version 10
More mucking around. I'm mostly happy with the wings — tried to have them fold back at the beginning of the upstroke, as seen here:
Hopefully it looks okay!
Slapped some quick body movement on there too — not quite right yet, I think the up and down might be a bit too exaggerated (especially in comparison to the head) and the leg just sort of flops about uselessly, but it serves to give an idea of how it will look in motion!
The legs aren't strictly anatomically correct but it was the closest I was able to get to something that looks acceptable but is also animatable. If we just drop the thigh and rotate the shin, she'll be able to perch quite happily on the scarecrow's arm! :]
More mucking around. I'm mostly happy with the wings — tried to have them fold back at the beginning of the upstroke, as seen here:
Hopefully it looks okay!
Slapped some quick body movement on there too — not quite right yet, I think the up and down might be a bit too exaggerated (especially in comparison to the head) and the leg just sort of flops about uselessly, but it serves to give an idea of how it will look in motion!
The legs aren't strictly anatomically correct but it was the closest I was able to get to something that looks acceptable but is also animatable. If we just drop the thigh and rotate the shin, she'll be able to perch quite happily on the scarecrow's arm! :]
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Scene 19 [flight cycle] V1 — V5
Scene 19 [flight cycle]
Version 1
The first flight cycle test, with all its individual components, still quite "stiff" looking despite all attempts to loosen it up. Unfortunately all the individual wing layers caused the animation to look REALLY choppy (even with copious amounts of blurring) so for this version I decided just to use the one wing layer and rotate it on the 3D axis to get the flap. The first attempt was pretty unsuccessful — it's got this weird rotation going on that looks as if she's pushing backwards!
Version 2
The second version I re-did the flapping a bit, so that it travels more in a straight line with none of the weird outward rotation. It looks distinctly more like a flap now, but the timing's all screwy and the motion is quite choppy — the wing comes to a very sudden stop at the top and bottom of the movement, and overall it just looks really stiff.
Initially I thought I would just be able to alter the speed and timings of each keyframe using After Effects' curve/graph editor and use that to get a bit of overshoot going on (have the wings travel "too far" before settling back into the intended position) but I encountered a pretty huge problem:
The rotation of the wings is handled by the "orientation" parameter rather than individual X, Y and Z rotation keyframes. I did try using individual values but it just doesn't handle the interpolation as well as the orientation does. The problem is that, because the X, Y and Z values are handled by one parameter, they're also locked together on the speed and value graphs:
Basically, what this means is that I couldn't alter the curves of each rotation value individually. Altering the X rotation keyframe, for example, would also change the Y and Z keyframes, leading to all sorts of problems with things getting rotated out of place. You also can't change the slope of the curves, either — notice how there are no bezier handles on any of the graphs shown above. This is a massive issue — I was able to alter the timings to a limited extent using the speed graph but would not have been able to add any of the overshoot that I wanted.
At this point I started toying with the idea of trying to get the flexibility I wanted another way...
Version 3
I'd previously considered using the puppet pin tool alone to animate the wing, which would have given us some great flexibility and bendiness, but it's terribly imprecise and difficult to control animation as much as I would like.
The wing is its own pre-composition, meaning it's effectively one flat layer with keyframes applied to the orientation values to give the basic flap motion. I decided to see if I could somehow combine the use of the puppet pin with the basic animation I already had...
To my great surprise, it actually looks as if it will work!
Still a great deal of problems with it at this point — the wing, as it comes down, looks to me as if it's going forward too much. I feel that the base of the wing should come more directly downwards and the tip needs to drag behind a little. Same with the upstroke — the middle section of wing should move first, the tip dragging.
Still, I think it might work, as long as I keep playing around with it.
Version 4 is REALLY similar to V3 so I won't bother with it... ;)
Version 5
It probably looks worse by itself, but once we get the head and body movement going I think it could work quite nicely!
Timing's getting there I think, still not totally happy with the upstroke. I think it the upmost position is perhaps rotated a little too far back — needs to be more vertical maybe?
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Scene 16 V5
Scene 16
Ugh, another surprisingly tricky one. Few things I'm not really happy with in terms of timing — the beak snapping shut being one of them (too slow?).
I really don't like the head as it comes back down - the blur isn't necessary as she turns her head back, but it looks choppy and ridiculous without it. I think I just need to make more heads, maybe have her face towards the camera a little more?
Overall I think she should be a little quicker though, bit too slow and evenly timed at the moment. Doesn't really move much like a bird. Still, it's a start!
Oh... and don't mind the background, I know it's different to the previous scene; not even started messing with that yet ;]
Ugh, another surprisingly tricky one. Few things I'm not really happy with in terms of timing — the beak snapping shut being one of them (too slow?).
I really don't like the head as it comes back down - the blur isn't necessary as she turns her head back, but it looks choppy and ridiculous without it. I think I just need to make more heads, maybe have her face towards the camera a little more?
Overall I think she should be a little quicker though, bit too slow and evenly timed at the moment. Doesn't really move much like a bird. Still, it's a start!
Oh... and don't mind the background, I know it's different to the previous scene; not even started messing with that yet ;]
Monday, 9 April 2012
Scene 14 V2 & V3
Though this was a scene marked "easy" on our timetable, it took me an embarrassingly long time to get it right... mostly the silhouette puppet.
Scene 14
Version 2
I had some difficulty getting the speed and timings of various things right, most notably the "lunge" forward - the zoomy bit. I'm still not 100% sure on it — I decided to try that trick with the black and white flash frames again to try and give it a bit more "oomph," but I dunno. How's it looking so far?
Version 3
For some reason I've saved a V3 but it doesn't look much different. I know I must have changed it, otherwise I wouldn't have versioned it, but the only difference I see is that the sun moves slightly in this one. I'd like to get some sort of sun glare going and give the crow a bit of glow around the edges, to really emphasize that we're looking through the scarecrow's eyes — that the sun is really, really bright and the crow is just this huge black shape.
Scene 14
Version 2
I had some difficulty getting the speed and timings of various things right, most notably the "lunge" forward - the zoomy bit. I'm still not 100% sure on it — I decided to try that trick with the black and white flash frames again to try and give it a bit more "oomph," but I dunno. How's it looking so far?
Version 3
For some reason I've saved a V3 but it doesn't look much different. I know I must have changed it, otherwise I wouldn't have versioned it, but the only difference I see is that the sun moves slightly in this one. I'd like to get some sort of sun glare going and give the crow a bit of glow around the edges, to really emphasize that we're looking through the scarecrow's eyes — that the sun is really, really bright and the crow is just this huge black shape.
Scene 11 V6
Hey guys! I've been slogging away over the past week, trying to pump out as many rough blocks of each of my scenes as I possibly can. I'm going to post 'em all individually rather than in one huge post, so they're easier to find later on.
Here's a rough draft of the chase scene so far...
Scene 11
I spent the better part of two days mucking around with those bushes and this is the absolute best I can do (in terms of composition). I'm really sorry, I know it's not exactly what we wanted, but either I'm not clever enough to figure out anything better or there are no other ways of doing it...! This something like my 6th attempt, and I know there are plenty of problems with it — I just thought it would be a good idea to take a break from it for a while...!
I think I need to extend the bushes into the distance a little more so they don't cut off so suddenly, and I should also make them a little smaller on the horizon too.
I tried to at least add a little depth by creating multiple rows of bushes so that they wouldn't appear so flat. At the moment they all move perfectly in time with each other which looks a bit silly, so I'll offset them a little so that the rows at the back move a bit slower or something.
The speed of the ground and the bushes isn't quite synchronised with the crow just yet; I still need to make a lot of speed adjustments, but at least they move relatively seamlessly.
I'm not sure about the crow's run cycle; it took me ages to try and get it looking right and I'm still not totally happy with it. I tried to "animate" it a little more so that it wasn't so choppy and lifeless! I'm not keen on the head — it's a bit static, so maybe I'll try and loosen that up a little more. I think once we get the scarecrow in there though it won't matter so much!
Still... it's a start...! :]
Here's a rough draft of the chase scene so far...
Scene 11
I spent the better part of two days mucking around with those bushes and this is the absolute best I can do (in terms of composition). I'm really sorry, I know it's not exactly what we wanted, but either I'm not clever enough to figure out anything better or there are no other ways of doing it...! This something like my 6th attempt, and I know there are plenty of problems with it — I just thought it would be a good idea to take a break from it for a while...!
I think I need to extend the bushes into the distance a little more so they don't cut off so suddenly, and I should also make them a little smaller on the horizon too.
I tried to at least add a little depth by creating multiple rows of bushes so that they wouldn't appear so flat. At the moment they all move perfectly in time with each other which looks a bit silly, so I'll offset them a little so that the rows at the back move a bit slower or something.
The speed of the ground and the bushes isn't quite synchronised with the crow just yet; I still need to make a lot of speed adjustments, but at least they move relatively seamlessly.
I'm not sure about the crow's run cycle; it took me ages to try and get it looking right and I'm still not totally happy with it. I tried to "animate" it a little more so that it wasn't so choppy and lifeless! I'm not keen on the head — it's a bit static, so maybe I'll try and loosen that up a little more. I think once we get the scarecrow in there though it won't matter so much!
Still... it's a start...! :]
Monday, 2 April 2012
Scene 07 V5
Skipping forward a few versions here — I've played around a little with the timings and whatnot. The crow turns her head a little sooner and spends a bit more time looking in the direction of the camera which I feel works a little better. It's kinda hard to tell at this stage, but I kind of feel like she should carry on walking a bit longer, closer towards the right hand side of the screen? It's hard to say — I imagine it might look a bit different once it's actually put in sequence. Still, I might have her carry on walking, just so we have a bit more time to play with.
The shot is supposed to be 5 seconds long but the crow is actually only on-screen for about 3 - 4 seconds, so I'll simply add in a bit of delay before she actually enters the screen.
The shot is supposed to be 5 seconds long but the crow is actually only on-screen for about 3 - 4 seconds, so I'll simply add in a bit of delay before she actually enters the screen.
Anywho, I've fixed up the head just a little and stopped it breaking away from the body. I also cleaned up the edges a bit and centred the head so it doesn't drift too far away from where the neck should be. I think it's looking a lot better!
The other big change is the addition of lighting effects — it's very simple so far and it looks kinda bad! I made two sets of light beams so that the crow appears to pass in between them, but I want to have them interact with her body a bit more as well as make that shadow a bit more dynamic. I also would like to have some illumination or shadows on the ground cast from the wall of crops but we'll see how we go.
There's also a subtle lens flare to act as a sun that drifts slowly to the right — not sure how noticeable it is. I was also thinking of maybe having some tiny black insects flitting about near the bottom of the screen, just to add a bit more detail. I don't know. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? :]
Scene 07 V2
Mucked around with this one a little more! Started making the crow look around and also added a bit of shadow underneath her to give it a little more depth. Still no tail bobbing though... that will come next!
I had trouble figuring out how to get her to look around. I originally drew a few different heads from different angles and was just going to string them all together, but really they were just keyframes so looked choppy as all hell. Instead I used just a couple of them and applied a quick "directional blur" effect to cover up the choppiness! The result looks alright, but I think it's a bit quick — I originally wanted it a bit slower but it looked really weird when I tried to slow it down. Maybe we can just pass it off as birdishness?! They're pretty 'flitty' after all, not many slow or subtle movements...
Major problems with the puppet's head as well, you may notice — it disconnects from the body and lots of sharp bits poking out from underneath each other. Somehow the head bobbing got knocked out of sync as well towards the end, so her head moves forward at the wrong time! Not sure how that happened, but I'm aiming to fix it up now...
I had trouble figuring out how to get her to look around. I originally drew a few different heads from different angles and was just going to string them all together, but really they were just keyframes so looked choppy as all hell. Instead I used just a couple of them and applied a quick "directional blur" effect to cover up the choppiness! The result looks alright, but I think it's a bit quick — I originally wanted it a bit slower but it looked really weird when I tried to slow it down. Maybe we can just pass it off as birdishness?! They're pretty 'flitty' after all, not many slow or subtle movements...
Major problems with the puppet's head as well, you may notice — it disconnects from the body and lots of sharp bits poking out from underneath each other. Somehow the head bobbing got knocked out of sync as well towards the end, so her head moves forward at the wrong time! Not sure how that happened, but I'm aiming to fix it up now...
Scene 07 V1
Hey guys! Been amending the crow's walk cycle as according to Andy's feedback and I started putting it together in the scene file, so here's what I've got so far...
It's still pretty basic and there are still a lot of problems but I'm feeling pretty satisfied so far. Went through a horrible moment of panicking that I'd have to re-do it all...!
I've tried to fix the sliding foot issue and also made her lift her leg slightly higher so the toes don't drag along the ground like they did before. It's looking a bit better but I think the toes need to bend inward a little sooner as she lifts her leg — I dunno how well you can see it but they stay in the same position as she picks her leg up which looks a bit weird!
Andy also suggested making her steps a little smaller, and after careful consideration I decided not to. Smaller, more "skippy" steps would be more characteristic of something smaller, like a blackbird or sparrow — crows are hulking great things and they do have quite large, clunky steps. So I've decided to keep it this way... sorry Andy...!
He did suggest having the tail bob around a bit as she moves, which I definitely plan on doing now that the legs are mostly sorted.
Anyway, this is very clearly unfinished — some layering issues (she walks on top of the bushes) and I'd like to get some fancy-shmancy lighting effects going (like some sunbeams or something) just to give it a little more depth. Oh, and the crow's head needs to look around of course... just figured I'd show you all so far so's you don't think I'm being a lazy bugger :]
It's still pretty basic and there are still a lot of problems but I'm feeling pretty satisfied so far. Went through a horrible moment of panicking that I'd have to re-do it all...!
I've tried to fix the sliding foot issue and also made her lift her leg slightly higher so the toes don't drag along the ground like they did before. It's looking a bit better but I think the toes need to bend inward a little sooner as she lifts her leg — I dunno how well you can see it but they stay in the same position as she picks her leg up which looks a bit weird!
Andy also suggested making her steps a little smaller, and after careful consideration I decided not to. Smaller, more "skippy" steps would be more characteristic of something smaller, like a blackbird or sparrow — crows are hulking great things and they do have quite large, clunky steps. So I've decided to keep it this way... sorry Andy...!
He did suggest having the tail bob around a bit as she moves, which I definitely plan on doing now that the legs are mostly sorted.
Anyway, this is very clearly unfinished — some layering issues (she walks on top of the bushes) and I'd like to get some fancy-shmancy lighting effects going (like some sunbeams or something) just to give it a little more depth. Oh, and the crow's head needs to look around of course... just figured I'd show you all so far so's you don't think I'm being a lazy bugger :]
Sunday, 25 March 2012
Crow walk cycle V6 & V7
I RETURN. WITH MORE BIRDS. Are you bored of me yet?! :D
After looking at the reference video I posted at the end of the last entry, I made some adjustments to the cycle...
Version 6
After looking at the reference video I posted at the end of the last entry, I made some adjustments to the cycle...
Version 6
I've not yet touched the legs, all I've done is mess with the head a little bit. I think it looks alright, and in terms of the motion I think it could work. Part of the reason I gave up with this one was because of a slight keyframe problem — I don't know why, but I could not get it to loop seamlessly. You'll notice towards the end that the head bobs upwards much faster than it did previously — despite the fact that the start and end points are exactly the same there's a discrepancy with the keyframes somewhere that I simply cannot fix.
Even if I could fix it, though, I'm still not sure on it. It's still not right, to me, and I think it's to do with the fact that she's walking on the spot. With the way that birds move, unless the crow is moving across the screen I'ms going to have one hell of a time trying to get the bobbing of the head to work. I've also been having concerns that simply tweening the walk cycle across the screen would look weak — if I were to animate her moving across the screen by hand, lining up the feet each time, I think it would ensure a much nicer and more lifelike result. So I just decided to bite the bullet and do it.
Version 7
It's not quite finished at this stage and it's a little difficult to watch, but I think that you can already see that the result is much, much better.
It has flagged up some problems with the animation, though — like I suspected the feet aren't really working properly. As she steps forward the back leg starts to slide forward before it's even lifted off the ground. If I want to keep the foot roll in there, I'll need to manually move it back to ensure it doesn't move until it's lifted off the ground. Alternatively I could attempt flattening out the foot roll and just have it lift straight off the ground, which may serve to give the crow that ungainly, clumsy sort of look!
I'll be back with another massive post fairly soon.
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Crow walk cycle V2 [lower block]
Thought it might be about time to attempt the crow's walk cycle again — spent a couple of hours blocking out the legs and this is the result so far! It's far from complete; there's no body or head movement at all, no weight shifting, no timing adjustments - literally just the legs.
It's horribly robotic and I know that's distracting. Just figured I'd show you the progress so far. How is the leg movement looking so far? Can you see any glaringly obvious errors? Anything that needs changing? Thoughts? Advice? :]
The first thing I want to do once I'm satisfied is sort the timing out. then I can look at offsetting each limb slightly to give it some drag, make sure everything moves accurately. I have nothing more to say. I'm tired!!
It's horribly robotic and I know that's distracting. Just figured I'd show you the progress so far. How is the leg movement looking so far? Can you see any glaringly obvious errors? Anything that needs changing? Thoughts? Advice? :]
The first thing I want to do once I'm satisfied is sort the timing out. then I can look at offsetting each limb slightly to give it some drag, make sure everything moves accurately. I have nothing more to say. I'm tired!!
Friday, 16 March 2012
Crow flight cycle reference and planning
Following on from Jazzy's bold attempts to stalk crows with a camera and capture them landing, I've been looking at how we might be able to animate the scene where the crow swoops in and lands on the scarecrow's arm as painlessly as possible.
By an astonishing coincidence I found this rather interesting video on Youtube:
I find the whole situation hilariously ironic - it's almost exactly the sort of movement we want and it's done in After Effects with an almost puppety looking bird. Of course, owing to the simplicity of the shape the animator was able to get a good deal more flexibility in his bird - note the flexing and arching of the back - it would be significantly more difficult to achieve with our puppet. I would imagine that he used a vector shape or mask of some sort within After Effects and was able to bend and flex the shapes at will. It's an interesting technique and certainly not one I would have considered. I could be totally wrong, of course - he may have done something totally different. I may actually ask him how he did it, mostly out of curiousity, but it may also be beneficial to us and give us some kind of insight as to how we can better approach this scene.
Regardless, it's a useful video to clearly examine the motion of the bird's landing.
From some quick doodles scribbled in Liz's lecture today (don't worry, I was paying attention!) I started looking at how the body would rotate as the crow comes into land, wondering if we might be able to simply use the same body and rotate it, or whether it would be necessary to draw new ones. Happily it seems we'll be able to re-use it. She'd lift her feet and spread her wings wide as she comes in, flapping to keep balance. We could probably use the same wings as well - they wouldn't necessarily change shape or perspective, simply rotate them along with the body.
I think we'd probably need about three "frames" for the wings - an 'up' pose, a 'down' pose and a 'mid' pose. As with the previous bird tests I did, we could probably rotate the wings down on the Z axis and then switch them to the 'mid' position once they get far enough. Hold that for a few frames, then they come down. They'd be blurred, too, I imagine - so that should cover up any choppy 'cuts' between each position!
If the wings are divided up into two or three sections, say, we could even try to get a bit of overlap by delaying the ends of the wings as she flaps up and down.
By an astonishing coincidence I found this rather interesting video on Youtube:
Regardless, it's a useful video to clearly examine the motion of the bird's landing.
From some quick doodles scribbled in Liz's lecture today (don't worry, I was paying attention!) I started looking at how the body would rotate as the crow comes into land, wondering if we might be able to simply use the same body and rotate it, or whether it would be necessary to draw new ones. Happily it seems we'll be able to re-use it. She'd lift her feet and spread her wings wide as she comes in, flapping to keep balance. We could probably use the same wings as well - they wouldn't necessarily change shape or perspective, simply rotate them along with the body.
I think we'd probably need about three "frames" for the wings - an 'up' pose, a 'down' pose and a 'mid' pose. As with the previous bird tests I did, we could probably rotate the wings down on the Z axis and then switch them to the 'mid' position once they get far enough. Hold that for a few frames, then they come down. They'd be blurred, too, I imagine - so that should cover up any choppy 'cuts' between each position!
If the wings are divided up into two or three sections, say, we could even try to get a bit of overlap by delaying the ends of the wings as she flaps up and down.
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