[Scene 00] Alternative Opening v2

Here's version numero dos. I took on board Alex's suggestions from the previous version and shortened the beginning by one second, made drop of the water quicker, easy eased the pan and altered the ripples. The radio waves I used for the effect was limited to when the sizes can change but hopefully this looks slightly better. Give it that subtle change that's noticeable :]

[Scene 00] Alternative Opening v1

I was thinking over how we can make an effective opening. Something with a little bit of difference from the camera movement we've done before. Because Andy had mentioned something about water drops falling at the corner of the barn's wall I was taken back to how 'A Bug's Life' was opened. So I researched a little bit on water ripple effects in AE and I came up with this for starters.

Here's the link to the opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrW_TTxP1ow

I like the bird flying by but I think the first bird we need to be introduced to is the crow so I didn't try with that :] There was another suggestion that Andy said and that was to pan across the barn wall and see a very dusty window before we come to the corner. And through the window's dust we barely see the Interior shot, hinting off future events. Now of course that's another idea I'd really like to use ^^

At the end is when the scarecrow will sneak around the wall before the crow joins him etc. :] I think I might need to change that reflection. I'm not sure whether it looks odd or not. I need another opinion.

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 :]

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 ;]

Scene 07 V11, V12 & V13

Andy gave me some feedback regarding the crow's walk cycle today — he pointed out that it looked a bit weird with the crow's head turned fully away from the camera like that, almost like I'd forgotten to draw the beak! I totally agree with him and it was something I'd kept thinking about all the while I was making it.

He suggested having the crow looking slightly upwards as she entered, so you could still see the beak, then have her turn her head around and downwards. I had a quick go at knocking some alternatives together so have a look and let me know what you think.

I did encounter some slight problems with having her look upwards as she entered. The head kept breaking away from the neck and rotating it so far up caused the head bobbing to look really freakin' weird so I've done my best with it. I'm sure there are things I can do to fix it up, so this is just to give you an idea...

I also did a few versions with her simply facing slightly more towards the camera... which kinda looks a bit better.

V11



This one's recycled — she doesn't look into the air, as said above, she's just got her head turned slightly more towards us.

V12



Slight variation on the above, but with a slightly more turned away head. I think the head looks a bit weird on this one, but I think it's just the crappy way I drew it...!

V13



Mm, I don't know about this one. I had difficulty keeping it properly aligned with the neck — the head's got some position keyframes on it and pushing those forward so that it sits in line with the neck caused it to be a bit jerky. I think it looks a bit peculiar.

I don't really know what to do about it at this stage — I've been staring at it so long I've gone a bit blind!!

I did have another thought — I think maybe I misunderstood Andy — maybe he meant keep using the backwards-facing head but simply attach a beak poking out of it, pointing slightly into the air? I'll give it a go and see how it looks!

Scene 17 & 18 (1st Versions)

Hey guys here's the first versions of scenes 17 and 18. Calling them the first versions just in you guys wanna see some changes! :)

Scene 17

Scene 18

[Scene 15] Picking Insect v1

This is the first time I've used Jae's puppets! Good work you did there ^^

Unluckily there was a problem I immediately encountered and that was the size of the puppet. Unfortunately it was a tad too small for the widescreen on After Effects and I had to scale it up so that's why it looks a bit blurry on the edges etc. Despite this I still wanted to try my hand at it :]

I think the timings are not exactly the same as they are on the animatic here. This is because I had to keep the quick tempos of the flinch and such, and still keep it to the duration. The animatic changes are quite jumpy with no inbetweens so that's why I messed with the timings a bit. Only to make it work though, I hope I didn't change it too much ^^;

I might make the beginning a millisecond longer before the crow approaches. I think it might be a bit too quick at the start there but I'm not too sure, everyone please tell me you're opinion :]

Also the part when the scarecrow fully opens his eyes again, I want to change that a little bit too. Still keeping the hesitant opening of the eyes but have him look up after they're fully opened. What do you guys think?

[Scene 10] v5

Okay I'm not too sure what to make of this version because I think personally it goes a bit too fast. I think a medium timing between this version and v4 would be a lot better. I mean in this one we can't even acknowledge she's there before she runs off, lol.

And I did make the jump higher you just can't see it ^^; Plus the flash vimeo makes for the loop just makes it worse.

Scene 07 V9 — V11

Minor tweaks made to the timing on the heads as the crow enters, trying to sort the problems I thought were occurring in the last version...

Version 9



First, I tried having the crow's head turned away as she entered, then look forward for a bit, before looking to the other side. She then turns to face front.

I think it looks alright but, again, there's a bit too much going on. She doesn't really look like she's looking around, I don't think. I thought it would be better if she turned her head all the way around instead of pausing to look ahead.

Version 10



Still some issues, but I think it works okay. Again, not sure if it feels like she's looking around. There's something weird about her head as well — maybe it's just me, but having it totally face away from the camera like that just doesn't look right to me? Maybe I've just been looking at it too long?!

Version 11



This is pretty much the same as version 7 — her head is only slightly turned away from the camera as she enters, which to me looks a bit better. Maybe she should turn her head forward (towards the end) a little sooner, though?

I think it's quite difficult to make a decision on the head turning so far — once it's put together with the next scene it might really change how it reads. Luckily I've kept all my After Effects files :P

What do you guys think? Any suggestions? :]

[Scene 10] v4

You don't need to tell me, the jump is slow and the run is still slow. I do know :] I'm just putting this up to show the progress because I'm still looking around the keyframes at the moment, before I mess around with the timings. That should be fun because I need to make sure all of the corresponding frames are still in sync once I've tweaked them.

The jump is really bothering me because I would like her to go a bit higher but once I did that in the Pre-Comp layers her head disappeared LOL I think I'll try putting a keyframe in on the Pre-Comp with the backgrounds... it's a bit hard to explain what I'm trying to say here. I'll show you once I've tried it ^^;
You wouldn't believe how much my head hurt when setting key frames for the jump. Crow's of course don't naturally jump like that so it's denying the crow's biology for a second and I don't really think it works... I'm not entirely proud with it, I can tell you that much lol

The run is slightly different here than my previous because when I was walking home from the library yesterday, I saw a crow in the next field move really quickly like this:

I didn't have my camera with me regrettably, and even if I did I wouldn't have been able to get it all set up and start recording before he/she stopped ;P

However it was quite interesting for me to see that and I revised some key frames in my head from what I saw and immediately jotted them down on paper when I got home. 

If we decided to use this walk it would mean that, again, the next sequence would have to be tweaked. This continuity is a nightmare, eh?

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

Scene 16 V8

Version 8



I tried removing the weird blur from the head as she looks back down after catching the bug, as well as creating a few more heads for the turn itself. I think it looks a lot better now! I'm still not totally happy with the head toss at the beginning though — again, I think it's the blur — probably not needed but I'm not sure. The inbetween head I made is ridiculous, though, and doesn't make any sense, so I blurred it to cover it up... maybe if I fix it up a little it will look better. I'll have a play around with it and see what I can do! :]

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!

Because the bulk of the animation is being driven by keyframes, all the puppet pin is doing is bending and warping the wing as it moves. It doesn't really interfere at all and you still get a great degree of control over the animation whilst allowing a great degree of flexibility in the joints.

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?

[Scene 10] Running Crow v1 & v2

v1

Now I admit I was laughing so much when I was doing this scene. Before I go into it I'll mention first that I don't have the puppet for when the crow jumps in fright at the beginning. Sorry Alex, I'm not sure where that one is, I'll check again in the folder. No problem if you haven't done it yet ;]

I think it's one of the most awkward things in the world, or at least the world the scarecrow and crow are living in, to see a crow trying to RUN away :D The first thing instinct would tell them to do is fly away. However! I'm not letting that happen here.

She moves almost like a fast walk in these two versions. I can't imagine our crow being an Olympic Runner but I would like to try a longer stride. I'm just wondering if it will look better. Also I am fully aware that she needs to move faster. I don't think it looks like a "run" if she doesn't move faster.

The shadow underneath the crow is more solid than the ones I've seen in your sequences Alex, so I'll have to make sure they are feathered to fit the bill. I don't want little things like that to bother me while we watch the final thing ;P

v2

Here I added some movement to her wings to get rid of any stillness when watching her run. I've realised that if she is to look more awkward, she really needs to struggle with her run. This is something that she has in common with the scarecrow. Neither of them are really born [or made in scarecrow's case] to run smoothly.

There was something I noticed earlier on about the transition from this sequence to the next. Here we see she has her wings out, whereas in the next scene they're folded at her sides. I think we might have to fiddle around with that if we want to keep the continuity going. Like have her wings slightly spread behind her in the next scene, or have them folded here. 

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 ;]

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 08 V2

Scene 08



Rough version of scene 08. I tried to add a little interest to her top-down walk cycle so that it better matched the previous scene. How's it looking so far?

Again, plenty of tweaks to make. I think her head turns a little too slowly (sorry about that, it was pretty tricky trying to figure out how to get her to do it...!) so I'll perhaps speed that up a bit. I tried to stick to the animatic timings as closely as possible but due to the difference in size on the layers between this one and the original, some things are a little off.

It looks to me as if the hang glider comes in a bit too quickly? I might give it a little longer before it comes in. Maybe slow it down a touch too.

The crow's shrinking pupils aren't terribly noticeable and are a bit messy (very fuzzy when they're at their biggest) but it was just something I was fooling around with. If you guys like the idea I'll clean it up a little :]

Sorry if this post makes no sense... it's early...!

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...! :]

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.

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...