Here is a short preview of my final video, more known as breakdown in this video you will see the most important parts of the final. How i have done it, and how i have encountered the problems i have faced while doing this assignment. The video is short but clear and reliable.
REFLECTION
My final video animation and special effects starts with a panning from the left corner to right of my room, where you will later see the wooden mannequin lying peacefully on the edge of a black shelves. Then the music background of « Scott Joplin » start playing and the wooden mannequin fall from it’s place to end up way down on the desk of the furniture.
(Process of how the wooden man has fall from it’s place) I have taken more than twenty photos just to the more fluid falling aspect of the wooden man, from the shelves to the ground. I have taken twice the same photos, the first one is with the wooden mannequin attached to a stick as his back, with blue tack and the second photo taken was only used as an template, to apply layer mask on the first one to remove the « unwanted » parts as the stick and the blueback, at the end only the wooden man will remain and the process continues like that with every stop motion part of the video.
The wooden man has been really shocked and is in a dizzy state, trying to get up on his feet. While trying to get up on his feets, there will be a sound effects of ( Dizzy cartoon sound effects) which is used frequently in cartoons when the characters has been hurt to the head or hurt himself badly.
After the headache of the wooden man was gone, he realized that he was not the only wooden mannequin in the same room, he tries badly to walk in a straight way to his wooden mate through the desk, but it wasn’t that easy. He was still dizzy. During few seconds he walked towards the other mannequin and when he arrived in front of the second character, he say hello, but was disappointed when he realized the second wooden mannequin was not alive and animated like him The second one was an fixed and non animate. Then the is a different camera angle where i appeared in the video, in a scene showing that i was drawing on my desk and suddenly i had had the feeling that « someone » was watching me, but when i look to my left there was anybody.
During the short lapse of time that i am drawing there will be some motion graphics that will appear behind me, over my head and going through the room to show my creativity that is going out from my mind. Then the camera angle will change again showing that there was anybody when i look at the other desk.
In the next scene the you can see that the wooden man has been hiding behind my laptop, while i was looking for him somehow. After that, he will walk behind my laptop but then a rotoscoping effect will appear and he will immediately turn into a drawing , that is walking behind the mac. As he had cross my laptop, the wooden mannequin will immediately turn back into a normal wooden mannequin and would no more be a drawing, with a rotoscoping style. As this scene is going to the next stage, just after that the wooden mannequin will notice that i have left a drawing on my desktop and will come and just have a look at it, to see what i was drawing during all this time. Then he will start to invest the drawing from head to toe and trying to guess who is the one on the paper. After a few minutes of reflection he has finally come up to an conclusion and has find out that it was him on the paper, he made up his mind and start dreaming that he was a real star and come up to a final conclusion and even dreamt about the fact he was on some canvas that were displayed in a famous museum.
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT.
Here are some of my thoughts concerning the project Animation and Special effects that i have done during those last months. The project in itself was very interesting, entertaining and bulky too. With a lot to do and very complexe settings and composition when it comes to the footage and special effects to render at the end. For my own project i have deviated a bit from the main purpose of « special effects » as my projects was about STOP MOTION which consist of a lot of pictures and to actually make a real and fluent video footage with it. I have actually taken an approximate amount of 400 photographs only for the making up of the video. I have taken each frame of the footage twice for the simple reason that ; the first picture was with the wooden mannequin in it, and the second picture was taken as same as the first one but this time without the wooden mannequin to use it as a template to hide unwanted part that was holding the wooden mannequin in specific scene of the video. An example was when the wooden man was falling from the shelves.
A precise and important factor about this project was that as my video on animation and special effect for me will be better without special effects and stuffs like that but as the project in itself was about special effects i had to do so to fulfill the demanding task of the assignment.
WHAT I HAVE LEARNT FROM THIS PROJECT
This project has been very helpful and useful, when it come to general knowledge, while doing this project i have been able to learn about green screen and the different things that was able to accomplish with it, the easiest way to do it and also the proper way to apply the green screen and the way that it was not advice to do it also. Advice of my lecturers, ilectures and also tutorial of youtube. I have also learnt about the color grading effect, just to enhance and give a final better look to the video footage when it comes to a final rendering. Also rotoscoping, which was one of the best and hard one to do, rotoscoping is a very interesting technique and give a sketchy style to any animation, but is very difficult and time consuming, specially when one have a lot of frame to do in rotoscoping. The last one was 2d tracking which is really efficient when it comes to track a specific point on an moving object, even if i didn’t apply it to my project it was interesting to learn about it. The most important thing that i have learnt and that i have really enjoy was the stop motion basics that i have really love to do and to apply it to an assignment it is in rare occasion that one student can do something that you love in an assignment.
PROBLEMS THAT I HAVE BEEN THROUGH DURING THE ASSIGNMENT !
First of all was the effects and little things that i had to do and look for as a plugin to add to my video footage.
There was a lot of tutorial to watch and it was difficult to apply what the tutorial was saying and teaching through the video. As my project was really different from the other students i had to look for specific tutorials and to apply my own kind of style and effects. It was very time consuming and it was a very hard work during the whole process, but at the end there were not a real thing that was impossible to do for this final project.
OVERCOME PROBLEMS DURING THIS PROJECT.
I have been able to overcome this project by the great of help of Youtube, various and tons of tutorials that have been upload online based on stop motion videos, students from around the world that have also done stop motion videos for a personal purpose, not for assignment or other ones. Giving tips and easy ways on how to do a perfect and adequate stop motion with a good timing for the frames. I have also watched tutorials based on different example of green screen, watching the making of great films such as transformers and avatar, where, when and how they have applied the green screen, to obtain the wanted effects and put the best background for their video.
Also showing easy and very efficient tricks for the camera stability when it comes to taking photos of different scenes without moving or shaking the camera location. While doing the stop motion footage you have to move the figures that you will apply in the video only and very precisely the more photos you take the more fluent will be the video.
Usual Compositing Mistakes
In this particular ilecture i have will learn about usual mistakes that one can face and make while doing the final video. There is also explanation and tips on how to avoid and minimize mistakes that can be done.
Crucial Factors when it concerns mistakes in the video process
- Research work insufficient- Not reach the demanding task; the major problem will be the misunderstanding of the main project as the project is lacking in information.
- Not so much in content part; no sufficient ideas and development.
- One of the most important thing about the final work is the framing and rendering, first of all the work has to be easily understanding and reliable.
- Not so much in testing experimentation; lack of research concerning the concept, final working development and testings about the green screen, color grading, 2d tracking etc.
Development Process
- Filming problems- When compressing the final video, when it is too high, it gonna end up with a bad resolution, bad composition,, inconvenient clarity of the video footage.
- Execution of Technique and realization ; while doing all the techniques that i have learnt it’s important to do it properly, not in a poor way like rotoscoping, 2d tracking and so on.
- Audio; a important factor which is the calibration of sound and music in such a way that it fits the video footage.
Refinement the final part of the video footage-
- Color grading part- before rendering the work, the color grading is really important in a way that the actual footage and the elements that you’ve added fits together in terms of colors, blending colors etc.
- Another important errors that might occurs- Proportion and dealing with the size of the elements, shadows, light, sound synchronization.
Typography In Motion
Everything starts with a very good example of typography in a motion set up ! Through this tutorial i have learnt that doing research on basics things and way to make my work with more varieties is very useful.
Even audio plays a major role when it comes to typography and motion for example the sound much match with the way the typography appear in the video, if there are a certain way that the typeface appears or not. For example a curvy font will need a swoosh sound effect to show that the end of the word is very fast ending. Like an object is going very fast ( swoosh sound) or even handwritten sound effects.
The typography should match and be related to the video footage in itself, the type of font that one is using and applied to the video has to be coordinate.
Motion typography is always better than a static one., it is advisable to do a motion typography during the video.
Development Process of the typography in the video footage.
- Often used in various films for the introduction of an sequence or a character presentation
- To be able to create a good intro or apply a good typography example in a video footage, a lot of little testing and trial has to be done before.
- Combination of every all techniques learned like color grading, effects techniques, camera movements etc…
- Try to combine the most various technique vintage style with digital technique to come up with an interesting final render.
Kinetic typography
- Typography+ audio sound effects =better understanding of the concept and facilities the communication.
Use of symbol and icons as communication
- Very often use to communicate difficult understanding concepts.
- Have a better and greater variations when it comes to techniques
Visual Communication with typography
- Typography is very important in the life of a graphic design, as it is often use as a design in itself, but specifically to pass on a message or to raise awareness. So typography has to be wisely use.
Digital Image Compositing/Color Grading.
A brief description of what it is all about, it is the process of adjusting many layers of video footage like colors the brightness , the contrast different aspect of the footage when it comes to colors and aspect.
Apply the color grading technique.
- It is a quick and easy technique when it comes to adjustment.
- It corrects the fade and monotone color of the original shoot.
- It enhance the quality and the visual with effectiveness.
- Use to create a better mixture/ matching between the elements and the background( footage) The colors of the elements that have been re worked have to matched with the actual video footage.
Importance of the color grading and the compression:
- For the compression of video footage it is important when it comes to compresses footage to always bitrate pixels for the video
- A data in the footage may contains many pixels but when it is applied during the compression it will limit the pixels and may be have a loss of the data and it’s content.
Application of color grading:
- It is very important to watch and look for various tutorials as much as possible to be able to understand and to come up with different concepts and technique.
- Convenient shooting of the actual footage without any automatic brightness setup even for the contrast mode activated on the camera.
Colors:
- Use of red, blue and green cause these make up mostly all colors.
- Warmth via red and yellow.
- Be careful of skin tones while playing with red and green.
- Play with color tones to improve communication via the footage.
Important factors to be reconsidered when it comes to compression in color grading :
- When color grading is applied there is a minimal loss of details of the elements
- objects can appear on areas which have been changed.
- There are less definitions among the colors which have been changed previously.
- There is a great loss when it comes to color contrast and the data of the video footage.
Types of VFX applied on the video
- Models of Stop motion.
- Matte effect painting.
- Live action effects, for example like- keying, smoke and explosions effects etc.
- 3D animation
- Miniatures Samples/models
- The miniatures models are little model of something which are used in a video footage to represent something that can be applied in real life. For example someone walking on the moon. Taking a small object to make it represent the moon
- Great technique when it comes for creating real impact-(flames, fire, flood…)
- This technique is still used in every kind of video footage.
Matte Painting
- Definition of matte painting : Painting done to create and apply backgrounds that doesn’t exist.
Live action
- Definition of live action : Creating the effects by a video. Chroma keying is used in live action.
- Miniatures figures or objects with live action effects are a very great combination for a footage video
Creating effects for compositing
- The making of impacts in way which makes something astonishing and incredible, whatever it is chroma key or other techniques.
- There is a technique called- Alpha Channel which is done by computing creating effects, the computer creates transparency matte from the effects.
- When creating and making your own specific effects, one will have to consider how to deal with the fact of isolating the effect from the film and applied the matte technique that you can make from the footage.
Alpha Matte
- There is a table where it shows the various types of matte option and how to combine mattes to mask specific regions, to finally came up to an wanted effect.
Luma Matte
- There is another way of applying the matte effect to differentiate the concept and also to get a high contrast that is often in black and white.
- It will create a black and white image where the white color will be easily visible and the black color not visible. This can be reversed according to the wanted footage.
Garbage matte
- Garbage matte are masked matte techniques that are used to remove unwanted pieces from the green screen footage video and other elements.
- Garbage matte has a disadvantage it is less precise but easier to use.
- Focus in the garbage matte technique is very important as there are errors that are very difficult to fixe.
Compositing Effects
- When it comes to compositing effects it is important to master the matting process to merge effects into the real live footage.
- An simple would be , if you want to do and apply an explosion or smoke effect in your video footage, you will have to create and apply an alpha matte mask of the object used, then after that just remove the layer with the element in it (smoke one) to make it visible behind the object itself.
- When tracking effects is added to rotoscoping and with Mask it comes at the end as, compositing with more effects at the end to render.
DETAILS FOR TECHNIQUE
- The depth of the effects.
- Masking technique applied.
- Size of the effect that will be applied.
- Color grading and the light is really important to enhance the realistic feeling of the effects.
- Using blending techniques is often advice when it comes to effects.
- Where the effect is applied, and the time when it will appear is very important.
Digital Image Compositing-2D and 3D Tracking and Image Stabilization.
Applying masking technique is seen and defined as the constant way of spot or layout of focusing, to obtain balance in all the set up work.
Motion Tacking vs Motion Capture
The motion capture technique uses many cameras to acquire and obtain a whole 3D tracking to gain and capture the movement into a 3D rig whereas motion tracking is use only by one camera.
Difference between 2D Tracking and 3D Tracking
Both of them work in a similar and precise way, slight difference may comes in the content of the video of how and when to apply 2d and 3d.
Here is a 2D explanation: 2d is used in cases where two directions are required for example :axis X and Y are the coordinates. In your footage, precisely in a tracking environment this helps you to track:, scales,translations, turns etc. In 2D tracking mode you are ONLY allowed to use and apply 2D plane.
Whereas 3D tracking enables you to create 3d objects.
Point-Tracking for Objects
It is normally used for one tracking area and a for a particular point.
Efficient technique for typography use and really great for motion graphics videos.
Compositing background
The tracking markers HAVE TO BE FIX(No Motion) and then after that the tracked background will move normally at the same time as the camera.
Layers helps you to come up with real aspects when it comes to a a composition.
Simplify rotoscoping
Rotoscoping is a very time consuming technique but once well done and apply the result are really amazing. The easiest way to save time to complete it is to :
Separate all the rotoscoping file into different parts and folded such as for example if you’re are tracing a human body- The arm in a file, the legs in another one and the head in a third files etc. Individual files provides you more spaces and less keyframes to do
Image stabilization
How to keep an image steady with less shakes as far as possible .There is also the disadvantage of cropping the footage which will lead to the loss of footage content.
It is important to notice that when trying to stabilize a video footage TOO MUCH it will at the end looks like it’s fake. there is something not matching in it. To avoid that, the best way to not obtain these problems is to keep the camera in a fluent and constant movement just to balance the scenes/footage throughout the video.
Similar to matte painting.
2D matte painting is easy to match up, however when the camera is in movement, 3D tracking is more advised be use to be able to follow up and to manage things such as buildings, cars and other big stuffs.
3D objects to motion
Tracking markers are OFTEN USE for items that are in a movement.
3D tracking programming footage and projects usage for 3D object shapes tend to make them as reliable and unmistakable item/ structures.
in this Video you will see a preview of my final video for animation and special effects. What it will look like, with it’s main characters and some trials of the effect that i will implement in it. Like rotoscoping in my visual test, stop motion animation with the most frames as far aa possible to get it more fluent as possible. All factors and elements that will be applied and use in this video will be basically be about art and sketches. Interaction between the artist and the drawing/ wooden mannequin. Stop motion animation with rotoscoping + effects that goes well and perfectly match the idea of a living wooden mannequin. Every elements and factors in my video will have to relate about drawing itself.
apollonyannick 