After Effects | COMD 411 01

Final Project: Motion Graphics Reel

Due Date: May 5, 2011 - 6:30pm

Description:
Selecting from the projects you worked on in this class (or any other motion graphics work you've done) create a 45 second to 1 minute video to a soundtrack of your choice.

Don't use full-length pieces. It is better to select best moments from each project (3 sec - 10 sec) and splice them together. Exceptions can be made for work you are particularly proud of.

The animation within the clips you choose does not have to perfectly match the reel's soundtrack. However, you should try to time the beginning/end of the clips to the beat.

Your reel MUST have an intro AND end slide with your full name and contact info. Make sure it stays on screen long enough to be read.

Specs:
1280x720 @ 29.97 fps
Your quicktime MUST be compressed (h264 or mpeg4)

References:
www.robertpaynter.com
http://blanksight.net/

You can also browse freelancer reels here: http://www.mographwiki.net/Category:Freelancers

Project #7: Style Frames/Storyboard for "Ransom Note"

Due dates:
Style Frames and Storyboards: April 14, 2011
Animation: April 28, 2011 - end of class.

Ransom Note Animation:
The Ransom Note assignment will be a 30 second animation that expresses the contents of a ransom note using both text and images with a soundtrack of your choice. For this project you can use any/all techniques we have covered over the semester to express your creative vision. The only required technique is 3d layers/camera.

Style Frames:
Create 2 - 3 frames using the design software of your choice (NOT After Effects) that will identify the visual style of your "Ransom Note" animation. The frames can illustrate specific frames from your storyboard or just an approximate brainstorm of what you would like to do. Make sure the style you choose is achievable in 1 - 2 weeks.

Storyboard:
Create 6 - 9 hand-drawn thumbnail sketches that illustrate the progression of your shots. Time the shots in your head (try using a stopwatch or counting in your head as you imagine the motion). Visualize working in 3d space and using cameras. Begin brainstorming the techniques you might implement. SCAN OR PHOTOGRAPH YOUR BOARDS FOR SUBMISSION.

Week 11: April 07, 2011

3D LAYERS

To manipulate a layer in 3d space, click inside the "3d" check-box of the layer (under the cube symbol).
When changing the Z-position of a layer, a negative value will bring an object closer to the "default camera" and a negative value will move it farther away.
Play with the appearance of your 3d layer using "Material Options" (effective when using lights)

CAMERA

Camera Settings:

Layer > New > Camera
A camera will affect only 3d layers
Use the camera tool ("c") to quickly manipulate the camera
For better camera control, work with 2 or more views (bottom of the "Composition" window) with each view set to a different angle. Note: only the "active camera" view will render.

Camera Animation–Transform attributes:

Always set keys to both Point of Interest and Position

Point of Interest: the direction in which the camera faces (the "bulls-eye" dot, best accessed from the top or side views)
Position: The actual location of the camera

Whenever possible, limit yourself to keying only the Point of Interest and the Position. Most camera moves can be achieved without using rotation attributes.

Camera Options:

Zoom: always use Position to get closer to or farther away from an object. Use zoom only for situations when Depth of Field is turned on and you want to preserve the blur levels of your background/foreground
Depth of Field: blurs objects based on their proximity to the camera. Depth of Field can result in unmanageable render time. In complex scenes, it is sometimes easier to fake it by manually applying the Blur effect (Effects > Blur and Sharpen) to individual layers
Focus Distance: sets the values for Depth of Field
Aperture: play with it to get different blur results
Blur Level: controls the strength of the DOF blur. Using a value greater than 100% can result in undesirable pixelation.

LIGHTS

Layer > New > Light
Spot Light: offers better controls, similar to those of the camera (Position/Point of Interest)
Like cameras, lights will only affect 3d
Casting shadows:

on the light layer: light options > turn on "Casts Shadows"
on the object layer: material options > turn on "Accept Shadows"
control the shadow appearance on the light layer > light options
to cast shadows, the casting layer must be next to another 3d layer which has "Accepts Shadows" turned on (usually on by default).

Project #6: Video effects

Due Date: March 31, 2011

Animation:

Select 20 seconds of video footage (can be more than one clip) and use After Effects effects to make it unrecognizable. Use your creative judgement to make it an interesting abstract piece rather than a pile of heavy effects. Set it to a soundtrack of your choice.

Specs: 1280x720 @ 29.97 fps

Week 10: March 31, 2011

EFFECTS–PART 2

Effects categories and noteworthy effects (continued)

Time effects
CC Force Motion Blur
CC Time Blend/CC Time Blend FX
CC Wide Time
Echo
Posterize Time
Time Displacement
Time Warp

Simulation

Explore the entire group

Generate

Ramp
Fill
CC Light Burst
CC Light Rays
CC Light Sweep
Stroke (see the next section)

STROKE EFFECT

To simulate handwriting, always use the Stroke Effect, NOT the Write-On effect (Effects > Generate > Stroke)
Using the stroke effect:

Create a solid black layer (Layers > New > Solids)
Use the pen-tool to trace the shape you want to reveal. You don't have to close the mask path. If you do close the mask path, make sure to set the mask to "none".
Create more masks for better timing control
Add Stroke effect to the layer
In the "Path" pulldown , chose a mask (you must create a new stroke effect for every mask you have)
Adjust stroke effect settings:

color: always make it white
brush size: make it slightly thicker than the shape you are revealing but not thick enough to reveal undesired parts of the shape out of order
paint style: on original image

Animate by changing the values of "Start" or "End"

If you are animating multiple Stroke effects, set keyframes to the first one and duplicate (Command + D) in the "Effect Controls" window and change the "path" of each to correspond with the desired mask. When you duplicate a stroke effect, the keys are also duplicated.

TUTORIALS:
Stroke Effect:

http://layersmagazine.com/animated-handwriting-in-after-effects.html

Inspiration 03.17.11: Effects

PIC Agency: “Push” title sequence
http://vimeo.com/14434360

Ghost Town Media: Linkin Park music video
http://www.motiongraphics.it/2010/11/linkin-park-waiting-for-the-end/

Sarofsky: The Killing title sequence
http://www.sarofsky.com/#killing

Click3X (http://www.click3x.com/): music video for Solange's "I Decided"
http://www.click3x.com/#/our_work/music_videos/i_decided

Week 9: March 24, 2011

TRACK MATTES REVIEW

EFFECTS (PART 1)

To apply an effect to a layer, select the layer and go to Effects > "category" > "effect name"
Adjust your effect in the "Effect Controls" window (by default appears on the left side next to the "Project" window).
When you apply an effect, keep in mind that you can set keyframes to any effect control that has a "stop watch" symbol next to it.
Effect categories and noteworthy effects:

Color Correction
Blur and Sharpen

Gaussian Blur: use for general blurring
Unsharpen Mask: use to sharpen your image. For best results, create a luminance mask and apply sharpening to highlights only:

duplicate the image/footage three times
leave the bottom layer as is
set the layer second from the bottom on "Luma Matte" setting (the top layer will be used as the mask)
apply "Unsharpen Mask" to the layer second from the bottom. Thanks to the Luma Matte mask, the sharpening will only be visible in the lighter spots.
Control the amount of sharpened highlights visible by applying "Curves" or "Levels" to the top (mask) layer and darkening/lightening it.

Stylize

Glow

Distort

Mesh Warp/Liquify: use for precise distortion of images/video over time
Offset: use to create an illusion of a very long, seamless moving texture
Optics Compensation: use it to create an illusion of 3d space/fish-eye lens effect

Transition

Linear Wipe: use as a more visually creative substitute to fade an image/footage on or off. Make sure to have the feathering set at a high value.
Gradient Wipe: use to fade an image/footage on or off based on the luminance values of itself or another layer in the comp (specify the luminance reference layer in the "Gradient Layer" pulldown.

Week 8: March 10, 2011

TRACK MASKS

alpha matte

create a mask based on the top layer's transparency

luma matte

create a mask based on the top layer's luminance (black and white values)

track mattes and nested comps

USING ORGANIC ELEMENTS

building a track mask transition using Ink or Smoke footage

luma matte vs alpha matte
use Curves or Levels (Effects > Color Correction > ...) to force perfect blacks/whites for luma-mattes
use Solid layers (Layer > New > Solid) to force full-frame black or white color (for luma mattes) or 100% matte opacity (for alpha mattes)

paint spatter

TUTORIALS:

Simple Track Mattes:

http://macdesignpro.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=33209

http://vimeo.com/20941657

Ink Bleedng Effect in After Effects (creating a Luma Matte mask):

http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/ink-bleeding-effect-in-after-effects-like-gnarls/

Splatter Effect:

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/fun_with_ink/

Inspiration 03.10.11: Blending Modes

Johannes Nyholm: Dreams from the Woods
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yedD4JsZyT0&feature=related
* This is a traditional puppet piece that can serve as inspiration for the look and feel blending modes will help you achieve.

Inspiration 03.10.11: Mixed Media

Emanuel Cohen (Universite du Quebec a Montreal): “A Bout De Mots”

http://vimeo.com/14434960*AE + negative scans

Andrew S Allen (www.andrewsallen.com): The Thomas Beale Cipherhttp://vimeo.com/19115071

Fran and Will Krause: Dog in a Burning Building
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYjli42Rxwk

Edouard Sallier: The Replicants "User"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOaLA0vAPUU

Week 7: March 03, 2011

TYPOGRAPHY: PART 3

text animators (continued)
advanced settings

based on
shape
randomize order/random seed

text animator presets

"Effects and Presets" window > Brows Presets (dropdown menu)

BLENDING MODES

blending mode types
stencil/silhouette
blending modes within nested comps: collapse transformations

Inspiration 03.10.11: Ink

Danny Yount (Prologue Films): Sherlock Holmes title sequence
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2010/01/21/sherlock-holmes/

Troublemaker Studio: Machete title sequence
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2011/02/28/machete/
* scroll down for the making of cool masks.

Sehsucht: KHD Symphony in Red
http://vimeo.com/12259774

Christopher Hewitt
Reading Nature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7ZhNsGrhiI&feature=related
Laika: http://digup.tv/?rub=galerie&item=49&lang=en

Project #5: Animated Song Lyrics

Due date: March 10, 2011

Animation:
Choose 20 seconds of a song and animate the lyrics. Make your type reflect the meaning of the words.

Use both the manual and the text animator techniques. DO NOT use a text animation preset unless you modify it beyond recognition.

Specs:
- 20 seconds
- 1280 x 720 @ 29.97 fps
- h264 or mpeg4 compression; DO NOT hand in animation compression files: they are too big for me to upload.

Student Work: Project #4

A Ten Letter Word

Theo B: http://vimeo.com/20355274
Anna F: http://vimeo.com/20355183
Makenzie J: http://vimeo.com/20357879
Eunice J: http://vimeo.com/20610704
Chris P: http://vimeo.com/20355089
Sarah S: http://vimeo.com/20355224
Christiana T: http://vimeo.com/20355108

Week 6: Feb 24, 2011

TYPE—PART 2

review: editable text from photoshop and illustrator
character and paragraph tools
animating text manually

create a text guide
animate back to front (set end keyframes first)

animating text paths

select the text layer
create a mask
use mask as path

using text animators

text attribute options
text animator envelopes
animating the offset: animator > range selector
advanced options: "based on" (characters, words, lines)

Student Work: Project #3

Student Work: Project #2

Geometric Shapes

John B: http://vimeo.com/20319391
Jacob B: http://vimeo.com/20328041
Anna F: http://vimeo.com/20319857
Nora G: http://vimeo.com/20317845
Mike G: http://vimeo.com/20318526
Chris P: http://vimeo.com/20315398
Sarah S: http://vimeo.com/20317472

Inspiration 02.17.11: Creative uses of masks

You can use masks to create animations of morphing shapes. As you watch Jane Aaron's "Set in Motion", think of how you could animate mask paths on color solids to mimic the effect of the stop motion lines traveling across the environment.

Jane Aaron - Set in Motion (1987)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efertdbm2I

Project #4: A Ten Letter Word

Due date: February 24, 2011

Animation:
Select a 10 letter word (e.g. greasewood) and music of your choice. In 30 seconds, spell out the word letter by letter and then bring on the entire word. You can create letters using either After Effects or importing them from another program.

Note: Because of the time constraint, I would suggest for you to animate the 10 individual letters quickly and spend more time bringing in the full word.

Specs:
1280x720, square pixels, 29.97 fps, h264 compression

Inspiration 02.17.11-03.03.11: Typography

Interview with Kyle Cooper
http://vimeo.com/9020112

Non-Digital/Natural Materials:
Jesse Zanzinger: Refraction—The Alphabet
http://vimeo.com/17509873
Ed Aclerman and Collin Morton: Primiti Too Taa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcrTzPAUqic&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Telling a Story:
Matthew Rogers: Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography—Language
http://vimeo.com/15412319
Curious Pictures: Nike—The Girl Effect
http://www.vimeo.com/13554052

Complex Type Animation:
Sebastian Lange: Flickermood 2.0
http://vimeo.com/3302330
Sehsucht: Mercedes-Benz Bas Child
http://vimeo.com/7522026

Visit these sites for good text animation references:
The Art of the Title Sequence:
http://www.artofthetitle.com/
Forget the Film, Watch the Titles:
http://www.watchthetitles.com/
IFC: 50 best title sequences of all tiems
http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/02/the-50-greatest-opening-title.php?page=11Passion Pictures (typography):
http://www.passion-pictures.com/flash.html#page=k11

After Effects | COMD 411 01 | Spring 2011

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