Animation - character creation

character reaction and animation 

when i was first drawing the style for the animation. i drew the character which i was visualizing in my mind. this was a prilimary charcter but i endened up liking the style of the character, it need devolpment but it had emotion in it  

i then split the characters elements apart so i could find the right stlye 

with the hair i liked the idea of the hair changing about and looking scractchy, it also works well to make the height of the character stay consitent as the hair can move. 

for eyes the lines had alot of emotion but were easy to keep consitent. same with the mouth 

the face shape i wanted to look smooth but human like 

nose looked good from all angles 

for the kneck i made the head overlap for easiness 

body and legs i kept slim and long to be normal. 

these were me combinging the elements to see how it works

skin colour was white as it kept it away from the background 

this is my turn around for the character. i put in reference lines to make sure the charcter was proportioned right. i followed examples online and worked it to my character. 

these are all the links i used for my character. 

http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1635822&seqNum=5

research into sharing layers in illustaor so i could speed the proccess up 

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1085178

after effects triming video 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=select+all+keyframes+after+effects&rlz=1C1GIWA_enGB675GB675&oq=select+all+keyframe&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l4.4081j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

keyframes in after effects 

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-watch-YouTube-videos-frame-by-frame

youtube frame skipping to help animation drawing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEyLnkYuAU

the video i used to get possitions for the walk away animation. i watched through it frame by frame and then drew it for my charcacter. 

http://webneel.com/daily/sites/default/files/images/daily/08-2014/12-walk-cycle-back-woman-female.preview.jpg

walk cycles

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=animation+walk+cycle+from+behind&rlz=1C1GIWA_enGB675GB675&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6uK2orK7TAhXPalAKHRavAAEQ_AUIBigB&biw=1920&bih=984#imgrc=pm1njJuPLa12wM:

walking away walk cyles for my frame by frame animation

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/590464201115342180/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/776237685744145346/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/AW0lycFedp9cN57ApWZDokqEPVJ51pgFoqNDosGoTlG-0YzoL1PSQ5A/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/82401868158991038/

http://red-sweet-chilli.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/2d-walking-cycle.html

https://uk.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=2d%20walk%20cycle&rs=typed&term_meta[]=2d%7Ctyped&term_meta[]=walk%7Ctyped&term_meta[]=cycle%7Ctyped

more refrences for walk cyles.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUUHWoTx1U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz3Yv3On4lE&t=0s

animation flicker style 

this is when i started scanning in my drawings to illustator and creating vector versions. i made sure to keep part seperate to allow animation of the seperate parts in duik

i used the pencil tool to make the lines look scetched. for the colouring i idividually coloured in each character with the pencil tool and changed the colour slightly for every time to create the shadded look. it took a long time but was worth it as  other ways of doing it was using gradients but looked to computer generated.

i kept the face white as it was a style i like as it stood againsts the background. 

i made sure the ends of each joined matched each other in a cicrle so it could move around naturally later

i did this technic for all the turn arounds of the charater, and flipped it for the other angle. 

this is a prillimary verson of the charcter, done with  shapes, i learnt how to do this but it looked to fake. 

after effects rigging. 

 these are the screen shots for rigging
https://www.lynda.com/DUIK-tutorials/After-Effects-Duik-Rigging-Animation-Tools/492721-2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3aduik%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2

this is the lynda tutorial i used to learn rigging and animation in duik

it was tricky, lots of problems with working my way around master rigs.

the rig allowed me move the parts of the character with relation to the other body parts. it also allowed me to create walk cycles. 

this is my walk forward walk cycle, i realised i couldnt use duik for walk cycle for walking forward so i looked at some of the refrences i put before and went through the video and the animation guide book to draw a walk cycle frame by frame for the walk forward and walk away. 

i had to put it into after effects to see how it worked together, i used refrence lines to make sure they matched up, but in after afters i saw what frames didnt work and then changed it in illustaor. 

for the duik rig versons i went every 3 frames and animated the positions it would be for contact down pass up and contact and repeated for the other leg. 

i did this for each of the turn arounds i had to work with position and rotation keyframes

i then precomposed it and added a time remap so i could change the speed of the walk when ever i wanted and add it to the scene easier

these are all the practice versions i did for walking forward, i tried to make it work with the rig but it didnt work. 

here are the scetches i did for the walk towards and away from the camera. 

composite style

composite 

VFX project

on the first day of phil's lessons we first went into creating a 3d landscape in a 2d photograph using photoshop and after effects, this was very tricky as alot of the programing realied on a well taken photograph but i did end up creating one which worked.

i have a verson on my computer at uni. 

we then learnt how to use cameras in photoshop and use animated layers to create composited landscapes to tranverse through. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-NfaXYFzJk

this made me think of the adventure time opening graphics. 

i really like how this looked with animation. it required moving layers in responce with the camera. i is something i want to use more in my work. 

I then moved onto one of my big influences which was

Saul Bass

i really like the simple vector animation in this opening sequence and it became a big influnce for me. 

I started making simple shapes on after effects to practice with it. 

I really liked the idea of using the light from windows to show something happening in a building. 

i wanted a vector style of something like this and working with a character in the rooms. from looking and practicing with diffrent windows the film came to me 

REAR WINDOW 

i thought this perfectly fitted what i wanted to do. so then i went home to story board what i should do. 

this story board was fairly complicated. if i had more time i would of moved the character to diffrent situations 

my other idea was to work with using a telescope as my camera. have it zoom in and focus ect and have the outside a blurred bigger verson. 

here you can see i liked the bright colours for the window contracted with the black character. 

through practice a made a telecope that worked in class, it could focus and it had blurr around the rim, i did this using layers and maskes to tell what should be effected. 

Then i had a problem, i didnt have time to fully focus on this project so i had to simplify and use assets i could use in my other animaiton. i therefore dicided to focus away from cameras and towards character animaiton. something i really wanted to learn. 

me and phill then talked about duik....he gave me a tutorial to watch. 

https://www.lynda.com/DUIK-tutorials/Looping-walk-cycle/492721/543522-4.html?autoplay=true

this was so usefull and i watched the whole thing ....5 hours :O 

I REALLY LIKE DUIK....ITS A LIFESAVER 

this was my arm animation using the IK rig 

i decided for the walk cycle i wanted i could use the auto rig successfully

this was my first version 

i was good practice and the movement worked fairly well. i felt comfortable doing it with a nicer looking character (no offence mr stick man) 

this is my final character i made in illustator. i think it looks fairly good, i like the stylist look. 

i then animated him using duik in after effects. i started with body and leg position, then foot rotation then arm movement then hand roation 

 i think it went well, it looked fairly smooth, the only issue was the gap between the loops, but phil let me know i could copy the keyframes from the start and that fixed it.

this is how i created the lights turning on and off effect using iluustator layers and oppasity. i tried maskes but i couldnt copy and move masks to make identiical windows. this internet didnt have a easy solution .....if there is one let me know 

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/935189

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1GIWA_enGB675GB675&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=how+to+subtact+one+shape+from+another+in+after+effects&*

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/935189

this is what it looked like with all the layers put together. i think it looked okay

i will now talk about style, this is something i worked on after the animation but its usefull to say. i really like vector animation, it looks so simple but infact there is so many layers to make it look good, i got inspiration from lots of vector art 

this is the style i love but i want to do this proparly i knew it would take soo long, so i decided to change the style using pen paths and textures in illustator to create a look

this can be seen with the crane, i used this to add depth to the image, i animated it as i thought it was a nice detail. 

i did do the stars with dots at the start but i liked to connect them to my style so looked into more simplistic looking style, i looked good, i drew them all randomly. 

this is the look which came out. i think it looked nice. 

for font i put alot of thought into what style i wanted. 

http://www.studiodaily.com/2013/09/fontlist-plus-quick-font-previews-inside-after-effects/

if i was going to be realist i think im not 100% happy with the font, i think i needed more time to get it great. 

this is how i put in the character. i could change his(her :0 )  speed and position and when they disipeared. i could i flip the character using an effect. 

the rest of the animation was through simple key frames. 

music i wrote in FL STUDIO....i wanted a chilled jazzy feel so used a double bass and celo combo with keys ontop. 

its got quite a few layers.  

what i learnt from this was duik animation, so i think it was very successful for me. i think i am getting better and it is something i want to continue with. but with another idea. 

if i could change something it would be to add in cameras. but i didnt have the time. 

:)