17/10/11 Fun

Despite the beginning of this day, there was a lot of positives.

- I figured out the problems where i couldn't upload a few of my very very short animations onto vimeo. They were saved as a massive file and they hadn't been rendered properly into a film. I exported them and saved them as a much more appropriate setting that was liked by vimeo.

- I exported the filming i did at the weekend. I don't love what i have done, but a few things i do find very nice.

- Learnt some basic settings that were very handy for filming. They were very obvious settings that i really should of played around with, but i just didn't think. They were to do with exposure and looking at the light you have in your setting.

And lastly, I went to the hyde park picture house in the evening, where i saw an event sort of where one of my favourite comedians, artist men, who is also obsessed with music videos showed a load of inspiring music videos. It was so satisfying and he showed some really good stuff, and mentioned a lot about after effects and made me feel good that after effects is definitely something i should be getting into if i were to really go into making music videos. Here are some of the videos he showed...

17/10/11 Crit

I began the day with a crit. It was a little dampening to my soul. I really have no idea what i'm doing with this project and am really finding it hard to focus and the crit today highlighted this very brightly.

But this is good, as now i can try and improve from here. I do think a lot of my struggle is to do with my blog and the fact that i am being too vague with what i want from this project.

I'm discovering i also never look back at my tutorial notes once they've been written, so as a way of improving my learning and hopefully finding more focus i am typing the notes up now, with extra notes. This does seem lengthy but it is helping me to reflect and pick out main things to then post on my blog.

So from writing up my notes i have found that i need...

- To make my blog clearer, less chatty. Using bullet points and summarising what i have learnt, and why i have learnt it. Evaluate the learning process, was it worth it? I would ideally like to re-summarise and refine my blog, and fill any gaps.

- Explain in more detail about the camera and equipment i am using as well as introducing after effects and other programmes into my blog. 

-  Get more specific. Find specific things i want to learn and go with it. Be less vague. Find more animations that use styles and effects i like and attempt it. It doesn't need to be amazing quality in the aesthetics of it, as this project for me is to explore and to get far more confident with after effects. To do this well, i really do need to find specific effects. 

 I also learnt that do think i am trying to aim for too much. I want to be able to illustrate my animations and to also be in charge of any filming, as well as the after effects. These are all things i want to be really good at, however, animation and after effects are what i have chosen to do for this project, and is something i do really enjoy, and actually enjoy learning.

Something completely opposite but big interests

Going out filming

Yesterday was a saturday. On friday i rented out a camera. I thought i'd like to get some new clips to play around with and the practice some camera skills. I only got out the small handheld camera, the focus is a bit tricky and the outcome isn't as nice as the DX 1, but that was too big to take around.

I do feel i'm not amazing at capturing things nicely. Fortunately, i went out filming a few things with a few quite experience filming influenced students so they were there to give me a hand, but this is still something i'd like to improve on. I'm starting to realise i do have quite an interest in film. I'm not quite sure if i'm fully up for looking into cinematography, but i am interested in the way things look in a video. I really really am interested in combining animation with film, even in the very subtle way.

The clips are still on the camera, and am hoping to get them all on the computer on monday then up on vimeo in the evening. However, the videos are pretty boring and mainly just trees and people doing silly things, but i did get a few shots of people's faces, which could be cool to animate with illustrations and effects.

 

http://www.kimholm.com/

It was mainly after watching this video that i got inspired to go out filming. I really like this video and like the idea of combining natural scenery with animation, something i'd really to aim for with my clips.

I was also introduced to Maria's brothers work this weekend. He has a really nice style and really beautiful filming with lovely music too. The animation that goes alongside his films are not something that i'd really try to aim for, but i do really like them, his filming however is something i'd love to achieve, but possibly just a hope, but maybe i'll make an attempt at it.

http://helloimago.com/



Istanbul 5AM from Quba Michalski on Vimeo.
Valentines 2011 from Quba Michalski on Vimeo.

Mocha issues

Well, since my last blog, i approached the mocha programme, and went through a few clips and made a new track for them. It was going all pretty nicely. The track followed my finger very well and i took the tracked clips into after effects and began animating. I made another rainbow clip once again, added colour to it and put key frames in in all the suitable places and it played back very well. However, something went very very wrong and it was unable to to render properly, meaning no video was made.
This was very very annoying and we spent a long time trying to figure out what went wrong and where the problem was. But nothing could be found.
Although, i did get a few screen shots of the process so that was alright and the whole purpose of this was to see how smooth mocha made things compared to the original process. I made a few animations after that, which was able to render and proved that using mocha did make a lot of difference and does smoothly follow my finger.

I really don't know what went wrong in this process, but i do think mocha and trapcode and tracking something is reliable and won't usually go wrong, however, i did look into other techniques that i could use and that i could use at home where i don't have the plug in, which uni has, like simple tracking in the effects panel in, that doesn't need any trapcode, which does seem to work just as well. I did create a few animations and made videos, however, something again has gone wrong, and i'm stupidly saving the videos as massive files causing them to take ours to upload to vimeo. This is a problem i will solve soon.

Tracking in Mocha

So far, I have produced two videos. One using the program 'mocha' but using the effect 'particular', which isn't really a look i want, and then one video not using mocha, but with an effect i'd want - the 3D stroke effect. This effect just creates a line - the rainbow videos that i have been making.

The program mocha is what allows me to track a particular object in my video. On the first video i made it was very difficult to track my finger as there was know defining interest in it, so it got confused with everything else that was going on and my other fingers. So, Matt in the a/v suite suggested i just re-record my fingers with a dot. So i then went on to record my fingers with small dots on them to have a point of interest for the tracking to follow. I did this using a HD camcorder. Last time i used a massive camera called X1. After filming with both, i definitely prefer the recording of the X1. The focus on it is a lot more defined and just looks a lot better. However, the camcorder still doesn't look too bad.

But anyway, back to mocha...

Opening up mocha and creating a new project

Pick the clip I want, or drag from an already open folder

 

Go to create x-spline layer tool to start creating the path. This creates a new layer every time you press it. You can also choose to use bezier too, which is the pen tool with the 'b' symbol.

Begin the tracking round the particular object you want to go around. The point on the finger will help the tracker to stay focused. Can adjust the point by moving the blue lines. If i were to want to start tracking the other finger then that would be possible on another layer, and to do this i would simply just press the x-spline tool again. They new layer would pop up on the left. Once i am done creating the shape, i press play on the tracking buttons that are underneath my video. I can choose to go frame by frame too by pressing the play button that are to the left. Then i just watch it play through my clip whilst tracking at the same time.

Once i stop the clip, or it comes to an end i then export the track, ready to take it to after effects. Once in export, i either get the option of 'clip corners' or something to do with corners, which is not what i want. I believe this is an option to save something as more of a rigid object that doesn't change too much, like a square or space on a bus which stays the same. The option i want for this particular clip is 'transform data' which allows more flexibility... i think. There are a lot of things that i am not quite understanding the full terms of and find it hard to re-explain, but once in after effects, i seem to remember all the right things to do, a bit. Anyway, i then save the export, which i think, think saves the text/data of my tracking, so i can just copy and paste it into after effects whenever. From here, i also saved the project too.

From here, i then go into after effects and begin the magic there...

I open up the clip that matches what i tracked in mocha. Create a new composition for this piece.

Make a new solid for the tracking data to be pasted onto and the 3D stroke effect to be applied to. I then draw a path using the pen tool, i make it any shape as it is just something to allow me to paste the track to. Once i have pasted to new track data the both with flip to the shape that was made in mocha, like a squiggly train track type thing.I do one more step before this though.

Before pasting the track, i go into effects and add the 3D stroke effect, which is to the right of the clip. This is where the whole animation side of things can be adjusted. I can play around keyframes, thickness, and colour or whatever in this part. Once applying this effect i can then begin with pasting my track.

When pasting the track, i end up pasting every little detail, when all i want is the position of the track, so i create a new 'null object' to paste all the data on to, and then copy the position details of that, then paste that onto my solid layer, which has my path on it. I do this to avoid having to reset all the settings that were changed from the data. Once finally copy and pasted i then delete the null object as i don't need it.

Once pasted, the path switches to this. I now have a path linked onto my clip which should hopefully follow my finger round the screen. The only trouble now is that i don't know where i began tracking on the clip. This should be ok though and can now just play around with the 3D stroke settings. For future experiments and animations, i should definitely know where i began tracking on the clip. This is a very stupid mistake. 

keyframing the 'end' setting in 3D stroke to 0, so no path/line shows up. I will then go to the end of my clip and set the end setting to 100. This means it will make a path following my finger and a line should be drawn.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders
Previous vis com student who seems to be pretty good with animation and moving image. I really like his idents for the Leeds film festival. Yet again, another thing i'd like to try.


 

My first attempt after the tutorial

Using a program that comes with after effects, called Mocha where you are able to track things, by making a mask object around the object you want to follow. This surprisingly tracked my finger quite well, as there's quite a lot going on and many other fingers that could be picked up. It did, however, fail to track my finger after about a minute.

A path is made in Mocha, which is then saved and then exported/copied, where it then can be pasted into after effects on a sold layer. It then got a little complicated and hard to explain and a lot of clicking happened. The track code is then linked to a new layer called the 'null object' by making it a 'parent' to the null layer, where then the null object follow the track like a train. 

Then the effect called 'partcular' is added to the null object, which then creates the crazy lights following the path with the null object. It's very complicated, but the effects are fun, and once getting past the terrifying process of getting it all right, i then got to begin with playing round with how to change the "crazy lights", which can be done in many ways.

Something the was hard to get around was that the 'particular' could only create light and it's effect. It involved creating a new light layer, something i have never approached and naming it an Emitter. This then causes the light for the effect. This was another very complicated thing, and something i think i will struggle to remember if i were to try this effect again. 

Despite how boring and complicated it may seem and look, this was all very fun. I really enjoy combining the two medias and finding the new effects. From here i began to play around, adjusting the looks of the 'particular' using repetition and other colours.

Right now, i am feeling a lot more confident that i am not just repeating the work i did before summer. I am reintroducing myself to after effects and learning new things. It is really fun and i do want to continue. However, i am finding that i am not sticking to my original aims. I do need to revisit them. But i am learning that i am not good with aims, although i do need to set myself them. I am finding that there are things that i want to do, but in order to get to them, i get distracted and more interesting in other processes. I hope that finding these processes will help to eventually begin a proper animation.

Trapcode learning

After being told about an effect called trapcoding, i decided to look further into it, and looked up some online tutorials.

'Red Giant' are the people who made the 'trapcoding' effect and have a website full of many tutorials and clever things to help you learn.

I spent about an hour on this website looking at video tutorials. It was rather tiresome and boring, but still very very helpful. The next few days i spent down in the a/v room. I didn't really attempt the same thing, but i felt i had more of a grasp on what i could do with this effect when using after effects. However, a lot of guidance was needed too.

The tutorial begins by showing a video the designer made. He combined video with animation in aftereffects. Using an effect called 'particular' in the trapcode effect. It's very snazzy. The video was actually made to advertise De Montfort university. It involves a lot of glowing lines flying everywhere. It's not quite a look or style I like, but i really like learning about it. This tutorial also had a lot of handy shortcuts too, which too speed things up a bit.

The designer applies a 3D Stroke. This is basically lines (i believe) that you can transform, animate to make them being at a certain point in your video, and effect like you would to something in photoshop. You also can add an effect called 'taper', which basically makes it like a whispy line, more like a head hair. Again, it's not particularly a look i like, but it was interesting to see all these effects and also the way that professional designers set their work out in after effects. 

He then added a lot more lines and played with how curvy they were. He also added a 'sphere' effect to give them an added 3D look. I got slightly lost at this point. 

The designer then played with glow effects and filling. Then applied it to the film he had recorded. Something i never thought about was the pre animation, and how much preparation you should do if you want to combine animation and film. This is something i didn't realise til after filming. The designer in this video does talk about how helpful it is - something i unfortunately didn't listen to. Because the designer knew what he was doing, his film and animation go together so well.

First hands

 Emily's hands. I recorded Emily's hands trying to get her to make shapes with her fingers, so i can then go into after effects to add illustration and animations to them, using the pen and brush tool, and by making shapes, quite similar to how i would in photoshop.
This was quite a challenge. First of all, i have forgotten a lot of after effects.
I also want the shapes to be consistent with a figure in the video, like Emily's ring or fingertips. This is hard. However, i was working in the av room with Matt and he told me a about a plug in on after effects called 'trapcode'. I'm not quite sure how it works at the moment, but i am about to research more. It does seem like my best option to get what i want with this animation.


However, before going to research into trapcode, i took on after effects. I just wanted to make lines on my video. It is a look i definitely wanted and it is something that i am aiming for.
I did this by drawing a path with the pen tool and creating a mask (these possibly may be all the wrong technical names)
It was a little difficult trying to get the finger and the line being drawn to match up in the same place and only realised once drawing a line how wonky my finger flows. I also decided after filming Emily's hands, to just film my own whilst watching them on a screen next to the camera, as i knew exactly what i wanted and found it easier to do that, rather than direct somebody else. It also means that i only have myself to blame if it's not what i want.

I tried out two different types of lines. One being the bezier path, which is the top yellow line, which smooths and follows my finger a lot nicer. The second lines are a lot more rigid, which i do actually like but doesn't look as good. I also find this video is similar to sesame street type videos, so having a smoother line is a lot more appropriate. I like how this has linked incidentally with me wanting to make an animation for children. I do like it, but will now look further into trapcode effect as i believe this can make more of an accurate path that follows my finger.

 

Camera induction, sort of 5/10/11

Yesterday we were inducted on to a massive camera called 'sony ex1'. This is the first video camera I have ever been properly shown and it was really good. It's massive and looks like it is mainly used for big productions like film or documentaries but can still be nice to use for smaller projects.

We were told a lot of technical things about what format it films in and what's best to film in regarding resolution and frame rate. It was all pretty dry stuff, but i did actually learn quite a bit, and made me warm up to the idea of using a camera.

At first, i was unsure whether the induction really helped with comm tech, (it definitely has helped a lot with my video elective as i now know how to approach the camera, or at least it's settings) but once filming a little, i do think i could bring it into comm tech.

I spent the afternoon filming hands. I did this as i wanted to then take the footage into after effects and add animation to the filming. A little like this...
Julien Valée



n9ve - artist below

I like the idea of bringing in simple animation, even if it is in small lines and shapes. It seems something i'd be capable of and actually enjoy the idea of doing this. I think it is something i've always wanted to try. 

Justice - Stress

I just like this video, despite being pretty grim and doesn't have a lot to do with my comm tech, but is worth sharing.
Justice - stress, directed by Romain Gavras

Tutorial 4/10/11

Second tutorial today.
I didn't have very much to show at my tutorial apart from my deep confusion. I am very much struggling with this project and am not concentrating at all.
I think it is due to wanting to do so many things, and thinking that they're all very different and not things that i can combine, however, after the tutorial I think I have a better idea of what i want to do.

The main aspects that i am going towards are to make a children's/babies animation, music visuals/video and to make something interactive and a projection. I have now realised that I can do all of this (hopefully). Making a collaborative animation for babies and children working with music to make the visuals, as kids do like music and shapes.
I really do like the style I made with my major project before summer, and  this is something i fear, producing something pretty identical to my last project. However, after speaking to Sharon i've learnt that's it's ok to have a style, and i won't be producing something identical but if it is in similar taste then that is ok. And starting off with my major project is ok.
I approached after effects for the first time in about 3 months last night, and it was terrifying. Before summer, i was quite competent at it, and confident. I only knew a basic few things, but i felt i knew those things well. However, now, i am completely useless. So for comm tech I will be learning how to use after effects and hopefully document it better than last time.

I also gained from the tutorial that it may be best to focus on making an animation first, then hopefully be done with that just before reading week and then from there move onto looking at working with projections and interaction, and possibly combining the two. I like the idea of this and helps that they won't be forgotten but that it brings me more focused.

So, i am going to make a simple animation.

I also had my video elective today, it was exciting, sort of, but quite daunting, but intriguing. Our tutor used a lot of big words and got out a massive camera but it was fun and did get me thinking. We also watched a few short films that were really inspiring. They seemed simple but used a lot of good techniques to make them very 'timeless'. I particularly liked this one, mainly probably because it was funny, but it did stick out in my mind.








Cinema 16 - short films

I like how crusty it is, and the tiny things, like how sound has been added into it, like the gun shots he makes, and the credits at the end and the beginning. It's not quite influenced me in what i want to do for comm tech, but it has made me think more.
Tomorrow we are having a video/film/camera studio day in the lecture theatre. I'm not too great with cameras so hopefully this will help a little. In my head at the moment, i'm aiming on filming hands doing certain things, like wiping each hand down or clicking or simulating shape making. This is all so i can take it into after effects and hopefully add in some animations. Hopefully.

I think i'm starting to realise that i'm not quite great at setting myself things, as i never seem to do them. I always try to, but then get distracted in doing something else, and sort of end up half guessing what i'm supposed to be doing with that. But then that seems to be my way of learning. I guess by experimenting and not making anything i planned out to do, but still being happy with the end result.




I'd like to aim for something like this tomorrow. Well not like this, but mixing video with animation, to see if i can do it.