Photoshop Animations

As well as the five effects Bo animated for me in Flash, I decided to take a bit of a step back from After Effects animation and try my hand at Flash / Photoshop animation myself. Although I have touched on it throughout my time at University, I never got stuck into it as I found it quite difficult and I could never get the results I wanted. For this reason, as well as wanting to make the animation a little more varied than just After Effects animation, I had a go at several of my own.

Snow Wind - Shot 1

Zip Blur - Shot 4

Betty Twirl - Shot 5

Milk Pour - Shot 32

Soup Bounce - Shot 44

Wallet Open - Shot 46

Moth Zap - Shot 47

Dust Explosion - Shot 48 (solo)

Dust Explosion - Shot 48 (all assets)

Character Rig Features

Both characters have similar set ups, but there are some differences. This is because Betty has more movement than William, and she has more assets to control than William.

Common Features for both characters

Inverse Kinematics

At the beginning of the project before I began animating and was just setting up the character files ready to animate, I was comfortable with the idea of animating just the puppet pins on each characters' arms and legs. After animating a couple shots using this menthol of individually keyframing each pin on each arm and leg, I began to find it frustrating when the animation wasn't good enough and I had to go back into each frame and fix them. I decided to try installing the free Duik plug in from here after my first attempt failed a couple months back and I had to purchase the PuppetTools 3 plug in from here. This plug in worked ok but had its faults. When I reinstalled the Duik plug in below, it immediately made the animating process easier although shots that required IK orientation switching between poses during a shot was rather difficult to get right. If a pose that has the arm facing down on the character's side and needed to go above and behind their head for example, I had to keyframe the down position with normal keyframes, then move the arm to its T position (when it was rigged at the start of the animation phase), flip the orientation from On to Off (depending on which side of the body the arm / leg is) and then animate the same way as before with keyframes to place the arm behind the head.

The Duik plug in works by placing all necessary puppet pins on a layer / pre-comp (e.g. Wrist, Elbow, Shoulder) and then turning them into bones by clicking 'Bones' and then selecting the pin that would act as the controller (in this case the Wrist), clicking 'Controller' and then reverse selecting the pins (Wrist, Elbow, Shoulder) and then clicking 'IK Creation'. You can them hide the puppet pins that are now bones as you don't need them.

Here is the IK set up for one of Betty's arms in shot 45

This worked much better than animating just puppet pins and produced smoother animations

Master Control Nulls

When using the Duik plug in, the pins that have been converted into bones stay where they are in the pre-comp and although parenting them to the master null works a little, they don't move fully with the Master Contol null. To fix this, I had to keyframe the arms and legs with the body movements separately. 

Eyes

The eyes were the most simplest part of the characters to rig. This video shows how I set them up.

Betty Features

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YSDrtgI18c

The head shapes, mouths and blinks were all pre-comped and time-remapped to the master character pre-comp. This is easier to animate with than just animating the opacity property of each asset required.

William Features

William does not have any mouth shapes besides his smile and sad layers which means a mask could be combined with these layers easily unlike Betty because of her lips and these can't be animated with the MouthInterior layer as this is a separate layer with a gradient only. I did not have to use this layer for Betty as the mouth shapes I illustrated were enough for the animations. To animate the underneath MouthInterior layer William, I drew custom masks (burps, screams) on the Head pre-comp in the Master comp and keyframed the position property of the custom path.

William's head shapes and blinks were also pre-comped and time-remapped like Betty's rigs.

Film Edit 3 - Even More Animation

Here is the last edit I am going to put together before I knuckle down with all the animation and make the final edit. I received some of the sound effects today but haven't had time to put them in just yet. In terms of the animation however, I am happy with what's been done so far and I have some animation for every shot now.

I have been updating the edit in Premiere with up to date animations as I develop and improve them as well as adjusting the music to flow better. I have imported the sound effects I have so far and will begin to place them in sync with the animations so far to get a rough idea of how the final edit will sound and look together.

Shot 45 Development

This is the most difficult shot to animate as it is the longest and features the most animation between the two characters.

To help set the timing, I imported the section of animatic for shot 45 into the After Effects project and placed it in the corner of the frame. I then set markers on an empty adjustment layer for the key poses from the animatic.

For the prop that the characters interact with, I pre-comped them with each arm / hand shape that used the prop and applied puppet pins to the pre comp in the character master comp. I also set up an IK rig for these so they would be easier to animate.

Notepad shapes and pen props

First notepad shape - 'TearOffPaper' layer

Second notepad shape - 'AttachedPaper' layer

Third notepad shape - 'NotepadFront' layer

Fourth notepad shape - 'Notepad Back' layer

Film Edit 2 - More Animation

Here is another edit with more animation and the animation I did for the first edit tweaked a little. The music is still the same and I am starting to see results overall with the film. In this edit I have included animation from scene 5, the montage, scene 6 and scene 7. The montage is the hardest to get right due to the amount of props the characters interact with. I haven't been able to include any sound effects as my sound designer hasn't been able to get them together just yet although I should get a rough cut of all the sounds by the end of this week.

The animation is going well however and feel confident in getting it all finished in time for the deal deadline.

Today I set up the second version of the diner for shot 53 when we see the party inside the diner through the windows. I made a copy of the original diner file we see in shot 1 and made a party version *see earlier posts.

Because the camera in shot 53 is the camera in shot 1 reversed almost perfectly (to make things easier) and to create a full circle with the film as though there audience in plunged into the diner and then taken back out at the end, I could copy the position properties of the original diner in shot 1 with the new diner file in shot 53.

Film Edit 1

Here is all the animation I have done so far as well as the music edit. The track is made of 5 individual tracks. Some is complete whereas most of it needs tweaking or finishing. I am pleased with the progress and I think the animatic has worked well in this case as the timing of everything and the cuts is working well so far. I have been working mostly on scenes 1 to 4 so far. 

Shot Development

As well as animating my film, I have developed some of the shots further to make them better and flow more.

For the party sequence at the end, I decided to illustrate band members who would interact with the instruments seen throughout the film. I was originally not going to do this but have the instruments staying in their positions with the jukebox in the diner providing the music for the party, but I thought this wouldn't wok well for two reasons; one if that it's a New Year's Party where everything is over the top and loud and two, if I was going to have the jukebox jumping up and down in the background, this wouldn't work with the party guests and other party assets such as the balloons and confetti moving as the amount of assets would distract you from it.

Here are the designs for the party people and band members:

Original Drum Kit Set Up

New Drum Kit Set Up

Drummer

Saxophone Player

Guitar Player

Drummer Keys

Saxophone Player Keys

Guitar Player Keys

Party Layout 

Party Layout Set Up

For the layout in which we see William revealed in his waitress uniform, I have decided to change the original idea of having a cut between his legs and his body to a pan, this will make the gag more humorous as a reveal through a pan rather than a cut will work better as the audience can follow the movement of the camera instead of getting used to the cut which takes a minimum six frames for the eyes to adjust to the new framing.

Shot 53

For the last shot of my film, I wanted to carry the party on after the shots before in which we see Betty partying with her friends and William serving them in a waitress outfit. To do this, I went back to the original Diner_AfterEffects and created a copy so I could develop the artwork whilst keeping the original file untouched (this is very important because any files edited after they have been imported, set up and saved in After Effects become edited too, and without back up copies on my hard drive, this would be absolute disaster, so the back ups are there just in case). 

Original Diner_AfterEffects file

Diner_Party development with front lights

Diner_Party development without front lights

Diner_Party lights (from the disco ball inside)

Diner_Party set up in After Effects