Pieta House Production

Week 10

After showing the video at the presentation there were some suggestions on how to make it better, like having some cuts closer to the characters, having the opening be a camera move through a forest and the addition of some logos and better fonts. I chose to do the last two suggestions but decided not to have any cuts as I felt it would ruin the flow and simplicity of the clip.

To have an opening with a camera coming through the forest I had to extend the background which I did in photoshop, then I drew up some singular tree's and imported them all into the comp and lay them out in the 3-D environment. Originally I had the tree's static while the camera moved towards the animation but this looked very odd because the dual worlds meant that the base of the trees was in the middle of the screen making it hard to register what was actually happening and any type of camera move I tried didn't seem to help. So I decide to take a few trees out, add in the tree swipe animation from the original opening and have a simple camera pan with some easing and having a combination of the both openings worked a lot better. 

(3-D environment) 

I had also e-mailed Catherine about a preferred font and asked for an EPS file for the pieta house logo. Once I had them and the Colaiste Dhulaigh logo the video was re-edited and had the last frame extended so the ending wasn't so abrupt.

  

Pieta House Production

Week 9

Today Emma informed me that the original voice over she recorded was no longer approved by Catherine, She wanted it to contain more info about the Bereavement Service and contain less explaining of how the target viewer is supposed to feel so I've asked Emma to record it again, however, the new one was too long and contained way too much information so I asked her to shorten it down by saying "they support everyone" rather than listing off all the different people they support and focus it more on it being a phone service and what is happening. After, she told me she was having problems with getting it right and sent me back another voice over that was even longer than before so I wrote a rough guide of what to say and she then provided a voice over that worked well with the animation. 

Pieta House Production

Week 9

Once the background was done and Niamh uploaded the psd file I started to do comp work, I had made sure that Niamh did all the layer's seperate to make this process easier. I started off by adding a tree wipe to start off the animation. I brightened the background with a Light burst overlay and added some edge burns to some of the tree's to give a textured highlight. I then did a Gradient (Yellow to Magenta) overlay set to soft light over the foreground and animation to make it feel a bit more grounded and cohesive. After that I animated a glow for the phone in the upside down by duplicating the layer, adding a colour mask and placing a Gaussian blur on top of it with this layer place behind the original, I also used a similar process for the eye glow but because it was to be placed on top of animation I had a separate alpha where I had gotten rid of all the animation except for the eyes which was very easy to do because I had the head set up as a symbol and didn't have to change it frame by frame. The last thing I did was add some particle effects, this was something new to me so I just played around with the settings, trying different styles and overlaying the different styles until I got the look I wanted. I also tried adding sun rays to the upright world but it didn't look right so I decided to leave it out of the final clip. 

(Before Comp)

 (After comp, variations)

 

(Tree wipe and Assets)

Once I had done this I exported the video file and sent it to Emma for editing! :)

(Video Tutorials to help with comp)

Pieta House Production

Week 8

(Artwork's by Niamh)

Today, Niamh sent over some colour examples. The 5 above where the ones we sent to Catherine and from those she picked the bottom left background provided it was a bit brighter. 

Pieta House Production

Week 8


Today Niamh has shown me one new background design and it is very close to what I was looking for so I have decided to spend the day working with her to make sure it works. We ended up taking out some layers so it wasn't so busy looking and I got her to trace out the background in flash with the line tool because I wanted it to have a sharp look to fit with the animation style. I also asked her to make the file double the size it needed to be to prevent any resolution problems. 

(Niamh's Work)

 (Background we reworked in flash)

Then we imported the background layers into Photoshop and I showed her how to apply textures and mask's so that she could quickly get some colour variations done. I also sent her some notes with examples of colour swatches and how to do a gradient colour that she requested.

(Texture Mask we used)

(Artwork from "Firewatch" Game)

I asked that she have the colours finished, approved and imported into After Fx for the 3D environment within the next 3 days so that I have time to add some effects before handing it over to Emma For Editing.

Pieta House Prodution

Week 7-8

Today I have looked at Niamh's work and asked that she fix some problems such as making sure the ratio is right and following the template so the animation does not get blocked out by the black foreground. I told her to have at least 3 new designs done for when we arrive back on the 9th as the colour and comp should be started and also reminded her that she should be uploading her work to the drive as she has not done so yet.

Emma has wrote and gotten the okay on the script for Catherine and should have some music examples for the 9th.

I have completed the animation within flash and its ready to be brought into the comp as soon as Niamh has the background done.

Pieta House Production

Week 6

So for this week I got some of the animation done and have asked that Niamh practice working in After fx and have some thumbnails as I have only seen two by now and they dont work with the animation. I have also asked that she work on more assets and have all the work sent to me by the 5th of January so comp work could be started for when we get back and that she continuously uploads her work to the drive for me to see.

I asked that Emma write a script and send it to Catherine to make sure its okay with her. I suggested that she look at what is happening in the animation and try time/base what she is saying around it while getting the necessary information out. I also asked that she get some different types of music for the same date above. 

Pieta House Production

Week 5

For this week Niamh has done a background and I asked that she make some changes to better suit the animation because hers was to imposing and would have block out a lot of the animation. I gave her another template to work with.

I have now asked Emma to do the Voice over, Sound and Editing instead because she has not begun work on the keyframes and I cant be sure if she will/can do it.

For this week I built the rig for the character that Catherine choose and I will begin the keyframes and animation.

Pieta House Production

Week 4

Unfortunately for this week we didn't have anything new besides the rigs to show Catherine but we discussed some things and have decided to do a voice over instead of the text boxes to make it more accessible and have picked the female design for the Pieta House character.

After that was done I went through how to set up a 3D environment in AfterFx with Niamh and sent her a tutorial she could follow so that she could start it when the background was designed and asked her to thumbnails some designs asap.

I also went through the animation process with Emma again to make sure she new what she was doing and asked that she have the walk keyframed by next week.

Tutorial I sent Emma that shows the animation process for if she gets stuck.

Pieta House Production

Week 3

This week I have had a look at Niamh's background drawings and asked that she do more thumbnails as 1 was not enough, then when she had done more that she start drawing up some assets such as different Tree, Mountain and Ground designs. That way it would be a lot quicker to apply them to the thumbnails and change any layout designs and we can start comping in AfterFx a lot sooner. I have also asked that she look at this website as the artist work is good reference showing the process I want her to follow through with. https://www.behance.net/gallery/11163093/Background 

As for the animation, I got the main character rig sorted and have made a Flash file for Emma containing the rig and the Animatic with all the settings set up so she can focus on getting the key-framing done right away. After talking to the tutors, Kevin and Tracy, I have also asked that she concentrate on a specific section (The walking section) and have it sent to me as quick as possible as I want to start clean up so that there will be a sample ready for when Catherine comes in the following week.

Notes For BackGround...

Character Rigs...

Pieta House production

Week Two

For this week I have asked Niamh to start thumb nailing out and designing something similar to the references I showed at the pitch .
I decided after some research to do the animation in Adobe Flash with a similar process to cut-out animation, meaning all the body parts of the character would be on separated layer and posed to the keyframes in the rough animation.
So for this week I will be making these assets so that Emma can start posing them out by next week.

Pieta House Production

After the pitch to the Pieta House member my idea was chosen to go forward with and so I was put in charge and was teamed up with Emma and Niamh. I will be making entries to the blog on the direction and progress of the project.

Week One

For this week I have asked Niamh to go and design some background concepts as she is a background Artist with the hopes of her taking it and setting up the layout comp in AfterFx and Emma will be doing the Animation with me.

I will also be researching the best way to do the Animation. I will be looking at the differences of setting up Rigs in Flash and Toonboom and any alternatives that will help speed up production.

I have also set up a Facebook group for us to communicate as well as setting up a Google drive for us to share files more easily.