Over the Christmas break we were assigned to do storyboards based on the fable story rough sketches we did on post stick notes. These would be refined into storyboards where we would upon our return from the Christmas break we would be using them in animatic's, todays session covered that aspect in Premier Pro.
Story boards:
Before we started on our animatics we took the time to take a look and review each others work on the storyboard task and I could see that the other members of the group had taken different approaches to the task in terms of style and composition. Some of the students such as Holly had turned their work into a rough animation piece which was a creative approach, I was going to do something similar using motion animation in After Effects but didn't have the time this is something to revisit at a later date. Some feedback I got was mostly positive and complimented the style that I had used for my artwork, however one thing that Stuart suggested was to consider the writing in the story boards and give the actions being made, this was something that I'd only just realised and would need to look at this for future development.
We then moved onto the task at hand and that was learning how to do animatics. We would be using Adobe Premier pro for this task as whilst After Effects is good Premier can go to places it can't. Our test piece would be using storyboards from a cartoon series called Johnny Test which I was familiar with from watching Cartoon Network.
These were in a zip folder on Black board and were imported into Premier via the browsing feature and then imported into the workspace by clicking the import option. This was an exercise in seeing how good we would be at doing animatics and how when working in a team that different people are good at different thing as animation is not a task one should undertake alone.
When creating the animatic we start from scene 1 of the storyboards and by right clicking on said scene we would be given the option of new sequence from clip and that would create the start of the sequence. This was then dragged into the timeline as the starting point and the other scenes would soon follow. I thought the new sequence clip applied to all the scenes but as I discovered when applying it to the second frame it erased the first piece. With this lesson learned the other scenes were imported and so we played around with the timing of the scenes in the sequence to the times we felt would work. The idea of the animatic is to get an idea of how long the scene would run for pending on the dialogue and music that was pre recorded or even played alongside in the recording studio.
We could shorten scenes by dragging the bar back and fourth, and I shortened the sequence on the teacher scenes with the black board and him explaining the situation to the classroom to try and show some indication of movement. Annabeth then brought our attention to the matter of considering the camera angles in our animatics as some of the frames were marked with camera zoom panels showing a close up shot of the character. To apply the camera angles we would be using similar features that we used in After Effects which was the stopwatch key frames.
To access this we would need to double click on a scene using camera angles and it would appear in the window on the left side of the work space. Inside was an option called effect controls which opened the effects window and we would be using the video effects option containing elements such as motion, position and scale much like in After Effects. For the close up on Johnny we would need to use the blue marker line on the timeline to mark out where the sequence would start such as three seconds in. The stopwatches would then be activated and we could begin the moving and scaling of the camera/scene. I first did the scaling frames of the scene and added positioning movements as I went along to better fit the camera. However my positioning was a little outside the square as the camera zoomed in it didn't go straight but at a slight angle. This was an element I corrected on the second camera scaling frame in the storyboard.
In an animation there is also the question of a transition from one scene to another, whether it would be a simple cut or a fade into the next scene. This was where the Transitions effects came into the picture. These were located in the effects option near the imported folder of scenes under video effects and then video transitions. These transitions could be dragged onto our chosen scenes such as the opening and ending sequence and it would fade into the next scene like a traditional animation would. The next to final stage was nesting the sequences together much like we would nest compositions for 3D multiplaning in After Effects. We first needed to create a new sequence via the new sequence option in the toolbar below and have it set to different settings than the current sequence. The settings that we would be using were under Digital DSLR,1080,DSLR 1080 25 then creating the new sequence.
The animatic would then be dragged into the new sequence but not before naming it animatic. However upon dragging it in we were given a choice we could either keep the original sequence the same or change the footage to the settings of the new sequence. The keep option would keep the original settings but leave a black boarder which Annabeth stated would be good for timecodes whilst the change option would bring in the piece to full screen with no space for timecodes. So I decided to stick with the keep option which created a black boarder around it this was something to play with when we worked in our own time.
This then brought us to the question of timecodes in the animatic which was something that animators used for timing their animatics and show how many frames there were in the shot. This as Annabeth pointed out to us would be of particular use in producing our barsheets for Animation 102 as we would be looking into walk cycles. To place in the time codes we would first need to place in an adjustment layer via the new sequence option. However I didn't quite see this as I was following from screen instructions on the big screen in the room and I couldn't quite see it due to the sun shining through the window, thankfully though Holly was able to show me where the option was and where it could be added.
This was then placed above the sequence, and it was time to place in the timecodes. This was found in the effects option located in the video folder, and to implement it we needed to drag it into the effect control of the sequence in the layer and Annabeth told us this needed to be done once only. The timer then appeared and ran alongside the playing sequence, to play in precise time with the film the following settings needed to be applied.
SMPTE
Timecode clip 25
clip1
This made the timing play precisely alongside the playing sequence. There was a setting in the time code that would show how many frames are running in the sequence, and Annabeth suggested we could add this via a second timecode setting in the effect controls and have it set to frames. This could be placed along side the first timecode and as before it played alongside the time of the sequence.
Our animatics were nearly complete and all that was left was to export the media, and so we went to file and the export media option and calibrated the export settings. The format we would be using was the format we use in After Effects which was H.264, use maximum render quality and maximum depth. I needed to ask a second opinion before rendering as I couldn't see the render settings that Annabeth was using on the screen. She said the settings were okay and I renamed my film to Animatic piece and it was rendered and saved to the storyboard folder on our computers.
Finished animatic.
Looking back over the course of this session I would think that it was very enjoyable and insightful. This did give me much to think about in terms of my own motion story projects and how this was a shot by shot basis of animation and that I didn't just have to rely on After Effects alone for my work. I felt like I was learning more about how to perfect my motion comic animations through this process and maybe something I wish to explore at a later date. Looking back on past projects such as the city project had I known about this method sooner I would've produced a cleaner animatic for the creative play project but as Annabeth said its good to revisit these key elements for future development. If I had more time in the session I would've possibly tested this on my own comic work if I had the files with me.
However the chance may come to me sooner than expected as over this week we were asked to produce our own animatics using our fable storyboards, and I may even attempt a motion graphic animatic using my current motion comic that I'm working on in my own time. I was most looking forward to doing this process again and it may be of great value as in this course I'm learning new things to not only help my development as an artist/illustrator but to also bring my creations to life through motion story animation.
Story boards:
Before we started on our animatics we took the time to take a look and review each others work on the storyboard task and I could see that the other members of the group had taken different approaches to the task in terms of style and composition. Some of the students such as Holly had turned their work into a rough animation piece which was a creative approach, I was going to do something similar using motion animation in After Effects but didn't have the time this is something to revisit at a later date. Some feedback I got was mostly positive and complimented the style that I had used for my artwork, however one thing that Stuart suggested was to consider the writing in the story boards and give the actions being made, this was something that I'd only just realised and would need to look at this for future development.
We then moved onto the task at hand and that was learning how to do animatics. We would be using Adobe Premier pro for this task as whilst After Effects is good Premier can go to places it can't. Our test piece would be using storyboards from a cartoon series called Johnny Test which I was familiar with from watching Cartoon Network.
These were in a zip folder on Black board and were imported into Premier via the browsing feature and then imported into the workspace by clicking the import option. This was an exercise in seeing how good we would be at doing animatics and how when working in a team that different people are good at different thing as animation is not a task one should undertake alone.
When creating the animatic we start from scene 1 of the storyboards and by right clicking on said scene we would be given the option of new sequence from clip and that would create the start of the sequence. This was then dragged into the timeline as the starting point and the other scenes would soon follow. I thought the new sequence clip applied to all the scenes but as I discovered when applying it to the second frame it erased the first piece. With this lesson learned the other scenes were imported and so we played around with the timing of the scenes in the sequence to the times we felt would work. The idea of the animatic is to get an idea of how long the scene would run for pending on the dialogue and music that was pre recorded or even played alongside in the recording studio.
We could shorten scenes by dragging the bar back and fourth, and I shortened the sequence on the teacher scenes with the black board and him explaining the situation to the classroom to try and show some indication of movement. Annabeth then brought our attention to the matter of considering the camera angles in our animatics as some of the frames were marked with camera zoom panels showing a close up shot of the character. To apply the camera angles we would be using similar features that we used in After Effects which was the stopwatch key frames.
To access this we would need to double click on a scene using camera angles and it would appear in the window on the left side of the work space. Inside was an option called effect controls which opened the effects window and we would be using the video effects option containing elements such as motion, position and scale much like in After Effects. For the close up on Johnny we would need to use the blue marker line on the timeline to mark out where the sequence would start such as three seconds in. The stopwatches would then be activated and we could begin the moving and scaling of the camera/scene. I first did the scaling frames of the scene and added positioning movements as I went along to better fit the camera. However my positioning was a little outside the square as the camera zoomed in it didn't go straight but at a slight angle. This was an element I corrected on the second camera scaling frame in the storyboard.
In an animation there is also the question of a transition from one scene to another, whether it would be a simple cut or a fade into the next scene. This was where the Transitions effects came into the picture. These were located in the effects option near the imported folder of scenes under video effects and then video transitions. These transitions could be dragged onto our chosen scenes such as the opening and ending sequence and it would fade into the next scene like a traditional animation would. The next to final stage was nesting the sequences together much like we would nest compositions for 3D multiplaning in After Effects. We first needed to create a new sequence via the new sequence option in the toolbar below and have it set to different settings than the current sequence. The settings that we would be using were under Digital DSLR,1080,DSLR 1080 25 then creating the new sequence.
The animatic would then be dragged into the new sequence but not before naming it animatic. However upon dragging it in we were given a choice we could either keep the original sequence the same or change the footage to the settings of the new sequence. The keep option would keep the original settings but leave a black boarder which Annabeth stated would be good for timecodes whilst the change option would bring in the piece to full screen with no space for timecodes. So I decided to stick with the keep option which created a black boarder around it this was something to play with when we worked in our own time.
This then brought us to the question of timecodes in the animatic which was something that animators used for timing their animatics and show how many frames there were in the shot. This as Annabeth pointed out to us would be of particular use in producing our barsheets for Animation 102 as we would be looking into walk cycles. To place in the time codes we would first need to place in an adjustment layer via the new sequence option. However I didn't quite see this as I was following from screen instructions on the big screen in the room and I couldn't quite see it due to the sun shining through the window, thankfully though Holly was able to show me where the option was and where it could be added.
This was then placed above the sequence, and it was time to place in the timecodes. This was found in the effects option located in the video folder, and to implement it we needed to drag it into the effect control of the sequence in the layer and Annabeth told us this needed to be done once only. The timer then appeared and ran alongside the playing sequence, to play in precise time with the film the following settings needed to be applied.
SMPTE
Timecode clip 25
clip1
This made the timing play precisely alongside the playing sequence. There was a setting in the time code that would show how many frames are running in the sequence, and Annabeth suggested we could add this via a second timecode setting in the effect controls and have it set to frames. This could be placed along side the first timecode and as before it played alongside the time of the sequence.
Our animatics were nearly complete and all that was left was to export the media, and so we went to file and the export media option and calibrated the export settings. The format we would be using was the format we use in After Effects which was H.264, use maximum render quality and maximum depth. I needed to ask a second opinion before rendering as I couldn't see the render settings that Annabeth was using on the screen. She said the settings were okay and I renamed my film to Animatic piece and it was rendered and saved to the storyboard folder on our computers.
Finished animatic.
However the chance may come to me sooner than expected as over this week we were asked to produce our own animatics using our fable storyboards, and I may even attempt a motion graphic animatic using my current motion comic that I'm working on in my own time. I was most looking forward to doing this process again and it may be of great value as in this course I'm learning new things to not only help my development as an artist/illustrator but to also bring my creations to life through motion story animation.
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