COVID Dystopia: Sperm Death

Posted on by Thor

On Christmas day I killed After Effects with sperm. I spent much of the day trying out a free software which allows the user to build a forward Kinematic rig which wags the tail when the base pin is rotated. This seemed like something I needed to play with, so I downloaded Duik Angela which is a freeware animation program for After Effects.

in Duik Angela, you add a line of pins in the tail as bones and then hit a button which links them together with some expression which moves them less near the base and more at the tip when the base pin is rotated. Though simple in theory, the results looked like a horrific twitching tail that had just been bitten off a lizard as it squirmed in the dirt. I experimented for hours trying to get some semblance of natural movement but finally had to give up.

At the end of the day I hand animated the tail in Callipeg. The animation took maybe half an hour. With the one tail animated and painted I imported it with a green screen into After Effects. I kept duplicating this green screen movie and moving the tail into position for each sperm. After duplicating the tail about 10 times the program seized up and the screen went black. Once again I pushed the program too far. Adobe programmers had not considered that a single clip might be duplicated so often.

I abandoned After Effects and went back to the original animation in Callipeg. I had already created several scenes with dozens of levels so I figure that program is more robust and will not crash. I have started duplicating tails and positioning them in that program since Adobe failed. I haven’t finished yet, but once all the tails are in place, I will turn off the background layer which consists of a tan field and the sperm heads. All the animation tails will then be exported together as a single green screen movie file. Adobe worked with the first few movie files so this single file should work.

The depth map distorts the background image to make it appear dimensional, so I may have to place pins at the bases of several tails to stretch then to where they need to be when the is scene animated with depth. I think all this might work, so now I need to make it happen.

COVID Dystopia: Duck and Cover

Posted on by Thor

I reworked the Duck and Cover scene using ZOE Depth. This allowed for a more dimensional zoom in. I am still keeping the scene as a held cell since everyone is crouched with their fingers interlocked. Movement isn’t needed.I needed to keep the camera move subtle because if I moved the camera too much long tendrils would appear from the student edges extending towards the background.

It was a productive day, with five scenes getting adjusted and improved. Pam has a hard time realizing that animation can take so long. The film was essentially complete back in May of this year when the COVID emergency was lifted. However that was sort of a highly detailed storyboard pass with no animation included.

Many of the scenes at the start of the film have large crowds of people and I have only animated the single person that I want people to look at. I still think that animating the crowds would be overkill. Animation is only added where I want the audience to look. The rest can remain as frozen moments in time. Part of me wonders if Film Festival judges even consider this to be an animated film. I also realize that any festival wanting to crowd a theater full of a mask less  audience might not approve of this film.

We are in the midst of a huge COVID holiday wave right now. The film’s message is as important as ever, but getting audiences who are willing to see it is a problem.

COVID Dystopia: Bell Jars

Posted on by Thor

I animated the bell jar scene by turning the foreground person towards the camera to show he is wearing a mask. I thought I was done but when I looked at this image for the post, I found out I didn’t paint out his legs from the background layer. This makes his left leg look a bit broken. It is a subtle thing, but since I know it is there I will correct it today.

I also used ZOE Depth on the scene which allowed for a clean truck in. ZOE is however confused by glass. The people are interpreted correctly in space but the bell jars flatten out towards the background. Even stranger the round gall orbs on top of each bell jar act like spikes extending forward in space.

With the limited camera move and lack of movement up or down I was able to minimize the odd depth. The bell jars are warping a bit as well. I might redo the scene using the Black and white depth maps I already created. I will be able to move the camera more up and down and the animation will composite fine into that shot.

Every day I discover more about what works and doesn’t work with this new depth map technology. Trail and error and experimentation are my way to figure out what works for each scene.

COVID Dystopia: Mask Waste

Posted on by Thor

The animation of the turtle in this scene required some adjustment. I had the turtle open its mouth at the end as if it were going to eat the mask floating in the water. I held that drawing for just two frames. Transitions between shots all consist of fast zoom effects and in the final edit the open mouth got lost in the transition.

I decided I had to go back and make sure the open mouth held for at least six frames. Six frames is about the amount of time needed for anyone to notice something in a film. Sure enough the open mouth is now noticeable. Many of the shots in the film cut right at the moment something terrible is about to happen.

I have added about six shots with the new ZOE depth feature to the film. This new tech allows for the camera to truly truck towards the subject. I might use the feature a few more times. This turtle scene worked as it is however.

Each morning I watch the film and jot down things that could use improvement. Pam said she thinks I will be tweaking the film until I am 100. This morning I am down to five tweaks. There might be a few more but I am very close to calling the film a wrap.

This leaves me wondering what new direction I should take in 2024. I don’t think I should continue the COVID series although the pandemic is still ongoing. People will not listen since they want to believe life has returned to “normal.” That new normal comes with accepting over 1000 COVID deaths a day along with rising Long COVID Disability.

I was pleased to get an e-mail form Ambetter, my health care provider advising to get a COVID vaccine and test if sick. The saccharine photo of a mom, child and doctor had everyone in baggy blue surgical masks like those shown in this illustration. The child was shown in a useless cloth mask. There was no mention of well fitted respirators like N95 masks or social distancing. Medical messaging remains in the dark ages.

Documenting politics and the collapse of society will date my work. Forcing my way back into crowded theaters to sketch doesn’t have much appeal, since I have no desire to sit among a mask less crowd. Perhaps I can only focus on acting companies who allow me to sketch rehearsals. I remain a COVID virgin, but it takes some sacrifice to remain that way.

COVID Dystopia: Freezer Truck Morgue

Posted on by Thor

I figured the Freezer Truck Morgue would be a perfect application for the ZOE Depth I tried on several other shots. Zoe allows to the camera to truck forward. The other depth maps I have used only allow for parallax when the camera trucks side to side. So with this shot the camera trucks forward towards the prisoners who are working in the background.

One worker is tightening a strap around the midsection of the corpse and the other simply places his hand on the corpse, probably in preparation to move it, him, her. Figuring out the verb is the first step towards making the action make sense. What is seen her is the very rough animation just to get a feel for what motion will work over the 26 frames.

The first pass at the animation had far too much motion, so the action felt rushed. I had to throw out keys and simplify the action to slow it down. The feet on the one prisoner are going to be held cells which is why the feet are not drawn.

A major issue with this animation is that the prisoners are in stripped jump suits. Stripes are always a challenge to animate so the final animation will take some time to clean up.

This morning COVID Dystopia was accepted to be screened in another film festival with animated flames and confetti on Film Freeway. The proposed screening date however was in 2020 long before my film had been created. An e-mail to the film festival producer conformed that Film Freeway had simply gone rogue. The acceptance was a glitch in The Matrix.

COVID Dystopia: DeathSantis Office

Posted on by Thor

This image shows the DeathSantis Office scene from two views. On the left is a view of the scene from above. The purple box shows the full depth of the office. The lighter lines show the planes of the Governor held cell, the hand animation and the microphone held cell.

The office depth was created with the ZOE Depth freeware online. I left the coffin and all the patients in the depth information. Having a patients feet so close to the foreground resulted in a very limited ability to move the camera before things got highly distorted. I ended up doing a very subtle truck in with the camera to focus attention on the Governor.

Having discovered this ZOE Depth tool so late in the process means I will only be using it in a few shots. So far I have applied it to two shots where I was adding animation anyway. The next shot I am considering is a freezer truck morgue where I might animate the prisoners who were in charge of disposing of bodies at the time. The deep freezer truck interior should be a perfect place to apply this depth.

COVID Dystopia: ZOE Depth

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday I started the morning knowing I wanted to add some animation to the Gladiator scene. I separated out each of the gladiators in Procreate and exported each as a PNG file. I then patched the background where gladiators had left holes in the painting.

As I was working I stumbled on a youTube video that showed how to use a free depth generator online. The freeware is called ZOE Depth and is easy to use. I imported the background into the engine and with a click of a button it generated a fully dimensional image that can be rotated. Every pixel is pushed back into space. It is like a 3D diorama with a floor plane an walls. The 3D model is darker than the original art but that can be corrected.

I had to upload the newest version of Adobe After Effects which can work with the 3D model. Once it was imported, I then created a 35mm camera which could be moved through the setting. There are limitations, in that things tend to stretch and distort if you move the camera too much. But for the tight one second shot I wanted to accomplish it was perfect. I tracked the camera down and moved it in slightly towards the action.

The youTube video I watched was just 10 days old and the Adobe After Effects update was brand new. It is exciting to get to play with brand new technology using my traditional art. I continue to dabble in the digital world. The gladiator scene I completed with ZOE Depth turned out amazing. This morning, I listed 5 shots which I will try this new technology on. I am giddy and delighted to continue the experiment. Seeing the ZOE Depth video I shared, I also decided to try and make the foreground Gladiator more dimensional. This isn’t critical but I will give it a try.

COVID Dystopia: Rebound Paint

Posted on by Thor

This is another example where I post a scene here and decided it needs more work. Seeing this still, made me realize that the darks on each player are different. On the defender the darks are pure black whereas the darks on the player taking the shot are greyed down. I think I will grey down the blacks on the defender to match. The goal isn’t to focus on the players but on the virus.

The scene took a solid day to animate and paint and is should take an hour or so to refine the darks one more time. In the illustration the painting of the players focused on subtle gradients of paint that describe the round forms. For the animation I instead painted the players with bold poster like brush strokes. They jump and fall away so quickly that no one will analyses the way their faces are painted.

I added turbulence to the background clouds to add some motion. Most people will not notice that subtle addition but they will feel it.

I should be ready to render the whole movie again today, but I know that the Adobe render engine is malfunctioning. The last time I tried to render whole scenes would render off screen and drift around in a black void. It is frustrating to keep working, not sure if the results will ever render correctly.

COVID Dystopia: Rebound Animation

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I decided the rebound shot needed animation in Callipeg. As it was, I just dropped the virus into the shot and the player were held cells.Adding a depth map didn’t add much to the shot. It was boring. Do I am adding full motion to the players. The ball end up where it is in the illustration on the last frame. I need to have the ball rotate after it leaves the players hand.

The drawings for the player taking the shot are complete and today I need to add the defender who fails to block the shot. All this happens in 25 frames. I was going to export the final animation with a green screen but I might instead import all the lightning animation frames into this shot.

Painting the players should be fun with the rim light from the lightning flashes. In most of the other shots I reused painted elements to save time, but in this shot everything moves so fast that I can probably repaint every frame.

This is becoming one of my favorite shots in the film. I am glad am digging in and improved on what I had.

COVID Dystopia: Beach Walkers High Resolution

Posted on by Thor

It took me three days to get the high resolution Minotaur scene to work. I am now on day two of getting the high resolution beach walkers scene finished. The process is pretty straight forward. I keep the low resolution video on a layer in Callipeg and add high resolution changes on layers above that video. If I can live with the resolution of some elements I don’t changer them. In the case of the Minotaurs, I had to change all the line work which got very pixelated.

Callipeg has trouble playing back this hybrid scene with animated layers on top of video. The green screen video flickers off and on when I play back the animation. Thankfully despite the glitch, the Minotaur scene ultimately rendered correctly. I just have to live with the flickering nightmare and hope it renders correctly after several days of work.

In this scene I am revising all the heads and bodies and the limbs seem to be holding up without changes. I have revised the front row of zombies so far and need to finish the second row and background crowd. This is the last major scene that needs revisions. I might go through and add some more smoke effects and there are one or two scenes where I am considering animation but held off. The film just keeps evolving. With animation it is hard to know exactly when the project is finished.