COVID Film: Another Pixelation Issue

Posted on by Thor

After resolving a glaring pixelation problem in the Satanic Ram shot, I decided to go back and take a look at the opening shot. This close up shot shows how horribly pixelated the ambulance was. I decided I had to redraw each ambulance and I am now in the process of repainting each of them.

The green screen allows me to transfer animation to the final composite in After Effects. I turn off the green screen while I paint to see how the colors work with the background. Reworking the shot was also an opportunity to smooth out some of the animation timing. I left out details on the front grill since that will all be covered by headlight  beams and glow effects.

So yesterday I finished redrawing and painting the ambulance body. Today I get to paint lighting effects. Last time I transferred each of the paintings into Procreate since I like the brushing available in that program. This time I will see if I can get the same effects using the brushes in Callipeg. I will be watching videos of NYC ambulances to see the timing of the lights as they blink. With more resolution I can pay closer attention to each of the lights.

I just learned that YouTube and other social media sites censor any mention of the words “COVID” and “Pandemic”. Tic Tokers refer to it as “the “vid” or “during the panini”. With such censorship, this film will have a hard time finding an audience. I need to keep the film off of social media since many of the largest film festivals require that the screenings be a premiere. They will not show films that are being shown online. It feels awful holding the film back while festivals refuse to screen it.

Novavax was approved today. That will be my vaccine of choice to combat the new COVID variants. I asked my doctor about Novavax last time I was in for an appointment and he didn’t know what it was. The more expensive mRNA vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer only influence the spike proteins. Novavax is more like traditional vaccines and it affects the entire COVID virus.

COVID Film: Pixelation Solved

Posted on by Thor

The solution to resolving some very pixelated Ram’s hands was to double the size of the scene in Callipeg and re-animate the entire scene. All of the hands needed to be redrawn at a much higher resolution. Even the ram itself was becoming pixelated each time I exported it from After Effects. I decided I could not use the exported movie from After Effects to work on. The only files that had full resolution were the original Procreate paintings.

I decided the original file can only stand loosing some resolution one time. Resolution is lost when exporting files between Callipeg and After Effects.

I decided to rework the opening shot which also has pixelation. I am hoping I can just do cleaned up drawings on top of each of the ambulance drawings. There is a chance however that I might have to re time some of the animation and then re-paint each cell. At first I thought I could live with the pixelation since the ambulance is small and in the distance, but now that I found this solution I have to try cleaning up the shot.

I couldn’t resist submitting my film to another film festival in Brussels yesterday. I checked to see what the pandemic charts looked like in Brussels and the numbers seem so small compared to America. Hope runs eternal.

COVID Film: Pixelation Problem

Posted on by Thor

I came close to completing this shot yesterday. However when I imported the Callipeg animation into the final Premiere Pro edit, The hands seemed glaringly pixelated. The painting this scene is built around is vertical but the film is horizontal 1920 by 1080 pixels. In After Effects I had placed the vertical image into the 1920 by 1080 frames which meant the image was reduced by about 50%. That 50% reduction insize is enough to make pixelation an issue.

With that slightly pixelated image imported in Callipeg, I started copying and pasting the hands to move them around. Moving those copies around resulted in further pixelation. In Callipeg the ram image only took up maybe 1/8th of the screen real estate. To try an overcome the pizelization i decided to redraw each of the hands. The end result is what you see above with full animation but still blurry hands.

My next choice was to scale up the image in Callipeg and redraw the arms again. I saw a video that showed an ability to scale multiple layers all at once, so I did that to get the job done fast. Unfortunately Callipeg could not scale the layers all at once. Some were scaled and others reverted back to the small size. On top of that some frames were shuffled to other layers. The result was that all the drawings were scrambled and impossible to reassemble into the smooth animation I had worked so hard on.

Today I will likely re animate the scene but at a much higher resolution. The Procreate files are at a high enough resolution. I think the problem began when I scaled the image down in After Effects. I will have to double the image size in After Effects to maintain the initial resolution. then in Callipeg I will fill the screen with the ram character rather than the entire painting. I will have to redraw every hand to keep the crisp line work.

The final After Effects composition will also have to be reworked. Having the depth map a bit blurry is fine but the image will have to be at double the resolution. I just hope my laptop can handle a scene so large. I made the mistake of creating a 4K scene earlier and it caused my computer to crash.

COVID Film: The Peak

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This shot seen in After Effects, was added to the film to replace a shot of a plague doctor deer in a flaming church. The plague doctor animation just wasn’t cutting it. The shot was placed in the film simply because it was the end of a long series of shots that featured skulls. I decided to relax that skull initiative and use shots that result in better animation options.

In The Peak, the hospital bed slips from its perch and starts to roll downhill. The camera cuts on the action so the viewer is left uncomfortable but uncertain if the patient will indeed crash down the mountainside. The depth map makes it feel like a helicopter is flying by the peak shooting the scene and I am pleased that the clouds also move in the breeze. It fells s bit like the shot of Julie Andrews singing in the Swiss Alps in Sound of Music but with a tragic undertone.

I am now going through the entire film looking for the best animation options. Movement trumps the theme of the shots.

Typing up these notes each morning helps me double check work that has been done. In the shot of the Santas, I discovered that eh body bag wasn’t fully painted and I went back to repair the oversight. This morning I just realized that one Facebook logo slipped by my alterations, so I need to make that repair this morning.  Another FB logo needs to replaced in the Freedom of Speech shot. Juggling over 200 shots means dropping a ball every so often.

COVID Film: COVID Replaced Facebook

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The compositing of the whole Santas scene was also simple and straightforward. I am so used to things going horribly wrong after a week of animating that I was expecting some hangup but the scene fell into place with ease.

I decided to replace Facebook with COVID for this shot in the film. I also dropped a mask on Mark Zuckerberg so he is less easy to identify. My thought is that having a corporate logo in the film could keep it from being screened.

I was pleasantly surprised with how easy the change was to create. After replacing each Facebook logo with COVID or C, I then exported the images into After Effects. The animation of the flag was going to be a challenge I thought. However when I replaced the Facebook flag with the new Covid flag, the scene was automatically updated and I didn’t need to dig into the animation again.

I think the next scene I will tackle is animating some smoke in the Pearl Harbor scene.

COVID Film: Animating Santas 6

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I finished animating the Santas on day 6. I will add one more waving hand into the scene since the hand jumps in rather fast on screen left. Then I need to add shadows and a group of workers in hazmat suits. So I am hoping to animate three figures today but as a group.

I am starting to think I have to find replacement shot for several scenes with corporate logos. I have one scene of the insurrection where I replaced all the flags with Facebook themed flags. That single shot may keep Film Festivals from considering the film for selection.

In most movies things like soda cans are replaced with fictional branding. You never see a Coca Cola or Mountain Dew. I may have to do the same for my film. Facebook might become Factbook or Fictbook. I might also just pick another insurrection scene, since I have many.

COVID Film: Animating Santas 5

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Another 2 Santa day of animation.The second Santa still needs his arm ringing a bell and I will get that done first thing this morning. Today I have the last two Santas to animate. Since they walk in from off screen, I suspect they will involve half the work. I also have three men in hazmat suits carrying a body bag and I might be able to get the keys for them finished as well. Since this scene has just had Santas in it. I have been able to share it with students as it progresses.

A past post on Instagram seemed to trigger a conspiracy theorist, anti vaxer. I am proud that my work triggers such people. It proves that my imagery resonates even with the least empathetic and close minded of people.  I am fascinated by their lies but really don’t have the time to show then all the research that they should be paying attention to. I can’t pay attention to every anti science rant.

My film will trigger just as much in those who deny the reality of the ongoing pandemic. The film therefor is rather controversial and not many will be willing to show it on the big screen.

COVID Film: Animating Santas 4

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Yesterday was another two Santa day. I finished animating the legs of my second Santa just before a 4PM virtual class started. After class. I painted the legs. The second Santa was mostly hidden by a foreground Santa so I didn’t need to animate an arm once again.

I spent part of the day watching a video on how to animate fire and I suspect I will try animating fire for the demon in the night club scene. That scene has a large patch of fire right in front of the demon which could use motion. The process of animating fire involves following masses as they move upward and break apart. It looks like a fun abstract process.

COVID Film: Animating Santa’s 3

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Yesterday was another 2 Santa day. There is one Santa who is further back in space and largely blocked by a foreground Santa. Since he is blocked I didn’t have to animate his arm. I discovered that he seemed to jitter a bit in relation to the Santa in front of him. He was partly on ones while the foreground Santa was on twos. I had put him on ones to add more weight to his steps. Since he is blocked that weight isn’t as important so I decided to match his animation lockstep with the Santa that was blocking him. This resulted in much smoother motion between them.

The second Santa was animated as a demo as one of my virtual students worked on inbetweens for her scene. She is doing amazing work and next week we animate a walk, step by step,  together. Pun intended.

Well this scene has just passed the halfway point so I better get busy and animate a couple of more Santas.

I have been watching effects animation tutorials, so I suspect I will be animating fire soon. There are lots of fires in the film, so I might be opening Pandora’s box.

COVID Film: Animating Santa’s

Posted on by Thor

Sunday I started animating Santa’s. I almost finished animating 2 Santa’s but still have to finish a waving arm. So my goal is to animate 2 Santa’s each day. I am working right to left. The first animation seemed slow so I had to put some drawings on ones to add some weight.

The second animation has the same number of keys but the spacing was slightly different so there is more weight to the animation and I could keep everything on twos. The slightest changes make a big difference in the weight of an animation. I like that they are walking differently, so no changes will be made.