COVID Assembly Line

Posted on by Thor

I worked on the Assembly Line shot with my animation students. I decided to create an assignment where they would break apart a robotic character and move the individual pieces to create the motion. That is what I did in this shot with one of the robotic arms, The base does not move but I broke it into the foreground base and background base. The Upper Arm segment rotated from a round hinge at the base, then the forearm moved at the elbow.

This type of animation can be done in After Effects by assembling a forward kinematics skeleton, but I didn’t want to take the time to set up such a complicated rig. Forward kinematics is where you can move the wrist and the other sections of the arm will follow along with the action.

Instead I animated each section independently. The scene is only 25 frames long so that could be done fairly quickly. An issue that came up is that the center of rotation had to be moved into position for each frame. I placed that center pretty consistently but when the slow in became close there was some jiggling which had to be smoothed out.

I also used the robotic arm to teach anticipation which is when an object moves in the opposite direction a bit before moving forward. The forearm rotates s light bit down before the arm thrusts forward. Anyway animating with the cut out parts did create a robotic feeling animation which is what I needed.

The robotic arm thrusts screen left and then the guy in the hazmat suit moves his arm. I animated that arm move with the students. I had him raise his hand. But in 25 frames I had to end the action before he could place his hand anywhere. That animation that I abandoned made it look like he might slap the woman. I threw out some of the drawings to reduce the speed of the action. During the lunch break, I threw out that animation entirely and decided that he already had his hand on the woman’s forehead and he would draw his hand back and drop it to this side. I decided that was a much more compassionate gesture.

There is tons more action that could be added to the scene since the beds could lurch down the assembly line track, but the robotic arm and gentle touch are all I feel are needed.

Takes One After Effects

Posted on by Thor

I animated this couple walking during an animation class. The couple walks towards the camera for just one step. The flames move along with the guy wearing the HOAX shirt. I animated the flames a bit using pin tools in after effects. It would be better to fully animate the flames but for now the light movement will do.

The next shot is identical but with the entire crowd on fire. I thought I could just place this couple into that shot, but it looks like After Effects crashed and the After Effects scene wasn’t saved. I will have to recreate the scene from scratch. I hope to have that scene composited by tonight. I also animated a robotic arm yesterday and plan to composite that into that scene. I will see what can be accomplished by 3pm.

COVID: It Just Takes 1 AnimationStart

Posted on by Thor

I started setting up this shot for animation. The plan is to only animate the couple taking one step forward. Of course everyone in the crowd would be walking, but I want to draw attention to the couple by only moving them. I didn’t complete the animation since I was in a car ride down to Key West. I taught my animation class from the back seat of the car and found I could not do decent drawings with the car bumping and swerving. I also started getting car sick trying to draw.

Instead I animated a much simpler scene for the students with a ball and cube animation. I could cut and paste the shapes which meant I only had to do accurate drawings once. I did the sketches at stop lights. My  students are doing some amazing work.

I plan to work on this scene today from the Bed and Breakfast. The man in the foreground is on another level so that the girl can animate and disappear behind his arm a bit. The scene is only 25 frames so I have about 13 drawings to do.

COVID Apes Animation

Posted on by Thor

I animated this shot while my animation students worked on their assignment. I thought it would be good for them to see a shot develop from start to finish. I finished (animated and painted) the foreground ape and the ape poking the iPhone screen by the end of class.

I only animated the up swing of the ape holding the bone weapon. This is only the lower third of the painting, and the camera pans up to a ballet dancer with wings who is floating effortlessly. The shot opens with a quick zoom transition effect, so I thought I should hold the apes for a moment before they started to move. However when I brought that timed render into Premiere Pro I found that the animation was lost as the camera panned upwards.

I had to change all the ape animation to begin from the start of the shot so the animation could be seen. Then I ran into the situation that the upraised bone was visible as a held cell for a moment. I considered animating the down swing, but then decided instead to zoom in a bit more into the ballet dancer until the bone was out of the shot.

COVID: Fun Spot Animation

Posted on by Thor

I executed the front animated walk with students in class. After class, I animated the three other Hazmat clad figures. I used blue screen rather than a green screen to export the scene from Callipeg to After Effects. It turns out the green screen I was using caused the gloves and masks to go partially transparent.

The After Effects was already set up with all the layers arranged in deep space sort of like a diorama. I just replaced the tractor and walkers layer with a new tractor I painted which added spots that had before been hidden by the static figures. The After Effects scene was then rendered as a movie and imported into Premiere pro. I was afraid that animating this walk might distract from the hazmat clad men lifting a body bag. They are walking towards that action, so hopefully they eye is pointed in that direction. There is so much information in each scene which each last for less than a second, that any animation needs to be what the audience looks at.

I have three students in my animation course this week. One student did complete her walk while the others had excuses for not finishing. We will be walking again today to see if the excuses can transform into forward progress. I plan to animate an ape pointing at a large Qanon iPhone. There is another ape using a bone as a weapon, but I am not sure if I will animate him. I want the attention of the ape poking the phone.

COVID: Hazmat Walk

Posted on by Thor

I already animated others in this scene as they lifted a body bag. I thought I could get away with not animating this walk but decided it is necessary to keep things active. This is the first frame of animation called the contact drawing. There is just enough time in the shot for one step.

I am teaching an animation class and this will be used as an example to show students on how to execute a walk fairly effortlessly. It will require 13 more drawings to complete. Once this walk is done I have three more to do as well. I usually teach students how to do a walk near the end of the week of classes but this time I will jump right in on day one with the walk which gives them plenty of time to complete the animation.

COVID Unemployment Blue

Posted on by Thor

With the unemployment shot, I decided to animate the hazmat walkers. They were all in lockstep which made it pretty easy. The walker with the red cross apron was even easier since the legs are out of shot. I just had to bob the figure up and down with the step. I considered moving the arms slightly, but for some reason the pin tool in After Effects wasn’t working.

I also found that the hands and masks were partly transparent because of the green screen. I finally realized that the greenish blue masks and gloves were dropping out because of the green screen. So I experimented with different colored green screens. a purple screen was worse, changing the colors of the shot. This blue screen was what finally worked. There has to be a way to export a shot with transparency, but I haven’t been able to work it out yet.

 

Trailer Portrait

Posted on by Thor

Jon Busdeker created an amazing trailer for COVID. His approach was to document the start of the pandemic and then have a shot of the artist for a solid 4 seconds. The audio he chose of a heart monitor flat lining at the end is actually upsetting and perfect. We are trying be sure there are no copyright issues with the live action shots.

Since this shot is held for so long, I decided to add parallax. By now I can achieve the effect rather fast. The 3D mesh shows the nose and mouth but when the depth map is added to the painting, it just makes the mask seem 3d. Jon cropped the image as an extreme close up. I didn’t crop quite as close but did crop a bit so the Zoom lower panel is only partially visible. There needed to be room for some type to the right of my face.

I sent Jon a whole bunch of footage at 4am Friday since he said me might edit on the weekend. I was shocked to find he had done the edit by the next morning. Jon is a consummate professional. 30 seconds might seem like it could be a simple edit, but there are still thousands of elements that all need to work together. Jon knows how to juggle them all.

Chorus of Death Animation

Posted on by Thor

After looking at this screen grab of animation in progress, I noticed that the right hazmat clad worker was off balance.I immediately corrected that by rotating the drawing while leaving his foot planted. Another issue I am concerned about is that I am used to animating scenes at 24 frames per second. The film however is set to 29.97 frames per second. I suspect that means the walk will appear faster than I am used to. For now the walk is animated over 17 frames per step. The arms will not be swinging much since they are spraying antibacterials.

I think I will set up another scene which plays back at 24 frames per second and play the animations side by side. I know that a few frames difference made huge difference with the runs. I might be able to live with a slightly faster walk. All this experimenting of course takes time, which I really don’t have.

Jon Busdeker created an awesome trailer for the film and I need to go into many of those shots to be sure he has the best resolution version of each shot. I used my trailer to go into each shot and add animation. I will likely do the same for the Busdeker trailer after I finish this scene.

COVID Chipper

Posted on by Thor

I am now animating the COVID Chipper scene. The camera pans quickly down the line of children waiting and I decided I needed to draw attention to the child in the chipper. In twitter, I saw a video of someone putting a fish, head first into a mechanical device. The device drew the fish slowly in as it kept thrashing it’s tail in terror. Then the fish was plopped out of the bottom of the device with it’s belly slit and guts removed. It is probably one of the more horrifying things I have seen online.

So I wanted to recreate that with this scene. The little boys legs kick and then go lifeless with gravity. The action should draw the viewers attention. DeathSantis holding the girl was also separated for animation. The plan is to animate him leaning forward ever so slightly. I plan to do that in After Effects using the pin tool to move him. Pins are added at the joints and re-positioned. It should be just a two key scene.

The legs kicking was a far more complex scene. I animated it straight ahead and then added some inbetweens to slow down a few spots. Rather than paint the individual frames, I instead pasted the painting of the legs which made for a more complex image. The chipper is a separate element which allows me to push the boy deeper into the machine without worrying about a boiling front edge to the paint.

One other thing I still need to add is a spinning blade of a virus inside the machine. That should be a simple matter of pasting a virus on each frame and rotating it. I don’t plan to animate the blood spewing out of the chipper. The scene ends before anyone has a chance to see it.