COVID: Lions Infected

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday I managed to animate three lions. Now I haven’t worked on Lion animation since I was an intern during the making of the Lion King. The few inbetweens I did for that film don’t really qualify me to be animating quadrupeds. The animation I did yesterday is passable and I am pleased with the final look of the shot.

I didn’t get into all the subtleties of the walks with shoulder blades protruding above the back or the hip movements but I did figure out the basics of getting four feet to work in tandem. Like in a human walk it all comes down to finding the contact positions and the passing positions. If the front legs are in a contact position then the back legs will be in a passing position and vice a versa.

I was quite pleases that I pulled off the lion walking towards the camera and turning. When I was a child I saw Disney animation drawing exhibited at a mall of a tiger walking in a circle. Ever since seeing those drawing I wanted to be an animator and I have finally gotten to the point where I am trying a similar scene. There are actually some mistakes with the back legs in that animation but the foreshortening hides the movements of the back legs and in general it works so I am moving on.

Today’s animation is very similar and just as challenging. One lion is walking toward the camera and the other waling away. The lions are in a crowded ER so there isn’t much room to move then so they will each just take one stride. I also want to animate a lion yawning the the background but that can be done in after effects with pin animation. This is quite a bit to hope to accomplish in one day, so I better get started.

Oh. I discovered that After Effects was playing back previews at 60 frames a second for some reason and I found the way to change the setting back to 29.97 so watching my animation going crazy fast is no longer an issue.

COVID: Bullet Time

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday was a day of learning how to animate lightning. The first scene was of Zeus with pink lightning flashing from his finger tip. I created the animation in After Effects using an advanced lighting tool along with several expressions to effect the flashing brightness and conductivity. I learned quite a bit about how to get just the right amount of glow but there was little control over how the lighting animated. The scene worked an I moved on.

The second shot was of a basketball rebound with lighting flashes in the background. For this shot I hand animated the lightning and the result was far more dynamic. A single lightning bolt was drawn with wide jagged edges and then the next frame would be a single thin line down the middle of the bolt. Alternating back and forth the lightning flickers. Adding a single black bolt then adds some retinal burn. I was quite pleased with the result. Callipeg the animation program I used has no blur effect so the glow had to be hand painted. Since the flash happens so fast that wasn’t much of a problem.

I animated the viruses in this scene and now I plan to go back and add the lightning effect to the fissures in his body. I plan to do this lightning effect on a separate version of the scene and then export it as it’s own movie. I will then add it to the final composite in After Effects. I am thinking I might be able to add a blur to the lighting in After Effects. Once I discover the limitations of one program I have to find some work around so that eh effect can be achieved in another program. I know what I want to achieve now I just need to experiment and make it happen.

COVID: Science Aggression Animation

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday was a very productive day. I finished three scenes and completed the animation for this Science Aggression Animation. This morning I just need to paint the arms and move on to the next scene. Science aggression is a very real thing, and the aggressors have won. All basic attempts to curb the spread of the COVID Virus have been dropped. As a result there is a late summer surge in cases with no testing in place.

New vaccines will be available in September but several new variants are already so mutated that the vaccines will be useless against them. Long COVID continues to disable children and adults alike. You do not need to be vulnerable to develop long COVID.

On the plus side, the economy is purring along. The economy is any politician’s primary focus.

Anyway, back to this scene. I know that this arm animation will be a devil to composite into the final scene. I am using green screens but the glove is green and therefor will become partially transparent. I think a blue screen will change the color of the glove. Transparency is a bear I have yet to tackle. Callipeg has a format called HEVC with an Alpha channel but it does not open in After Effects. I need to find some plug in that converts the HEVC file into something that After Effects can recognize.

I have never tried importing the HEVC file into Premiere but I suspect the same problem will occur. I will try that today. I will try that today, I will do most of the compositing in After Effects and then export it without the arm animation. I will then try and line up the animation in Premiere. It seems insane that I have to jump through so many hoops to try and export an animated scene with transparency.

COVID: Breach

Posted on by Thor

This scene is quick zoom in towards the zombies around the confederate flag. I animated the flag wave using the wave warp tool in After Effects. It isn’t the most believable waving flag animation in the world but it might do. I am considering importing the file into Callipeg to refine the shape of the flag to exaggerate the folds.

Last night I started working on a new shot that goes with the Lyrics, “Explode”. The image had been a crowd in India desperately storming an oxygen supply warehouse. The crowd is engulfed in flames. The trouble is that the shot is rather amorphous and difficult to read.

The shot I am considering replacing it with is iconic and easily readable. I am using the shot as an excuse to play with animation tools I seldom use in Callipeg. If it all works out it could go in the film. If it doesn’t work then it was just an experiment.

COVID: Animate Eola Zombies Day 2

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday was a 2 zombie day. I also finished the keys for a third zombie. This scene will be finished by the end of today and I hope to start zombies going through airport security. I am still debating about the front zombie. I might slow down his forward movement a bit. I will make that decision after seeing all the zombies in the shot moving together.

So far I have submitted the film to about 20 film festivals. In the next couple of days I will get my first acceptance or rejections. I know this is a film that few people want to see, but I think it is a film people need to see.  Keeping track of 20 festivals seems like it will be my sweet spot. Once a film is accepted or rejected, I will apply to another festival.

COVID: Lake Eola Zombies Animation Day 1

Posted on by Thor

After finishing animation on the zombies exiting the COVID Air plane, I jumped over to animating Lake Eola Zombies.This scene is also less than a second in duration, so there is only time for one stride of a walk. I stated animation of the front zombie and he moves the fastest. The plan is to have each zombie move less as they go back in space. The furthest zombies as well as the couple sun bathing and the paramedics will remain as held cells.

I had to paint quite a bit of the ambulance which was hidden by the zombies which I separated out to animate. I had to draw in the back tires since I think they might become visible once the zombies lurch forward. I am animating the front zombie’s arm but barely. I figure it is tiff with rigor mortis. I will probably add a back arm as well.

I will be using this scene as an excuse to try and encourage a student to walk a character towards the camera. The character was drawn last week and hopefully some animation will happen this week.

I have one more zombie crowd scene inside an airport that needs to be animated and I will jump on that scene once this one is completed hopefully by the end of today.

COVID Air Animation

Posted on by Thor

I reworked the animation on the masking pans at the end of the film by adding an anticipation and making the timing quicker. The subtle changes made a big difference. Then I decided to start animating zombies again. This COVID Air scene is just 23 frames in duration which is less than a second. The zombies are being animated walking down the steps. There is just enough time for one step down.

I actually draw out the legs and feet completely but the background is separated so that the front edge of the stair ramp covers that animation. When drawing I make that level partially transparent. There are about 4 more zombies I need to animate in this scene and I hope to have them finished by the end of today.

I am keeping the arm animation very stiff which makes it go quickly since I can just cut and paste the arms in place. The leg animation is the most challenging to do but by now it is rather second nature. The scene is cropped rather tight in the film right now, because I needed the pan down for movement. With the zombies moving this long shot works quite fine. I am not sure which version I will use for the final edit. Depth should read best with this long shot. I’ll cross that road when I get there. Time to animate four more zombies.

COVID: Animating Zombies Day 4

Posted on by Thor

I have no doubt that I will finish animating this scene today. The partially transparent zombie has just had 3 keys blocked in for position. Next I will need to add the contact drawings, and the up and down drawings. After he is fully inbetweened I will need to figure out what to do with the rest of the background crowd. The zombie I will animate today is sandwiched between two more attractive zombies. I may just leave his arms stiff at his sides and see if that works. I will also rick him side to side so his weight is over the weight bearing foot in each step

I have several more zombie crowd scenes to animate so I will get more time to experiment on broken limps and shuffles.

COVID: Animating Zombies Day 3

Posted on by Thor

When animating Zombies I am trying to break the walks to make then less natural but also not have them upstage the walk of the woman in the bathing suit. I am keeping all the levels intact in p in case I want to go back and make changes and that is happening often.

What remains now is a huge crowd of background zombies. I am hoping to get away with limited animation on them, I have 5 more I want to fully animate and then I will consider just scaling up the others as a crowd. I am not sure if it will work yet. The other option is to leave then as a held cell.

One zombie in the scene is more out of focus than anyone else. I suspect that is because I scaled him up too much and anti aliasing caused it to blur. Since Callipeg is pixel based it adds grey pixels to lines to smooth them out when they are scaled up. The result is a blur to my thin line work. I will try importing a much higher resolution version of the zombie and scale it down to the size needed and as he moves back in space scale him down. I need to train myself to never scale a drawing up.

The best way to execute walks going forward is to animate backwards from the position I had in the illustration so that the characters get smaller. Scaling down works fine but scaling up sucks.

COVID: Animating Zombies Day 1

Posted on by Thor

I have al lot of zombies to animate. I want the focus to be on the woman in the swimsuit. She is animated in slow motion. I did that since at the time I thought the zombies would all remain still.The first two zombies I animated take 2 full strides to her one stride. I am debating weather I should add to her animation or leave her walking in slow motion.

One zombie walks rather normally and the other walks with a limp, dragging his foot. Today’s animation will likely involve more limps and shuffles. I don’t want to over animate the zombies because then they would upstage the woman. The limp was surprisingly easy to animate so more zombies will drag their feet in the sand.

Stiff an lifeless is my goal for the day. The bouncy lively walks I try and teach kids will have to be abandoned. If there is time I may even go back an dial back the walk on the zombie from yesterday who is walking rather normally. He does have to keep up with the woman who takes a very long and leisurely stride.