Post-Production
In post-production all the scenes are put together. I used After Effects by Adobe for this. In After effects I set the frame rate to 24 Fps which is the industry standard. I imported each of the animation Passes into After Effects. The animations passes include, line art pass, colour, colour pass, hair pass for Simon’s hair and a shadow pass.
If the local colour of the characters didn’t feel right for any of the scenes they were in (Integration pass) I selected the local colour layer, duplicated it and then added a hue and saturation effect. I Selected colorise, which tinted everything with the same hue and searched for a hue that was close to the scene that the characters were in, and turned down the opacity.
For Simon’s hair I created a new solid layer. I then selected the rectangle tool and created a mask. I dragged it across the screen right at the point where the hair gradient will start, then I went to the mask settings and edited the feathering to create a soft edge.
I duplicated the hair layer by clicking ctrl + D and selected a matte to the hair colour.
Below is an example of one of the animation scenes before and after editing.
I tried to do a camera zooming in effect in After Effects. (see above)
For the scene above, I didn’t add shadows when I was animating in Harmony because I wasn’t sure of the lighting for this scene. Once I knew the direction of the lighting I was able to use a mask and animated the shadows on the character in After Effects.
Above shows added lighting to the animation in After Effects.
I added rim lighting to the characters in after effect by using the inner shadow.
Water Reflection
The videos and images below show how I achieved water reflecitons.
Stylistic Reflections
To add stylistic reflections I added a fractal noise effect to a solid layer. I then increased the contrast and went to the transform drop down box and set the uniform scaling to off. I set the scale width to 2400 and height to around 40, the complexity to 3.5 and animated the evolution (time * 100 expression) Then I pre- composed the layer and turned it off.
The next step was to create an adjustment layer. I repositioned the adjustment layer and added the displacement map effect on top and set it to the fractal noise effect. I then adjusted the displace values and also added a camera lens blur effect and cross blur. I set the blur radius to 3 and the radius x to 75.
At first nothing happened. Once I had to set the set source to effect mask then reflection effect worked.
Water Effect
To create the effect of ripples on the water, I made a new solid layer and added the fractal noise effect. Then I changed the fractal type to strings and the noise type to linear and edited the brightness and contrast until I was happy with how it looked. Next I animated the evolution of the texture. To do this I inverted the alpha of the texture, I disabled the uniform scaling and scaled up the width and the height. After that, I added the fast box blur and increased the blur effect. Then I added a vector blur, and increased the amount of the blur radius. I then added the level effect and edited its values. I put this layer in a per -composition. After this, I created a new solid, and put the the new layer below the per-comp layer. Then I turned the per-comp layer blend mode to add, duplicated the comp layer and edited the effects so all the layers look slightly different. This is how you achieve the ripple effect of water.
Lighting Composition
Below show scenes in how I composed the lighting.
I added a noise effect on top every scene.
Above you can see the shadow under the cat. To achieve this, I created a new solid on top of the background then used the ellipse mask and opened the setting to change the points, turned the layer blend mood to multiply.
I can add nightlights by using layer styles.
To make the rim light, I made a pre- composition with all the animation passes in, went to the layer sales and added an inner shadow and edited the setting until I was happy with it. I then changed the blending mode to linear dodge.
The above images see Elizabeth under water. To achieve the underwater effects, I created new solid layer and added a 4- colour gradient and picked 4 different blues for the blue scenes and 4 different reds for the red scenes. I added the cc snow effect and edited until I was happy with how it looked. For the light rays I created a new solid and set the colour to white then add fractal noise and then edited the effect until I was happy.
Next, I animated the evolution and edited the revolutions to match the length of the animation. I pre composed this layer and added the corner pin and dragged the position marker for each corner pins. Then I changed the blend mode to soft light and lowered the opacity. After that, I added a mask using the elliptical mask. I created the mask over the pre comp. Once I had the mask I went to the mask values and set the feather to about 150 and played around with the expansion values to soften off the edges. Lastly I added a new solid layer and added the fractal noise effect, changed blend mode to colour dodge and lowered the brightness and contrast values on the fractal noise down and turned down the opacity on the layer. Finally I animated the evolution .
I put all the layers (backgrounds included ) in a pre-composition and added a shift channels effect. Then I made three copies of the pre-comp. In the first comp I leave the red channel on and turned off the green and blue. In the second pre-comp I left the green channel on and turned of the red and blue channel. Then on the last pre-comp I left the blue channel on and turned off the red and green. Lastly, I set the first two comp blend modes to add and moved the positions in opposite directions to create a chromatic aberration.
Below, I added the spots to the ray by using a mask
Conclusion
As always, I find myself reflecting on the finished animation. There are many parts to making an animation short, from storyboarding to character design, choosing an animation style and thinking about colour and symbolism. For the most part I am happy with the final animation production. I am always a little self critical.
The sections that I am most happy with are the underwater scenes. Especially the first underwater scene. I think it looks the best and showcases my abilities the best. I think the aspect that I enjoyed the most was post-production. I like putting the finished passes together and using After Effects. I have learnt a lot of skills which I want to develop further.
However, looking back on things. there are somethings I would have done some things differently. For example, I should have given someone else the job of drawing the animated background for scene 4 from the beginning instead of giving it to myself and causing myself a lot of stress about having a lot to do with not enough time. If I had done this, then I would have had time to make the dream sequence using the puppet pins which I had to drop in the end.
Drawing characters and animating them is not easy. I think I did a reasonable job at keeping the character on model throughout the animation, but it can always be better. However, maybe any inconsistencies that I noticed are because I have been staring at these animations for so long that I notice any mistakes easier than other people only watching the animation once.
Working with other people also has its pros and cons. It is great to have someone to share the load, bounce ideas off and to help contribute to the whole process. But working with others does have challenges. However, in the challenges, skills are learnt such as learning effective communication, conflict resolution and good team work.
Overall, this year has taught me a lot and I look forward to developing my animation skills further.