Jade Irving: Process and Production (year 2) - After Effects

For the second session of the year in After Effects we were taught about rotoscoping; we had already done rotoscoping last year but that was done in photoshop so it technically it was still a new skill to be learnt. It is quite similar to photoshop but you can do a lot more with your footage. Before the workshop I was told to bring 1-3 pieces of footage with me but in the end we only needed one piece of footage; for mine I got a friend to move across the studio using whatever movement she wanted to use and she decided to do a crab movement.

So a quick recap on what rotoscoping is...
It is a tracing effect process that is used to create an animation, its when a foreground figure is taken out of its original background and imposed onto another one. The process involves tracing around the figure frame by frame until you have enough frames to create a smooth animation.

Some reasons to use this technique... - It is more of a technical process which may appeal to some people as its another way to animate and experiment with footage. - On the other hand some may hate the time taken to create the end result but they may like the aesthetic that is produced which may influence them in deciding to use this process.
So this workshop led on from the previous one as Sara asked us to think about the vimeo clip she showed us where it was an old 20th century animation; there were many characters on loop doing different actions and coming and going into the same location. Then this week she showed us the music video for Kylie Minouges song ' come into my world' by Mark Roberts which was different to the vimeo clip in the sense that it was the same character but multiplied moving around. I thought that this video was interesting as it showed Kylie going off in different directions at the same time but looked realistic as the trace around her was neat whereas during this workshop I have noticed that some peoples outlines have been rough, this is including Sara; I guess it depends on the aesthetic that you want really.

Moving on to creating my own I took the clip I had recorded which was longer than two seconds which was required so I had to cut this down at another stage. When recording the clip I had to make sure that it was short and that it was a single person on the clip without people crossing the main feature of the clip otherwise I wouldn't be able to trace it on after effects. Before completing the rotoscoping process I didn't realise how tedious the process would be and I later wished I had picked the walking clip I had but I stuck with it.

First I opened up After effects, created a new composition with the name Roto which would be for tracing the animation. It was set up in the usual way with 25fps and I made the duration 2 seconds. I imported the footage and then dragged it into the composition. Once there I shortened it to 1 second long; during this time the subject had to stay within the frame, this meant no arms or legs being lost out of shot. Then to remove the background to the animation it is a frame by frame process so you aren't interested in stop animation then this an alternative method. Although to get a good outcome it is very time consuming in my opinion; I wouldn't say it's hard so when I have more time I may go back and improve on my skills and techniques.

In comparison to stop motion I think it is a better alternative as stop motion is very time consuming and one mistake can spoil the whole animation therefore your surroundings need to be undisturbed when working on a project so that the lighting etc is consistent. The two ways of animating: - on 1's- where you animate every single key frame, however this is rare because its usually 25 frames per second and that is a lot of frames to work with for just a second of time. - on 2's- where you animate every 2 frames, this is more popular as it will half the work load and production time, however the motion is not as smooth, this is usually unnoticeable when an animation is playing at speed. Stretching out the animation:
Next we were shown how to slow down our footage by half the speed, so basically we stretched out the one second of footage that we had to two second; however this can make the animation not run smoothly but you can't tell that much with the final outcome. So to stretch the footage I went through these steps paragraph>columns>stretch, click on stretch at 100% and change it to 200%. This stretches out the seconds and makes the clip fit the 2 seconds, but able to only trace every 2 frames.
How to check loops: If the work is shorter than timeline use playback area- grey area at the top and then you click and drag handles and it shows what area will be played back when the animation is played. Its just to make sure the footage fills the timeline, the reason for this is that the material has to last the length of composition.

To start with I chose a frame where the subject was the most exposed and clear; once I found a suitable frame I added a marker to remind me of my starting point for later if needed. To do this I clicked on the footage at that point and pressed the * key which added the marker. The next step was important, we went into the preferences and un-ticked the preserve box, because if ticked and you trace on one frame and move on to the next it will delete what you traced on the first frame. By un-ticking the box it will mean that all frames are kept separate which is what we need for rotoscoping.
So going back to our marker point this is where we would start tracing; using the pen tool we started tracing on the mask layer. Before tracing you open up the mask layer and activate the mask path using the time watch which will activate the first key frame. This technique was quite simple as it was just like using the pen tool in illustrator which I feel I'm getting better at using after using it many times. Although the pen tool in after effects I found wasn't as responsive as in illustrator and it was hard to edit and shape your points at times. We were advised to change the colour of our path to a bright colour so that we could see it more clearly and it would stand out from the background. We opened these options using the small arrow on the layer. Once the path has been completed it will remove the background and will leave you with the object you have traced, theres is an option to subtract which will reverse this. When you move on to the next frame and change the shape of the outline it will automatically create another keyframe; I didn't used to understand keyframes but after a year of working in after effects I have become more confident using the program. You'll notice that when you move between frames the trace won't match up with your subject so you'll need to alter the points of the outline; to jump from one frame to the next you press ctrl and click on the keyframe, click toggle hold keyframe- this creates a jump, from one key frame to the next animation.

After finishing tracing around the subject we needed to create a new composition to place our footage into; even though my footage was two seconds long we made the composition last for ten seconds as I would be able to loop my footage later. As I didn't have much time to create my key frames, it was soon noticeable that I would need to add more key frames as the person went outside of the outlines. However, I tried not to worry about that for now and concentrate on learning the rest of the skills we were taught in the workshop. As the person looked like she was dancing I added a dance floor so she was put into context so she was actually dancing in an appropriate situation. To improve this I will need to add more frames so that the outline follows her movement more closely. The next stage was adding an expression which done by adding a code like we did in the last session; this process was layer>time>enable time remapping - the tick appears. Time remap option appears under layer, giving 2 keyframes one at end and one at beginning. After effects automatically put a blank keyframe at the end, I don't fully understand why this happens but I know that it will create a blank frame in my loop animation which I needed to get rid of. To do this I went to the end of the animation and pressed ctrl and used the arrow key to take it back one frame so that the time remap didn't involve the blank frame.

Finally I was shown how make my person a silhouette, the involved adding a new solid layer and picking a colour for this layer; I chose a light grey so that the person would stand out from the dark background. I moved this layer under the animation layer and using the trackmat I changed the setting to alpha matt. After finishing this process it was time to render the animation, I used the same settings I've used in the past.

Outcome
This week was a big struggle for me as i'm not an expert with using After effects - it doesn't come naturally to me! So with this in mind I feel that the outcome is reflective of this, it isn't one of my strongest pieces but I hope to improve it at a later date. I used this session as an experiment rather than a finalised product and I'll try develop my skills outside of the workshop. Also after the workshop I'll have more time to go over what I did and take more time doing certain parts rather than rushing so I can get on to the next stage that Sara is showing.
I will add more key frames so that the person stays in the outline and add a background created by myself as for the purpose of the workshop I just took one from the internet which weren't exactly fitting and this way I can make sure that it is copyright free. Below is the animation I created today and screenshots of my process......

This is creating a new composition for the footage to be edited.

This is opening the stretch option to stretch out my footage from one second to two seconds.

This shows the time stretch option and I have changed the stretch factor from 100 to 200.

This is un-ticking the preserve constant vertex and feather point count when editing masks; this is so that my traces aren't deleted when moving on to the next frame.