Project Breakdown: "Disconcerted Dan"
- Savannah Edwards
- Mar 26, 2019
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 30, 2019
Rapid production was an interesting and enlightening project, reinforcing my knowledge of the full production pipeline in doing each stage solo.
Below is the final product of the project. Dan is an employee of Hell Corp. He has had an epiphany about his job and is unsure whether or not what he is doing is morally correct. He opens the blind in his office to confirm his fear and hears the screams of hell.
Workflow Breakdown
As in any workflow, some stages had to be re visited to improve and fix up particular bits so there was a bit of some stages trickling into each other.
1. Brainstorm : The first thing I did was listen to the audio that we were provided with and noted which ones I liked. With those pieces of audio and the fact that this was to be a rapid production in mind I listed ideas that were going to be simple to execute, appealing and entertaining.
2. Concept art, collecting references and Audio Mixing :
After settling on an idea I got stuck into drawing out as many characters as possible. I really tried to keep the shape of the character as simple and basic as possible to make it easier to animate, and more importantly, easy to rig. I ended up settling on a red tapered rectangular devil character as pictured on the right. I also began to collect various visual references of generic to luxurious offices and so on. As well as drawing and reference collection, I outsourced some extra audio to play and mix into the given audio.
3. Concept iterations, the art bible, and starting the basic rig : Remembering how tough it was to rig in After Effects last trimester I started the rigging process early, and rather than making the main body assets externally in Illustrator I created them directly in After Effects and updated the character rig as the design was developed. In regards to rigging, at this point I had only been focusing on the basic functions of the rig and easier parts that I had done before ie; the limbs and mouth. Whilst this was all happening I was sketching and designing other components of the sequence for the art bible.
4. Storyboarding: Meanwhile I was also drawing up the storyboard as it is an unavoidable and crucial part to visualising the sequence. To the right was the first rough version of the storyboard, which was later developed further into a refined version which was then used for the animatic. The great thing about this particular sequence was that I chose simple and still camera shots so it was easy to recycle thumbnails that I had already drawn.
5. Animatic & Previs: The next stage after storyboarding was turning it into an animatic, followed by previs. This stage was really helpful in making sure the timing was correct and the audio wasn't too long and lined up properly. I was at a bit of a loss for what difference there was between an animatic and previs in 2D, however I was told that I should include the cameras in the previs which makes it the only difference between the two clips. In the first animatic I had initially made a darker more gothic "mahogany" office but then opted for a more "middle management" office look after feedback.
6. Complex 2D rigging/ Experimentation with rigging masks:
First thing I got out of the way was the facial rig for the first shot and once I had finished that I moved straight onto making the main rig move from side to side. I didn't want to make a third rig for the side view of Dan and was adamant on make the main rig as diverse as possible and wanted to challenge myself. This required a lot of experimentation with rigging masks in After Effects. This was the stage that took me the longest as when I looked online for help I found forums where my questions were never answered so I had to figure it out on my own. I looked to the how I had rigged and masked the tongue in the mouth rig as reference and managed to finally pull it off. The hardest part of this rig was getting the horns to switch sides correctly when Dan turned to his side. I finally got it right and now even the colour of the horn that goes behind the one in the foreground actually darkens very slightly. Once I figure out how to rig the horns right I could finally figure out how to rig the office chair using the same technique. Whilst also doing the complex rigging, I made sure the basic functions were still fine even though they aren't used much in the animation.
7. Lip Syncing: I hadn't done lip syncing before, but I had made a mouth rig for lip syncing last trimester and I used the same technique to create the mouth for Dan. I wanted to get the lip sync done early so I wouldn't have to worry about it later when doing the rest of the animation. As well as looking up a number of mouth references for each consonant and vowel looked on the lips, I also filmed myself saying the line and repeating it a few times to use as reference. I also had a mirror on my desk and repeated the lines a few times again to double check . It was rather smooth sailing lip syncing with this mouth rig.
8. Making the set in Illustrator and Photoshop and rigging the blinds: After I had finished Dan's two rigs completely and the lip sync. I moved onto creating the assets and the rig for the blind to open and shut which was pretty simple. The backgrounds were made first in illustrator and then later edited in photoshop with additions of the framed "photographs" , the calendar and a Master's Degree Certificate. The blinds were created in Illustrator first, then moved into Photoshop to add gradients as I didn't know how to in Illustrator, and then back into After Effects to rig.
9. Painting and completing the detail shot: I painted shot 3 of Dan's eyes in Photoshop using the simulated "oil" brushes to create a Spongebob Squarepants inspired detail shot. I had initially thought to make my own cartoonish fire, however I thought it best to use real footage so it wouldn't detract from the "realness" of the detail shot. So after moving it back into After Effects, I made two circle masks for the eyes and then composited the fire over the top as well as adding a colour dodge filter over the top to make it glow more. I then decided to slow the fire down a little more to make the shot seem more dramatic.
10. Animation pass 1 -5 : The animation of the rest of the sequence was completed much faster than expected. I think this was due to me being able to work the rigs with ease, moreover it was only very simple and limited animation that was needed from the limbs. I had already done the more complicated portion of it with the facial and mouth rigs earlier on in the process. Both animation and lighting were interlinked when doing the passes to fix minor issues up.
11. Lighting: Lighting was another tough part for me to figure out at first in After Effects due to not really having played with some of the preset effects that it offers. I can say I am definitely more well off knowing how to do simple lighting for simple cartoon style sequences such as this one.
12. Rendering, compositing and completion: Once all the shots had been animated in their seperate compositions in After Effects, I exported them into Premiere Pro to line up the audio, and arrange the shots as needed. Once completed I rendered out the final product (the top of this page).
Research, Resources and Annotations
My resources here are in fact resources that I found the most useful and revisited from last trimester when doing the Pickles project as I was using the same tools and similar techniques as this project. I ended up figuring out a lot of techniques and tools on my own which guidance from what I already known from the tutorials I had watched last trimester. I didn't watch any specific tutorials for things like lighting and making the side to side rig.
backwoods animation. (2018). After Effects Tutorial - Mouth Rig | Joysticks n Sliders | Easy to animate mouth for lip sync [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2SkLMtgR0
A super straightforward tutorial and fantastic mouth rig for lip sync. I had used this type of mouth rather successfully on Pickles last trimester and wanted to revisit and actually try lip syncing with it this trimester .
Gigantic. (2017). HEAD ANIMATION Tutorial - Face Rigging in After Effects [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIRPxf_j21s
Another straightforward tutorial which I re-watched to remind myself how Joysticks 'n Sliders worked.
Plaskow, R. (2017). Rigging With Rubberhose | How To Animate [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=506_DILyTnE
I revisited this tutorial to double check some functions in Rubberhose 2 and remind myself of a few things I had forgotten. Really easy and simple tutorial to follow along with.
Appraisal
This was a project that I am really proud of, in both the progress I have made and the final product that I have produced solo. It was a challenge in some parts where things just weren't going how they should have ben but I found myself really enjoying solving these issues and troubleshooting. I have loved animating and rigging in After Effects and I wish to continue to practice doing so as well as learning more. When first approached this project I was excited to see what I could do as After Effects had piqued my interest greatly last trimester when I was animating in it for the first time. However I also was very concerned with how I would manage my time well and I am pleased to say that I managed very well with time to spare.
In short, I took great pleasure in seeing fruits of my labour and learned a great deal more about animating in After Effects.
Cheers,
Grassland
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