IT SNOWED IN AUSTIN, TEXAS.

I just have to get the word out. Yesterday it snowed on at least three separate occasions, and if you're not from here you won't understand the joy a native Texan feels when that fluffy white stuff falls from the sky. IT'S AWESOME. It inspired me to do a very stark and deceptively simple-looking animation of a boy watching the snow fall outside his fogged-up window. I wanted it to look sort of sketchy, like a drawing, which is why it's only in black and white.

I actually made the window and the animated snow in Flash, simply because (to make a long story short) the Communications building was shut down early yesterday evening and opened late this morning due to snow/weather issues. I don't have AE on my laptop but I did have this, so...yeah.

Anyway, I imported the window and snow into After Effects and created several masks over the windows with varying levels of Feathering. (That's the foggy stuff covering the glass.) The boy was drawn by mouse (ugh) in Photoshop, each body part/article of clothing on a separate layer. I imported the layers into AE and had to reposition everything and parent the limbs together, which was WAY harder than it sounds. I animated the two masks on the lower left windowpane (one is set to add, the other subtract) to change size and shape as the boy's hand goes over them, one in a circular motion, the other from left to right. One of the requirements for the assignment was to add an animated mask wipe, so I had the kid literally wipe away the mask. Aren't I witty?? ...

It's hard to see the mask because everything is white, and if I could go back and change it I would give the sky a different color so you could see the fog effect better. Unfortunately, because I did the window in Flash, I'd have to go back through the whole process again to add the background. Maybe one day I will be able to afford AE...

Now, many of the following effects are there, you just can't see them because they were done for editing purposes. My first problem was the window frame (the cross thing in the middle of the window). I forgot to fill it in with white, and when I added the snow animation in the background you could see the flakes through the frame. I had to go in and animate white paint to cover up the snow bits whenever they pass through the frame... A real pain, but that's what I get for forgetting! I also had to go in and erase a TON of stray black paint that randomly popped up in the window. My laptop's screen isn't exactly clean and new, and I hadn't noticed those issues when I was working on it at home. If you went into the AE file you'd find all sorts of random keyframes where I just had to erase little specks of stuff!

When I can find it, I'm going to add sound effects for when the boy wipes away the window. The Communications department is really good about maintaining a nice sound effects library for students to use, but I couldn't find one for wiping glass. Perhaps Google holds the answer. *shrug*

Well, enjoy! Today it's bright and sunny outside, which is nice, but I sure do love the snow. :)

~Becca

Assignment 4: Arwing & Wolfen

I know, I know. Not much different than last time. This time, though, I used "nesting" to make my Skyscape picture shake in the background by turning its layers into a pre-composition and applying the Wiggler effect and Motion Blur to it. I also added a Wolfen to chase my Arwing. You may not be able to tell very well, but I added very slight ease in/ease outs to the ships as they zoom in and off screen. I actually am not too happy with the result (I think it looks a little stilted, especially toward the end there...) but, like I said last time, I'm learning.

Again, sound was done in Logic Pro. I used a combination of F5 and Marchetti sound fx for the Wolfen, and added a few more Harrier and Gnat fx to the Arwing. I also added an avalanche rumble.

Next time I'll do something completely different, I swear! This week was just kind of crazy because I have two midterms in the next two days. :) Happy Mardi Gras!!!

~Becca

Assignment 3: Arwing Zoom

An Arwing from Nintendo's Star Fox series zooms off into the distance.

I'm learning After Effects for the FIRST TIME EVER so please don't be too harsh. I'm not going to lie, AE scares the crap out of me. As soon as I open up the interface and see all those little buttons and parameters I automatically go into panic-mode. So I'm still learning...

The ship has both a motion blur and a gaussian blur (however you spell it) applied to it, and I sketched out its motion path. I would've simply manually moved its position, but AE kept making its path curve instead of the straight line I wanted. Another thing I'll have to figure out. You can't really tell, but I manipulated the Arwing's rotation a bit throughout its flight to give it a bit more movement. If I had time to be really nit-picky, I would go back and quicken the Arwing's launch in front of the planet and slow its disappearance into the background a bit more, since that's how movement and depth-perception work in real life...

I wanted to make the background sort of shake using the Wiggler effect just before the ship passes by the camera to give it a little realism, but I'm not quite sure how to do that, yet, since my Skyscape picture was divided into many layers in AE. I'm sure there is a way to group the layers in the program and then apply the same effect to all of them, I just don't know how yet. I also wanted to make the engine glow on and off, but, again, I'm still figuring it all out. :/

The sound effect I created in Logic Pro. It's the combination of a Harrier engine revving, a Gnat flying by overhead, a flanged whoosh noise, and a synthy sort of 'waah'. (It's hard to explain that last one!) The result sounds a little too jettish for me, and, looking back, I should've added a space depth effect so it's delay would've sounded more like the ship was in space. Then again, in real life there is no sound in space, so I guess I can do whatever I want! I had to manipulate the panning and volume of all of those sound fx so that they went from right to left, soft to loud to soft, following the Arwing's flight.

If I had time, I would've made a space battle. Perhaps for my next assignment...?

~Becca

P.S. Sorry for the poor video quality. I had originally posted it on Vimeo, but it's STILL "waiting in line..." I posted it yesterday. I don't know if it's normal for it to take so long (I'm new to Vimeo), but I went ahead and posted it on my YouTube account. So there ya go!

Arwing (c) Nintendo
Arwing picture (c) ZeroBullet

Assignment 1: 'Skyscape'

Well, quality is obviously lost when posting Photoshop artwork on your blog, but oh well, it's done! Here is 'Skyscape,' and though it isn't much, it's my first "space art." I really just wanted to try and make a planet on Photoshop, so my first assignment for my Motion Graphics class provided me with a great excuse to finally try it.

For the planet, I used a photograph of some granite, cloned the heck of out it onto a larger canvas, then used the elliptical tool to trim it into a circular shape. Then I applied the 'spherize' distortion effect a few times to make it more...spherical. From there I added several more textures at various levels of color, saturation, and opacities to make the planet's surface not look so much like granite.

I left that alone for a bit and turned my attention to the atmosphere, that glowy part of the planet. I made three layers of three circles, the bottom one a base color, the middle the atmosphere, and the top the shadow. I added an inner glow, outer glow, and inner shadow to the atmosphere as well as its bluish color, then set the layer to screen. The planet's shadow has a gaussian blur added to it at 100 points, then I moved it underneath the atmosphere level. I stretched the shadow really big to give a softer sort of blur across the upper left of the planet. As a result, though, I had to give the shadow layer a mask and 'erase' all of the extra shadow hanging off the lower right end of the circle so it wouldn't interfere with the sky I would be putting behind it. (Don't worry, Ben, when I say 'erase' I mean I painted over what I wanted gone...or whatever the technical terminology is!) It was a pain, and I'm sure there is a smarter way of going about getting rid of it...someone let me know. Finally I applied the original planet's surface texture above the base color layer and below the shadow and atmosphere layers.

The starry background is simply made up of monochromatic noise (which I tweaked so the stars wouldn't look so uniform) with a colored layer over it at 50% opacity. The space dust is a composite of various keyed-out photos of clouds with varying levels of opacity. It looked a lot nicer at its full resolution. At this size, the space clouds look a little too messy for my liking

Anyway, I enjoyed finally making a planet. I really wanted to make this into a Firefly tribute and add Serenity in there somewhere but I ran out of time. I just finished the TV series (I know, I'm like 5 years late or whatever) and I am oh so sad it's over. :( Anyway, like I said, this is my first space art so I'm sorry it looks amatuerish. Practice makes perfect! I'll just have to make a few solar systems to get really good. :)

~Becca