Compositing Shots in our animation
Arguably the second most important stage of the animation, besides the actual animation, is the composition of shots. For this task we split the shots between us equally, although I ensured that I was to composite all the shots in the animation that involved my character. We created a shared pool of assets which we would use for our animation. Vlad created the background skybox as a timelapse which we colour corrected and applied an echo effect for the background layer of each shot. Vlad also created the waves we applied wave-warp to in order to simulate a dreamy oceanscape. However, once i imported these assets into After Effects to use for the shots I was tasked with compositing, I found out that the dimensions were not 1920 x 1080, so I had to change the composition settings and thus stretch the assets. The dip in quality wasn't a deal breaker, but in future I will make sure to address technical specifications with my partner beforehand.
In order to ensure continuity with the waves between the shots I would be compositing and the shots my partner would be compositing, we outlined things such as wave speed and wave height.
We also conversed back and forth about placement of props within the scene to ensure continuity. In hindsight it would have been easier had we created an environmental layout highlighting where certain props were in the scene in order to amend any inconsistencies.
As we were compositing an equal number of shots between us, inevitably I would have to composite Vlad's character into some shots, as his character is a much more prominent part of the animation. However, it would have proven difficult to transfer all of Vlad's After Effects and Photoshop assets over to my computer so I could composite his rig into my shots, so instead we green-screened his character and exported his animations as .movs. I then imported these into After Effects and then, using Keylight, keyed the background to make it transparent. In order to make sure we didnt lose any quality in the transfer I made Vlad export his animations at a higher resolution so they could be scaled down, especially for the closeups.
There are also a lot of small environmental details which were added in the compositing process. Objects floating in the water bob up and down depending on their size, assets in the foreground and background are blurred accordingly to simulate depth of field and I applied lighting effects and lens flares to the lighthouse in order to serve as visual cues to direct the audience's attention to specific events in the scene. For example, for the shot where the Succubus character's head is peeking out from the water, I gradually blurred the waves in the foreground to the background in order to simulate depth of field but also to guide the audience's eye from Vlad's character to the Succubus in a subtle way. Another example of me applying this technique was with the shot of the lighthouse, where a lens flare lights up the scene before gradually fading out. The composition of the shot is laid out in a way that the important assets are presented diagonally. The eye is drawn from Vlad's character to the lighthouse via the Succubus in a diagonal motion which is mirrored by the movement of the Lens flare.
For the splashes featured in our animation I also created some water effects using the Particle Systems plugin in After Effects. I used the explosive physics preset with the faded sphere particle, then applied a vector blur and cartoon shader so to connect the particles so they looked more like water. I used this effect in two shots, for the shot where the Succubus rises from the water and for the shot where she throws Vlad's character back into the ocean. For the first one, I used particles which a small birth and large death size to simulate water bubbling and for the second one I adjusted the size cone of particle generator. I also applied a box dissolve to the animation for when the water disperses after the splash, although I am not completely satisfied with the overall effect. My tutors actually showed me a plugin package for After Effects for creating more detailed particle animations called Red Giant which I will look into using in the future.
Creating additional 3D assets in Maya
Before I composited the scenes for my animation however, I created a few last minute assets in Maya to use in my animation. After seeing the pills that my partner had made for our animation I opted to recreate them as a CG render, as I felt the contour-heavy style my partner had gone with clashed with the smooth edges of the waves. In order to create the simple pill shape I used a polygonal primitive of a cylinder as the base and extruded the faces on either side inwards until each side met in the middle. I then applied a subtle lighting effect to the pill in order to give it more depth and dimension. Then I applied a lambert texture to half of the polygon and coloured it a aqua green.
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