My main job in this week is to use After Effects to integrate 2D and 3D animation.
First, I rendered all the 3D animation sequences of the virtual scene, and Yiyu, who made the actual scene, also rendered the 3D animation of the natural scene. I sorted all the resources and put them in a folder. Jieyi gave me the three sketches she drew as resources and finally imported them into the after-effect database.
I made the part about the virtual world first because this part requires a lot of animation with special effects. I pre-compose each shot to make it easier to produce.
In the post-compositing, I did not use a lot of special effects. The main special effects are Fill, blur, glow, and mask animation, mainly used to match some overlapping, time, and match rhythm of 2D animation with the rhythm of 3D animation, etc.
Almost all 3D scenes use simple materials, making the animation style more cartoony, with no particularly complicated effects. Still, the effect of combining with simple 2D animation is satisfactory. Coupled with some motion graphic animation, I think the final effect was quite interesting.
In compositing, I use the tracking and mask functions the most. most of the 2D animation drawing mistakes can be solved with these two functions. These two functions are also very suitable for 2D animation production occlusion, such as the paint river in the scene and some frogs interact with the scene.
The use of 3D layers is also very suitable for this animation. I used this layer to make animation transitions and a virtual screen that rotates 360° in the scene’s center.
It is worth mentioning that there is no need for a particularly complicated animation in the scanning animation. Just let the audience know that this action is “scanning” and “uploading.” Hence, I use the trim paths function of the line to combine the drawing frame shape and use the most detailed animation with appropriate animation rhythm and timing so that the painting on the table in the movie looks like it has been scanned and uploaded.
Virtual scene rendering
Rendering of realistic scenes( by Yitu)
Paintings for transition (by Jieyi)
The entire After effect project file
Special effects used in production
Fill: I generally use this to change colors：
Gaussian blur: Generally used to produce effects that conform to the depth of field in 3D scenes：
glow: commonly used when making motion graphic animations with a sense of technology:
Tracking: Tracking is generally divided into 2D and 3D because the lens movement is relatively simple, so I only use 2D tracking, which is used to keep the 2D animation in the correct position in the lens:
Mask: The mask is straightforward to use. Generally, I use it to modify the drawing errors of some 2D animations and the occlusion relationship between objects in the scene.:
3D layer: the use of this layer needs to create a camera in the composition so that this picture can be used as a 3D panel, which I use to make virtual screens in animation:
The simplest transform animation:
trim paths: The function that can make the lines stretch. I created the effect of scanning light by combining mask, 3D layer, transform, opacity, and trim path and using a suitable rhythm:
Visual effects after 2D&3D animation synthesis: