Previs class note:
This week I edited all the shots and improved the animation a bit. The plot becomes smoother and easier to understand as the changed shots get better.
According to the teacher’s request last week, I changed several places and added some content according to my judgment.
This is the final effect. I divided the cutscene into two parts. When the character dropped the box on the table, I deliberately made a “throwing” action, which is more flexible.
This is the effect after I improved:
*updated in the holiday
I was fortunate the teacher was willing to give me some feedback during the holiday, so I changed the content again:
- The character is attracted by the sound of gears rolling, preferably with sound effects or other effects that can represent the sound
- The height when the character takes the gift box from the mailbox is wrong
- “Your Admirer” on the box
- The sound effect of character 2 knocking on the wall
- The movement of character 2 walking one step is uncoordinated
- The expression of character 1 changes in the subsequent shots (2D can be used)
The teacher said many things that needed to be changed in one breath…
But it works!
These changes can indeed convey more information, so I drew some auxiliary textures in PS, and I decided to use 2D comic effects to show the sound effects first.
Then this is the improvement I made with AE:
This is the sound of the gears and elevators creaking.
On the box: From your admirers.
This is what I judged to be added, an action scared by the clock’s bell, and the lightning symbol represents the bell of the watch.
This is character 2 knocking on the wall.
The following few pictures are the characters’ expressions, and the order is: surprised, shy, panicked and shy, and speechless.
End! (I think this font is cute, so I put it up)
The final previs：
I think that’s the final result of what I wanted to do with this story, it’s a little bit different from what I wanted to do in the first place, but it’s easier to understand, it’s engaging for the audience, and these changes are practical, attractive. The finished product makes me delighted, and I think it is a very warm and lovely story.
Mechanical arm class note:
This week, my job was to blend the arm animation with the video shot, all the work made in After Effect. Firstly, because my arm is a different shape from the robotic arm, it doesn’t cover my arm completely, so I created a new mask and added a gradient color to blend it more into the video.
Secondly, DaVinci’s keyer function was not perfect, and the outline of my arm was faintly visible, so I used the background image to obscure the part of the video below my small arm.
Finally, I found that the difference in brightness between the left and right sides of the video was significant and could cause disharmony, so I gave the right side of the image a higher brightness to make the overall video look more harmonious.
Because my robot arm design is simple, it was a bit boring after adding it to the screen. Thirty-five seconds of animation could add more interesting effects, so I added some attractive mechanical lights to the background, which is also a kind of animation, to make the screen look less boring.
Finally, I also added an animation of the aiming mechanical electronics to give the whole animation a storytelling look, with the character becoming a futuristic robotic warrior was being aimed.
Create a new mask to cover up the part without the arms.
Use an unoccupied background to mask the following part of the arm animation.
Lighten the right half.
The finished effect
Adding a fun little animation to the background
The effect of adding the robot arm：
This is the arm without the aiming animation. Cool enough, but it’s not interesting enough.
So I added another aiming animation， created the aperture first
Counting the number panel to the aperture
Add it to the animation and scale it over time to look like it’s being aimed or scanned.
This is the final result