MOTION GRAPHICS

Classes

Bob introduced us to the world of motion graphics this week with a simple 2D tutorial using After Effects. Using a simple cube, we followed along as he demonstrated some of the 12 principles of animation.

He recommended watching Alan Becker's explanation of the 12 Principles, which I agree is one of the clearest breakdowns of each of the principles online.

IDEAS FOR MY MOTION GRAPHICS PROJECT

by EXTON Graphics

by Michael Marshall - JUMP TO 2:51

INITIAL IDEA

A simple shape (ball/sphere?) appears, bouncing around the screen. Begins to centre in the screen and moves erratically and spinning adding more motion (Demonstrating the 12 Principles). Changes colours. Eventually spins so fast it morphs into a 3D rendered version of itself and perhaps explodes? Metallic/Grungy background, with a shiny glossy shape? Neon glows? Shape changes form from solid to liquid.

The transition from 2D to 3D: 2D moving shape is black on a white/coloured background. It eventually envelops the screen into black darkness. A 3D version of itself then appears from the darkness.

by Sudesh Kumar - JUMP TO 2:02

THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO SAY

What message am I trying to get across?

Play some of the exercises above demonstrating the 12 Principles from Bob's classes

Rethinking My Idea

The main problem with my initial idea is that it did not communicate an idea. The task is to communicate an idea through motion. Therefore, I had to go back to the drawing board with my idea. I started to research more into motion graphics artists and the things that are usually communicated in their work. Much of their work was used in advertising. I stumbled upon this video which demonstrated liquid motion. I loved how fluid and satisfying the movement was. I began to build up a library of videos and tutorials about liquid motion. I felt that this would be a good road to go down for my motion graphics project. I wanted to communicate a visualisation or advertisement for a fizzy drink. 

Storyboard

I kept my storyboard rather simple colour-wise. I wanted to maintain a sense of continuity between each shot and use liquid motion to transition from each panel. In order to communicate a lemonade visualisation, I chose a light blue to contrast the vibrant citrusy yellows, oranges and greens of the liquids. Bob seemed to like the idea so I proceeded onto the next stage: the animatic.

Animatic

I began to make my animatic in TvPaint. I generally used 12fps for each shot and the entire animatic ended up at around 45 seconds. I wanted to keep to the simple blue and yellow colour scheme for consistency. The movement aimed to be simple, fluid and satisfying. I watched some tutorials on how to achieve convincing liquid motion which helped a lot. Learning the principles of how liquids move was quite interesting. Droplets move and drag at varying rates depending on how fast the main liquid mass is moving. Keeping in mind the 12 principles of animation we'd been studying in Bob's class, I tried to incorporate anticipation, secondary action, slow ins and outs, and satisfying arcs. Bob suggested editing the shots to a beat, so I began to look into light, fun songs with a quick beat. Lemonade by SOPHIE was the song I eventually chose as it has a fun, poppy beat which seemed to fit the movement very well.

Animating

The main purpose of this project was to allow us to learn After Effects as it seems to be a growing requirement to know the software in studios around NI. From a YouTube playlist I had been building up, I started watching several tutorials and getting to grips with the software. It seemed challenging at first, however it shared a lot of features with Photoshop and Maya. I tailored what I had learned from these tutorials to my own shot list. The finished product was made up of 50% After Effects work and 50% TvPaint work. It was difficult to get convincing movement and to get the timing right at first with the liquids. One major problem I had at the end of animating was that some of the shots had slightly varying shades of blues and yellows. I wanted the shots to transition smoothly without noticing any colour differences. This was a task to resolve as I had to match the colour grading in post production as best I could. If I could go back I would have been much stricter with the colours I was using and picked two definite shades from the offset.

Editing

I edited the finished shots together in Sony Vegas. I cut the audio clip to 60 seconds and spliced together an intro and outro to match the movement. It ended up at 50 seconds which I was happy with. I wanted to have each beat of the song line up nicely with a cut/transition. This kept the movement interesting and fun to watch. In the end up I was happy with the finished product.

You can watch the final product HERE