After presenting the rough animatic to the rest of the class, I took into account the feedback I'd received, plus a few points I personally felt needed attention, and began to re-work the illustrations a little.
The first thing I wanted to fix was the narrative: there were a few lines in it that I thought would need a bit of re-writing. I juggled a few ideas around and got the second draft of that complete. If it needs changing later on, it's likely to only be minor changes, so it shouldn't affect things much at all.
I gave some thought to the storyboard changes I'd be making. The most important things to consider were the order of shots - it had been recommended that I draw more attention to Taal's transformation by swapping the positions of the original panels 6 and 7, which would result in the two shots of Taal (before and after transformation) being right next to each other, utilising a fade to transition between each stage of his transformation. I completely agreed with this change and had a wee think about how it might impact the flow of the animation. The major change I wanted to make would be the re-design of the demon-lord shot. I wasn't happy with the composition of the shot, or the character design I'd sketched out, so I thought about how I could improve that one. I also wanted to place the environment into my storyboard, just to complete it a little and experiment with a few ideas prior to the final illustrations. I'd always had the idea of setting the story in a desolate land, but that idea quickly wore a little thin due to the unoriginality of it. I sketched out a few ideas and soon found myself drawn to the idea of a winter setting. It's a combination I've dabbled in before, there's something about having the fantasy genre in a cold, snowy environment that really appeals to me; I think it has something to do with the added threat it brings to the heroes. It's certainly becoming a very popular setting for Fantasy, with Skyrim and Game of Thrones having done it so well lately.
The winter setting provides a lot of options for adding atmospherics to each shot, which is one of my main priorities this term: to increase my skills at bringing depth and atmosphere to an illustration. Being able to produce layers of snow in each shot would benefit the parallax effect I was going for, so I saw this as a prime opportunity to bring something of my own to the style. With this figured out, I gave it a shot and drew up the revised storyboard, taking into account most of the changes I'd be making, plus adding the environment and effects. Following the same procedure as before, I was able to preserve each layer as required for a parallax animatic test later.
I took each shot into After Effects and went about animating them in the same way as before. With all the extra layers required for the setting, plus mist and weather effects, it was a bit more complicated than before, but I think the end result worked out okay. There's still plenty of room for improvement but it's definitely coming closer to what I imagine the final animation to look like.
I started by getting the first draft of my narrative dialled in a little, putting a day into this stage to try and get something decent out of it. I'm no writer, so this part was a bit of a struggle for me, but I tried to make it as good as I could. I've read enough fantasy novels that I know what works and what doesn't, so I winged it through this until I had something I was relatively happy with. Since the story had been at the back of my mind for a few weeks, most of the work was already done for me - I just had to spend a little more time producing original character names and considering how the narrative might lie upon the illustrations. Coming up with a name for the main character was quite tricky; I knew he was going to be a bad guy by the end of the narrative so I needed a name that would fit his transition. I Google'd a few sources and compiled a list of character names from Diablo (game), Lord of the Rings (movie) and a book I'm currently reading, Legend by David Gemmell. The list showed quite clearly the differences between good and evil character names, also races. There are quite a lot of generic traits and styles within the fantasy genre so I decided to play it safe and abide by a few of their rules. From my list, I scanned through all the names and sounds I thought might fit my character, then made a few of my own until I had one I thought was original enough to use myself.
Happy with the progress I'd made, I considered how the pace might change throughout the narrative and planned for it to follow the slow-fast-slow system. When I read the narrative back to myself at the pace I expected it to take, it took about 1 minute 30 secs, so I knew I would be well within the time limit.
I assumed that each line of narrative would require 1 illustration, so I began to plan for 8 in total, with another 2 or 3 flash-images to help maintain the pace during the fast section. Having already drawn up 2 sketches that fuelled my inspiration in the first place, I thought that these would work well alongside the story, so kept them in as 2 of the preliminary illustrations. As for the rest, I did a lot more drawing to see if I could come up with interesting compositions for the others. Several sketches later and I was getting some solid ideas to use as a foundation. I pasted them all together and began thinking about the motion I could get the camera to take throughout each scene. As I had been reworking each sketch earlier, I'd been giving the camera work a lot of thought, so already had a good idea of what I was aiming for here, however this was still a very experimental stage so I couldn't be sure if my plans would be successful or not until the Animatic was produced. Adding the intended camera motions to the storyboard, plus giving an idea of how the narrative would be integrated, I used this as a guide to make a quick animation test. When drawing up the storyboard I'd been careful to work at a large enough resolution and keep layers separate so that I could pull the file straight into After Effects ready for animating.
I just followed my storyboard guide for this part, sticking to the same process as in my earlier experiments: turn each layer into 3D space and animate a camera within it. Pre-composing each shot, I edited them all together and tested the flow of the animation.
It seemed to flow well enough, although the lack of voice over makes it a bit unclear how well the narrative will fit the animation, so I'll need to get a recording quickly. Once I get that sorted out I'll hopefully be able to tie it together pretty well.
There are 2 or 3 shots that I'd like to change as I don't think they're dynamic enough for the result I'm after, but other than that I'm semi-happy with the result. At least the Animatic has made it quite clear what areas need refinement or re-working.
I thought I would do an extra bit of research into some backstory/cutscene/intro segments before getting fully stuck into my own work. A few examples came to mind earlier today, so I'll take a quick look at them to see if I can learn anything else that might be worth including in my own workflow.
DARK SOULS
I love this intro, the story is epic and the visuals are superb. Despite being a CGI cinematic, I think there's still quite a bit to learn from this one.
The intro cinematic is about 3:30 mins long, containing a decent amount of storytelling and action, presented in a dark style that fits the game perfectly. The voice-over works well and the narrative does a good job of letting the viewer know just enough information and lore at this early stage of the game.
The main attraction for me is the variety of shots and camera angles from scene to scene. A lot of dynamic compositions are presented, with lighting and atmospherics that do well to enhance each. The angles used to show the dragons (in particular Seath the Scaleless) really emphasise the fact that these are gigantic, fearsome creatures. Which in turn makes you question the immense power of Lord Gwyn and his Knights, who strike them down with ease.
The major lesson I'll learn from this clip though, is to have a controlled pace - and change of, if possible - within my own animation. As the Dark Souls cinematic begins as a slow introduction to the setting and characters, the change in visual action is matched by the music and narrative, before fading again into a more direct introduction to the player's position within the game.
If I can manage to get this kind of effect into my own work (which I already have plans to do, but am concerned it might not be successful within a shorter timeframe) I'll be pretty happy.
LORD OF THE RINGS
In a similar manner to the Dark Souls intro, the backstory for the Lord of the Rings is summed up in a narrative that lasts for several minutes, which is supported by fantastic visuals and music that immediately immerses the viewer in the epic story.
Again, changes of pace are used to great effect, as are close ups of important elements, and far shots to capture the grandeur and scale of battle.
This clip reiterates the point that variety of shot and pace are important to maintain fluidity in a motion picture; if I can incorporate a good variety of close ups and wide shots then I should be able to create a more cinematic animation, which should hopefully counteract some of the rigidity that comes with the style of animated illustration I've chosen.
UP
This intro tells a story perfectly without the need for a single word of dialogue. If I can learn from this and mange to make an animation whose story remains clear even without the voice-over narrative or subtitles, then I'll feel I've succeeded a little.
That's not the only quality this clip has: it's also full of great shots, lighting, character animations and superb editing throughout. Adding a hard emotional hit from the storyline makes it an instant favourite.
VIKING: BATTLE FOR ASGARD
More similar to the style of work I'll be producing, I chose this intro as it matches my earlier appraisal of pace within narrative. The images keep good pace with the storyline, flashing by like an animated comic book, supported by the sound effects of battle.
There's plenty of variety in the images - I didn't feel as if I was seeing too much of any one of them - which had me going back for another viewing, even pausing the video to get a better look at some of the illustrations. I feel that might be a bit of a double-edged sword though; without the ability to pause and rewind in-game cutscenes like this, would the viewer feel detached from a clip featuring images that are there and gone in the blink of an eye? Or would the majority of players even appreciate the artwork if they're barely getting a good look at it?
That's something I'll have to consider, but the clip does have a lot of good points, particularly in the use of parallax and layered illustrations.
SUMMARY
Combined with all my other research clips for earlier posts, I think I've picked up enough notes and examples from which to learn. Obviously there's always a ton more I could learn, but at this stage I'll have to try and narrow it down to just a few points.
Everything I've picked up from my studies so far I'll be incorporating into the next stage, where I'll be finalising the narrative and trying to nail down a storyboard.
I took a bit of time out to experiment and see if it was possible for me to replicate the Borderlands animation style. I thought I had figured out in my head a fairly solid idea of how they went about animating some of the illustrations so I took an illustration into AE to give it a shot and see if I could pick up any new techniques for my own style.
The first thing I had to do was prepare the file for importing into AE. Since I already had a couple of character sketches drawn out, I chose one that I thought might provide the most visual interest for this short experiment. I inked the outlines and gave it a quick shading pass, before quickly scribbling out a scratchy BG, just so it might have something to play against, should I use the parallax technique.
Separating the image into it's relevant layers (see GIF) I imported the PSD file into AE ready to animate.
I had watched the Borderlands (1) animation a few times to refresh my memory before trying something myself. I noted that they weren't always using parallax, so I decided to try the same kind of shot as they used several times, which was a camera gently floating across a drawing as it gradually appeared upon the page.
The method in which the drawing appears looked as if they were using some kind of animated cloud effect (it reminded me of Filters > Clouds, in Photoshop) as a mask to gradually reveal the ink lines. I only knew the basics of masking in AE, so I watched a few tutorials to see if they referred to any advanced techniques. Which they didn't, so I just went ahead to try it out myself.
I quickly attempted a few things before finally getting some progress. I can't entirely remember the first few attempts and what I tried, but they were way off the mark so not really worth mentioning. At that point I was thinking of using the parallax effect, but I abandoned that idea and decided to keep the drawing (character and BG lines) on one layer, while a paper texture provided the backdrop,
The idea was to create a new solid layer which would have to behave like an animated mask, changing from black to white with a cloudy style, gradually revealing the drawing upon the paper.
I made the solid layer black and kept it above the drawing. I scanned the AE effects folder to see if anything resembled the clouds filter from Photoshop. A quick bit of experimenting with several of them and I found Fractal Noise to be the best. It was highly manipulatable and every aspect of the cloud formation could be animated, which was exactly what I was looking for.
I knew what look I was going for - similar to the way film reel burns, swiftly and erratically in big spots spreading out and catching onto others - so I adjusted the brightness, contrast and evolution of the cloud to resemble what I had in mind. Once it was behaving as I hoped, I animated each of these elements to get a bit of variation to it.
The next part of my theory was to make this black and white effect act as a mask and reveal the layer beneath, keeping the paper backdrop intact throughout. I didn't really know exactly how to do this kind of thing in AE; in Photoshop it's fairly straightforward to apply a black and white image as a mask to a layer, but AE is a little more confusing.
I played around with a few different ideas before stumbling upon track matte. I watched a short tutorial on the fundamentals of it and tried it out on my own file. By changing the track matte property of the drawing layer to Luma Matte "Black Solid 1", the effect I was after worked perfectly.
I tweaked a few of the animation settings so that the effect would occur over the space of 15 seconds or so, producing a slower, more dramatic effect. Then I took each layer into 3D space and added a new camera that would be animated to float across the page and zoom in or out on the drawing as it appeared.
I made a few different passes and edited them together to get a mini showreel to showcase the effect.
The effect worked as well as I could have hoped, so I'm pretty happy I managed to figure out the technique (despite not fully getting what I was doing, I can always go back and get better understanding of the process later). It might not look anywhere near as good as the Borderlands style, but I've picked up enough tricks from it that I might consider applying something similar to my own style later. What I didn't like about the animation style is how the image becomes distorted as the camera floats by. Perspective plays a big part in the camera view and can have some drastic effects on the proportions of the drawing, making it look a bit weird in places, but I'm sure that could be adjusted in the camera settings. I'll have to do a test at some point to see if parallax is as effective with this; I ran into some masking problems when I first tried it, which is why I went for the flat drawing look. I'll try that out again soon and see where it goes.
I spent a bit of time today thinking about and planning a few different parts of this project: a storyline that the animated cutscene will follow; how to get my ideas from my head onto a storyboard effectively; how best to execute the workflow so that the animation fits a spoken narrative; and how to implement what I've learnt from the first few parallax tests so that I can hopefully nail this first time.
STORYTELLING
I wrote a quick, brief draft that encapsulates the kind of story I'm planning on telling (obviously the story narrative is less important than the execution of the actual animation, but the two feed from each other so I feel obligated to make both aspects work well together). The story will go a little something like this:
Story First Draft
Witch-hunter (yet to be named) slays some demon whose soul subsequently possesses his sword (or he claims the demon's weapon which is already possessed).
The sword is corrupted and super-powerful.
The evil power within the sword begins to corrupt the hunter too.
He gradually becomes evil and super-powerful, losing his grasp of humanity and free-will, eventually becoming enslaved to the demon's master; a prime demon (or arch-demon kind of character (yet to be named)).
So there's still a bit of work to do in regards to finalising the story, but I'm really into it and I'm pretty excited, despite the unoriginality of it. I absolutely love the fantasy genre and have been dying to get a project that I can apply a storyline like this to, so I'll be giving it my all.
STORYBOARDING
I've got quite a few ideas going through my head already for how to get some nice visuals out of this; I'll be getting some more sketches down soon to see how things might work compositionally before I start assembling a test animation for presentation. I think the most efficient way to work this out is to consider how many shots I'm likely to require in the allotted time, and figure out how the narration will dictate the pace and flow of the animation as a whole. I have a few sources that will help me out with the storyboarding process:
Setting the Scene (MacLean)is a book I've had in my collection for over a year but have never really had the necessity for... it's now proving invaluable as it has several sections relating to storyboarding, scene layouts and animation planning that should help me to understand the best way to structure my own work. I'll go into more detail about this in a later post.
Videomaker.com posted this article: How to Make a Storyboard - Storyboard Lingo and Techniques (Albright). The article is aimed towards storyboarding for film and video and there's a lot of useful information that is applicable to some of the techniques I'll be using within my parallax shots.
WORKFLOW
Setting the Scene (MacLean) should also help with this stage as it refers to a lot of the pre-production techniques when planning animations, so hopefully there's a few tricks I can pick up from that.
At the moment, I'm thinking the best plan will be to assume that within the 2 minute timeframe of the animation I'll require between 6 and 12 different illustrations (in my parallax tests each shot was 10 seconds in length, which for some was long enough but others could have benefitted from being a little longer and less rushed in their camera movements). Once I get the narrative dialled in and have a test recording of the voice, I should be better prepared to understand exactly how many shots will suit the story, and at what pace to run them. It seems like it might be a bit of a juggling act later on, but we'll see how it goes.
The earlier tests lead me to believe that my current art style will work fine for this project and should produce a decent result. I tend to try and make the characters pop from the BG by leaving them outlined, so if I keep this method and maintain a painted background, the contrast should enhance the parallax effect a bit.
One thing I'd like to ensure is that I include more FG elements into each shot, to really push the depth of each image. In some cases, the floating particles are enough, but I'd like to exaggerate as many elements of each shot as I can.
Following on from the parallax illustration tests, I've started to wonder which direction I should take this project in... on one hand I'm very tempted to use my own style and have several illustrations animated to a narrated story, while on the other I really like the look of both the Darksiders and Borderlands animation styles, and would love to try my hand at something more like that.
I've been doing some reverse-engineering of the Borderlands style and have a pretty solid idea of how to replicate the techniques and get a similar result. The problem is that my finished animation would probably be exactly that: a similar result, as I'm struggling to think of anything new that I might be able to bring to that style.
What I might do is test a few illustrations out with the animation techniques I think I've learnt from Borderlands, to see if there's anything that I can take into my own art style later, to further enhance the final look of that. I'll see how it goes.
Anyhoo, now that I've decided to go with the narrated animation style, it's time to start throwing some ideas around and figure out exactly what kind of story I want to tell.
Whenever I get stuck at this stage of a project, I usually find it helps to put on a music playlist and do a bit of sketching until some ideas begin to flow. What I like most about this method is that as I sketch - characters, environments or whatever else - I'm constantly doing some vague storytelling in my head, trying to ground my drawings in some kind of reality. This results in a ton of ideas coming out and altering the sketches to some degree (sometimes for the better, sometimes not).
By the end of a few hours sketching, I had this guy:
His outfit and armour design is in reference to a picture I made earlier in the year "Witch Hunter":
I'd never really come up with any kind of story for this guy, nor an explanation for the artefact he holds; at the time I had just been playing around with some alternative fantasy genre designs and latched onto this one. I didn't even explain what made him a witch hunter, it just seemed like a good title at the time. Now that I've found myself sketching out a similar character, I'm thinking this might be a good opportunity to start building upon the designs and maybe get some interesting storyline going. At the least, it's a style that definitely interests me - I'd be a fool to not pursue it. I left my sketches alone for the night and returned with fresh eyes the next morning. I was still quite happy with the idea and had even spent a bit of time thinking of what storyline might fit this guy. I knew that I needed to do something about the spear I'd given him, it looked like crap and didn't fit the bill. I remembered my thought process for the artefact design in the Witch Hunter; I'd thought of it as being made from some kind of living metal, like a relic item that possessed it's own powerful soul. Applying this idea to the new weaponry, I drew up and scrapped a few iterations of a living broadsword before settling on this one:
(I also sorted out a few of the errors from the first sketch and polished things a little)
I was enjoying the direction this character was going so I kept at it a while longer. I imagined him to be a witch hunter who comes across a corrupted sword which subsequently consumes his soul. It's certainly not an original story, you'll have heard it a hundred times before, but hopefully I can make it look and feel a little bit different. I quickly sketched out another pose for the character, to try and gain some more understanding of him and this is the result:
I'd like to keep going with this one, so my next step is to get some storyboarding on the go, as well as doing a bit of technique experimentation within AE.
