Study Task - Puppet Master - Puppet Pin Tool

In this blog post I will be walking through my experience with the puppet tool in adobe after affects, what i did with the puppet tool and how i think it could be useful in future projects.
First off I decided to take a picture of myself (top left) and use that as a character asset, I first had to remove the background from my original image using the Polygonal lasso tool in photoshop, this was due to the magic wand tool having trouble differentiating the background of the image and my clothing. After i removed the background of my character asset i then saved that  image as a .PNG file, this is so that there would be a transparency on the background of my image so that the character asset could be placed in environments such as the one I found on google of a dessert scene.
I used the advanced search settings in google to find an image with the correct aspect ratio of 1920 x 1080  (16:9), this would then automatically be the correct ratio for my animation when placed in after affects.
First off in after affects I opened up the puppet pin tool, placing pins on the joints of my character (or image of myself), then once all the pins were in place I decided to use the real-time record option to animate one body part of my character, the real time record option allows you to record the motion a pin undertakes whilst moving it around and holding CMD on a mac (CTRL for Windows).
I repeatedly used the real-time record option to animate each body part as I felt that I had more control over the movement this way.

Once I had all of the body parts moving and had my character pulling some funky dance moves I decided to render out the footage as an image sequence and import it into adobe premiere.

Upon working in premiere I dropped in my background image (with the correct aspect ratio) and then placed my rendered after affects composition into the sequence, I then duplicated the finished composition and altered the scale of the individual characters to give a sense of depth for this psychedelic dance troupe that I had spawned.

Overall I think that the puppet pin tool is a fantastic tool that if given a little more attention and used with a considered approach, could be used to produce some very interesting animation or even visual effects.

Production diary - Week Three - Character & narrative development

This week I focused on developing more depth to the characters in my animation by deciding what differences they should have. One character being a passive one with intentions to mediate a situation such as an argument, and the other being the opposite with an argumentative and challenging nature towards the other character.
I am posed with the problem of how to represent this visually in terms of the way the characters move and their overall look, I shall produce a series of sketches for each of the characters (perhaps 5 with some substantial detail and annotations detailing why I have made certain decisions.
The characters (Ben and Bill) are flowers, Bill is the character who challenges and seeks to evoke an emotional response from Bill, who brushes off his verbal attacks with ease. I would like the character of Ben to be one of someone who is composed and thinks about what they say before they say it, contrasting with the character of Bill who will be someone who acts in child like way - motivated by jealousy and this will be presented through the dialogue that the two characters engage in.

By developing the depth in my two characters' personalities, it has been easier to construct a narrative due to the fact that I am able to plan their actions in accordance with what is happening in their world - in this case a garden wall with a view out onto fields behind them. As the sun rises the plants/flowers awake and turn their attention toward the sun, the objective for Bill in this narrative is to try and outgrow Ben who, we can tell by his physical qualities, is a more well established plant with more foliage.
As the day turns to evening, Bill's confidence in his ability to outgrow Ben is diminished and due to his unfortunate placement on the garden wall, Bill is now in a shadow cast by the garden shed. We then see a change in Ben's character as he gloats and poses reasons as to why Bill is in the shadow, goading him into confrontation.

The plan for the week ahead will be to:

- Produce a finished script

- Have all assets/props completed, scanned and edited where needed

- Produce character's body designs

- Have a finished storyboard with added annotations for dialogue and any audio.





Here is an aproximation of how the first scene may look..

Production Diary - Week Two - Asset Production

 I have decided to start producing my individual assets to get more of an idea of how the story may progress - i find working on the practical side of things with only rough ideas at present helps to spark new ideas and new depth to the project.
I have opted for bright acrylic paint for the objects within my animation to give texture and the aesthetic of a production made for young audiences e.g bright colours etc.
This is because I want to juxtapose this with some adult themes within the narrative of the animation, perhaps in the way that the characters behave - with the discourse between them being something that you would not hear on a children's television program.
When I first canned in each asset the colours seemed very dull and so i had to adjust them in photoshop to bring out the textures a little more.
Overall I have realised I need to speed up my working practice in the next week, this will help me to formulate a clear narrative and outcome of the story.

Production Diary - Week one - idea generation

 For this project I want to bring more maturity into my finished product, so I began to take inspiration from television programs that have adult themes and humor, mainly sketch shows - due to the 30 second requirement of the brief.

However I did take inspiration from the channel 4 sitcom 'Peep show' for an idea on the theme 'rivals'. The idea revolved around having the main character going to work and having to put up with an annoying co worker in an office setting, one that he had to compete with to win the affection of his crush.

I felt that this was a good idea for the theme of 'rivals', but could not think of any real practical way of animating the story that would fit involve a mixed media approach which is how I would like to go about producing this animation.

 When I began thinking about ideas for the animation I realized that the kind of animation I want to produce would be a very dialogue heavy end product, so I had to think about the practicality of this and realised that i would have to produce lots of different shaped mouths - either digitally or by hand - and to me this did not seem necessary so i have decided early on to instead use live action video for the character's mouths.
This may result in a very comical looking end result which i am okay with - as long as it can be tied in with the overall aesthetic of the finished animation.

I decided to simplify my idea's - still focusing on the theme of rivals, I looked at the word 'rivals' and thought of other words that could be associated along with it, 'competition' was the first word that came to mind.
I had the idea of two flowers on a wall arguing over who can grow the fastest, or attract the most bees etc. I then realized that i had the opportunity to make something that could be quite playful in the sense that I could include a level of maturity in its delivery but at the same time have an aesthetic that would be similar to some children's television programs.

This is due to the bright colours and acrylic paint that i will be using to create each asset of my animation.




Here is a rough storyboard/thumbnails of what might occur in the animation.
It is still in the developmental stage and will need to develop organically as the project progresses, this is due to the fact that I will be using live action video for the character's faces and want to give the dialogue a slightly improvised feel to it.
I will however use a simple formula to tell a simple narrative of rivalry - the character's may even put aside they're differences to help one another.

Upon reflection I feel that the idea that i am going to stick with will have its challenges in the technical aspect of the project but with some experimentation I will be able to overcome those challenges.

Character and Narrative - potential & limitations - Research: Technique

Technique: mixed media composite

the advantage of having a mixed media approach to animation is that when you are faced with a creative problem - such as when a movement may be too time consuming to animate through traditional means you can substitute the movement for something simpler such as digital key framing, this may however affect the overall style/look of the animation - but depending on the source imagery and its physical properties , one might be able to achieve the same results that were originally intended.
Without straying too far away from the topic of technique it is important to recognize that different techniques can have altogether different outcomes in terms of the aesthetic of the animation, as well as the possibilities of certain techniques to mimic the properties of others.
For example a technique whereby you would traditionally render the line work of an animation and add colour digitally would result in the animation looking asif it had been rendered entirely digitally, as opposed to inking each frame by hand - resulting in a more honest/humble looking outcome in my opinion.
It could be said that because most animation that we see being used for entertainment is produced - by and large- digitally, we as consumers are more likely to say that digital animation has a more professional look. But this is not to say that traditional techniques cannot look 'professional'. An example of this could be the way Noel Fielding has curated his paintings and artwork into the animations used in his show 'luxury comedy'. it is the combination of painted backgrounds and the technique of rendering painted backgrounds into digital animations that i would like to draw my inspiration from for this brief.