Project Ocean Animation

In this task everyone created a sea creature and then animated them to move on a blue background. This session helped and reminded us how to use Adobe Illustrator, import files from Illustrator to Adobe After Effects and then use After effects for animation.

This was my chosen sea creature a clown fish which I created in Illustrator. At first I had problems matching the shape of the creature when using the standard shape tools, especially the tail. Another problem I ran into was applying multiple colours to one shape like the fish's body which is orange and white. However after some research online and watching tutorials I came across the "divide objects below" tool which allowed me to cut shapes into segments and depending on which shapes I overlapped allowed me to change the shape at one end to create a completely new shape. This discovery fixed all of my problems and helped me finish my clown fish.


The Clownfish from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

After importing my clown fish in to After Effects I had to move all the layers of the fish back in to position again like a jig saw puzzle because after importing the layers are piled on top of each other in the centre of the composition. Next I created a path running from the right of my screen to the left, this is what the clown fish will follow when it started moving. At the end of the path I moved the last 2 points on the timeline much closer together so the clown fish would speed up and zip off the screen, I did this because i wanted to capture the realism of the fish being scared. Next I rotated the fins making them sway from left to right which made the fish look like it was swimming. The tail of fish needed to move in towards the screen and then back away from the screen and the angle I found couldn't be captured with the positioning and rotation transitioning tools. Instead I used the puppet tool, I put a pin right at the edge of the tail in the middle and then one at the opposite end of the tail where the tail connected to the body. Now I could move the tail in a 360 degrees angle allowing me now to make the tail sway in and out of the screen. Finally I put tiny circles along the background which act like bubbles. I made them appear from the clown fishes mouth as it swims by and then for the rest of the animation they float to the top and fade away. To make the bubbles float to the top I started the point on the timeline where the bubbles would appear in front of the fish and then the other point at the end of the timeline where the circle will be at the top of the screen. When the animation is played the bubbles will now float slowly to the top. To make the bubbles fade away away I used the same points on the timeline that makes the bubbles float to the top. The first point I changed the opacity to 100% and then the on the last point I changed it to 0% so when the animation plays the bubbles disappear slowly.

Overall the session went great. I am most proud of the clown fish itself which I created in Illustrator because I learnt a new tool and strategy when it comes to creating characters and abnormal shapes. I didn't really have any other problems than creating the clown fish, importing and making the animation I found quiet easy. In the future I can imagine my characters for an animation will look much better as I now know where to start and what to do when creating them.  

Designing Typography

In this task we designed and completed our final idea for developing our own style of typography. The reason for this exercise was to help us to get into a routine that helped us come up with ideas.

This is my plan and template for my idea of an animation that creates typography through lightsabers. These lightsabers were created in Illustrator and the hilt and blades are in separate layers so they will be separate objects in After Effects.

Lightsaber Typography from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

My final animation included the blade of a lightsaber shooting out of its hilt and they were positioned to form 3 letters "A", "E" and "T". The lightsaber hilts were just simple grey rectangles but the blades were created in Illustrator using rounded rectangles that were given a colour. In After Effects I applied the glow effect to every blade which gave them the glowing outline to give the objects life. I positioned the hilts so when the blades extend out they would form a letter and then making the blades extend out included the transitioning opacity tool and the positioning tool. On the timeline at the first point I made the blade invisible and positioned it in line with the hilt and then a couple of frames later I made the blade completely visible and moved its positioning further out of the hilt, this created the illusion that the lightsaber was turning on by extending very quickly.

The animation and task overall was a success and I was very happy with its outcome. I didn't run into any problems when planning and making this animation and it ran smoothly. The task has definitely improved my way of thinking and planning when ideas need to be created. In the future coming up with an idea will be easier for me and much faster because I have learnt to throw out all and any ideas I can think of and then review each one to decide which will be the best. 

Design Cover Illustrator

In this session we learnt how to use different tools and different techniques in Adobe Illustrator. This helped us practice with the software and get familiar with its features.

I was introduced the pen tool on Illustrator which is used for making interesting custom shapes and drawing around images or other shapes. I took a image off of Google which was a cat with wings from a anime and I drew around him to practice using this tool. At first I found using the pen tool hard because of the way you have to click and hold the mouse then move the mouse to change the lines curve, but after some practice I got the hang of it and ended up with the image above. I feel the pen tool now I know how to use it will become incredibly helpful for me in the future.

Next I was tasked to receive a image of a sport where the image trace tool would be used. The point of this task was to create something similar to a advertisement that features a sport and the word on the right 'Enforcer' was going to be advertised. The text however used to be a different font and nicely fitted within the image but I had a problem with syncing my fonts so I couldn't use the intentional font. The image trace tool creates another layer and copies the image into tiny little sections of pixels where the user can then edit these pixels and change the style of the image but keeping the image the same from the point people can still tell what it is. The task lead us to make the image looked like someone has drawn and coloured it with crayon which gave it a nice effect to be advertised. A helpful tool to manipulate images but I don't think I will need it a lot in the future but if I do I am confident in how to go about this technique.

Overall I learnt the various tools on Adobe Illustrator and I am definitely more familiar with the software. If I wanted to improve anything in this session I would try and get the font for the word 'Enforcer' that I used to have and redo the image of the cat to see if I can have smoother lines.

Indesign Interactive Pages

In this studio session we took an existing album cover and using its typography we attempted to copy it while also turning the Indesign document into a interactive PDF. The task was to teach us how to use Indesign and its different techniques.

This is the album cover where I copied its typography. Once the word is on screen it is just a case of changing its width, height and spacing between each character to match up the original word. The exercise has taught me to change text very precisely by editing the number of pixels than just dragging the letters to any size.

 
Here I learnt how to set Indesign to create its own contents page on it own as you create new pages to work with. This technique is part of the interactive PDF as also when this is done in the PDF the different pages on the contents can be clicked to go straight to that page.

This page was created so I had something to use for making the contents page. Basically what happens is once this page has been named a title and has a page number it is automatically inputted into the contents page.

This last step I learnt was how to import a video into Indesign and then have it playing when the interactive PDF opened. Additionally I was showed how to bring up a control panel for the video while it was in the interactive PDF so the viewer could play, pause and fast forward the video.

Altogether I did learn how put together a interactive PDF using Indesign and I know the knowledge sunk in but I do agree that I struggled with a couple of elements to this lesson. First I found it hard to match the albums typography up with the original and secondly I got lost during the different steps to input the control panel into the video. But other than that I am more familiar with the software Indesign.

Project Typography Animation

In this studio session we had the task of choosing a font and then creating a animation with moving text that were facts about the typography itself. The point of this exercise was to teach us and help us understand different techniques that involves moving text.

Everyday Ghost Typography Animation from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

I am happy with this animation mainly because I know it helped me understand how typography on After Effects works. The 3 shots are very similar with the lines sliding in but this was my way of practicing moving objects and text on a timeline.

Improvements I think would be experimenting with more techniques and transitions for presenting text.