Once I had recorded a new sentence to use for the self portrait project, I started the lip synch process again. And again I made the same mistake, lining up the mouth shapes with the letters of the words rather than the sounds being made. Once I realised where I was going wrong, I tried to repair the animation. The result is not perfect, but I hope it’s enough to understand the “theory” behind the process.
Within Flash, I began making the scene a little more interesting. I found an underwater scene for the background and made the brightness increase and dim every few frames in the hope of creating a deep sea effect. I’m not sure how well this works, but it is using my very basic knowledge of Flash. I’m sure there are more impressive effects, but I would probably chose a programme like After Effects to create these.
I also added a fish from “Finding Nemo” (I think it’s the dad, I dunno, I didn’t pay that much attention to the film). Initially this was going to swim past, but it seemed more interesting if it just floated up the screen. Andy showed me how to use a motion path to make its movement a little more as I had imagined. The motion path seems like a very straightforward way to get good control over the movement of objects.
Finally, I added a sample of underwater sound effects. And it’s complete! (and this is where I would have it on show, except I have no idea how to upload it – sorry folks!)
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Flash: I do like using this programme, it makes so much more sense to me that Maya. Having watched Justin use Flash to create beautiful, flowing animations, it seems to suit a loose style of drawing - it seems to be the closest thing to drawing freely in the computer. I definitely need more practice with Flash if I am ever going to realise its potential. However, at the moment I am trying to get my head around After Effects, which seems better suited my way of working; After Effects feels more analytical in the way you use it, whereas Flash seems somehow more intuitive. This could be me having entirely the wrong impression of Flash (or just too much time spent watching Justin create wonderful sequences in a seemingly effortless manner). I guess my conclusion is that I want to concentrate on After Effects for now and revisit Flash another time.
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2 comments:
Hi, just passing through people's blogs! this one interested me the most, becuase i don't really get after affects and how to animate a whole sequence in there! I think im just more suited to flash, but i thought after affects was just to animate text in etc! So did you use after affects to create most of your ident? I havnt seen your final one yet so cant tell!
Thanks for your comment. Ben and I worked together on our ident and he prefers using Flash too, so the completed project is a combination of both programmes.
I like the way your ident uses mixed media; we originally though to do something similar in ours, but I was too cowardly!
I really prefer After Effects; it's great for compositing (where you bring in elements from several different programmes) but also for creating effects like the light trails in my Live@Five title sequence, or the underwater distortion in our ident.
I'd be really happy to show you some stuff on After Effects if you're interested - maybe we can work together on a project sometime.
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