Animation question
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- CygnusZero4
So I've been tasked with doing a type of animation I'm not very familiar with. I have a more motion/special effects background, but havent done a lot of illustrative work.
I need to create a video doing things like showing an illustrated house (the easy part), but the part I'm wondering about is I also need to have some illustrative looking snow on the roof, and a clump of it needs to slide off and land on someone.
If I were going to do this in say After Effects, what would be the best way to create the snow?
- fyoucher10
You could use Trapcode Particular for the snow and probably also create a build up.
Or, if you don't want to put down the $100 for the plugin and learn Particular, (and I think you use Flash), create it in Flash and export a super long video of just the snow. There's a million snow effect generators for Flash.
As for the clump, what I would do is manually animate that building up, and then falling off using traditional cel animation. Especially since it has an illustrated feel. Not sure if there's an automated way of creating that portion though.
- CygnusZero40
Well the clump is the concern. Ive found a simple way to create illustrated animated snow in AE in its own looping composition.
Its how do I actually make that clump, like do I just make layers in photoshop and bring them in to AE?
- Im talking about 2 different things here. The snowing, which I figured out, and the clump on the roof of the house, which I havent figured out.CygnusZero4
- fyoucher10
This is how I would approach it and perhaps someone else has a better idea and can chime in. I'm sure this could be done in some sort of 3D app but if you're looking for an AE approach this is how I would go about it. Obviously depends on the styling but assuming you're doing some type of 2D style / flat colors etc. Basically key framing the different states, tweening some things, and then adding in some small details afterwards.
Comp up the different states in AI/PS or whatever.
- How the clump appears right before it falls (does it accumulate in just one area or over a wide area, Is it a solid white at that point etc).- How it appears as it's falling (does it fall down in chunks, or disperse like some wind hit it, or perhaps both)
- How it appears after it has fell (does it build up on something else, the shape it forms, how far it spreads, etc)
Now you have three states. Now go in and create more states for in-between those states. Continue doing that until you have as many states as how fast you'd like the animation to happen (or until you go crazy). The more states you have the smoother it will appear.
Then go into AE and animate each of those states going from one to another. You could use a mask to reveal each state, or even morph shapes that are used as masks to reveal or transition each state. Again, the more you add in, the smoother it'll feel. Perhaps you want it to feel clunky and only need so many states.
Then after that, add in as many small details as possible. Such as small particles flying off, pieces bouncing off of something, pieces that fly off in a totally different direction, perhaps some begin to fall and then blow away from wind. Even going as far as taking those separate small animations, duplicating, transforming them somehow (scaling them, rotating them, etc), and reusing them a bunch of times throughout.
As far as the actual main clump, I would build it in, in as many layers as possible. A less dense clump that sits lower for the start, then gets more dense and piles higher later on. Then animate those layers one after the other -- again depends on the style on how you approach that. Same thing applies as to how it goes into the next stage, except in reverse.
- CygnusZero40
Good info. Thanks man. Yeah its one of those things Im basically going to have to piece together like a puzzle. I think if I just create the house/snow/etc in either PS or AI, take those layers into AE and just animate the various layers.
- demafleez0
Not sure if there's anything here you can use, but I thought it was an interesting challenge so I had to take a quick stab at it:
- CygnusZero4-1
^ Ha, looks good man. Just seeing this now and am already on my way so I'm good at this point. Basically I just drew a clump with the pen tool, did sort of a shape animation, and have smaller separate clumps fall off of it when it hits the guy head.
Your sort of more looks like its exploding, where Im going for a very cartoony look and only wanted a couple clumps fall off of it when it hits the guys head.
- lmao some fag downvoted. probably never animated anything in his life! lolzCygnusZero4