Week 13 notes

-Production process
-Requirements for your final

Homework:
-present your final project idea and work in progress
-Title page with Elevator Pitch statement
-Idea boards: color, type style, references, texture
-Color palette
-Reference movies: have your YouTube links ready and cued!
-Style frames: 3 frames of what your animation will look like
-Finish the in-class Affirmation Animation (I know, it's like so 80's gay)

Also next week:
-learning DVD studio pro

Production process/Workflow
This applies to animation/editing/comp/motion gfx
-important to know what your client wants
-4 D's:
Duration: how long is the final project going to be?
Due-Date(s): when do they want it delivered. Intermediate due-dates: rough-cut, fine cut before sound mix?
Delivery format: tape? data disc MOV? FLV? SWF? playable DVD?
Dollars: what is their budget?

Animation project: what style?
Animated stills: slideshow, animatic
Multiplane animatic: layered file that you're doing 3D-ish moves on
Cutouts: parenting, transform properties in AE or Flash
Animated masks: cutouts on crack
Flash (drawn): almost like drawing on paper
Drawn animation on paper: composited, colored, with sound means more complex
3D in Maya, XSI or 3DMax

Ask them: what do you like?
If they say, "I don't know!"
-Show them stuff.
-A variety of styles: A music video, motion graphics commercial, character animation, short narrative edit. No more than 5 QT movies with selections totalling no more than 2 minutes.
-can be from your portfolio
-can show professional examples make it clear you didn't do that.
-make sure you've done that technique before.
-have your URLs ready, and know where to cue the movie.

Style/Design: The Idea Board
-idea boards: based on what's out there. 1 for each major aspect of the project.
-If motion graphics: 1 for color, 1 for title design, 1 for lower 3rds, 1 for transition gfx, 1 for end credits
-If film/commercial video: 1 for art direction, 1 for photography style, 1 each for color treatment, grain, effects, costume.

Making idea boards:
Open PS, File/New/Preset US Paper, 11inx8.5in, 150 dpi

Content for idea Boards:
-for these, you can scan images from magazines, grab stuff from web, google images, iStockphoto.com
-scanning from a magazine: if there's black type on the reverse, put a black pc of paper behind the page b4 scanning.
-grabbing images from the web, Apple-Shift 4

Style frames:
It's a glorified storyboard
1-In AE, make something cool looking
2-set your zoom to 100% and your resolution to Full
3-Comp/Save Frame As/File
4-Select all layers (Ap A), UU to see all we changed from defaults.
5-keyframe everything
6-move to another time in timeline
7-repeat steps 1-6 again

Open all those in PS, drag them into a 150dpi image, and label what is happening.

Once you have your idea boards, your styleframes, your Titlepage (should include elevator pitch) all labeled as to what they are, save as PSD file and TIFF with no layers.
-Close all open documents, just open those TIFFs
-File/Automate/PDF presentation

This saves your images as 1 big PDF that you can scroll thru in Preview.

Spell-Check!

-Spellig coutns
-Copy your text from photoshop into TextEdit or Word and spell czech it.
-or type it into Google!

AFX 3D
3D: enable 3D by turning on the sugarcube icon in the timeline. Don't turn it off.
3D we have 3 axes: X Y Z
X goes left to right Red
Y goes up and down Green
Z goes front and back Blue

Wotate tool (hotkey W) to rotate around the skewers.
-in Rotation tool options on top toolbox, turn the "Orientation" to "Rotation"

Y door-hinge
X flip-book
Z clock

Name Affirmation in-class project:
-Type the first 3 letters of your name.
-Duplicate this 2 times, draw-a-box with the rectangle tool around each letter.
-Use the Solo switch (little O next to Eyeball in Timeline)to make sure your rectangle masks are good.

-Animate each letter disappearing using 3D rotations X and Y and opacity animation 100% to 0%.
-Select all your keyframes by selecting all layers and hitting U, drawing a box around all them.
-Moved keyfr to 2:00
-Layer/New/Null, align this with word on left side.
-Parent all your layers to the Null
-At time 1:00, turn on Position stopwatch on Null.
-At time 0, move Null all the way Right so all letters go offscreen.

-At time 1:00 type last letters of name
-Align with current letters.
-ApR: show rulers, drag from ruler to get a Guide line.
-Draw a box with rectangle mask tool around the last letters of your name. Have bottom of box align with base of letters
-Keyframe Mask Path and Position at time 1:15
-At time 1:00, use my Pan-behind tool (letter Y) to move my letters down in a PeekABoo

-Type as separate word-objects the words that will turn your name into an affirmation.

examples: Kalika parties well. James makes a great turkey dinner.

     -To make them separate word-objects, type a word using the Type tool and then hit Enter.

     -Set anchor point using Pan-behind (Y) tool.

     -Separate letters using Masks as needed for your animation.

     -Animate words coming together one at a time, to create your "Affirmation Animation."

Typography reference:
Motionographer.com's Cream of the Crop
Paper magazine
Barnes & Noble Union Square: layout ideas from graphic design magazines
AIGA

Screenings:
What Barry Says

The Hush Sound

Pulp Fiction

Who's on First?

V for Vendetta


I encourage you to:
-Think outside what's been done before: Do something Different. We are tired of the same old crap. 

Give us new & unique work.
-Be clever
-Be creative
-Be Yourself! Make this project your own.

Week 12 notes

Outputting a high-resolution format from QT Pro:
Open your movie in QT Player Pro
Export: Movie to QT Movie
Use: Default Settings
Click the OPTIONS button

This opens a new window.
From the top:
Video: Compression Animation
Keyframes All (how many frames are perfect: higher # means that many are crap betw frames. every 100 means it's only perfect 1/100 frames.
Depth Millions
Quality Best
Size: Dimensions NTSC 720x480 4:3
(if using 16:9 footage (widescreen) please check the box next to "Preserve Aspect ratio using" and choose "Letterbox" from the dropdown)
Only check the "Deinterlace" if your final format is Web or CD-Rom

Sound: Format Linear PCM or Apple Lossless
Channels Stereo LR
Rate 48
Quality Best
Sample Size 16
Uncheck "Prepare for internet streaming"
what it means?? you can watch the 1st part of your QT while the 2nd part will load

Open Final Cut
-Reset Scratch Disks, set them all to FCP folder within your project folder.
-Save your project also to the FCP folder
-Copy/move all your editing clips (stuff you'll be putting into your FC timeline) into Capture Scratch Folder
-Drag those things into Bin window
-Drag your footage into the Timeline
-Will prolly give you an error, saying "Do you want your sequence to match your footage" and you should say Yes.
Saying No will lead to render.
-Unlink selection by clicking the small button in the upper RH corner of the Timeline.
Looks like a link, not Snap.
-Select and delete original audio
-Drag in new audio

To see waveform in FCP, go to Sequence/Seq Settings.
-Timeline Tab, chose "Track Display/Show Audio Waveform"
-Lock your audio tracks in the Timeline so you don't accidentally mess them up.
-On timeline, set in and out points for where i want the clip to last. (i for in, o for out)
-Cut your video for what action should take that amt of time.
double-click the video, go to Motion tab in clip viewer. Time Remap section, and change Duration part TO MATCH the in-out length.

Review of AE retiming

Apple's Motion software
-starts with Welcome screen
-Start with a New Project
-Preset: NTSC DV

Window/Timeline

On left,
Filebrowser: select stuff from your computer to import.
Library: Filters, Behaviors, Particles live here.
Inspector: tells us about what we have clicked.

To change colors, swivel open your particle in the Timeline till you see the "3-star symbol" and click that.
-Go to Inspector and change colors there in the Particle Cell tab, under "Color Over Life"

File/Export
Export: Qt movie
Use: Lossless + Alpha
Check the box next to "use play range"
Click OPTIONS
Go to output Tab
Resolution Full
Color: Color+Alpha
Say NO to premultiply.
Use 29.97 fps
Quality Best
Field Rendering.

Week 11: Music Vid part 2 of 2

Screenings: Michel Gondry
-Hardest Button to Button
  Making of 

-Sugar Water
Making of 

-Kylie Minogue "Come into My World"
  Making of 

FCP:
Sequence menu/Seq settings/Timeline options
-Show audio waveforms checkbox

FCP time remap
-Constant speed: change the duration or speed of your clip uniformly throughout
-Variable speed: keyframe your clip's timing.
-3rd tool in Slip edit (in FC toolbox) is your time remap tool.
-hotkey is SSS

Graph in your Motion tab, represents Current time vs. Clip time.
-Slope upward means the video plays forward
-Slope downward means video plays backwards
-Moving a Time remap keyframe Up makes the frame you're watching go up a frame in original clip value
-Moving Time Remap keyfr left or right changes its timing
-keyframes close=fast mov't
-keyfr far=slower mov't

Smoothing the Time Remap graph: 

-use the 3rd tool in the pen tool, "convert" Hotkey is PPP
-Click on the keyframe in the graph to smoothe it.

Retiming in AE:
-To show just video, turn off audio switch
-To hear just audio, no video, turn off video switch

To view Audio waveform

-select your audio layer and hit LL
-if you don't see it well, go to AFX/Prefs/User Interface colors, and darken
-if you still don't see it well: select your audio layer, hold shift and type L
-This brings up your audio levels property.
-Up your audio levels. Remember to reduce them before final render.

PRESS Period on num pad to play audio alone
PRESS Zero on num pad to play audio and video together
-Hold Apple while scrubbing to see/hear audio and video frame by frame.
-Turn on Caps Lock to freeze your onscreen preview while you scrub your audio.

MAKE SURE auto-save is ON
AFX menu/prefs/autosave
-i do every 2 min, max versions 5
-set this up every time you work on a school computer.
-and then SAVE your PROJECT

MAKE SURE your audio preview is as long as your audio clip.
-AFX prefs/Previews/change the duration of the audio preview.

can create markers on the timeline 

-using Asterisk * on Number pad, or going to Layer/Add marker.
-Double-click the marker and Name it in the Comments field.

Select video layer
-Layer/Time/Enable Time remapping
-it gives you 2 keyframes: 1 for your original clip-beginning and 1 for your original clip-end.
-create new keyframes on "coolframes"
by clicking in the little box between the keyframe navigation arrows.

You can also make new time remap keyframes

-by sliding the keyframe value in the Time Remap property with the Pointer finger.

Assignment: Time remap music video.
1-edit music in FC
2-rough edit of picture in FC
3-RETIME in FC or AE
advantage of FC: realtime playback
advantage of AE: kickass frame blending.
4-color-correction, transitions, and visual effects

Week 10: Music video part 1 of 2

Screenings:

-Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

-Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream"

-Bambi sings Soulja boy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdi48oUdZP0

-Lasse Gjertsen's "Amateur"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqumbhfxRo

Morphing tutorial

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/zwar_chris/morph.php



to change your DVD footage to usable MOVs

MPEG Streamclip
http://www.squared5.com/

mac the ripper
http://www.mactheripper.org/
-remove copy-protection from a DVD

dvdXdv
Handbrake

Places to download free footage:
archive.org
prelinger archive

Places to get music:

Limewire
Off a CD
iTunes
-comes Locked.
-take a blank CD and burn from iTunes a CD.
-lower-left corner "Burn Disc"

FCP and AE hate MP3s
-open it in QT player
-File/Export/Sound to AIFF

Google code to take music offa people's websites:
searches for music based on Song or Artist you input

intitle:index.of "mp3" +"Song or Artist" -htm -html -php -asp "Last Modified"



1st part: gathering your video and your music
either: a) retime half of your piece
b) roughcut of all of your piece

Quality 1st, Duration 2nd.
-Listen to music
-Pick out a 20-30 sec maximum section.
in Final cut, edit that music.

1-edit music in FC
2-rough edit of picture in FC
3-RETIME in FC or AE
advantage of FC: realtime playback
advantage of AE: kickass frame blending.
4-color-correction, transitions, and visual effects

iPodRip
-to rip music from your iPod to computer

mediaconverter.org
-convert music from YouTube

keepvid.com
-convert video from YouTube

if you wanna do lipsynch, here are mouth charts:

Select your MP3 file, and File/Open With
-Quicktime player
-File/Export
-Export Audio to AIFF, saved to Assets folder

Open FCP
-Set your Scratch Disks to your FCP folder (within wk9_retime)
-FCP menu/System Settings
-Save my project to that same FCP folder

Double-click my sequence, and go to Sequence/Seq Settings
(apple-zero)
-Check my format. NTSC DV works most times.
-in Seq Settings, go to Timeline tab.
-Click the box next to "Show Audio Waveforms"
-Cut the audio using Blade tool and Arrow to select.
-Rt-click the end of the clip to get a fade.
-double-click the fade to change its length.

Adjust audio levels
-Acceptable levels Peak at -10Db

Open your archive.org video in QT player
-use the brackety things to make your video selection
-Go to Edit/Copy
-File/New Player
-Edit/Paste

Convert your weird format to a good editing format
-File/Export
-Export: Movie to QT movie
-Use: Default Settings
-HIT OPTIONS
-Settings:
-framerate 29.97
-Keyframes all
-Millions of colors
-Quality Best
-Size
-NTSC 720x480
-Preserve aspect using Letterbox
-Sound:
-Linear PCM or Apple Lossless
-Stereo, 48.000, Best, 16, No boxes checkd below.
-Turn off "Prep for internet Streaming"

Imported our video into FC
-Made sure our Seq Settings (Apple zero in FC) matched those from QT Inspector (Apple i in Quicktime)
-lay my new video on track 2 of my timeline.
-delete my old audio
-Un-clicking the "Link selection" button on upper right corner of the timeline
-Click the audio, hit Delete
-cut up my video (Blade and arrow)
-Set in and out points on my Timeline for the duration of my 1st beat. (this will show up in the upper left of the Canvas window)

create a new seq, call it "work" have the same seq settings as orig seq
-copy-paste your 1st shot into "work"
-double-click the 1st shot, and go to Motion tab
-Time Remap
-In Duration, input the length of that 1st beat

Output from FC to AE
-Choose your shots in FC
-edit your audio in FC
(if you need more than 2 audio edits, don't do it in AE)
-set in and out points on timeline, 1 shot at a time
-File/Export/Image sequence. Tiffs, @your framerate, Best quality (no compression), Millions of colors
-Do this for each shot
-Set in and out points on the timeline around your audio
-File/Export/Audio to AIFF, Stereo mix
-SAVE all this to Assets folder

In Ae

AE/Pref/Import: set the Sequence Footage framerate to that of our FC Sequence.
Drag in our folders o' images, and our AIFF.
Drag our AIFF into a new comp
Show the columns In and Out on your timeline (Ctrl-clicking the header row and choosing in and out)
-Have each "sequence" of images start 1 frame after the last one ends.

Select our audio layer.
-Hit L twice to see the waveform
-Select our shots, NOT our audio
go to Layer/Time/Enable Time remapping

the keyframes are based on what actual frame of video we're seeing. timing of our retimedshot vs. time on the timecode of the Timeline.
-something goes faster if the framecount betw keyframes is larger than the framecount in the timecode.
-something goes backwards if the time remap value goes let's say from 3:00 to 2:00 while the timecode is going 1:00 to 2:00
-slower if time remap goes over a few frames while timecode goes many. time remap from 0-10 frames while we're watching those 10 frames for 5 seconds! SLO-Mo

Homework:
-15 sec to 1:30 of music selected and cut in FC
-Footage shot/collected
-Rough edit created in FC
-Bring headphones next week!

Week 9: Particles and Explosions

Particles & explosions:
you can use footage for this (shoot your own, go to detonationfilms.com)
And/or you can use a particle generator, such as Particle Playground or Trapcode's Particular (particular costs extra)

with Detonation films, you can key out a black background using linear color key, experiment with blending modes, duplicate the layer, use masks, animate Scale and Opacity, apply blurs, and apply color effects.

Color effects we covered in class included Tint, Photo Filter, and Colorama.

Particles, I'd recommend learning from online video tutorials.

Cast Shadows
don't forget cast shadows, which can be created by:
-duplicating your explosion layer
-using the effect "Fill" to fill it with 1 color like black or grey
-applying corner pin to attach it to the ground in perspective
-Using the blending mode "multiply" will allow the shadow to "sit" in the scene better.
-reducing the opacity can help as well.

Maltaannon's Fire-Hands tutorial:
-imported video
-made a comp of it. (called it Source)
-precomposed video (called this Final)into a new comp
-trimmed layer to just the area where we want particles

In Source comp, apply the Time difference effect
set time offset to 0, 050
changed the contrast to 50,0
Apply Fast blur 5.0, with Repeat Edge pixels on
Apply Threshold 15

make black transparent by applying luma key

This is the source for particles.

time to create particles themselves!
-drag source into another comp, call it Particles.
-Apply particle playground to Source layer in Particle

Set particles per sec to 0
In layer exploder (tears image apart based on alpha channel)
Set to Source.
This makes pixels explode from that layer.
Go to Gravity, set direction to 0 degrees to get particles going up instead of down.
Increasing force to 300

make new solid, precompose it with itself. call ModMap
inside that comp, apply ramp and turbulent displace.
-set size to 11 and amt to 533 and complexity to 3,9
-change displacement to turbulent smoother
-opt-click on evolution stopwatch, time*1000

Turn off ModMap in Particles comp
In Source layer, go to Effect controls for Particle P-ground
-Go to persistent property mapper
-map red to Opacitty
-min to -0, 20, max 1,00
Map green to Y force, max -30
Apply fast blur to Source layer, 5

go to layer exploder parameter, change radius to 3 and velocity to 60

Go to Final comp, place particles comp on video
-apply turbulent displace effect to particles
-amt 50, size 8
complexity 2
evolution expression time * 500

colorama!
input phase: from alpha
output phase: uncheck modify alpha
output cycle: fire and smoke, change the colors
apply glow, based on A&B colors yellow and red, threshold 52% radius 44, intensity 1.2

To apply particle playground to a layer (fountain of eyeballs)
-create eyeball layers. precompose them. Eyeball named comp.
-use region of interest to crop.
-Comp/Crop to region of interest
Back to Main Comp
Layer/New Solid
Effect/Generate/Particle Playground
-Layer Map: set Use Layer to your Eyeball comp
-in Cannon, adjust particles per second
-in Gravity, adjust force
-in Cannon, adj direction and spread.

Additional Particle Tutorials:
Particles of Incorporation

Muggle's Magic Wand

Maltaannon: Particle Playground on Ice

Text that Blows like Sand

Blowing Snow

Text Effects (including using Text as Particle)

Smoke!

Nerdy Particles made using Expressions

Getting your files from FCP to AE:
-File/Exp/using QT conversion
-Format: Image sequence
-Use: Targa 29.97
   -Click options
      Format: Tiff
         -Click options again!
           -Millions of Colors
           -Compression NONE

After Effects/Preferences/Import
Sequence footage framerate should match to that of your FC Sequence

suck frames
QT and AE frame count instead of timecode, watch the tracking video and make a list of all the frames that suck. Draw a star next to the ones that are really bad. Fix those first. you can use left and right arrow keys in QT to watch it super slowly.
-To change AE to frames instead of timecode, option click the timecode in the timeline or go to File/Project Settings and choose "Frames"


Homework:
-Make something blow up/Explode using detonation films and/or Particle Playground.
-You can use photo or video as your BG
-Please shoot it well. well-lit, well-composed.
-Turn Off AutoFocus when shooting video for post-production!!
     -How to focus without AutoFocus:

-zoom in all the way with autofocus on, then turn off autofocus and zoom out. This will keep everything sharp.

Week 7: Tracking

Tracking=following 1 thing in your video with a separate element.

Uses:
-Stabilizing
-Matchmoving: change the view out the window, to match a moving shot
-Tracking: stick something to someone.
-Girls gone wild (or Barbie)
-Big blur spot on COPS
-Horns, fire on hair, wings, clown nose
-Arrows "no smoking campaign"
-or use for rotoscoping by tracking a matte
-info graphics: pointing out areas of the frame that are moving, putting stats to them: stranger than fiction

Import Ladybeach footage
make new comp
Layer/New/Adjustment Layer
Draw a round mask on this Adj Layer
Apply Fast blur 7

Windows/Tracker Controls (with the adjustmt layer selected!)

-Set Motion Source to "Ladybeach"
-Summons the Layer window
-Keep LadyBeach selected.
-Click the Track Motion button
-brings up a TrackerBox
-3 parts to the trackerbox
1-Target (crosshair)
2-Pattern (innerbox)
3-Search Area (outerbox)
Chose a frame where the pattern was clearest.
Not necessarily the 1st frame.

Set the Trackerbox to her head by dragging between the target and the inner box.
-This drags the entire trackerbox.
-Set the pattern to the size of her head (inner box)
-Set the Target to a corner of where her head and hat meet (remember that Targets love corners)
-Click the play button in the Analyze area.
-Watch carefully for F-ups
-Click play button again to Stop the analyze. Reset the box and target as needed.
-Hit U with my video layer selected, to show all my keyfr, go to the first of those keyfr
-Analyze backwards by clicking the "Backwards play" looking button in the Analyze section.
-Select your 1st layer, hit Apply.
-Creates position keyfr on your layer
-Select all pos keyfr by clicking the word "Position." Make sure your time slider is parked on 1 of those keyframes.
-Use Arrow keys to move her blurry dot over.

To stabilize, select your footage, click Stabilize in the Motion Tracker window.
-for more than 1 tracker point, use position and rotation or scale.
-once it's done analyzing, hit "Apply"

Homework:
Videotape something or someone you can accessorize with Motion Tracking
-Footage
-Accessories
-can be hand-drawn or photos: 360 if your footage features a turning person or object
Bonus points if you use selective color keying for this.
In class we'll assemble the footage and photos, track and work with 3D layers to get the most out of this project.

Adv Post Week 7: Sin City

Keying : selecting part of an image to keep or remove, based on color

Tracking: following the mov't of something on-screen, with another thing. (based on movement)

SinCity: Selective color keying.
Selecting 1 color to keep, and all the rest will be black and white.

1-Matte: everything black except for our color element, which will be white.
-White is our window. Anything white will stay, anything black will go (will show thru to the next layer. Window thru which the colour looks.
2-Colour layer: Enhanced version of our original.
3-BlackAndWhite copy: original with no color.
As if shot on black and white stock.

To use this technique for selective Color Keying instead,
1-Matte: just brightest part of frame, in black-and-white high contrast
2-Darkened/Color-corrected version of original
3-Original

Drag your footage to project window
Drag that from there to comp icon to make a new comp
Isolate the section from 6:04-9:00
6:04 hit B
9:00 hit N
Rt-click the work area, choose "Trim"

Duplicate 2x
(apple D)
rename by hitting Return
-Matte
-Colour
-Black and white

Change the BlackAndWhite layer by turning the other eyeballs off and then applying Hue/Saturation.
-Reduce the Saturation to -100
-Optional: apply Levels effect to increase Contrast

Change the Colour layer by adding the effect Hue/Saturation (and swirling the Hue wheel) or applying Change to Color. Set an original color (green) set an new color (purple), and adjust the controls

Fix up the Matte layer, by applying Linear color key
-Key color is the most important thing
-Pick a mid-range color, not a shadow or a highlight.
-Reduce the Softness value to 5% or so, it always starts off too high.
-Increase the Tolerance: this selects more pixels to key out.
-For finer control, hold the Apple key down while scrubbing a value.
-Changed the View option on the Linear Color key to "Matte Only"
-Apply the Levels effect, slide the white slider toward the black to incr contrast.
-Apply the effect "Invert"
-Change the TrkMat to Luma

If you didn't get enough color selected,

Apply Linear Color Key twice, but instead of View/Matte Only, choose "Final output" on both

Apply the Effect "Invert Alpha"
Apply the effect Shift Channels
Alpha=full on
Red=Alpha
Green=Alpha
Blue=Alpha

And now you have your matte.

Adv Post week 6: Color Keying

Week 6 keying
Color channels: red, green and blue.
in 8-bit color, 256 shades of red green and blue.

combining the 3 colors makes all the others.

computer breaks down each color channel into shades of grey
White=the pixel is at 100% ON of any color.
Black=the pixel shows none of that color
Grey=the pixel kinda shows some of that color.

Keying is a way to avoid excessive roto
-selecting an area of the screen to keep or remove, based on its color.
-Effect/Keying.

Ways avoid roto:
-Shoot well on a well-lit screen
-Screen should not contain any colors that are present in your subject.
-Bad colors: black, cream, white, brown
-Good colors: green (brighter the better), blue, magenta
-Good lighting on your screen.
-As many lamps as you can sign out of checkout.
-And some.
-Bounce cards
-Lotta stands
-Things to diffuse your light
-Help
-Time

Diffuse light that bounces onto your screen
-no hot-spots
space between your actor and the screen
-avoid shadows on the screen
light your actor with his/her own lights when possible.

blondes should be shot on bluescreen.
the shadows from their hair go toward green.

1-shoot it properly
-make sure it's lit well, it's high-res as possible, and the focus is sharp
-do test footage to make sure your setup is good. bring a laptop and proper cables on set to check my key in AE before the shoot.
-if shooting someone tall, turn the camera instead of short-changing your composite
-this allows for possibility to shoot SD output HD
No black or white clothes or accessories.
Grey is ok
shoot as High-Res as possible.
Autofocus OFF. zoom in, focus. turn off auto, zoom out.

2-import it properly.
import it at the size it was shot at.
3-look at it.
-try a simple keyer, like color key or linear color key

-turn on the channels, one at a time.
-see which one gives the highest contrast.
-it might be a channel other than the obvious.

4-create a matte

Draw 3 circles on your screen
-Use the Shape tool set to Ellipse, change stroke value to 0 and these values for each circle:
-Red:255, others 0
-Green 255, others 0
-Blue 255, others 0
-set the blending mode to Add for all of these.

each pixel has 4 values.
Red green blue and alpha
see a b&w picture of each of these in Olympics symbol (located next to resolution below comp window)

the best keys are based on a good matte.
matte is a window thru which we see our footage.
-matte can be black-and-white
-or have alpha.

Color Key: 4 values
key color: eyedropper the color of screen
tolerance: higher the number=more pixels picked.
edge thin: sucks in your edge
feather: makes the edge so Soft.

Always do the following when keying:
-change the BG color to Yellow, Hot Pink
-Look at it thru the Alpha channel
-View it in High Res and 100% zoom
-look around your image with the Hand tool
this way you stay at 100% and you can see each part of pic.

Don't scale footage up more than 115%
-edges and pixels will go to crap otherwise

Edges of your matte should be sharp when dealing with solid stuff, soft when dealing with fluff, hair, fur.

Linear color key (LCK): has more settings than regular color key.
-Turn off the little Fx in the effect controls for LCK
-Click eyedropper and click the background
-For an average of pixel values, hold apple-key while clickdragging in your screen color.
-Default matching softness is 10%: too high.
-2-3%
-Change matching tolerance up from default value of 0%
(Apple-scrub on any slider to change the value to something in the 10ths, or click change the value by typing in numbers.

After Effects Studio Techniques by Mark Christiansen

Creating a matte:
-drag our footage from proj win to below proj window (comp icon)
-draw garbage masks using pen tool to get rid of bluescreen stands
-Set the Mask mode to Subtract

wineglass: channel keying
Photoshop Channel Chops
-Duplicate your layer
-remove all effects: Ap Shift E
-delete other masks
-rough roto of wineglass, 2 sec min
-look at channels indiv.
-apply the effect Shift Channels
-Alpha=alpha
-all others=blue (or which is high-con)
-levels, move sliders to ends of mtns,
move grey till you like what your matte looks like.
(red giant software Composite Wizard)
-add blurs as needed

Name this layer "glass matte"
Edit/Duplicate
-layer 2: call it glass. remove all effects (apple shift E) but keep masks
Rt-click the column heading and choose Modes
Set the TrkMat column of layer 2 (glass)
to Luma Inverted Matte the top layer (glass matte)
-uses the b&w info of the top layer as a window for the bottom layer.
-inverts that.

delete mask off of top layer if you're getting a line

Apply the effect "spill suppressor" to the glass and the girl.

precomp glass and glass matte, then add
simple choker
channel blur

homework:
shoot something with green
keying footage available here if you don't want to be clever:
http://antidotefx.com/afx_hdtestftg.zip

Adv Post Week 5 Notes

Review of Masks
Masks are best worked with in Layer window
-Composition/New Comp
-NTSC/DV, 5:00 duration
-Layer/New/Solid
-Doubleclick the Solid: this opens the layer window.
-Why is Layer window Best?
-This way we don't accidentally re-position or rotate or scale
our layer.
-All we want to do is create Mask Shape keyframes.

The rules of masks & mask animation
-mask keyframe: is the diamond-shaped thingy in the timeline
-mask point: is the dot that the curved line connects.
-handles are the lines that come off of curved mask points.
-mask point 1 on this mask keyframe stays consistent with point 1
on next mask keyframe.
-Never remove (as in delete) mask points over time. 

You can add them though.
-Removing mask points later in timeline removes them from
earlier mask shapes as well. Example: instead of deleting
mask points from an ear you don't see anymore, smush the
mask points against the side of her face.
-Avoid using too many points. Create shapes with as few mask
points as possible. Fewer points=fewer chances of error.

Pen Tool Actions
-Clicking creates a sharp mask point
-Click-dragging creates a rounded mask point
-You can change a rounded point to a sharp
one by using the Convert tool <. 

-This lives at the basement of the Mask Drawing Pen. 

On your New Solid, create 4 mask path keyframes. 

-Square to a triangle to a circle to marshmallow 

Creating the square:

-Dbl-click solid to open in layer window 

-Click to start the square, move mouse (not clicking) to Right 

hold shift and click again, move down (not clicking) 

hold shift and click, move Left (not clicking) 

shift and click, 

-Close the shape by going back to the 1st point we made. 

This gives you a circle next to your pen tool. 

Click to close when you see that circle. 

-Hit M for Mask Path. 

Hit stopwatch to enable animation on Mask Path Property. 

-Under Layer window, turn off Render box. 

This way you see your whole layer, not just the part you masked off. 

Creating the triangle: 

-Go to time 1:00 

-Select the top 2 mask points. 

Click the first, hold shift to select the second with it. 

Release shift. 

-Double-click them to get a Transform box 

Creating the circle:

-Go to time 2:00 

-Select the 1st keyframe Copy, Paste 

-Go to Convert Tool, located under Pen. (or hit G till you get it) 

Convert tool is only for changing the nature of a mask point.

Continue moving the handles with your Black Arrow tool.

Creating the marshmallow:

-Go to time 3:00, with Black Arrow deselect all your points. 

And then click on one. 

-Select the Convert tool. 

Use it to break the handle of your Mask Points 

Tools: Pen tool for everything. 

Pen on its own -creates new points when clicked on a path. 

Pen when clicked on a point -Deletes points (yikes!) . 

DON'T DELETE POINTS. 

Pen+Apple: changes it to Black Arrow tool. 

use this to move mask points and their handles, 

as well as to select points (shift click to select more than one or draw-a-box) 

Pen+Option: changes it to Convert tool. 

use this to change a sharp point to a rounded one, 

or to change the nature of a rounded one 

so that each handle can move a different way. 

Rotoscoping basics. 

1. Visually analyze your footage. 

-To start: analyze your footage. 

With your eyes. The ones in your head. 

-Seeing where I should start roto. 

   -Probably not 1st or Last frame. 

   -Pick a frame where all her bodyparts 

   that will ever be roto'd are visible. 

2. Enhance your footage, if needed. 

-Apply color-correction effects so you see your actor more clearly. 

   -You can Remove these after you're done roto-ing. 

IF you apply effects to enhance your footage: 

-Apply brightness/contrast, curves, levels and/or hue/saturation 

to your footage layer in order to see the edges of your actor better.

-Select your Layer & go to Layer/Precompose. 

-Choose "Move All attributes to new comp" 

-Draw your masks on this new layer. 

3. Draw your first frame. 

-Go to Layer view, make sure "View: Masks" is chosen from pulldown. 

turn off "Render" checkbox, so you can see what you're masking. 

-Carefully draw your first mask. 

Make sure it's closed, by re-clicking your first point 

with your pen tool after the shape is made. 

This gives your pen tool a little circle by it, 

so you can close your mask. 

4. Make sure the first frame is perfect. 

-Go to the Composition view by hitting the \ key 

that's below the Delete key on the keyboard. 

-Turn off the Mask View button at the bottom 

of the Comp window. it's to the left of the timecode. 

5.Start animating, by keyframing 10 frames at a time. 

-At the frame where you started the animation, 

keyframe the Mask Path. (turn on stopwatches in timeline) 

-If you don't see mask Path property hit M on keyboard. 

-Hit Shift Pg Dn to go fwd 10 frames. 

-Use the black arrow tool to draw a box around your mask shapes. 

And move it over. 

-Use your black arrow to draw a box around areas of mask points, 

double-click one of those points and you get your transform box. 

-Move areas of points as much as possible 

-To move them together, you can also use your arrow keys on the keyboard. 

Adding Shift to an arrow key moves 10 pixels at a time. 

-Zooming in more means smaller "pixel" movement when using arrow keys. 

6. After you've done 10 frames at a time, do 4 frames at a time. 

    Then 2 frames. Then 1 frame. 

-If you like the way AE did your inbetweens, click the DIP between the 2 arrows 

(in the "sound" column of timeline) to add a keyframe at the current value. 

-otherwise, changing the mask shape will automatically make a new 

Mask Path keyframe 

After you've done 10 frames at a time, do 4 frames at a time. 

Then 2 frames. Then 1 frame. Why this funky way of working?

1) it's more accurate than going frame by frame
2) it's faster.

Your Homework:
Rotoscope 30 frames. My footage or yours. as long as it's big enough and Live-Action.

If using my footage: 

-all of it 90% perfect=A
-head and neck 95% perfect=A
-Also make a rough shape around her hair.
we'll use that for color- keying in class.

Adv-Post: week 4 hotkeys.

Illustrator
P=pen
A=white arrow
V=black arrow

After Effects
M=mask shape
MM=all mask properties
F=mask feather
ApY=New Solid
ApG=Go to Time

G=Pen Tool

ADV-Post: week 4 notes.

Masks
-Glorified AI paths.
-Paths with motion

path: line or curve between 2 points

Working in Illustrator
Draw in AI: using the path tool (pen tool)
-Triangle
-Square
-Star
-Circle (using 2 points only)
-Swiss Cheese

PS: based on pixel information
-Making stuff bigger here, makes it look bad...

AI: based on math
2x+1=y
-punchline: you can make stuff bigger in AE or AI that started as an AI file, and you won't lose quality.
-magic button: "continuously rasterize" button, must be clicked on all your AI layers for the math to look gooood.

AI:
you can scale up any object in AI unless it's based on a photo.

Illustrator method:
-Draw on a layer. Lock it.
Make a new layer. draw on that.
-To select stuff on a layer, use the black arrow tool, or you can click on the button on its layer.

From the toolbox, select Pen tool (P)
-Choose colors.
-Stroke color and a Fill Color
-Red slash=no color

Pen options:
-Choose the pen tool, it gives you options based on what's going on with your drawn shape.
-Pen X New Shape start
-Pen > change point to Curve point
-Pen + Add a point to a curve or line
-Pen - Delete current point
-Pen o Close shape
-Pen / (slash) Continue shape if you click this point.

Tools we use:
-Pen: draws or modifies shape
-Black arrow tool: selects, moves, scales, rotates a shape
-White arrow tool: lets you select or move a point
-Shape maker tools: create custom shapes
-Brush tools: for drawing on the fly
-Type tool: duh, type.

AE won't give you an accurate layer thumbnail
-it's a merged view of your AI or PS comp, or worse, a thumbnail of the "Ai" logo
-so what do you do? label everything

Drawing a star from a square...
-Duplicate your square layer
-Add 3 points top, 1 point on each side and bottom
-move points with white arrow tool

Try to draw your shapes with as few points as possible.
-Shape drawing tools are located under the square shape tool
-to work the polygon tool, start drawing with it and use
  up and down arrows to increase or decrease the # of sides.

Making cheese
-Draw triangle and all circles on the same layer.
-select em all with black arrow tool
-go Window/Pathfinder
-Choose 2nd shape mode option
-to release, swivel open your layer and select all the circles.
-drag them above the "compound shape" layer.

Into After Effects
-Save your AI file
-Drag it from your Finder to your project window.

Use Composition/Layer Size as your import settings.

-try making a layer super-big (like 1200%)
-it will have bitmappy edges
-to keep this from happening, click the Continuously Rasterize button
(in Timeline, betw the Shy-guy and the Slash)

If something is already cut out, meaning it has a transparent background and clean edges, you can Auto-Trace.
-Select a layer
-Go to Layer/Auto-Trace
-Choose "current frame" and tolerance, and "apply to new layer"

Can make more than 1 mask on a layer
Can make mask on any kind of visual layer
Can animate those masks independent of 1
another, using the Mask Path property.

AE/Prefs/User interface colors
-Turn on "cycle mask colors"

Mask Animation
Layer/New/Solid
Make it comp size
Using the square shape tool,
draw a box
Hit M with layer selected, to show Mask Path property
-Click on the stopwatch to enable animation on the layer.

Go to Time 1:00
-Choose the Pen tool
-Add 3 points to the top edge of our sq
-Add 1 point to each of the other sides.

Mask drawing tips:
-double-click your layer to see it in the layer view. This keeps you from accidentally moving your layer!
-keyframe everything.
-you can turn off Render in your layer view to see all of the layer, not just the masked part.
-can add points over time, just don't delete them.

To copy an autotraced star to your animated one...
-Select the autotraced star
-Hit letter M
-Turn off stopwatch if you have too many keyframes, turn it back on and then you have 1 keyframe.
-copy one AutoTraced keyframe by hitting ApC
-Select your drawn mask path property
-Go to 2:00 time
-ApV to paste your Autotraced keyframe to the drawn mask path property.

Creating Emailable QT's! in FCP or QT Pro
-In FCP file/export./using QT conversion
-In QT pro it's just File/Export
Format QT movie, Use Broadband Medium
Click the options button
-change the size (optional)
-turn off streaming.

In the finder, select the movie, and go to
File/Create Archive (makes a .zip)
Email that file (the .zip) in your email program

Make sure that someone can open a QT
If they can't, download Flip4Mac

Homework
Animate 1 shape changing into another using masks

Kickitupanotch (make it more challenging)
-Change shape several times instead of just 1ce
-Change color, too
-Made out of more than 1 mask shape
-Add sound
-Add a background
-Do several mask animations in a row.
Edit them together in FCP and make a short film.

Link: AFX tutorials

By Andrew Kramer, there's like 60 of them! For both Motion Graphics and Compositing. Some require specialty plugins, contact your local hacker for details.

Here you go.

Tips: Lipsynch and Facial animation

A buncha great lipsynch info here

And charts...

FCP/shooting tip: Avoiding timecode breaks

Any chicken who uses Final Cut or is shooting DV should receive this important information.

1. Run tape before your first shot, or add bars and tone

2. When taping, make sure you record a few seconds after all the action you want captured has stopped

3. If you stop or take out the tape, make sure you roll back a couple of seconds and record over that extra few seconds of footage instead of blank tape. Recording over blank tape will cause your timecode to break.

4. Look in the viewfinder before shooting. If it says this: --:--:--;-- you're going to have a timecode break. If it has numbers, you're fine.

5. Some people like blacking out a tape before recording (recording through a whole tape with lens cap on to stamp timecode). I think it just wears the heads and wastes time - but it's an option

6. If you already have a problem tape, import the scenes in chunks into your editing system or you can turn off "Abort capture on timecode break" on Final Cut Pro

7. If it still refuses to import, get another camera and make a clone of your tape by playing on one and recording on another. This will give the new tape a fresh timecode

Excerpted from the DV guru's How to Avoid Timecode Breaks, http://www.dvguru.com/2005/11/08/tip-how-to-avoid-timecode-breaks/

Links: Shake Tutorials

3D Multipass Compositing in Shake

Download the files used in the 3D Multipass comping Tutorial here

Advanced 3D & Shake

A whole page of Tutorials here
http://www.fxphd.com

Keying Tutorial Download

Shake Tutorials for purchase here

Links: Free greenscreen footage!

look what i found! free greenscreen footage!!
http://timelinegfx.com/freegreenscreen.html

you just have to email them at FREE@TIMELINEGFX.COM to get a link to the downloads, which are huge. please use the ones that are not pre-keyed to practice your keying skills.

xo,
TeacherPants

Links: Post-production houses

Motionographer: lots of links on the left-hand side.

Those that are not listed on Motionographer, I'm including below.

Buster Design
Mograph: Community of motion graphics, job listings etc...
Designinmotion: Tells you what's new in the land of MoGfx
DesignOMotion: a studio with a misleadingly similar name
Smuggler Studio
fluid studio
artichoke
beehive
hornet
Park Avenue Post
editional effects
Point of Origin

Maya and AE Tip: Color Settings

A former student o' mine asked me the following question:
I have problems exporting my senior project from After Effects. I render my images
in maya and then import them into after effects. While I work in AE everything looks fine, however when I render movie from After Effects the quicktime result comes out darker and more red (more saturated). I export it with animation compression set to Best with Millions of Colors. Do you know what it might be?

The solution? Color settings in After Effects.

My answer:
in AE check your File/Project Settings.
2nd area up is called "Color Settings"
Set these to your photoshop working space or if applicable, Maya
working space, or if neither one applies, to the working space of your
computer monitor.

Also, evidently the color picker in Maya sucks. It does some weird translation. For best results when jiving Maya colors with Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop colors, rely on Hexadecimal values. Take that, faulty color-picker!

Shake Tip: Expressions

Here's some info I gleaned from the interweb. In addition there's a DVD by Gnomon Workshop called "Expressions and Scripting with Matt Linder." That guy is a genius.

Any parameter can be an expression. You just type the expression into where the number would go, and you get a little + sign which you can expand to show the text of the expression.

the noise() function is a good one for you here. It takes a parameter, which should be based around the time...

So for something to vary between 0 and 1, put:

noise(time)

To slow it down to half the speed, use:

noise(time / 2)

To make it between 0 and 5:

5 * noise(time / 2)

Or between 5 and 10:

5 + (5 * noise(time / 2))

To find out what functions are available to you, find your shake install folder, and look in the "include" folder in there (if you're on OSX, you may have to do "Expand Package Contents" or whatever it's called)

In that folder, there should be a file called 'nreal.h'. This has the definitions of all of the functions that you can use in Shake. This includes both functions like noise() and also nodes (which are actually just functions that return an image). This'll give you a good idea of what's available for use in expressions.

Also, the Shake manuals "Expressions and Scripting" section is rather helpful and much more complete compared to many other applications out there.

Links: Music Videos

Doc Copenhagen's Top 50 Music Videos of 2006

Pitchfork Best of 2006

Spike.com's Best of 2006

Coffee and TV by Blur

Pitchfork Best of 2007

Director File Best of 2007

Regina Spektor

Director Stephane Sednaoui