Animation Progress #9

 "In animation, there's this exhilerating moment of discovery when you see the film and you say, Oh THAT's what I was doing."

- John Lithgow

This is one of the last updates. I will probably make a few more posts about explaining how I created the background for the second part of the animation, what I intended for the music, and the final animation as well as a commentary on the entriety of the process and what changes the animation went through.
I am planning on finishing my animation today and I will summarize the last details I want to change or improve upon in this post.

Just a quick info: I split the animation into two parts (and two different files), since Toon Boom kept lagging as the animation got longer (I suppose that is because of the number of layers I used in addition to the nodes).

Part 1:

00:47: 

There are a few superfluous white frames that quickly flash by. They disturb the flow of the animation a bit, so cut them out.

00:55: 

Slow down the cracks (like I already did with the cracks in the sky).

01:05:

 The upper part of the background strangely has a white line (which shouldn't actually be possible, I think, since the image is actually bigger than the video ration, but Toonboom still cuts out this one line when exporting the video). I will try to import the background image once again to see if that solves the problem.

01:17:

Add a small animation, so that the character is enveloped by the white light from the crack (similar to the black fade in the second part of the animation = a circle that grows larger, animated with a peg, and a graussian blur applied over it).

Originally I was thinking of adding a grain filter over this part of the animation, but it didn't work when I tried it. Nevertheless, I think the animation still works fine to contrast the second part like it is now.

Part 2:

00:00:

Start off the animation with a white layer on top of everthing that slowly fades out (transparency). This should add a smoother transition between the two parts of the animation. 

00:16:

The bush movement in the foreground looks strange. It needs to be more consistent overall, so I need to find a way for it to follow the constant movement of the background, while also still framing the shot.

00:29: 

I want to insert another scene in between the running here and the character leaving the forest and standing on the cliff. My ideas for this can already be found on the last sketches post. The character should be enveloped in a white light (sun light) again when nearing the end of the background to transition into the next scene. Additionally, since the scene is in first person, the camera should shake a bit to simulate the character running. I still need to draw this background, so I should keep in mind that it needs to be a bit bigger than the actual movie format.

00:30:

The eye colour is missing here because I applied the greyscale node to the entire folder for this scene, which obviously included the eye colour as well. I need to get back to that and instead apply the greyscale nodes to all layers seperately, except the eye colour. 

Furthermore, I want to add sun light coming from the upper right hand corner. The question remaining is just if there is some kind of node for that or if I have to animate that by hand (which actually shouldn't take that long). 

00:34: 

The scene goes by a bit too fast for my taste, so I want to hold the last image of the scene a bit longer.

00:37:

The character just standing around with light wind blowing seems a bit boring at the moment. I might add some moving clouds in the background (or maybe even foreground), birds, or maybe even fireflies again. Maybe animate some grass as well, to add to the wind blowing and make the scene more lively.

00:47: 

I tried to animate the head bobbing around, but it just doesn't look right and destroys the otherwise mostly fluid animation, which is why I will probably exclude that bit. 

00:53:

The transition seems a bit too quick, so I will stretch it out a bit more.  

A quick note for the music: The music and enviromental sounds should quiet down in this segment in preparation for the next scene.

 

00:55:

The transition between the black and the actual scene could be a bit smoother. This could maybe be solved with a change in transparency when transitioning (similar to the white transition between the two parts of the animation).

01:02:

There is a moment, probably just one or two frames, where the head doesn't completely line up and the opened mouth looks coloured in, even though it shouldn't be. It is just a small thing, but one I want to adjust nontheless. 

01:04:

I thought it wouldn't be that noticeable, but a small part of the hair isn't coloured in the lower right hand part of the image due to the bright yellow in the background. 

01:08:

Not that noticeable either, but the hair isn't properly coloured in next to the ear. 

01:14:

The turn around may be a  bit too slow, especially the last few images. I should be able to make the animation a bit smoother by deleting a few frames. 

01:19:

The credits should start around here and just move over the image. I haven't really thought about how exactly, but I am thinking about either letting them fade in and out or just letting them move from the bottom to the top like actual movie credits. The current animation with the character meanwhile should just continue. It is not much, but I think it is nicer than just suddenly cutting to credits. 

01:23: 

Apparently I forgot the lengthen the time the cliff layer is visible, so I just need to extend the frames there a bit.

The last thing missing is the music. I already finished the music for the first part and the changes I proposed shouldn't change anything great about the music (maybe they will influence the timing a bit, but that is quickly adjusted). Furthermore, I already have a small selection of music and soundeffects for the second part. I just need to see which ones fit best and time them.