In todays Process and Production with Sara, we looked at another technique within after effect, however this time round, we were to incorporate some hand drawn aspects into the animation. The technique we would be learning is called boiling. It looks as if the image is boiling over like water. This effect is produced through the use of images that are slightly different added to After Effects in an image sequence.
I decided to draw there variations of the same tree. After doing this, took the images into photoshop, changing the levels and curves. This was to make the black blacker and the white whiter, thus making the lines I had drawn stand out more off the page. This also created a cleaner look to the image, which would come in handy when multiplying the finished result later on in after effects.
After the images had been edited in photoshop, I saved each as a JPEG named 001, 002 and 003. It is crucial that you name the files in this way, as this is how After Effects can pick up the order of the sequence. I then added these three files to after effects though importing them as multiple files, however changing the options to image sequence.
Once the image sequence has been added, I then right clicked the layer in the project window and selected interpret layer. I then changed the loop from 0 to 100 which was exactly 10 seconds which matched the composition.
I then created a mask over the tree and generated a stroke. I then made the stroke large enough to cover the moving lines and keyframes the end option to make the path move. I selected reveal original image. This made the image I had drawn appear as the mask moves over it.
I then added a background to the scene, making sure that the line drawings where on multiply. This is the final product.
Boiling from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.
It was an interesting workshop, and a very useful technique to know how to do. I may incorporate something like this into one of my future projects. I believe that if a lot of time is put into this technique it could create some excellent results.
