Process and Production - CC Paper roll on

Sara's Process and Production lesson started with us watching an example of what we were to base our piece off. The animation below "All we ever wanted was everything" is an excellent example of how the tool CC Paper Roll On effect in After effects can be used.




In the workshop with Sara, we looked at another effect that after effects has to offer, which would create a roll on effect for the vectors that we were to create. The theme that my group was given was "Huddersfield". The first thing that I thought of when thinking of huddersfield was the train station, as this I use it a lot traveling from my hometown to huddersfield. I started the workshop by creating a vector of the train station on Adobe Illustrator.

I am happy with the way the vector image turned out. I think the colour scheme works well. I saved all of the layers separately which will allow me to create a delayed roll on effect with the different layers, which will hopefully result in a aesthetically pleasing animation. I wanted to add something else to the animation. For anyone who knows Huddersfield, there is a statue in front of the building of Harold Wilson. I created this in Adobe Illustrator also.

In order to use the roll on effect, it was as simple as selecting the layer, and selecting effect, distort, and the CC paper roll on. It is then just a case key framing the Fold position and fold direction, making sure that the controls are on Classic UI so the the page turn is from the bottom. The fold direction must be set to 180% also.

This is the final outcome:

Process and Production - CC paper roll on from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

I am happy with the result of the animation. I think that having the purple on the back pages of the layers helps to create a nice contrast between the layers that have already finished turning onto the page and those that still need to. I enjoyed this workshop and think that the CC page turn is very powerful toll that could come in useful in future animations.

Process and Production - Geometric Shape Animation

The first thing that i experimented with was shape morphing. I had never done this before on after effects, so i was excited to learn some new skills. I did this by changing the shapes into bezier paths, which enabled me to take keyframes from different shapes and add them after another shapes path in the timeline. This resulted in the shape morphing from one shape into another.

I decided to have my initials in the middle of one of the frames as this allowed me to have a nice centre point for the boxes to explode out of. 

I then looked into covering type with a shape in order to create the effect that the line made the text appear. I liked this effect and think it fits well with the animation. I used an "alpha TrkMat" on the shape in order to create this mask like effect on the rectangle that covers the type. 

Geometric Animation from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

This is the final piece I created using the different experimental methods. I added a soundtrack from freemusicarchive.org. 

Overall i am happy with the way this piece turned out. I learnt some new techniques in adobe after effects and am keen to get a more in depth knowledge of this powerful program and improve my motion skills more.

Under the sea animation collaboration

For the final animation process and production session, each of the students including myself had to create a 10 second clip of a under the sea scene. I created a scene with a simple fish, using keyframes and some expressions in after effects to make the fins move as a fish would. I used the 'loop' expression on the keyframes for rotation in order to create a continuous swimming motion.

After making the body of the fish the parent, and the fins children, linked to the body. I moved the anchor point to just in front of the tail of the fish. This allowed me to move the fish around with ease, and therefore allowed the rotation and position of the fish to move as one whole, even though it is made up of multiple layers.

The video below is the animation I produced for this workshop.

Under the sea animation from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

I am happy with the result of the video. I believe that the rotations in the fins work well with the fish, and create a realistic look. However, in order to improve the scene further, silhouettes in the background of other sea life could improve the look, as well as some more sea vegetation or a few star fish for example.

Year One Finale - Group B from Motion-go on Vimeo.

This is the full collaboration together.

Kinetic Typography 2

For this session of process and production with Sarah, the task was to create a 10 second animation, focusing on typography once again. However, this time, the focus was to use the 'z space', which allows for a 3D look to be created.

I decided that I would use the quote from the Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore "Happiness can be found in the darkest of times when one remembers to turn on the light."

As I created this, I decided that it would look better if the quote ended in a block of text, however in order to make this look more visually appealing, I changed the size and weights of the words in order to create this.

I used a template for where I wanted the text to end up at the end of the animation.

In order to create the animation that can be seen below, I used the camera feature on Adobe After Effects, and then made the text editable in 3D. This allowed me to change where the text was placed in the z axis, which therefore gave the look that the text was moving from different locations.

I created the animation backwards, setting the keyframes for where I wanted the text to end first. However the template was needed in order to re-arrange the text once it had been moved around due to the use of the z axis.

I used a paper texture from online for the background, however edited it in photoshop, by adding a grey transparent layer on top, as well as darkening the edges. I believe that this helped to add extra depth to the animation, and the viewers eyes are drawn to the centre of the screen where it is a ligher shade of grey.


HARRY POTTER QUOTE from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

Overall I am happy with the outcome of this session of process and production, and believe that I have learnt a new skill that is easy to use, and creates interesting and aesthetically pleasing results.

Kinetic Typography One

For this session of process and production we looked at animating typography. I decided to create an animation with the use of kinetic typography, on the font "proxima nova". As seen below, I used techniques using the 3D feature, which allowed me to animate the type using both the x and z axis. This allowed me to create some nice transitions between the different weights of the font.

Proxima Nova Animation from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

I am pleased with the result of this animation. The use of type in this way has interested me, and I intend to look further into the concept in a future project.

Animated Stig

For this session of process and production, we had to create a character in Adobe Illustrator, and used Adobe After Effects to animate the character. I also created the background in Adobe Illustrator. 


Animated Stig from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

I decided to add shadows to the illustration for the background, as I believe that this created more depth, and made the illustration more aesthetically pleasing. However, because of this, I had to add a shadow to the moving character that I have created.

This caused a problem, as I was not sure how to create a shadow in the shape of the character, which would also move to the movement. After struggling with this, i finally duplicated the character, and changed the colours to the same colour of the shadows. I then used effects in order to flatten the shadow to the floor. I believe that this worked very well, and I am pleased with the result of the animation.

Game of thrones promo

I also made a start on designing aspects of the short 10 second clip that we will be designing on Adobe After Effects . I created this vector of House Lannister's sigil on illustrator. This is on a wide screen display in order to fit to the big screen when added to After Effects.

I am pleased with the way the lion and the stag turned out. I think the different layers add depth to the vectors, which makes them stand out. I used the catch phrases/ mottos of the houses, along with the houses name.

With these vectors, I took screenshots of different areas of the animals, in order to create different camera angles for the promo animation as shown below.


Game of thrones promo from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

I am happy with the way the animation turned out, as it is my first time using the program. however, i do believe that i could improve the animation with a bit more practice of how to use After Effects.