Stop Motion Rig Test #1

I love the idea of stop motion.  The look and feel of it, the hands-on approach.  But I've found it rather tricky to do as a team of one person without the space for a set that could stay up for an indefinite period of time.  And trying to fit things around my work schedule -- well, if you've ever worked retail you know it isn't exactly a 9-5 gig, so getting the same lighting each day would be an issue all its own.

But I still wanted to try, and so I've been figuring out a way to combine the look of stop motion with the ease and convenience of After Effects.  I found a lip sync tutorial online (Thank you again, Creative Cow), and used it to create a custom rig that would allow me to animate my stop motion images inside of After Effects. 

The following videos show my tests animating a moving head -- its vertical rotation (nodding), horizontal rotation, and ear movement. I'm finally able to combine my love of crochet with my love of animation! 

There are several visual issues with the tests, that being that the lighting is inconsistent and the 'set' itself is very primitive (yes, that is a bottle of body spray holding up the head)  but seeing as though my main focus was to test out the effectiveness of the rig and not create a finished piece, I'd say it was a great success!

I've posted below two versions of each test: One showing the rig and how it functions during the animation process, and the second to show the 'finished' product, without the rig.


head nod test with visible rig from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.



The great thing about the rig is that it greatly simplifies the timeline in After Effects, so that instead of working with picture after picture, you have one controller that effects them all. And if you turn the components of the rig into Guide Layers, you won't see them when you render.


  head nod test no rig from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

head turn and ears test with visible rig from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

head turn and ears test no rig from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

(In case you were wondering, the "L,S,R" of the top rig stands for "Left, Straight, Right," while the "O,M,I" of the bottom rig stands for "Out, Middle, In.")

My next step is to create a hand and do some tests with that.  My goal is to create all the various body parts of a character and animate everything in After Effects. Wish me luck!

Colts Football

 

I don't know anything about football.  I mean, I know the basics and key words like "Touchdown"and "50 yard line," but the rest of the time when the announcer is speaking all I hear is the teacher from Charlie Brown (You know, the one that goes "waa-whaah-wwah-wha-waaa.")

My little cousin, however, LOVES football and asked me to make him one with his favorite team's logo on it.  That was the inspiration behind this Colts Football.

Had some difficulty in the beginning (this was attempt number three) which is odd because it seems like such a simple project.  And frankly, now that it's done and I know what to do, it really was a simple project.  It was pretty fun to make too, once I got the hang of it.

I may still know next to nothing about the actual game of football, but I did learn that making them is a pretty fun pastime.

Random Wormhole Test

This post is exactly what the title says: it is a random wormhole test. I was actually looking for a tutorial on something completely different (which, as it turns out, doesn't really exist) when I discovered this instead and figured I'd try it out.

The quality isn't that great; apparently vimeo doesn't approve of the composition size specified in the tutorial. Oh well.

Please enjoy it as it has nothing to do with anything.

 
Wormhole test from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

The Kimmy Torch

I found another interesting tutorial on Creative Cow, this one showing how to turn someone into the Human Torch. I decided to try it out on Kimmy.


The Kimmy Torch from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

 The hardest part (though not so much difficult as it was time consuming) was animating the mask that followed her movement (and contained the flame).  Then I had to troubleshoot certain areas where the flame decided it didn't want to go.  Through a bit of trial and error, I was able to branch away from the tutorial and get the effect to do what I wanted it to.

Many thanks to my furry actress.

Particle World Transitions

I was trying to watch a movie on my computer and couldn't get it to load, so instead I decided to teach myself a little about particle transitions. This is based on a tutorial I found on creativecow.net and involves the word "Text" transforming into sand, dust, smoke, fire, and water (although the water looks a bit more like candle wax.)

If anyone else would like to give it a try, you can find the tutorial here:
Particle World Transitions - Part 1

I really enjoyed my first venture into visual effects. I'm finding it to have the technical side of rigging, which I enjoy, but without the inevitable explosion of rage. Time for more tutorials!



Particle Transitions from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Frankenstein Dance Party

A while back I was watching a documentary on the real-life science of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." It was really fascinating (and at times, rather gruesome) to see how scientists really were attempting things like that. And so I was inspired to make a short about it with my own special twist -- a little less gruesomeness and a little more dance party.

This AE short finally has color and sound! Woo! Enjoy!


Frankenstein Dance Party from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Superior Spider-Man

 

This was a special request from my brother-in-law: Superior Spider-Man.  Spidey here was my trickiest amigurumi so far 1.) because his torso and arms aren't done in perfect rounds and 2.) because I had to figure out how to create the shape of his eyes, along with two spiders (front and back).  Then there was the whole being-covered-in-webbing thing.  Though actually, the webbing wasn't hard at all once I laid down a game plan. 




Total work time: approximately 40 hours.