Open your .tifseries of images in Photoshop by clicking File >
Open …. Select the first image of the sequence and click on image sequence. Don’t forget to set the correct frame rate.
This will automatically create a canvas with the correct image size and load the image sequence into a video layer.
FIGURE 6.8 A reference loaded in as a video layer in Photoshop.
As we have done before, you will want to create a video layer to draw your EFX layers in. We have many EFX elements to draw in this shot: water, flowers, sparks, and flying copper bits. We’ll start with the flowers. If you remember back to our lecture at the begin- ning of the chapter, flowers would come under our solid shapes category.
In Figure 6.9, the vase reference layer is in the bottom layer position. A flower animation layer is also visible. As a note to my students, notice that the flowers are extremely roughed in. This is a great way to animate through your shot quickly so that you can test out various versions or, as was the case with this example, get the animation supervisor’s feedback and approval. A great guide- line is to work rough and fast; show early; show often.
All of the flowers were created on one video layer. Was this a great idea? Remember that the video layers will be exported out for ink and paint and compositing. If all of the flowers are on one layer, that makes for one sequence of images that will be inked and painted. It might make inking and painting easier to have the
FIGURE 6.9 Rough pass of a flower animation.
flowers all on one layer, but that makes it more difficult for the animator to keep track of the stems. Animating using video layers sometimes causes bad habits of putting elements all in one layer. It is quite common for elements to appear on one layer and then move to another layer so that they have proper leveling. Ulti- mately, do what is right to get the proper animation, but keep in mind how the leveling is going to happen during compositing. Keep those x-sheets handy. As you gain more experience with creating shots, you’ll start to see how to break apart the levels.
Once the flower’s rough animation was approved, a more pol- ished version of the animation was completed.
FIGURE 6.10 Final animation of flowers.
A special note on animating in Photoshop: in shot 39, the timing of the vase movement was worked out in Maya, and that dictated the main movement of the 2D flower and water elements. The water element was easy enough to animate in Photoshop because it was mostly animated straight ahead. Animating pose to pose in Photoshop is difficult when using video layers. It can be done, or the animator can choose to use the older method of animating in Photoshop: using the frame method versus using video layers. Why is it difficult to animate using video layers? When there is a key- frame on frames 1 and 7 and you want to create a breakdown on frame 5, all of the other blank frames on the video layer get in the way of rolling through your animation (see Figure 6.7). For anima- tors that like to flip back and forth between the drawings instead of using the onion skinning, the blank frames can cause the eye to lose where the previous drawing was. It is still possible, with some duplicating of layers, to use a familiar flipping or rolling method.
The following method can be employed when doing cleanup in Photoshop or animating pose to pose:
1. Draw the first and second keyframes in a video layer, as we learned in previous chapters.
2. Duplicate the layer.
3. In the timeline, open the layer and notice the blue boxes on the altered video line. You cannot move these keyframes (drawings), but you can move the duplicate layer itself so that the keyframes line up where you want them visible.
4. Repeat as needed so that you can see your keys in the correct order to roll or flip the images as desired while you draw the needed breakdown drawing.
5. When you are done, delete the duplicate layer(s).
In Figure 6.11, three flower keyframes have been drawn. The layer has been duplicated and moved so that the two keyframes show up at the same time. In order to roll the drawings, the dupli- cate would be moved back one frame in time.
To flip or roll images has a different definition based on what studio/country one is in. In some U.S. studios, to flip images means the animators stack their papers in such a way as to look at the first key, look at the breakdown that they are currently drawing on, and then flip back a page to the second key. It is called flip because you end up flipping forward and backward to see the motion. To roll, in the United States, is to stack the papers in order and to roll through the frames with the first key on the bottom, the breakdown on top of that, and the second key on top. Depending on one’s dexterity, one can roll up to five drawings at once. These terms have to do with paper and what one has to do in order to keep the drawing one is currently adjusting on top for
drawing. In our digital animation pipeline, you will mostly be rolling or you might hear the term scrub (which comes from the digital editing field). However you manage it or whatever you call it, it is imperative for the pose-to-pose animator and the cleanup artist to have the ability to roll through their drawings without seeing the blank inbetweens.
Another type of EFX element that we discussed was abstract elements. Water can fall into this category because it is purely drawn in as an abstraction of its natural form. Liquid, water, and smoke are all abstract elements. Our shot 39 depicts a vase, filled with water, flying through the air. The vase hits the ground and the water splashes out onto an electrical outlet in the wall. The same method of roughing in the animation with video layers was used. You can see an example of the rough and final animation in Figures 6.12 and 6.13. You’ll note that the rough animation is extremely rough, with nothing more than bouncing balls to indi- cate direction and volume.
FIGURE 6.11 Using duplicate layers to roll through keyframes without blank inbetweens.
FIGURE 6.12 Rough animation of the water in the vase.
FIGURE 6.13 Final animation of the water EFX element.
Ink Lines
Once the animation and cleanup are completed, you will want to add color to your artwork. There are many ways to do it and many different software solutions. Let’s look at the things you might want to do with your ink lines before we deal with the button clicking and different software programs.
The first thing we will do is make sure that the ink line stays separate from the paint. Why would we want to have the ink line separate from the paint? We can reuse the ink line in our compos- iting software to create various visual compositing techniques.
With the ink line separate, you can easily change the color of the ink line if your paint package lets you fill in color and keep alpha channels. In Photoshop this can be done by selecting Edit
> Fill and making sure that the Preserve Transparency option is turned on.
FIGURE 6.14 Using Fill to color ink lines easily.
A simple example of what finesse can be done with ink lines is shown in Figure 6.15. The ink line has been duplicated and blurred. This blurred ink line was clipped (or masked out) by the paint layer. This way the blurring did not extend on the outside of the water, giving the water an unwanted halo. The harsh edges of the blurred ink line are never visible because the original ink line is layered on top of it, as you see in the top portion of Figure 6.15. The paint layer is also transparent, though that is not visible in this image.
FIGURE 6.15 Ink line sample.
Figure 6.16 is similar to the previous example, except that there is not the addition of the original ink line on top. The blurred ink line is also colored to be similar to that of the paint. This is a useful technique when combining 2D elements with 3D elements that do not have strong toon lines. Just because there is a drawn line for the 2D element does not mean that it has to stay visible in the final composite.
If you use Photoshop or any painting package in which you use something like a paint bucket tool, a good technique to use for painting is the following:
1. Place the ink line on one layer. 2. Create the paint fill on a second layer.
3. Paint using the paint bucket and brush tools. Don’t worry about coloring outside of the lines too much.
4. Using a magic wand tool, select the paint that is outside the lines. In Photoshop, make sure to have sample all layers
turned on.
FIGURE 6.16 Ink line sample.
FIGURE 6.17 Creating paint fills on a separate layer in Photoshop.