An Introduction To After Effects

Animation, Polishing and Compositing with After Effects

 After Effects is an incredibly powerful and versatile program that keeps gaining momentum in the industry. If you are new to the program, it may seem daunting to get into with the sheer amount of flexibility the program has in it's uses. If you're interested in After Effects you can download a free trial of it here, or through the link in the “Useful Links” section. After Effects main uses usually fall to three categories: Animating, Polishing, and Compositing.

The biggest thing about animating using the program is that After Effects lives in a world between 3D animation and 2D animation. In After Effects “2.5D” world there is depth to the stage you're animating on, but all your pieces are flat. It's a lot like animating with paper cut outs, you can move the paper forwards and backwards in space, but it itself has no real depth to it. That's how After Effects treats it's 3D space. Things are changing slightly with integration of Cinema4D, but that's using another program to achieve the true 3D elements.

A great example of After Effects' 2.5D animation style is Run Wrake's short film “Rabbit.” It's a great example of animating in After Effects and really capitalizing on it's 2.5D style.
Now not all animation in After Effects has to look like cut out puppets, but that is kind of it's default style. This is where After Effects is great at polishing.  After Effects works amazingly well with integration from Flash, Photoshop and Cinema4D.

The last area that the industry is really using After Effects is compositing, a lot like what Alex Horan did in Wolf Within, but it can be extended to live action as well. Green screening, masking and compositing are all things After Effects does very well with ease. After Effects compositing skills is something it has a distinct advantage of over other animation programs, it's masking ability is incredibly versatile. Here's a fun, fourth wall breaking, music video from the directing duo Daniels for Tenacious D that uses lots of compositing, in various stages of finish.

All in all After Effects is a very powerful and very versatile program which can bend and twist to whatever function you may have in mind for it.While Adobe does have a fairly high cost entrance, if you are serious about pursuing a professional career in any form of animation After Effects is an essential tool. And if you're just curious about it, Adobe's free trial is a great way to get your feet wet without having to shell out a bunch of cash.

courtesy:animation.about.com

830 VFX Shots Delivered By Fluiidmask Studios for 'Baar Baar Dekho'

With a simple concept in mind, to deliver the message that one should live in present and not be always chasing the future, Baar Baar Dekho hit the screens on 9 September 2016. Though the film met with mixed reviews for its storyline, visually it was spot on. The film’s story moved back and forth in time and showcased various futuristic devices and set-ups. And providing visual effects for these sequences was Mumbai’s Fluiidmask Studios.

With about 830 shots delivered, Fluiidmask, founder and creative director who was also the VFX supervisor  for the film, Viral Thakkar was roped in right from the scripting stage of the film by director Nitya Mehra to come up with the concept arts. Being involved in the story, he helped in developing the script on the basis of how the future would look and feel like. From the various phases in the movie to the costume, gadgets, looks Thakkar completely worked on it.

“We imagined future to be simplistic. Nitya used to constantly keep a tab on everything and restricted us in case we went overboard with the designs. She wanted things to be as real as possible since the movie wasn’t a sci-fi film,” explains Thakkar. “Based on human behaviour and how we might be few years down the line, the whole futuristic era was conceptualised. Since people are lonely nowadays, we thought that maybe in future there will be smart homes which will talk to the owner and fill in the void.”

A considerable amount of work went in creating the year 2048 section as it was the most complex year and required a lot of imagery and VFX. In the film, a BMW car could be observed and to give it a futuristic feel, Thakkar required the blueprints of the vehicle. “As the filmmakers had official tie-up with BMW, we got hold of the blueprints of BMW I3 from the design team in Switzerland. We worked closely with them and stuck to recreating the interiors of the car. Inspiration was also taken from the BMW 7 series which has 360 degree collision avoidance. The dashboard, steering wheels, side windows were worked upon wherein the car could detect the weather outside, select music according to the mood of the driver. We envisioned the future to be glass and hence you will witness glass in most of the devices.”

Apart from this, a crematorium sequence could also be observed in the film in which a lotus shaped glass rolls up around the body and then the body is burnt. Over here, keeping the architecture behind the scene in mind, the studio had to work on the lotus glass and the fire particles were nicely choreographed. While shooting in Glasgow, the skyline wasn’t what was required so it had to be reworked upon and cranes had to be removed from the background.

Apart from these sequences, the studio worked on creating the snowfall. The windshield wipers and snow on various actors were CGI. In some portion, they also had to work on the prosthetics as it had to be reshaped and remodelled. Necklines had to be recreated and wrinkles had to added or removed according to the year the characters were in. A lot of chroma removal shots were also there and VFX work was also carried out in the bus sequence.

With the VFX team being present during the shoot, it eased up the studio’s task on working on the shots and the project was delivered within two months. It’s heartening to see that directors are slowly understanding the importance of involving the VFX supervisors right from the scripting stage of a film as it not just eases out their work but also saves the VFX studio’s time in delivering the project.

Courtesy:Animation Express