Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

[Nicohk92]

Hello guys.



I spent all night on this illustration. I'm self taught so I'm rather happy 'm beginning to produce images I start liking. It's done entirely on asp using a bit of freehand, bolb (for the moss). All shadows and reflectiions are done with the shaded option. That's why it's not totally perfect but then if I start trying to correct everything and finding solutions for every element it'll just never end. I think overall it's coherent. Is there anything that you find shocking?

Now the thing is, I will animate this.


I'd like to make the camera track out from beyond the creeper and two trees and stop on a wide shot, on dry land in the jungle revealing in its passage two characters who are holding hands with their back facing us.

I took for reference this image I found on google:
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2013 ... jungle.jpg

As you can imagine my illustration corresponds to the left side of my reference and my characters and end cam position will be on the right.

Here's the top level of my layer window:




I'll have the mushrooms popping up. I'd already boned up some of these branches for something else but I feel that if I start making the vegetation move dynamically I'm up for huge headaches so I'll pass on this.

The snail is a free green screen footage I found on youtube. For now it's just one frame keyed out but eventually i'll have to import the footage with alpha so that the snail can move. However from apple motion which i'm using, my choices of alpha exports are limited to prores4444 or png image sequence.

Question:
Can image sequences be imported into asp?
Does asp manages 4444 well? Cause I read it's already not perfect at export. Plus it heavy.
Should I go through an additional converter like mpegstreamclip to have animation codec or png?

How would you go about it?


I've cleaned up my points, all my layers are neatly organized and I'm getting ready to dispatch the main elements along the z axis which is a bit scary to me. Any advice? I also wonder: Can the shift+alt trick in the layer transform tool be done numerically?

I didn't think the scene 3d from the beginning so the water has the same angle as everything else. I'm ok with keyframing it to follow the perspective change.

Do you have any advice for me relative to distance of my groups, the camera move to achieve etc... Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry for all the questions. Feedback on the illustration alone is also welcome.


Thanks

[lawnmower70]

I'm not good enough to answer most of your questions, as far as the picture goes, I think its beautiful. Good job!

[Little Yamori]

Beautiful imagery. One question; with your talent to produce this level of image, why go through the headache of importing the snail from someplace else, when it would take a very short time for you (within a 20 minutes or half hour I'd guess) for you to draw the same snail and rig to your liking in ASP?

Anyway, I'm not qualified to answer the tech side of your other questions. Nice work. One very, very, very, minor critique if I may, it just stood out to me from the rest of your image, was the very angular reflection in the water.

Great work though, looking forward to seeing it animated.

LY

[dueyftw]

Can image sequences be imported into asp? ~Yes

Does asp manages 4444 well? Cause I read it's already not perfect at export. Plus it heavy. ~ I don't know. I might if it is on your computer, but AS has been know not to get along with some codec.

Should I go through an additional converter like mpegstreamclip to have animation codec or png?
~Sequence png's are the way to go. Importing or exporting. Make sure that they have the alpha channel. My second choice is QuickTime with alpha.

Dale

[Nicohk92]

(within a 20 minutes or half hour I'd guess) for you to draw the same snail and rig to your liking in ASP?

I'm coming to that realization. I spent a whole evening at the start of the project looking for pngs, svgs, greens screen stuff etc... And actually I lmost nver used them at all. It's much faster and fun to draw everything from scratch.

But the rigging is still a tricky part for me so more likely two hours than twenty minutes.

The snail doesn' t look to terrible I hope. Starting from the live footage, I tweaked the toon effect, duplicated the layer, set colorize to the top one along with color blend mode and an outline for the whole group.

If getting the whole clip into the project gets troublesome, I'll definitly result to drawing it.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Nicohk92]

Can image sequences be imported into asp? ~Yes

So I just drop the folder in asp and it lines up an image per frame?

i'll just try it


Thanks!

[Nicohk92]

it just stood out to me from the rest of your image, was the very angular reflection in the water.

You think so? I was rather pleased to come up with that. I was messing around with the shape and it came about very intuitively. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Little Yamori]

No worries, everyone's style is different, it just popped out to me, it almost looked like a face, but it still looks cool

[jahnocli]

If you watch a Disney-style "dolly" sequence, the scenery (like 'flats' on the stage) moves aside as if on wheels to emphasise forward or backward movement as the camera moves. For instance, you could start at the distant headland and truck back towards the viewer, with the scenery moving inwards as you go. This would give the impression of increasingly being surrounded by foliage (if that is what you wanted!).

[slowtiger]

What I think you should do is put each layer of your BG on its own Z level. (see the vakue boxes in Layer transformation tool). Use values like 0, -1, -2, -3 etc, with someting like -30 for the mountains. Then play around with the camera's Z value, from 3 to -5.

I usually want to have a certain composition at the start and in the end, so I assign a Z value and compensate with scaling the layer. You have to play around a bit with this, so duplicate your scene first.

[3deeguy]

Stunning! Love the colors. I could almost feel the humidity. Your attention to detail is a dead givaway that you'll find subtle ways to bring your scene to life. Please post your progress.

[Víctor Paredes]

so I assign a Z value and compensate with scaling the layer.

From AS 9 (maybe 9.5), the software can auto-compensate the scale if you move a layer in Z pressing Alt+Shift. It's extremely useful.

[slowtiger]

Oha, didn't knew that - have to try.

[Nicohk92]

it almost looked like a face,

Damn, That's all I see now. Thanks a lot

[Nicohk92]

Iwith the scenery moving inwards as you go.

sounds interesting. I'll give it a try