For my second animation piece I first intended to make two birds, one large vulture and one small bird. I would then place both birds into a forest. Then I would show wind blowing the forestry behind the birds and animate the large bird opening its wing to shelter the small one. I think this would have been a lovely animation however realised shortly after making the illustrator images of the birds just how much work this would require. I didn’t have time to do this so instead changed it to have a bird in flight.

Planning

When I talked to Darren about my plan he instead pointed me in the direction of a side on view of a flapping bird, which wouldn’t require overlaying layers and wouldn’t be as complex as animating an unfolding wing.

• 

• 

To animate the large birds wing unfolding I would have had to create multiple stages of the unfolding, and then over lace them so as to blend them together. I don’t know how to do this and don’t have time to learn how within the deadline I have so this plan had to be scrapped. I had already created the two bird models I intended to use, but didn’t end up using them in the final piece.

I used the above video to show me how I should group the next bird figure I made and how to move pivot points to animate flapping wings. In my previous animation I had imported my illustrator files as one layer, however with this video as a guide I imported the illustrator file with various groups. Thus giving me a greater degree of control over my animation.

Production

With a final image in mind, I began to work on the elements I would need for my animation. I started by finding a good view of a humming bird which would allow me to recreate the character in Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to use lots of colour and a cartoonish style as I want this piece to be charming when watched.

• 

• 

I imported the Illustrator character into aftereffects as a composition (Fig.1), which allowed me to use the different layers without having to import them as different images. This knowledge would have been very useful with my last composition, particularly when importing the title used as individual letter images, however I didn’t know how to do this at that stage.

• 

• 

I then ran into an issue. I had made the character as one still 2D image, which meant that when I then animated the wing movement the back of the character would disappear (Fig.2). I then added in the back of the character so that this wouldn’t be off putting to the viewer (Fig.3)

• 

• 

Once I had the character design correctly, I animated the beak of the bird to open and close rapidly every few seconds as well as animated the wings to flap. My next step was to animate the movement of the bird body; however I didn’t want the wings and beak to separate when I moved the body. The answer to this came with the parenting tool. Which allowed me to move the entire group of layers and keep the flapping wings and moving beak in place.

The above video showed me how to use the parenting whip to attach layers to each other. With this in place I could add a simple path for the character to follow as it flaps its wings, giving the impression of flight.

• 

Once I had a bird which flapped its wings and flew around the screen the core element of my animation was in place. I then turned my attention to the background of the video. I looked at humming bird images with a focus on the backgrounds and found interesting flowers which I could use to add interest to my piece.

• 

I remade the flowers in Illustrator using the same style I used for the bird character and placed them around the background of the animation to add visual interest. I also animated these just to sway gently in the wind as it looked strange having these delicate flowers stand still while the bird flies around them.

• 

• 

I also duplicated the layers that made the bird group, which meant I had three birds which all flap their wings and tweet. I then flipped one of this groups to give me three birds which I could make intersect. This was again to make the composition as a whole interesting and fill the space more than I could with just one bird.

At this stage, the visuals of my piece were in place and so I had to source the audio of the piece. I found a useful royalty free sounds website which focused on ambient nature noises. I used the hum of a humming bird sound clip, however the actual tweet of a humming bird isn’t a pleasant as I liked to I also sourced a generic small birds call from the same website to give me my two audio tracks.

Final Thoughts

I think this piece is better than my last design. It was good to use composition imports and the parenting tool proved itself incredibly useful. After having made this piece I feel more confident with after effects.

In terms of the piece itself I like it, and I do think it is a charming animation which is what I was aiming for. However, I think the birds look a little slow in the final video. I set it to the wings flapped with every half second, which I think for most birds would look quick. However, as I chose hummingbirds, I think they look a little sluggish. I could have changed this by having a flap every quarter second and perhaps added more smaller birds to further fill the screen. However, to a viewer who doesn’t know about birds perhaps it would look okay.

References:

andrew pach • PowerPoint and video (2016) [YouTube Video] ‘After Effects parenting tutorial‘ Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHPbL9FaEes&ab_channel=andrewpach%E2%80%A2PowerPointandvideo [accessed 26/03/2021]

Arthur Morris/Getty Images [found via online article] Wired.com ‘hummingbirds can see colors we cant even imagine’ Wired.com. Available online: https://www.wired.com/story/hummingbirds-can-see-colors-we-cant-even-imagine/ [Accessed 25/03/2021]

Move Shapes (2018) [YouTube Video] ‘After Effects Tutorial – Bird Flying Animation Tutorial‘. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hTjA4lmpYw&ab_channel=MoveShapes [Accessed 23/03/2021]

Paige Bartlett (unknown Date) [Online Article] ‘Fueling the Hummingbird’s Extreme Biology‘. Available online: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/research/advancements-in-research/fundamentals/in-depth/fueling-the-hummingbirds-extreme-biology [Accessed 26/03/2021]

Spanac, (2018). ‘Birds Chirping Sound Effect‘ [Royalty Free Online source] https://www.freesoundslibrary.com/ Available online: https://www.freesoundslibrary.com/birds-chirping-sound-effect/. [Accessed 27/03/2021]

Spanac, (2019). ‘Hummingbird Sounds‘ [Royalty Free Online source] https://www.freesoundslibrary.com/ Available online: https://www.freesoundslibrary.com/hummingbird-sounds/ [Accessed 27/03/2021]