—- Planning —-
For assignment 2 I need to make a piece that lasts at least 2 minutes in length. I think it would be nice to create something related to video games as none of my assignment 1 work does this. The challenge will be to make a piece that doesn’t look like it’s been slowed down to fit the two minute mark. I think a couple of my assignment 1 pieces were shorter than they had to be and so I really don’t want that impression to come across in the piece.
I’m going to make a 2d platformer level, but I’m going to split the piece into three parts. This is to keep the viewer interested and not make the piece feel as though it is being prolonged unnecessarily.
For the first part of my animation, I want to give the look of the scene being created, then coming to life. I think this will be a nice way to start the video as it will immediately give a sense of charm which I really feel is key to having a good final piece.
The rest of the animation will be split into three parts, with three different settings. I want to start by showing a chase. I will have a character on the roof of a city landscape, being chased by a helicopter. I think this will work well as I can show the character running over roofs smoothly and beyond the helicopter blades the rest of that model can be mostly stationary. (Fig.1)
Fig.1. Adam Saltsman. Canabalt (2009)
Fig 2. Killers and Thieves [Video Game]
For the second part of the animation, I will have the character move into one of the city homes. This will allow me to show the more traditional 2d platformer art style (fig.2). During this part I hope to have the character hide from other people in the house as they work there way down the floors. This will be the longest part of the animation.
Finally for the third and last part of the animation I will have the character leave the house into the street only to be met with a police car. I like the idea of telling a story the viewer can follow and think this will work well as a finished piece. One small touch I may add if I have time is to have the character carry a large sack on their back, which they would then drop when the enter the street. Giving the impression of a thief being caught when running from a heist.
—- Production —-
—- First Section —-
I’m splitting my animation into three different sections. As such it is important to make sure the different acts flow together smoothly. As always, my first step is to produce the artwork. For the first section I will need to design a city landscape so that I can then have a character running over the roofs. Ill be using the Canabalt screenshot shown above for reference as I fill in the backgrounds for this scene (Saltsman, Adam. 2009)
The first element I would need to create for the first section of my animation is the scrolling background, and with that in mind I began to make the different art pieces I would require for this scene. I started with a very bland background I could place to fill out the scene (fig.1), then added a middle ground layer to further this effect (fig.2) before creating a more detailed foreground which I would have my character run along (fig.3)
Fig.1 
Fig.2 
Fig.3 
Fig.4
It was very important tat these three layers fit together in a nice fashion and gave the illusion of a city landscape effectively. Mostly though, I had to make sure the edges of the images would line up in order to create the scrolling effect (Fig.4)
Fig.5 
Fig.6
With the city scape created there were two further elements needed to create this running scene. I needed a helicopter to follow the character and a character which I could have running along the rooftops. With this character I obviously couldn’t just use one image of a standing profile shot (fig.5) as I want the character to move up and down the roofline of the foreground and as such had to create a few different character models in various poses which I could switch with each other when needed (fig.6).
The next step was to make my different figures animate appropriately. I used the below video which showed me how to create a scrolling background, but also it mentions the command ‘LoopOut (“Cycle”);’ which allows me to have key points loop for as long as the object is in the timeline. This meant I could create a running figure using the rotation on different body parts and then keep that going for as long as I need (Vid.1).
I did run into an issue with my background, as originally I just used the background image and a mirrored version of it. Which meant that there was a definite seem as the edges didn’t line up (Vid.2), however this was solved when I placed the original again onto the loop. Meaning that the loop began and started the same, giving me a nice endless loop (Vid.3)
Once I had the background in place it was just a case of animating my character to give the effect of one character changing elevations and position. This was done through repeated keypoints to position and then changing the opacity so the characters would disappear. This cut down on the number of elements needed in my timeline but was very time consuming as I couldn’t use the loopout command.
This was because the character starts half way across a building. Thus the timings for that building are smaller than for the others. I ended up having to put these in manually which did take up a lot of time. It would be good if I could select a point in the timeframe to create a loop and ignore the beginning, but I couldn’t find how to do so. (Vid.4) I also added a helicopter to the scene to give some more visual interest.
—- Second Section —-
I used the video game ‘Mark of the Ninja’ as inspiration for the artwork of my second section, as I felt this was an interesting style that would allow me to continue a stylised dark pallet piece throughout the entire 2 minute piece.
Fig 7. Mark of the Ninja [Video Game]
The below video allowed me to easily create a nice glass breaking effect which allowed me to transition from the chase scene to my second scene. I needed something visual to go with the window breaking sound I will play over the transition.
Again, I created the figures I needed for my scene to create the same way I had my first scene (Fig.8, Fig.9, Fig.10) then I created the background needed for the environment. I did encounter issues with this however as I originally wanted the light to come through the windows, and to do this I made these windows transparent. However I couldn’t figure out how to get the light to appear behind the house (Fig.11)
Fig.8 
Fig.9 
Fig.10 
Fig.11
I ended up using a spot light and looping it scaling across the screen. While this didn’t give me quite the effect, I wanted it did create a sense of unease I like in the scene. I used a dim yellow as the warm colour gave added contrast to the first and third scenes. The final lighting effect is nice, I think it gives the effect of a police interrogation room which works well with the story I am trying to tell with he animation.
Also with this section of the animation I wanted to slow down the visuals. As just like with a musical number when you start a piece quick you need to slow it down before it finished to avoid audience fatigue. This also helped me fill the two minutes of run time, although I think I perhaps dragged this section out a little too far. Adding elements such as the helicopter gives a reason visual to slow down, although I still think this section would be improved by speeding up the walking character speed.
I ended up just cutting to black for the transition between the second and third scene, as I couldn’t find a way to nicely animate a door opening. I do however think that with the sound effect I sourced the impression is given to the viewer through audio if not visual.
—- Third Section —-
For the third section I wanted to wrap up the visual story I was telling through the first and second section of my piece. This section didn’t require the use of any advanced techniques but never the less I think the simple methods use do create a visually appealing piece that I am happy with.
Fig.12 
Fig.13
The first part as always was to create the 2d artwork I needed. While I could re use assets for a lot of this scene, such as the helicopters and the house model I did have to create a few new models such as the character, multiple bags to show the character dropping the bag and a bird which I could animate flying away. Also I created a street light for set dressing and a police car which added interest to the design.
This scene used many different sources of light, however when making the second part of my piece I found out that I really didn’t understand how to add multiple light sources into one scene. This meant instead of using actual light sources I had to simply make then in 2d form and just adjust the opacity to give the impression of light.
I do think this ended up working well however, I am a little dissapointed I didn’t get to experiment with more advanced techniques. Luckily as there is a lot of activity in this section I don’t think the viewer would feel like there is anything missing from the scene and I think it makes a nice end to the visual story I have told through this piece.
—- Audio Production —-
With my visuals done I next sourced the various audio clips I would need to complete the piece. I did wan to use a soft soundtrack however that would provide issues with copyright. I used Freedsound to source my audio samples. A few of these samples could be used across my three scenes but I wanted to make sure to use different samples wherever I could. I’ve laid out the different audio samples below, separated by scene number. (Note: one file is not allowed in audio format on wordpress, but has been referenced in the reference list)
Scene One
Scene 1 Audio layout
Scene Two
Scene 2 Audio Layout
Scene Three
Scene 3 Audio Layout
—- Final Thoughts —-
https://universityofhull.box.com/s/90q4q2i1jg4jj8ju29fj9pls4lo31ebt
A lot of work went into making this piece and I am proud of the result. I learnt new techniques such as creating the scrolling background and have become much more efficient with my animating. Learning how to use command codes made the production much easier. I think my art style is nice, however I think the second scene doesn’t work as well with the art style as the first or third.
I think the piece doesn’t feel stretched, the way many of my assignment one pieces did, and by telling a story I think the viewer is more interested than with my previous examples. I would say that the second scene is probably the weakest and I still think the first section does go on a little longer than it needed to. A way around this I could have implemented was to include thought bubbles appearing as the character moves through the house in scene 2. This would have made this section seem like a more reasonable length however I ran out of time to implement this.
Overall I think I learnt a lot with this piece, and with some more development to the lighting in scene 2 and some added visual interest to scene 1 this piece could be something I am very proud of.
References:
AdobeMasters (2018). ‘How to Create an Infinite Background in Adobe After Effects CC‘ [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZRuViuT_w&ab_channel=AdobeMasters [Accessed 29/04/2021]
brunoboselli (2019) [Freesound.org]. ‘Distant Ambulance Siren‘. Available online: https://freesound.org/people/brunoboselli/sounds/469363/ [Accessed 21/05/2021]
Fig 1. Killers and Thieves [Video Game] Thomas, Alex. Stoic [Publisher]. Available online: https://store.steampowered.com/app/382330/Killers_and_Thieves/ [Accessed 22/04/2021]
Fig.2. Saltsman, Adam. Canabalt (2009) [Video Game] Available online: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fishnoodle.canabalt [Accessed 22/04/2021]
Fig.7. Klei Entertainment. Mark of the Ninja (2012). [Video Game]. Available online: https://store.steampowered.com/app/214560/Mark_of_the_Ninja/ [Accessed 22/05/2021]
gevaroy (2013) [Freesound.org. ‘Breaking Glass » 002.wav‘. Available online: https://freesound.org/people/gevaroy/sounds/173559/ [Accessed 21/05/2021]
gneube (2015) [Freesound.org]. ‘Leather Bag Drop‘. Available online: https://freesound.org/people/gneube/sounds/315838/ [Accessed 25/05/2021]
InspectorJ (2018) [Freesound.org]. ‘Front Door » Door, Front, Opening, A.wav‘. Available online: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/431117/ [Accessed 21/05/2021]
lorenzosu (2008) [Freesound.org]. ‘helicopterPassage_28sec.wav‘. Available online: https://freesound.org/people/lorenzosu/sounds/49481/ [Accessed 21/05/2021]
rxbelful (2020). ‘BROKEN GLASS EFFECT | AFTER EFFECTS‘ [Video]. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBVJADmak1k [Accessed 12/05/2021]
sofialomba (2019) [Freesound.org]. ‘Police siren‘. Available online: https://freesound.org/people/sofialomba/sounds/469411/ [Accessed 25/05/2021]
SpaceJoe (2020) [Freesound.org]. ‘Bird Sounds » Bird Noise – 14.wav‘. Available online: https://freesound.org/people/SpaceJoe/sounds/507260/ [Accessed 25/05/2021]
Wesselorg (2017) [Freesound.org]. ‘Wind blow, mouth.wav]. Available online: https://freesound.org/people/Wesselorg/sounds/408442/ [Accessed 21/05/2021]