Test Movement

Professor Halbstein said to go back and place this image in after effects and make it move and test to see how it will look in the final piece.

I went back and cleaned up the image a little and gave it a few basic colors so it would be easy to look at, thus the image below was born.

In order for the project to work in after effects though each image had to be on a separate layer and made sure to save it as a pdf.  Here are the layers below that were used:

I played around a lot in after effects because I have never used it before.  It certainly was a learning experience and I realized that the front pieces would have to be twice as long or more so if they are to move faster against the scenery in the background.  I'm happy that was found out now rather than later when the piece was in it's final stages.

I rendered out a brief quicktime movie of what was done after a few different tries were made.  I like the effect it had and feel that it flows fairly well.   After this experiment I'm even more excited to dive in and work on this project.  I think I'll add more to the first two layers(the orange, the plants, and the monster) and a little bit to the third(the green background) so I can see if my theory will work.

AB Adjustments

Alongside the compositing project I've been working on the flat color project.  I started the tree a while ago and at first had been pleased with the overall shape.

Yet while I worked on the gradient layer and the line work I began to dislike the two branches that branched out of the tree.  So I decided to work over them and slim them down.  I looked online and outside at the different trees.  It's funny how something you see so often and usually so simple in form can still be difficult to draw.  I realized that they were too thick and needed to be slimmed down but still flow with the rest of the tree.

I like this look much more and find that the thinner branches work better than if they were kept thick and clunky.

Clean Up 3D Flowers

So I decided to attempt at cleaning up the pixel paint effect flowers in photoshop with the paintbrush tool.  This way they would look much cleaner and flow better with the matte painting, also because it aids in understanding how I will work when placing the 3D pieces into the composited photographs.

Here is what I began with.  It is untouched. (This is the exact one found in an earlier post.)

I then added a brown background onto it since the piece will not be white and also when I normally paint I use a darker background because for some reason I feel I see the colors better.  Sometimes I do either brown or a warm gray background.  

Here is what it came out as.  I blurred a little more on the flowers towards the back and attempted to keep a stronger line on the two flowers that are closer to the viewer.  The flower buds were much cleaner when they were rendered so I didn't have to work with them too much, but the stems have proven to be a tough battle.

Here is the layer of what has been painted onto the 3D piece.

I then decided to see what it would look like on a white background.  Since even though it may look good on a dark background for light colors, dark colors tend to get lost like the lights do on a white background.

As you can see it doesn't look very good on a white background.  I certainly was not happy about that.  It still looks greatly pixelated even though on the brown piece it appeared smoother. 

So I jumped back into photoshop to see if I could correct this problem.

It turned out better and less pixel-ly but I would like to see a better flow, although I don't want to loose the 3D look that the paint effects in Maya provided.  This has proven to be a good learning experience but rather frustrating to reach just the right point.  Overcoming the pixel look was very tough and a little more experimenting will have to go into it but I am confident that this can be overcome to create a interesting piece of combined elements.

Compositing Project

Alongside the angry birds flat color painting I have also begun to work on the other compositing piece, this one relying far more on combining 3D and real life photographs to create an image that flows and is unified.

I began with this image, and decided that the cobblestone would fit with the sketch that I had done a few weeks ago. (Look in past posts)  And deleted the surrounding area save the cobblestone road.

Here is what I've kept of the before image and it will go into the piece.  I kept some of the grass to aid with the transitioning between the grass that will be within the forest.  I also thought it resembles the paint effects grass that may be used alongside the shrubbery and tulips in the final product.

Final Sketch

The final decision on the angry bird style moving painting.  After playing around with different widths and heights I decided to go with the much longer width of approx 2000 pixels and a height of 600 pixels because the camera will be panning from the left to right.  This seems to work much better than the sizes I was using beforehand, also there is much more room and it feels like there is more freedom and room to roam.

 I've added a few concepts, such as the looming monster and the roots that will travel through the scene similar to how the plants do, just on a different plane.

Once again I separated the layers by colors. 
From fastest to slowest:
Red
Blue
Green
Orange
Purple
Yellow

To undertsand the speed of movement better I took a car drive on the thruway and videotapped the drive from the side so when it comes time to make this piece move I'll have references.  Those may be put up later.

Redoing Flat Color

Since I wasn't happy with the first one I went back and redid some of my ideas.  I came up with two options.  One is a night scene, the other a day scene.  The night is a magical forest of sorts while the daytime is a country scene.  To help decide I did different colors that would be used for the image.  Darker colors for the night scene which would have glowing objects as a light source while the country would be natural with natural and rich colors.  I also doodled small thumbnails of what each version would generally look like.

Following that I decided to go with the night scene to play around with a stylistic look.  I then made a larger sketch to place the bigger pieces of the overall image and figure out where I wanted them to go.  Afterwards, since this will be moving I mapped out which in the piece will be moving at the differing speeds.

From fastest to slowest based on colors:
Red - fastest
Blue
Green
Orange
Purple
Yellow - slowest

Other Matte Paintings

While I work on the flat color matte painting, there are other projects in the works.

One is a compositing landscape, keeping most of it photo images with minimalist retouches in photoshop.  An example of what I have in mind is similar to the Max & Ruby show found on Nickelodeon.

Next to that project I am even more interested in doing a digital painting matte painting while also placing 3D elements into the scene.  Something similar to the movie Kung Fu Panda.

In the beginning I thought of doing a sprawling city scene.  The 3D element would be greek pillars and they would move the fastest in the scene when made mobil.

Yet this idea has been put on the back burner for something a little more natural using paint effect brushes such as the flowers and bushes alongside stock images of houses/forests that will be painted over to create a moving scene.

At first I was thinking of doing a single paint effect flower in the forest with rays of light falling down on it.  

Here is a very crude and rough example seen in the image below, the second scene in the image.

Although using multiple paint effects in a larger scene sounded much more complicated and daring - especially by incorporating deteriorating architecture with nature.  Another quick doodle can be seen in the above image, the first of the two doodles.

The paint effect flowers I believe that would work the best.  Although I will have to clean them up in photoshop to avoid the pixelation and also see if I should incorporate the open tulips alongside the partly-opened seen above.

Here are a few stock images picked up from online that I may use as a base for the painting of the house that will be used in the final product.  I did not take these pictures. 

Beginning to Work

Roughed out the idea for the Angry Birds.  Just to get a general idea.

Began to work on the final product.  Not too sure if I like it so far.

Work to base off of

For the first painting sequence I'll be going with a simple scene to move.  Think of the background used in Angry Birds.

Here are some examples:

I'll be using a similar look, where the foreground is in strong color and everything in the background is far more washed out to bring the allusion of distance.

Here's an example of it with the movement in the game.