Here are more tutorials that can further help me to create and produce a particle animation in the form of smoke.
Below is an animation that I created using the tutorial above, which was a quick and simple one to follow. However I would like to push this one further, turning the smoke from a stream to a spherical shape which I could then make it to react to a musical track, I could also add more layers of smoke using different colours.
Below is a move complex smoke tutorial using the trapcode particular plug in. He also goes in to how to add shadow to the particles and how to manipulate text with it, this tutorial will be difficult to follow for now as I'm not able to get a copy of the trapcode at this point in time due to the cost of it.
The Purpose of this post is to show my experiments thus far as well as evaluate them as to how I could improve the work done as well as talk about how I accomplished the animation.
The tutorial above is a very en-depth video about how to create particle in Adobe AfterEffects as well as highlighting what plug-ins to use.
The plug-ins that where mentioned are, Trapcode Suite (particular), Optical Flares and DNxHD Codec. These plug-ins enable the user produce animations like these to this extent.
It also goes in to how to to make the particles movement and appearance more natural but using blur effects, adjusting opacity, size and life of the particles. This tutorial alone gives me enough information on how to create my own particle animation which I can start experimenting with.
This second video shows me how to make an object in AE respond to an audio track that has been imported in to the composition.
This video uses the basic AfterEffects program for this tutorial, so no plug-ins are involved which makes this tutorial more accessible for me as I don't need to worry about downloading the necessary plug-ins required. I found this tutorial very easy to follow as it highlights all the details of the process as well as showing the short cut commands, accelerating the process. Out of this tutorial I've only used the portion that explains how the animate the reactive object.
The reason behind not using the other parts of this video is because I already have pre existing knowledge how to edit and manipulate the images that where imported in the video.
Above in an animation using the tutorial above as a guide, I found this tutorial easy to follow and it allowed me to produce the animation below, I will however will overlay a particle effect on top of this and see how this'll work.
In this segment I'll be looking in to creating style boards for the purpose of in what way I'd like the particles to animate, like ripples, particles emanating from a source, creating waves with the particles or creating outlines with the particles or particles that move like a gas.
I've found a few examples of particle animations that move like the way I intend mine to do so.
This animation uses light sources where the particle then stream out from and as the video progress multiple and mobile sources are then added. I could use a similar style however instead of using rays of particles I could have them pulsating from the centre.
In the animation below, the particles used in a different manner whilst still using a light source its more mobile. When the light source is moving its looks as if its travelling through water, leaving smaller particles giving this effect. This form then progresses to add more, smaller, light sources.
I can use the style of mobile light sources as well as particle streams, I could also used the colours used in this animation.
The final animation I'm looking at to help develop my own style uses particles to create a 3D music visualiser. It uses a broad range of colours and act just as music visualiser would work but when visualiser reaches its peak it turns in to particles that animate similar to smoke.
The form of the visualiser also changes as the video progresses, changing to abstract shapes. The section of this video I'm most interested in starts at 1 minute 52 seconds when the visualiser takes on the form of smoke or gas. I find this section to be most interesting as I intend to have my particle to move like smoke.
After looking at these video's I now intend to use layers of particles each using the colours I mentioned in the previous post and have the particles animate like smoke with a light source in the centre.
In this post I'll be discussing the colours that can be used with either of the two tracks I've chosen, Hall of the Mountain king or Back in Black. For this I'll be creating a separate colour board for both of the tracks.
For the background colours I think that black would be the best to use, this is due to that if i use bright colours the animation itself would be much more visually appealing, much like the particle animations that i reviewed in the previous posts.
But for the particle I need to use colours and tone that mach the track I'll be using, either back in black or hall of the mountain king. For Back in Black, I think reds, purples and blue tones much like the ones below.
For The Hall of the Mountain King I'm thinking of using yellow, orange, red, white and perhaps a shot of pink. the idea behind this is I'll use less aggressive colours, in this case white at the beginning for when the song has a slower rhythm and as the pace progresses the addition colours will be added to the animation, in this case yellow for mid point and red for the crescendo where the rhythm is at peak and more dramatic.
As per my research, I would like to create an animation involving particle effects, however, instead of using 3D software I would like to try to create this using 2D software, such as Adobe Flash or AfterEffects, of which I'll have to do some research into how to do this.
In terms of the rhythm and how the particles behave I'm thinking of using a background sound track and having the particles move to the beat of the track, for example the particles will behave more erratically if its a fast sound track or more slowly and softly for a slower, peaceful sound track. But I'm in to do this, I think it'll be best if I chose the sound track first as this would influence the pace, rate of movement, colour schemes and any title text involved in the animation. It may also be worth looking up visual music to help me plan and produce this project.
In terms of sound track I feel it would be best to use a softer, quieter source of sound as this will be view by the public so a faster of heavier rhythm wouldn't be the best to use in my opinion but I would like to experiment with this and true to different genres of music, as few early examples would be classical and rock.
In terms of colour pallet, I'm thinking of either using bright hues such as blues, reds, purples, yellows with a white background or black background, this would depend on the sound track I'm using though.
The sound tracks I'm thinking of using are listed below and I'll also be evaluating them on how I will be able use to the sound track, if I think the sound track would be appropriate for the project, (length of song etc) and how well I'll be able to work with the sound track.
The first track I'll be evaluating is Mozart's Lacrimosa.
Lacrimosa is a short classical piece (3 minutes, 20 seconds) which is much shorter than the limit imposed by the project brief (8 minutes), so if I need to extend the time for this I can loop the animation.
The piece itself is interesting and I feel that it'll be interesting to work with and I can see the particles movement being simple to animate in some parts of the animation but more of a challenge in in other areas.
Another potential track I could work with is Edvard Grieg's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King'. This is another short classical piece at 2 minutes 58 seconds, so again it would be an idea to loop the animation.
I think this would be a fun track to work with, being livelier than Lacrimosa, however I feel this would be more difficult and time consuming as the particles will require more movement to keep them in sync with the music.
The final classical piece I'll be looking at as a potential track to use is Mussorgky's 'Night on the Bald Mountain'. This is a longer piece at over 8 minutes.
I feel that the length of the track would be an issue due to the time limit of the project, so IF I was to choose this track I would have to find a way to cut it down to fit with in the limit. This track will also be the most complete to work upon, being a faster track and far more complex than the others I've look at before. Saying this I feel using this track wouldn't be the best choice for this project.
Out of the remaining two tracks I think that The Hall of the Mountain King would be the better choice as I feel that my ability is great enough to use it and animate particles to the track as well as providing me with enough of a challenge.
In terms of after track I could use from other genres of music, I'm thinking of using rock due to it being the complete opposite to what I've already researched. I do feel that if I where to use this genre it would be best if I used an instrumental sound track. This would help me avoid any issues with lyrics and any language that would be inappropriate.
The tracks I'm thinking of using of the rock genre are Heart Breaker by Motorhead, Back in Black by AC/DC and Iron Man by Black Sabbath. The reason behind choosing these three is due to the relativity simple sound track which I plan to animate particles too.
This sound track, Heart Breaker, has a simple beat that can easily animated with particles. the duration of the track also fits in with the limit set in the brief. even though I said that I would remove the lyrics from this sound track due to issues with the lyrics, etc. I don't see any issues with keeping them in after reviewing them but I'll still try to edit and remove them.
The fifth track is Black Sabbaths Iron Man, I managed to find an instrumental version of this track, saving me from having to remove any of the lyrics. Again this track fits easily with in the 8 minute time limit set in the brief. The tracks rhythm is repetitive and very simple making it an easy track to animate too however this does cause an issue of it being potentially boring to view but I could use brighter or stronger tones to make it more interesting.
The final track I'll be looking at is AC/DC's Back in Black Instrumental. This track has to be the simplest to work with but I feel this would be an issue much like Black Sabbaths track, but it does have a higher, however the track does become more interesting and much livelier. Again I think that this track would benefit from using brighter colours on a dark background thus making it far more eye catching.
Out of the 6 songs I've briefly reviewed I would be most interested in working with AC/DC's Back in Black or Edvard Griegs Hall of the Mountain King.
Whilst I was looking particle animations that were produced using 2D software, I came across a series of .gif images which I found to be very interesting. These animations are based on elemental changes, such as water freezing and bolts of energy dancing. A copy of the images can be found below:
The creator of these animations say's that these were created by using flash exported into a sprite sheet with Zoe and optimized in Photoshop with the intention of using them in a mobile game. The creator of these effects has also split these in to categories such as projectile, impact and emanating effects.
After looking at particle effects and how can be created in 2D instead of 3D I think I'll centre my project around this. This is due to finding them to be extremely interesting, visually appealing and hopefully an enjoyable project to work upon. These effects can be found at https://www.behance.net/gallery/3030623/2d-Effects-Animation.
Today I screened Navigations #1 and Dawn of the Cat to my class and received comments about their thoughts on the animations.
For Navigations #1 the students agreed for what I had to say about the animation as well as showing some surprise for what images where made up of, being cancer cells.
the comments of the second animation mentioned that the animation was of a surreal nature and they also mentioned how the story was not in chronological order, beginning with the end of the story where the woman works with the cats body and then leading up the cat’s accident, this makes the animation a little harder to follow. The class also mentioned how the colour of the cat changed between when it was alive and dead the latter being in a paler tone.
I also had a chance to look at the animation which the other students showed to the group, there was a few animation that caught my eye, there first one is called Flow: The Beauty of Ink - A Particle Aniboom Animation by Alldin Dauti. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMPAkYC4axM
This animation was created by using 3D Studio Max, FumeFX, Krakatoa and AfterEffects, Dauti also mentions that there is 20 - 80 mil particles per shot. His purpose for creating this animation was to see how he could make particles move like ink.
Another one that interested me was an animation on Hashback Hashish’s on youtube channel called PAPERCUTZ - Rivers (Hashback Hashish Remix) 3D. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDZnE-sruTU
Unfortunately there isn’t much information on this animation, however I do think that the animation as a whole was made by using a 3D program as well as using an video editing software like Adobe AfterEffects.
I've taken a particular in particle animation, I find it to be visually appealing as well being an potentially interesting project to work on. This form of project will also allow me to produce an animation with out having to work on a complex story line or a lot of preproduction work, potentially allowing to concentrate on the animation portion of the animation.
I also don't necessarily need to work on a project such as this using 3D software, I could create something similar using a 2D software such as Flash.
