BSA 325, practicing animation in After Effects, 3 April, 2017

example:  waka in front of icewalls (whoo!  I made that waka- it may not be the one that we use in the animation)

original illustration and layout in photoshop

assets are put together in photoshop as the final shot should look
hit ctrl i and bring it in as composition retain layers.  once in AE, double click folder to show layers
don't want to scale up more than 10% in AE
made art file size 3840 pixels  x 2160 pixels 72 dpi
make it bigger than 1920 by 1080 so you have enough wiggle room.  Better to scale down than to scale up
make sky shot bigger so you get enough room for movement
under edit,  preferences, memory, give it more RAM so it stops crashing (57 gigs is plenty!)
right click text animation to composition settings to change to 1920 by 1080 to scale it down into
the work area.
gives you space to move things around
scaling down means layers need to be re-positioned
want water to look 2.5 deep?
all layers turned onto 3D layers with icon to far right of icon bar before "normal"
camera into scene
rename by what you're doing
change focal length, depth of field, fake it with blurs? hit ok
camera 1 looks exactly the same as other active camera but you can open up sub menus and change aperture, focus distance
we're going to fake Z depth and aperture to get stylized look.  if it was going into live action, we'd have to match it 100%,but we'll fake it for animation
go into "two views" and see where camera and planes are in relation to each other.
push  background stuff on planes around to create depth
get everything in z depth correct first
no need for background, delete it.
take clouds well back to get depth
layer 2 is a gradient so it can be scaled up which won't warp it too much
all of clouds move back and reassemble them to fit together again
slight animation on sky
move icebergs back
as items get moved back, scaling them up again is always possible because they still have plenty of scale power
position waves that have been moved around and re-scaled so the gaps are filled
all this is what layout artist does
waka animation: move center pivot to where boat's natural center of gravity would be- low to middle hull, towards the water line
key frame all camera positions at the same time as you key frame waka movement
camera is following the waka as it moves along during a 30 second shot
can highlight and drag drop? movement  in two view over panels that you want to move all at once
slightly offset cloud layers to get 3D space
to make make clouds and sky movement more natural, they all need to be moving.  some should look like they're still, or going backwards, and some should be going forward in the sky to look more natural.
purposely animate them at different speeds
sea, in traditional animation when its in cut out style, you  don't actually pus the wave elements forward
shortcut to close all open sub-menus- hit " uu" on element
move wave element to look like "rotation" is happening
like old fashioned pantomime performance of waves on stage with two people move two props of waves back and forth, up and down to simulate motion
set in animation backwards, then forwards, and repeat
in time, all the waves will be going to simulate rough seas
copy and paste animation to another layer by highlighting it copy and high position on sub menu and then paste it in.  move new layer up and off to offset it.
colour layer underneath the waves takes care of any white bits that are showing after waves have been animated and offset
waka- can animate rotation sub-menu to get it to move away from and towards camera as it sails by
relighting the scene
light layers: play with intensity, radius, colour (pale ice blue), start turning on and animating it through with it
can select certain thing for light to hit and not others (like in Maya)
lighting can be a separate step done by another person
in two views, change lights, show how they're moving around
lights can be animated
material options sub-menu you can choose for it to cast shadows (harsh, soft, coloured, etc), material roll off?
Putting lights on means making the layers like look like paper cut outs- this could look like puppet theatre, even!
texture overlay also recommended- slightly animate it so it doesn't look like animation is happening underneath a book- subtly drifting back and forth, depends on stylization
real life motion blur- a little pixel motion blur

Asset makers
all pieces, like boats and people, made by same people but from different angles so we have consistency of look based on angles and shots in storyboard/animatic
storyboard team will sit down with director and DOP to get shot framing and look down
when that happens, then shots will be illustrated and assets created to fill those shots

jobs
animation supervisor
art director-animation
layout artist
lighting
animation
asset creation- sky, boat, people, waves and other things