Finished!

I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this module and my project. I can't believe how much I have learnt from After Effects. I have spent hours and hours on this project but I love seeing the result at the end. I have created something I didn't think I was even capable of doing. It has definitely been a roller coaster where moments have been very tough and then I have overcome it and am happy with what I have achieved.

Coming To An End

I have now come to an end with my project. Throughout the film the male dancer Luke struggles with his power of fire whilst the woman, Samantha can't help him. Even when they dance fire sparks light on his hands, and at some points he can control it. 

At the end, I created raindrops from the particle system but I knew I wanted something else. I started playing with another particle composition and found myself making smoke. I put these together so when the rain fell onto the fire flame on Luke, Smoke rose for the end as if the rain was what they were waiting for all this time. 

Replacing the background and Further Improvements

I had been working on my graphics on just a black background, so my next step was to replace it.

I wanted to have a vignette background to create depth to the video, therefore, I created a new solid and chose a deep red and black. At the beginning, some parts in the middle and very end, I created key frames to change the solid colour from a deep red, to black and white. I used this in areas the fire was burning out .

 

Every time I take a break from my work I come back and work on areas I think need improving on. Today, I kept going back over the fire animations changing the movements and timing. I also adjusted the skin tones of the dancers in each pre-composed video as although I had already corrected the skin tones when I did the key lighting, their skin still looked fairly grey and flat.

 

 

 

Other effect ideas for the video....

I was hoping to have the contrast of fire and water or ice where Samantha in my video protects herself with water or some sort of blue bubble. However, I did start to create this around Samantha but It didn't look very good and it took your attention off the fire on Luke. For the ending I am going to create a rainfall to put the fire out on Luke.

Developing the animation

I have spent hours on After Effects and have eventually developed the fire. Compared to my first flame I created when I started this project, the fire in the screenshots below are layered more realistically and are less cartoon-like. The flames are not to look like ordinary fire but to look more like fire 'powers' that Luke can't prevent from lighting up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tracking for the fire

 

In order to place the fire on Luke's hands and arms, I have used a tracking point to connect the fire to a path of movement. I found this difficult to get my head round at first but I as I continued to use it, I learnt the best ways to use the motion tracking. Some shots were particularly difficult to track such as when Luke holds his hands by his side and the turns. When Luke turns around, the tracking goes off point so I had to work around this in different ways.  I used tracking for the majority of shots with fire to create the movement of the fire with his hands.

 

 

 

Green Screen in After Effects

Green Screen:

After working out my problem, I carried on working on removing the green screen behind the dancers. I did this by controlling the different levels in 'keylight', removing the green and increasing the screen gain and decreasing the balance. After removing the green I had to tweak the colour of their skin and hair. This was difficult because the green reflected off their hair so I had to carefully adjust the saturation, contrast and brightness.

 

Fire:

The image below is a screenshot of my first fire flame, I created this using the particle system and layered it with other effects. This is my first attempt of the fire, I feel like I can definitely improve this as I carry on working as I want his hands and arms in flames and this flame I have created is not as realistic as I would like.