Week 8 Out Of Class part 2

Above is the embedded youtube video of my finished project. All I changed was the transition to make it actually work and stop having the earrings overlap. To do this I had to add an extra layer of the earring loop so I could add another mask to it so it could disappear. I had the layers overlap and had the initial one disappear so the new mask could be seen. The link to it on youtube is http://youtu.be/jFEyAMIBdBs
Overall I am very happy with how this turned out and feel that it represents the company well in four and a half seconds.

Week 8B

Today in class I showed some of my classmates my "completed" endtag. I received feedback including lightening the background and lengthening the amount of time of the first earring. The main feedback I received was changing the entrance of the second earring to give a more circular feel, to be more cohesive with the other two earrings' entrances. This is the main point I worked on in class, and I ended up with multiple versions that were debated over.

Above is mainly the original with changed background. I did this by changing the layer's gradient in illustrator and bringing the new version into the project panel.

Above is an attempt at making the second entrance more circular based. This one was not favored by anyone. I created this entrance by making the layer 3d and changing the y-position value.

The one above is a compromise between masking the earring and dropping it in to make an entrance. This displays the circular idea while keeping the idea of the earring being hooked on. I still have to fix the transition which is why in the video the two earrings overlap. This will be fixed outside of class.

Week 8 - Out Of Class

I have completed everything on my storyboard and my endtag is shorter than what I was expecting, which is good because I was expecting to go over the suggested four seconds. The entire endtag ended up at 4:22. Since the last post I had to redo the gems moving because when I opened it again on a different computer the precomp was empty. It did not take as long as I was expecting to re-do. After that I adding the ear morphing into the logo and the name of the company appearing. I also searched for, found, and added in audio. I chose to add two files total. One to be an overall addition of a fun tone  to the piece and another to be a jingle to accent the gems moving.

Above is a screenshot of how the piece ends.

 A screenshot during mid-morph.

A screenshot of the gems moving, where the jingle is in the audio.

Below is my layers panel, my timeline and my projects panel by the end of the piece.

Week 8A

In class I started to work in After Effects and have about two and a half seconds done. I had to go back into illustrator and fix a few of the vectorized shapes because they weren't in separate layers when I brought them into AE. I needed them in separate layers so I can animate them. The largest change was the second earring went from a few layers to about 53 layers which took a while to fix.

Once I brought it into AE none of the bottom circles or lines were in the right place. So in the screenshot above is the original grouped earring. I placed the hoop part on top and the clump on the right is all the lines and circles that need to be separated and placed correctly.

Once this was done I created a precomp for all of it and started to animated the circles/gems swaying. At first it wasn't working because it was timed wrong in the precomp.

So above is the incorrect render in mid class. The gems do not move when they should, they do 2 seconds later.

After that render I was able to animate 3 and a half columns of gems and below is what I completed during class.

Week 7 - Out Of Class

Out of class I created two more story boards as discussed in the previous post. Before I could start that I  searched the three types, hoops, dangles, and studs on google image search just to get a feel for the forms.

Above is sort of my brainstorming page. At first I created some forms using the pen and width tool and used some from the actual logo. For a while I played with forms and the gradients on the forms to figure out what worked best. I create two options for each of the three styles. I got some opinions from classmates and decided which ones to actually use in the storyboard.

The third storyboard (above) is based off the idea of the earring appearing then spinning and morphing into the other earrings. Then into the first ripple, and from there the ripples build off it and the name appears. 

The fourth storyboard is continuing the idea of the ear morphing into the logo. Except now the ear is in the beginning and earrings appear on in, each in their own way, then it transforms into the logo and the name appears. The name appearing at the end prevents any confusion over which one is the logo.

It had been discussed in class that since it is an online company they may partner with someone like QVC so this animation has morphed into an endtag for the company's segment on the QVC network.

Week 7A

During class we did row discussions of our storyboards. It was decided that the black was too harsh of a background in general and especially for my target market of mainly women. Also the viewer may know its jewelry but will not know what type, which does not help the brand. So during glass I re-did my storyboard and below is what I came up with.

I worked out a grey gradient that soften the background a lot and overall worked better. Next I added the last three frames.  I worked out that if I turned the ripple lines around I can create an ear, and after a few tries I came up with the style I thought worked which is above. In the new storyboard the gem would drop in, create the ripple and then the ripple would morph into this ear with a hoop earring. 

It was discussed that this storyboard creates confusion over which is the actual logo so I am doing another storyboard to get rid of any confusion there may be. My plan is to create three types of earrings through the use of the ripple lines and lines that have the same treatment then morph it into the logo. I may end up having two versions, on with the earrings sitting alone and with them morphing on the ear then it rotating into the logo. In both versions the gem idea is being scraped. 

Week6 - Out Of Class

By the end of the last class I finished my sketched storyboard. It ended up being 9 frames and I estimated that it would take about 5 seconds. I chose to use a earring/gem instead of just a water droplet  so the viewer would be able to have a better idea what the company was about.

Before I started my digital storyboard I thought I should render the earring/gem I would be using since I would need to be included. So first I found the picture below online.

Next I brought this photo into illustrator and live traced it. The results were not what I was hoping for. Below is a screenshot of the traced image; it is lumpy and not as crisp as I wanted.

So then I got rid of the right one so I could start work on the left one.

After I started to clean up the lines using the pen tool I realized that if I were to drop this in the hoop area would take up a lot of space and time and was not very interesting. I felt that I would be able to get the same message across without having the top on it. The viewer would realize that it is a jewelry company and may become curious and look up the company.

Once I erased the top and cleaned up the image more I realized the silver rim around it was also unnecessary to the design so I again erased more and continue to render the gem how I wanted it. 

Above is the final product of my work on the gem. My design calls for a top few though also so below is the screenshot of the top view of the gem.

Once all of this was done I finally created my digital storyboard, the screenshots of which are below.