Motion Graphics and Compositing - Final Project
6.12.2024 - 7.1.2025 (Week 11 - Week 15)
Vanessa Kei Kurniadi /
0360525
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Motion Graphics
and Compositing - Final Project: Abstract Motion
INSTRUCTIONS
Project 4: Abstract Motion
For the final project, we will synthesise the knowledge gained in tasks
1, 2 and 3 for application in task 4. We are to create a theme-based
abstract motion graphic video that consists of a good audio visual say
it in 3D/2D, mixed media or any experimental visual output that has a
strong theme.
Making the Concept and Assets
My idea is actually inspired by myself, who is someone who has a strong
attraction to magical fantasy places and stories. While the concept is
decided and I'm kind of hell-bent on making it work, It also took me some
time to figure out what exactly it is that I want to visualise.
Just like what I did in the previous tasks, I first looked for music that
I could use and match for my project. This part is a bit troublesome yet
necessary for my workflow. I always prefer to have the music first before
the visual, so I can match the timing exactly with the music. But this
part is always troublesome especially when there is no specific theme that
we should focus on. I listened to a dozen songs before I managed to find
one called "Beautiful Adventure Music: "Deep Wonder" — Chroma Music".
When I heard this song for the first time, I just had a feeling that
this music might work, but I need to listen more closely to see if it
REALLY works with what I have in mind.
Of course, this song is a bit too long to be made considering the tight deadline coming up. So after listening "intensely" to the song for roughly another 5 times, I made a decision on which part of the song I wanted to extract and use. At the same time, I have a rough visualisation in my head on what type of content I want to make.
My plan:
I used the quiet and peaceful melody first to visualise that my life is
happy and peaceful. Then when the melody changes into something that sounds like a grand,
magical, melody, I showed some rough visualisation of the fantasy and
magic that I tend to visualise in my head. I also planned to use short
text throughout the video to give more context, but not a long one, so it
is still open to people's own interpretations.
My main plan is to use puppet tools to make the static characters move,
and to try to move things here and there to give the best magical
feeling that I can with whatever I end up having as my asset.
And like what I also did in my previous tasks, I compiled all my assets
while also doing my storyboard. While this might be slower than just
sketching messily, I found more direction and grasped my concept better
if I could gather assets while making the storyboard. In addition, if
somehow what I want to achieve can't be found on the internet, I can
directly look for an alternative and also change my storyline if
needed.
This is the storyboard I made for Project 4 in Adobe Illustrator:
fig 1.2 Project 4 Storyboard in Illustrator
The 2 images on the bottom right corner were assets that I planned
on using before I looked at all my other assets and realised I
should look for something more cartoony. I also then decided to
stick with silhouette characters because I've "accidentally"
gathered most of my assets in that style. Fortunately, I managed to
find enough assets to work on the project.
This is the animatic storyboard that I made as my rough plan:
fig 1.3 My Wonderland Animatic Storyboard
Getting into After Effect
I already know from my previous trial and error about the process of
what I should do after making the assets. I pasted the assets into
Photoshop according to the storyboard and then saved them
individually.
In theory, it is quite easy, BUT, when I worked on it, the whole
process was a painful, frustrating one. I thought my Illustrator
file is the problem, due to the number of layers and artboards I
have. But I am quite surprised that Adobe Photoshop is the one that
is acting up. The application was laggy for around half of the
assets, even after I personally grouped and made as few layers as I
could. I was told by a friend that Photoshop is getting much
heavier, and it takes so much power out of a laptop that it lags so
much.
I managed to get help from my friend who had a PC to help me render
some of them, but some of the layers were wrong, or some were not
grouped correctly, so I had to recheck all of them to make sure they
were the way I wanted them to.
fig 1.4 My laptop dying from all the work lol
After many lags and several restartings, I finally managed to get
all the assets prepared and put into After Effect. While there are
some layers that for some reason got destroyed, I managed to make
a decent result.
Here are some of the main things that I did
fig 2.1 scene 1 overview
The first scene is just a combination of text with opacity
modification, and some clipping mask for the girl silhouette.
I used 2 silhouettes, black and white, and had some trouble
aligning them together and enlarging them. But after several
modifications, I managed to do it.
fig 2.2 scene 2 overview
The second scene is mostly a puppet tool. But for an extra
touch, I moved the grounds and objects on it around to create
the illusion that looked over the hill to see them. It was a
spontaneous idea that I'm glad I did because it looked really
good.
When the puppet tool and position modifications were done, I
proceeded to make a pre-comp for the whole thing and then add
the leaves on top of it. With a clipping mask, I managed to make
a nice transition with the falling leaves.
3. 
fig 2.3 Scene 3 overview
The 3rd scene is mostly similar to the 2nd scene. I played with
the ground to make it seem like I was climbing over the hill.
However, I had another spontaneous idea to make the sunset more
immersive, so I added a shape with a dark blue colour, made it
low opacity and made it turn darker the lower the sun was. The
sun reflection is given opacity play to make it a bit nicer,
though most people won't probably look that close, it is a
satisfaction for my end.
4. 
fig 2.4 Scene 4 overview
5 & 6.
fig 2.5 scene 5 and 6 overview
I originally planned another simple one with this scene, but I
ended up experimenting with the advanced layering while I zoom in
super close to the mountain, because I suddenly realised the
mountains can be a good transition for the beach waves.I also applied the same thing for the beach to the starry mountain. It's not as smooth as the mountain to waves from scenes 5 to 6, but it is very decent and with the speedy animation it is not too noticeable.
7.
fig 2.6 Scene 7 overview
8. 
fig 2.7 Scene 8 overview
While in the starboard this is probably the most effortless
scene, it is one of the scenes that I spent a lot of time
refining, because it contains 2 major motion graphics that I
need to put in.
(This part deserves so much love so I added a typing sound as a
cherry on top hahaha)
The second one is adding multiple clips on top of each other (I
lower the opacity so they are all visible, except the back one
where I put 100% opacity to make it "shine"), and then putting
them in a clipping mask inside the o letter, like what I did with
the bumper and ident.
9.
fig 2.8 scene 10 overview
I opened the fantasy scene with the whale, because of the blue,
magical view and the whale that looks like it's flying is just
the perfect way to bring the first impression and feeling that I
want to convey. I used the puppet tool and moved the position to
make it look like it was swimming slowly. I also wanted to make
the lav glow more but I'm not sure how to make gradient in After
Effect, so I just proceeded with shaking it a bit with the
puppet tool to make it look alive. I also made the floating
stones "float" for this same purpose.
Now since the scene still feels a bit plain, I copied the
sparkles in the background, brought it to the foreground, and
made both of them move, creating some kind of "current" in the
water. To close it up, I used a school of fish as a transition
with a clipping mask.
10.
fig 2.9 Scene 11 overview
(note that I intentionally switched scenes 9 and 10 - Prince
Charming and Whale - because in my opinion, the whale is a
greater choice of opening the fantasy scene, especially since
the Prince Charming one is actually a little plain)
11.
fig 2.10 Scene 12 overview
I worked with puppet tools for the trees and the subjects and
moved the planets a bit to make them look better. But then I
noticed the little glowing orbs work well. So I went ahead and
multiplied them like crazy. They turned bad when I grouped them
into a pre-comp so I let them be a mess in scene 12's layers.
Afterwards, I made them move here and there just a little bit
and scaled them SO MUCH. This was an experiment and I was
messing around, but the glowing orbs turned out to be so
beautiful so I just kept them there. Not to mention, I also used
one of the orbs and scaled them a whole lot to cover as much of
the screen as possible.
Most likely whatever blending mode is stuck with the orb kept it
from covering the black trees even though it is at the top
layer, so I just used another white rectangle to cover the rest
of the uncovered thing and it made the most beautiful blinding
light transition I ever made in After Effect.
12.
fig 2.11 Scene 13 Overview
This scene is also a bit tricky. The mermaid tails look a bit
funny when I try to flip them with the puppet tool completely, so
I just make it "curve" a little bit just enough to make it look
like she's swimming. I also used a puppet tool on the hand and
head to make her less stiff.
I ended up trying to use the blue background as a transition so I
also improvised and used the advanced layering again.
While the colour is beautiful, I was a bit confused about what to
do with the coral because they are not necessarily flexible. But
for the sake of the aesthetic, I ended up bending one of them
anyway.
13.
fig 2.12 Scenes 13 overview
(Not sure what is wrong but there seems to be a corrupted file
and the text doesn't appear properly in my work file)
For this part, I used a video of opening a plain book. So I reversed the video, and put in text over the page and on the cover. To make it more immersive, I used advanced layering to kind of flip the text with the pages. In the end, they look just a tiny bit floaty but they mostly look really good.
For this part, I used a video of opening a plain book. So I reversed the video, and put in text over the page and on the cover. To make it more immersive, I used advanced layering to kind of flip the text with the pages. In the end, they look just a tiny bit floaty but they mostly look really good.
In the end, I closed it with my title which is a neat way if I
think about it. I know I used a different text than the rest.
Honestly, I just felt too lazy
to look up the text name so I just used another text that is also
cursive and nice. But in my defence and as my rationale, it
doesn't hurt to differentiate the font from the narrative with the
one on the book to kind of also differentiate the media (think of
the narrative as me speaking and the book as me writing, which
feels kinda cool).
Other Progress Footage
Here are some of my other progress footage:
fig 3.1 Work in progress 1
fig 3.2 Old beach asset (it kept on looking weird so I had to
change it)
Final Result:
Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/iBJecOon6VY
Slides:
fig 3.3 Project 4 Slides
REFLECTION
Experience
Doing motion graphics is surprisingly a fun challenge for me. There are times when I wish I could skip through some steps and keyframes (probably can do so after I learned about plugins, but for now I'm still new to everything). But this experience also made me realise that it is time for me to upgrade my RAM again unless I want to experience more crashes in the future considering my work would get heavier.
But the overall feeling of being able to make static things move and tell stories is just amazing and I feel like I would continue experimenting with it if I have the chance in the future. While I ended up submitting the final task late (which I pray won't get me into too much trouble) because I had too much fun (and suffering) with my project, I managed to make the full out of the assignments and learnt so much throughout this module.
Observation
I noticed when looking through my peer's work that there are so many things you could do with After Effects. I saw some people working on cartoon-styled motion graphics like mine, and I saw some people working on more realistic-styled ones and they stand out just the same. In fact, they each have their own charm and methods that is satisfying to see.
Findings
On this project, I managed to learn more about how to utilise the clipping mask, though sometimes I had a hard time switching from the clipping mask to the normal shape tool. I also feel like I'm starting to get the hang of the puppet tool, and all of the keyframes working in general. However, I still find the many keyframes annoying when I have to work with a lot of details.
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