Final piece readjusted

I have just given in my final piece, but as i do enjoy after effects more than i thought, i carried on playing around with my clips and seeing if i could make the final piece any better. So i added my crazy triangles clip, and i do actually quite like it, as i do feel my final piece had a lot of dark spots. So, here it is. But i am still content with my final piece, as this really isn't very different.

Working with different compositions

When i first started using after effects, i was shown that i could use many different compositions in many different sizes.
Here, i've made a clip of my floating bubbles in a really long composition, which i then dragged onto my final piece composition (which is a lot smaller) and then changed it's position. This causes a scrolling effect over the screen and i think it looks really nice, sort of like actual drops or bubbles. I really like layering up this clip and playing around with the size. Despite it being very simple, and a little boring, i do find it very versatile and easy to use.



Here, is a good example of it scrolling across the screen. I really like this. And how it flows quite nicely with the music. This is an initial experiment for my final piece. I'm trying to decide on the music at the moment, and i do really love this song and find it very soothing, but it really doesn't change much, so may need to go for something a little more upbeat for the exhibition.

'Converting audio to keyframes'

Learnt a few days ago how to convert any audio into keyframes, so basically putting a keyframe to the beat of the music, that can be "parented" (linked) to any of my layers. Need to remember to select the whole audio, and not just a small part though.
This was really handy to know and helped a lot to put all my clips together and speeded up the process a lot. However, it didn't give me as much freedom as i wanted, and i really need to learn more about it through tutorials.

Here, the beat of the music makes the circles go really small...

Then move closer to the screen when the beat gets stronger. I really like the look of the circles in the background and remind me sort of like a galaxy. 

I also learnt that i could drag a little triangle on my timeline out to book mark places in the music that i want something to happen to my visuals. Basically, a handy reminded. These were probably the most helpful things i learnt.

I really like how i have stuck to the paper collage idea, and haven't produced and computer generated visuals. However, the paper obviously has been changed a lot, but it still has it's roots.

Keyframing outcome

Here is the outcome of the effect that i explained in the last post. I do find this clip a little scary and dangerous, but i think it could look quite good in a club. I showed it to other students and they did like it, but they did add that it has a lot of darkness in it. They think it needs to be filled with more triangles.
This is something i need to work on. For me, i think it would be best to leave this clip, but add it as an extra layer to a final to another clip.

I also learnt about the glow tool in this experimentation. I was trying to get an effect sort of like a light saber. I played around with the exposure of the triangles and saturation then added the glow effect, and then adjusted with more things on that setting. This didn't glow as much as i hoped and was a little disappointed, but somehow, i accidently added the glow effect twice, and got an outcome i'm really happy with. So a new learning, that you can add an effect to an image more than once and that the glow effect does exist, and again, you can add keyframing to this so this is very handy.

There are a few crazy coloured triangles floating about in this clip, and this was very much an accident, but i really like the look of them and feel they look like spaceships, so i will keep them like that.

As for movement, they do go well with the music, i feel. However, i don't think they add anything to the music, or to the beat. This is where adding another clip could be best and be a lot more effective.

Key framing and time reversing

Learnt all about the time reverse layer, where this makes everything in that particular layer go backwards. It's quite exciting, especially when i have made objects appear to be getting bigger, this effect sort of makes them look like they are being sucked back in and getting more distant from the screen.
I also got taught about reversing all the layers which involved compiling them all together and then switching them round. This is an effect that seems useful but not something i would need to try out right now.
However, i believe for my final piece i would like to mix all the clips i have made so far together to a piece of music, as if i was VJing the images, so maybe for that i would need to try out that effect.

Learnt a lot about 'keyframing' too. This was really fun to use. I played around a lot with position and opacity on this clip. It was very tedious and the final clip that came from it was a bit crazy, and i felt a bit dangerous but still quite fun. I do feel i am going to wrong way about trying to get certain effects, and am still very much experimenting, but i am learning a lot.

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