18/05/2010: adjust, preview, adjust, preview, render, read mail, ...

The subject of this post summarizes the activities I have been performing the last couple of days :) Until now, 3 shots have been 'finished' and compiled into 1 composition:

Mainly my workflow for creating one shot consists of the following steps:

1. Create a new shot folder
2. Grab the corresponding background (see my posts of last week)
3. Save every layer in that background as separate PNG's (eg. one for the sky, one for the landscape, one for the road nearby, one for the trees, ...)
4. Open Anime Studio and create a new HDTV project - 1920x1080 pixels.
5. Import every PNG and give is some Z value between 0 and -1. Images that have a low Z value are further away of the camera.
6. Notice that the PNG's are not ideal -> redraw a bit
7. Import the music (which has first been roughly cut in Soundbooth) 
8. Plot out the main move of the camera
9. Plot out the main points of the action (= keys)
10. Create perspective views of the car in PhotoShop, since the car is imported as a PNG I need to manipulate the image to give the illusion of changing perspective. But sometimes that illusion is not good enough, so I need to create different views of the car in Photoshop (see the 3 figures of the car here under). 
1. A 3D tool would be handy here, but it would take too much time to create a 3D model of a car.
11. Refine the action (= breakdow/inbetween)
12. Preview and prelisten :)
13. If it seems okay: render the whole thing
14. Wait, wait, and wait.
1. Note to myself: I need a fast computer. Rendering 10 seconds of animation takes 15 minutes!
15. Notice that the render is not what I expected
16. Say 'miljaar' 2 times and refine the camera move and action.
17. Goto 12 (not considered harmful here)
18. After a hard day's work: create a final render that can be sent as an attachment (< 25 mb). 

Example of 3 perspective views of the car that had to be created for shot 3:

Note about the creation of the car: the car was first drawn on paper and then imported into Photoshop where I did draw it again with the Wacom tablet and gave it initial colors.  Warning: bad drawing ahead...

To draw the car I was inspired by an old photograph of a 1929 car which was also part of the moodboard that was created last year: