Applied Animation: Documentary - Jormungandr Post-Production

Applied Animation

Jormungandr After Effects Compositing and VFX

• This week:
• I worked on the post-production work for the documentary. Using After Effects I composited and edited Jormungandrs' scenes and created my own ways of making VFX in After Effects.
• What went well:
• With a lot of experimentation and learning After-Effects through just working on this editing, I was able to add a lot to the current animated scenes, with fog, rain, particle effects and light rays. One of the first effects I added was light rain, using CC Particle World. I was able to experiment with particle world to create ripples of droplets on the surface of the water, by changing the particle type to Bubbles, adjusting the birth and death rates of the particles and the position in which they start. 

Ripple and Rain Effects

• I had to adjust the rain position and water ripples, for the shot from above, to remain consistent between shots. This was done through just adjusting the angle at which the rain is viewed from. 
• I found that the easiest way to create fog was creating a solid object, adding a mask, adjusting the feather of the mask and then adding noise. The fog was then copied and pasted, pre-composed to create multiple layers.

Adding fog layers

• In addition to this, lights were a large part of final composition, such as Light Rays, which illustrate the serpent blocking out the light slightly and light rays as he comes down to circle the Earth. 

Light Rays

Light Rays 2

Final VFX, ready for Joseph to put together in Premiere:

• What could be improved:
• Overall, I think that the shots flow together quite well. I think there could be some pacing issues however, as though it moves too quickly. This is partly due to having to keep to a time limit/guide with the animation, when we made the animatic and storyboards. If we'd have known the timing could be extended further, we would have been able to pace the scenes much better.
• There were issues with the water/wave transition before Jormungandr comes down to circle the Earth and I think that I would plan out the transition or test it more, next time, to make sure it would work well. I had to do quite a bit of post-editing for that part to make it work.
• I think the layout could be improved in the future, also. This could be done through making more thumbnails and tests, to really make the audience understand perspective and sense of scale. This is something Ill look at in future projects.
• Next week:
• I will be putting together everything ready for submission.
• Next week: