White board animation keying in after effects and some flash drawing tips.

Here is a link to the great documentation that Paige created for the keying process that we use in after effects for the whiteboard animations.

https://sites.google.com/site/somestuffplace/home/whiteboard-keying-files

There are also some great tips for drawing cartoon style in Flash.

How we film a "Whiteboard Animation" in CTL meeting room

This is the process that we go through when we have a whiteboard filming session.

1. Schedule the meeting room in Outlook or with the CTL receptionist.
2. Swap out the battery in the camera with a fully charged one. Place the used battery on the charger.
3. Format the memory card in the camera. Menu button, first brown tool.
4.  Set the camera mode knob to P (for priority mode)
5. Press the Q button on the camera and set exposure to 0. Set the ISO to 1600. Set the white balance to AWD (auto white balance)
6. Mount the tripod plate to camera and tighten with screwdriver.
7. Mount the 24-70mm lens on the camera body and set to MF (manual focus)
8.  Insert tripod plate onto tripod head and tighten the clamping knob.
9.  In the CTL meeting room with the door closed, lights on, wall monitor off and reflectors in place, take one still photo of the clean whiteboard from a couple of feet away.
10. Change the white balance of the camera to custom        
11. Press the Menu button and go to the 2^nd red camera settings menu. Under Custom WB, load the last photo as the data image for the custom white balance.
12. Set up the tripod at the back of the table. One leg extension should be enough.
13. Switch the camera to video mode.
14. Place the magnets in a rectangle as high as the artist can comfortably reach.
15. Adjust the zoom and position of the camera to frame the magnets as close as possible then move the magnets barely out of the frame of the video.
16. Push the blue plus magnification button to enlarge the view and manually focus the lens.
17. Have the artist hold their arm in front of the board and set the camera exposure as high as possible without blowing out any of the skin tones. Usually 2 1/3 stops above zero works best.
18. Change the screen resolution setting of the room computer to the second lowest setting.  
19.  Disconnect the VGA monitor cable from the adapter on the back of the computer. Connect the projector cable to the adapter.
20. When finished, make sure and reconnect the monitor and reset the resolution and put the room back to the way that you found it.

This image shows the setup for the filming and some of the things that we have discovered to help us get good footage.

We have also found that it speeds up production quite a bit if we use some drawings done in photoshop for the storyboard in the final animation. We try to mix up what is drawn by the "hand" and what is predrawn so it doesn't become predictable.

Here are a couple of clips from recent examples.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us work on these and figure out this process.

How to Parent Puppet Pin Tool to a Null in After Effects

I have here at the end of this post a great little tutorial on basic animation in After Effects starting with a brief description on parenting and the Puppet Pin tool. The second video is where he really starts to do the null parenting, so if you're good with the basics skip on ahead.

But for those of you who don't need a full tutorial here's a brief set of instructions:

In a nutshell:
1. Pin your subject and Name your pin(s).
2. Create a null object (Layer/New/Null Object) and Rename the null to match the pin. 
3. Position the node to the same values as the puppet pin's position.
4. Shrink the null's scale.
5. Hold Alt (Option on Mac) and click the stopwatch for the puppet pin position. (This will open new options.)
6. Drag the new Pickwick (the swirly icon) over the Null that you're parenting to. Release.
7. In the new box (over the timeline) add this command to the end:
     .toComp([0,0])
     It should now say something like:
  thiscomp.layer("___").toComp([0,0]) 
    This makes the pins not go crazy.
8. Rinse and repeat.

Ta da! Now the null controls the puppet pin. You can now also parent layers to the nulls so that when you move the null the pin and the parented layer will respond. (Example: Head layer parented to a neck pin from another layer.) You can also create a chain of parented pins. (IE: Shoulder rotates causing elbow, wrist and hand to follow.)

And now the videos:



OTHER Puppet Pinning RESOURCES:
A Very Useful Page by Adobe
Puppet Pinning 101 Video Tutorial covers the types of pins and how to use them.

Virtual Chem Lab Render settings

Mental ray is the render engine for the project.
In order to create an occlusion pass:
1. create a new render layer with the desire objects in it. Right click on the layer and select Overrides>Create Material Override.
2. Choose mib_amb_occlusion in the Incandescene channel. Make sure the material you are using is white.
3. Render. Composite it on top of the original render in photoshop. (Mutliply)

The following render settings are used: ( in render globals )
Under Quality Tab:
- Sampling Mode: Fixed Sampling 2
- Raytracing: Reflections/Refractions 10
Max Trace Depth 20
Shadows 2
Reflection/Refraction Blur Limit 1

Under Features Tab:
- Secondary Effects: Raytracing

Virtual Chem Lab files

The project is set at :S:/PROJECTS//Virtual Chem Lab/Drafts/Art, you should be able to find the files needed in this project. The physics and physical science lab files are referencing the following files:
Ceiling - /NewWideView//scenes/OtherAssets/Ceiling_for_Wideview_00.mb
Gases - /NewWideView//scenes/Gasses/Gasses.mb
Titrations - /NewWideView//scenes/Titrations/titrate_for_comp_4c.mb
Inorganics - /NewWideView//scenes/Inogranic/Inorganic_no_bottles.mb
Quantum - /NewWideView//scenes/Quantum/Quantum.mb
Mechanics - /Mechanics/MayaAnimation/scenes/MechanicsRef.mb
Density Buoyancy - /Density_Buoyancy/Maya/Scenes (reference only!)/In Progress/density_lab_hazel.mb
Optics - /Production/3D_Maya/Optics/optics_reference1.mb
Calorimetry - /NewWideView//scenes/Calorimetry/Calorimetry.mb
Circuits - /Production/3D_Maya/Circuits/Maya/Scenes (reference only!)/In Progress/Current/Circuitry_Lab_hazel.mb

Density, Optics, Calorimetry and Circuits are independent files which all the assets and props are imported in the files while the rest is referencing some other files in the same project. The cameras on the ceiling, the white board and the lights are either imported or created in the scenes themselves.

HR animation pre-lighting work

HR animation pre-lighting work


These two have to be done in the animation file because it's being referenced to the lighting file.

1. Open the animation file for the shot. Go to Reference Editor and replace the main characters with the ones that have their extra hair removed. They can be found in the same reference folder, eg. Britney_del_hair.mb. Currently only, Brittney, Amy and the EEO manager have referenced files with fixed hair.
2. Remove key for their clothing options and change it to the one the shot is asking for.
3. Smooth any geometry that needs it.

Now you can create a lighting file.

1. Create a new scene and go to FILE>Create Reference. Select the animation file that is in the Final folder in your shot (if someone else already set up the final animation file for lighting it might be named something different like “slideX_shotX_final_fixed_hair.mb”. Often the file with the most recent time stamp will be the correct one to reference).
2. Look through the shot camera. Remove or hide anything that won't be directly seen or indirectly visible in reflections (if reflections are needed). 
3. Select the characters and create a new render layer from them. Select the background objects and create another render layer from them. Go to Layer Editor>Render layer>Layers>Create layer from selected.
4. Create Environment light for the shot. Go to Render Globals and change the render engine to mental ray. Go to Indirect Lighting and under Image Based Lighting click “Create.” Add the HDRi for the scene and set any other parameters the light needs.
5. Set up any other lighting that is needful to make the shot look right. Be sure to add lights to the separate foreground and background layers otherwise they won't be taken into account at render time.

Render Settings we have found to be pretty good

Settings for Common tab:

• Image format should be changed to OpenEXR (the exr format is ideal as it allows for multiple passes to be contained in a single file whereas these same passes would have to be split up into separate files using almost any other file format. The exr format also has good support for floating point bit depths, which is also lacking in many other formats).
• Frame/Animation ext should be changed to "name.#.ext" (most compositing programs prefer this formatting for image sequences)
• Be sure to change the Frame Range and Renderable Camera to the proper settings for your shot
• Change the height and width of your shot to 720 pixels wide and 388 pixels high

Settings for Passes tab:

• Under render passes press the button with an image of a sparkling clapper that will be in the top-right most corner of the window. This will bring up a dialog with different types of passes to choose from. Create a pass for Camera Depth and then close the dialog.
• After doing this you must explicitly add this pass to each layer you wish to have it rendered out for. When highlighting a pass, a button with a image of a clapper and a green checkmark should no longer be grayed out; pressing this button will associate the highlighted pass with the currently selected render layer. Double clicking the pass will bring up settings in the attribute editor. Be sure to change Transparency Threshold to 0.5 and Maximum buffer value to 1000.0.

Settings for Features tab:

• Render Mode should be set to Normal
• Primary Renderer should be set to Scanline
• The only secondary Effect that should be toggled on should be Raytracing. If you are not using Raytrace shadows you should also turn this off. If you are unsure of whether you are using Raytrace shadows or not then simply leave raytracing on.
• Shadows should be turned on
• Motion blur should be turned to full for foreground layers and off to background layers (unless there are background characters).
• All other settings on the Features tab can be left at their defaults.

Settings for Quality tab:

• Under Anti-Aliasing quality:
• Set sampling mode to Custom Sampling
• Set Min Samples to 0. Set Max Samples to 3. If there is noise in the render then increase these numbers.
• For Multi-Pixel filtering set the Filter Type to Gauss and Filter Fize to 3.0 x 3.0
• Under Anti-Aliasing quality, all other settings can stay at their defaults
• Under Raytracing
• Raytracing should automatically be turned on when you toggled it under the Features tab. If for some reason wanted it turned on but then do so now.
• Set Reflections to 2
• Set Refractions to 2
• Set Max Trace Depth to 3
• Set Shadows to 2
• Set Reflection Blur Limit to 1
• Set Refraction Blur Limit to 1
• Under Framebuffer
• Set the data Type to "RGBA (Half) 4x16 Bit"

Under the Indirect Lighting tab:

• Be sure to click "Create" on "Image Based Lighting" if Rob has photographed an HDR image for the set you are lighting. When you do so an Environment light will appear in your scene's outliner. Be sure to set all your option appropriately within the environment light (such as which HDR image to use and so forth).
• Make sure all other indirect lighting options are turned off. Most of these features add an excessive amount of work to mental ray which slows down render times considerably. Also, some (such as Final Gather) can sometimes cause flickering renders, which means you may have to re-render your entire shot or at least individual frames.

Under the Options tab:

• Leave these settings alone. Whatever defaults Maya has in here should be just fine.

All other settings are shot dependent and thus can't really be covered here. Good luck!

HR Project Lighting Settings

Hi all,

Here are the settings and accompanying screenshots for lighting/rendering on the HR project. You may have to click on the images to make them large enough to read.

To begin, open up your Render Global Settings window. Make sure it is set to render with Mental Ray and not Maya Software or something else.

Settings for Common tab:

• Image format should be changed to OpenEXR (the exr format is ideal as it allows for multiple passes to be contained in a single file whereas these same passes would have to be split up into separate files using almost any other file format. The exr format also has good support for floating point bit depths, which is also lacking in many other formats).
• Frame/Animation ext should be changed to "name.#.ext" (most compositing programs prefer this formatting for image sequences)
• Be sure to change the Frame Range and Renderable Camera to the proper settings for your shot
• Change the height and width of your shot to 720 pixels wide and 388 pixels high

Settings for Passes tab:

• Under render passes press the button with an image of a sparkling clapper that will be in the top-right most corner of the window. This will bring up a dialog with different types of passes to choose from. Create passes for 2D Motion Vector and Camera Depth and then close the dialog.
• After doing this you must explicitly add these passes to each layer you wish to have it rendered out for (thus all passes don't need to be put out for all Render Layers). When highlighting a pass, a button with a image of a clapper and a green checkmark should no longer be grayed out; pressing this button will associate the highlighted pass with the currently selected render layer. The Camera Depth pass should be added to every single layer pretty much without fail. The 2D Motion Vector pass only needs to be added to render layers that have moving objects in them (keep in mind that if your camera is moving then, for all intents and purposes, all your objects in all your render layers are moving)

Settings for Features tab:

• Render Mode should be set to Normal
• Primary Renderer should be set to Scanline
• The only secondary Effect that should be toggled on should be Raytracing. If you are not using Raytrace shadows you should also turn this off. If you are unsure of whether you are using Raytrace shadows or not then simply leave raytracing on.
• Shadows should be turned on
• Motion blur should be turned off (the 2D Motion Vector pass will allow us to compute this in post)
• All other settings on the Features tab can be left at their defaults.

Settings for Quality tab:

• Under Anti-Aliasing quality:
• Set sampling mode to Custom Sampling
• For foreground render layers set Min Samples to 0. For background render layers set Min Samples to 1.
• For foreground render layers set Max Samples to 2. For background render layers set Max Samples to 4.
• For Multi-Pixel filtering set the Filter Type to Gauss and Filter Fize to 3.0 x 3.0
• Under Anti-Aliasing quality, all other settings can stay at their defaults
• Under Raytracing
• Raytracing should automatically be turned on when you toggled it under the Features tab. If for some reason it is not on then do so now.
• Set Reflections to 3
• Set Refractions to 3
• Set Max Trace Depth to 10
• Set Shadows to 2
• Set Reflection Blur Limit to 1
• Set Refraction Blur Limit to 1
• Under Framebuffer
• Set the data Type to "RGBA (Half) 4x16 Bit"

Under the Indirect Lighting tab:

• Be sure to click "Create" on "Image Based Lighting" if Rob has photographed an HDR image for the set you are lighting. When you do so an Environment light will appear in your scene's outliner. Be sure to set all your option appropriately within the environment light (such as which HDR image to use and so forth).
• Make sure all other indirect lighting options are turned off. Most of these features add an excessive amount of work to mental ray which slows down render times considerably. Also, some (such as Final Gather) can sometimes cause flickering renders, which means you may have to re-render your entire shot or at least individual frames. Joe Creswell recommends using Final Gather in his previous post as it does improve the quality of the final renders (as do most indirect lighting features). However, Hazel and I have found the high render times and flickering frames to not be worth the time and effort. I suggest avoiding Mental Ray's indirect lighting features (other than image based lighting) whenever possible. Similar features can be faster to render in some other renderers, but as a general rule indirect lighting features are slow and/or hard to work with in most renderers and should be avoided unless necessary (or you have a large, fast render farm at your disposal or you are only rendering a single still image).

Under the Options tab:

• Leave these settings alone. Whatever defaults Maya has in here should be just fine.

Be sure to smooth all geometry before rendering. By this I mean select all geometry to be rendered and press the 3 button to use Maya's smooth preview. Mental Ray will understand that this means it should subdivide at render time (and not before). If you do a true subdivision (smoothing) to your geometry before rendering this will cause more geometry to have to be sent to Mental Ray, which will in turn slow down your renders considerably.

Pretty much all other settings will be dependent on your setup of lights and geometry in your particular scene. I recommend using raytrace shadows on area lights with 16-32 Shadow Rays and a Ray Depth of 3. If you want softer shadows simply scale the size of your area lights (keep in mind that this will increase their area of illumination thus lighting everything more brightly so you may need to turn down the intensity of your lights after scaling up their size). Area lights mimic more accurately the way real light sources act and thus give better looking lighting with less effort. Raytrace shadows are much easier to manage than depth map shadows and also look better and more accurate with less effort. Since Mental Ray is a raytracer it renders raytrace shadows at decently fast speeds.

I do not recommend using light decay unless you find that you need it to make your lights illuminate correctly. With light decay off your lights will be less physically accurate, but will be more predictable to work with since they will infinitely illuminate at the same intensity.

That is all I have for now. As I think up more tips and tricks I will edit this post and add more. Good luck!