Final Animation

Animation Stage 4

I have added in a reflections to the leaf

and i have added a path to the leaf reflection follows

the actual leaf and it looks realistic.

Animation Stage 3

I have now added the moon and the path of the moon
too, to make it appear to be moving across the screen

a little.

I have decided that i want the moon to be
 in the whole

animation so it will be in the beginning behind a building and

then it will gradually move across. 

I really like this idea and i think that it goes well with the 

idea. I think that the size of the moon works as well, i didn't

was it small.

I have added in a light and a dark red background 

to make the animation more effective and i have

then changed how the light moves.

At the beginning the light starts quite big, and it 

covers most of the page

as the animation progresses more i have made the light

get smaller and smaller but still follow the leaf

and finally, when the leaf hits the water the light 

is much smaller and makes the viewer

focus on the leaf. 

Animation Stage 2

I have now added in the water and the 

silhouette of the skyline

I have also added the yellow lights into the composition

and parented them with the building so that when the 

building moves to make the leaf appear to be falling further 

i want the lights to stay in perfect position.

I have made everything 3d so that that i can place everything

in layers. 

I have decided that i want to add in a reflection because

i want it to look more realistic, so i will create that once i

have made sure that the leafs path is right.

Animation Stage 1

Leaf And Branch

I have placed my leaf and Branch images into after effects

and i have placed them where i want them to start. 

I  want the branches to move and the leaf to fall in the zigzag. 

I have created the path for the leaf and

i have pinned the tree and moved each branch with each

second. I think it looks good, and allthough i will need to 

change the leafs path to make it more fluid it looks good. 

final Background

I have decided that i want to have a dark back

ground and then to have a cityscape in the
 background so that when the beats hit in the music

i will be able to have the lights coming on 

in the building as if they are waking up to watch

the leaf fall.

So i have decided that i will use a dark grey skyline 

silhouette. 

I have created this skyline, but i have only put windows in the 

sections that will be seen as the sides won't be used at all. 

I have also decided that i do want the leaf to fall into water so i have 

taken an image of some water. 

I have chosen water thats quite still and doesn't have too

much movement in it, so that i can make it work in my 

animation. 

I have then put it into photoshop and i have just used

the bottom section of the image.

I have also decided that i want the moon in my animation

but rather than having just a white circle, i want it to be a really

big moon where you can see all of the shading from

the craters because my leaf and tree aren't normal so i don't want 

to have an ordinary moon either.

I have taken the background out so that  i can make it follow a path

in after effects. 

Background ideas

I have created this brainstorm to give me ideas about how i will

be able to create a good background.

I want to use a few different pieces of imagery to make it look

effective. so i have thought about all the different areas

i could look at and then gone a bit further with them, 

with the placement of the branch and the leaf in mind.

After Effects

I have changed my mind about doing my animation 

with stop motion animation, because all though it worked

quite well, it didn't have the effect that i want it to,

i can't get the motion smooth enough, and this doesn't

work for the beginning of my animation. 

so i have decided that i will use after effects
so that i can pin all of the points of the tree and make
it move fluidly and also so i can make the leaf follow
a path and not have to do it manually.

Imagery

Final Imagery

I have drawn and cut out the leaf and the tree branch i 

intend to use, i have tried to get the background as

contrasting as i can so that it makes it easy to take away

in Photoshop I have drawn these strangely because i wanted

them to be interesting and a bit different to add some abstract into

my idea.. 

I have completely taken the background off both of these 

images so that i can mold them how i like in after effects.

I needed them to have nothing around them at all so that they are

free to move, as i want the leaf to go across the whole image as it 

floats down.

With the tree its even more important, as although i don't need it 

to go across the whole page, i need to to move upward so that the 

leaf appears to be falling further. I also need to move the branches 

to make it appear like the wind is blowing, so each one

will need to be pinned and moved throughout the animation.

After Effects Sessions

At first i was thinking of using stop motion to create my 

animation, until we started looking at After effects

and then i decided that i wanted to use this programme 

as i felt that it would make my animation look more effective.

we had a few sessions in which we were able to 

get to grips with the programme and try out a few

of the effects it had to offer. 

This is an example of one of the things i created.

I enjoyed making this and it made me want to use

after effects. so i started to play around with it and

with that i found ways of creating my animation. 

This made me realise how to add shadow, paths and 

how to pin the animation to make separate parts move

independently which is what it want to do with my tree.