Pegg’s wild and wacky ride through Motion graphics

As ever, the legendary Chris Pegg has led us forward into a new specialisation within After Effects: that of looping background animations. Many side-scrolling games, old and New, rely upon layers backgrounds in order to convey a sense of depth and scale, and while the more simplistic ones have flat, one dimensional backgrounds, most try to use multiple-faceted backdrops incorporating looping, individual animations and continuous background images that could scroll across to represent the movement of the player, or “Sprite”.

In this exercise, Pegg challenged us to create our own backdrops and animate them. Initially, we had to come up with 3 individual backdrop ideas, then choose one, create it in photoshop, then render and animate it in after effects.

My 3 ideas

The trick to creating a successful, intricate backdrop appears to be having as many successfully rendered, independent layers and parts, so that you can give the background a sense of activity and life, which makes it more realistic to the gamer, regardless of graphics. More independent layers will create the illusion of depth of field, and even on side scrolling, 2D games, multiple layers can create quite an impressive effect…

In this case, a lot of different layers of forest background have been captured with a 3D camera and have been pinned to a fixed aspect, so as the sprite moves across the world, the background alters according to the P.O.V of the player character. This technique allows independent game developers to create visually impressive games using fairly basic game design packages such as Blender, Unity 3D or GameMaker, which in turn is fuelling the Indie Game industry.

The Fascination with Stop Motion

Well friends, today highlighted an interesting undercurrent in Digitally Manipulated Imagery: Stop Motion.

Stop motion is essentially a film comprising of a series of still images. It is an older method of film-making, often used in conjunction with creative mediums such as clay (Wallace and Grommit, Chicken Run, Art Attack) or wood or even Lego blocks.

It was used to represent scenes that would have been impossible to create with (then) contemporary special effects in conjunction with real actors/locations. Such were the surreal/fantastical settings and scenarios (a dog fixing a boiler) that the creative medium was completely embraced and accepted by the audience.

However, today, computer graphics are sufficiently advanced to completely digitally render scenes, characters and locations, theoretically rendering the need for traditional stop motion photography obsolete in a largely digital film industry.

However, it is still in wide use in television, advertising and, some extent, film. Films such as “Chicken Run” and “Wallace and Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit” were filmed completely in clay animation. The reason it seems, is simple: clever charm.

Detractors from Modern Computer Generated Graphics often state that it lacks “soul”: referring Ito the cold, completely digital image that lacks the “warmth” of 35mm film or the physical nature of the set and projected image.

Although today, modern CGI is almost hyper-realistic, and easily capable of imitating real scenes, early CGI was indeed sterile and un-realistic, and seemingly lacking the dedication and effort required of clay animation, where every movement had to be painstakingly modelled and photographed, with Continuity being a major concern.

The continued use of “Claymotion” in the film industry today seems to be born purely of nostalgia for older films. Indeed, no major stop motion films have been made since 2004, mainly due to the incredible quality of CGI today. But in mainly Internet videos, including advertisements, but especially personal artistic projects, there is still a fascination with Stop Motion production techniques, mainly due to the appeal to younger audiences.

The reason, again for this, is whimsy.

-UNFINISHED-

Hello world!

Oh, hello there! Nice to see you, it’s awfully good of you to drop by. Unless you’re Phil or Liam, you’re probably wondering what you’ve stumbled upon. This blog will be documenting my Shennanigans on the FDA Digital Media Production course at the Arts University College at Bournemouth; pretty exciting stuff, no? (; It’s an exciting time to be working in the Digital Media industry, and here I’ll be showing what I’ve been up to, or things I’ve seen and done that interest or excite me as a practitioner. So sit back, pour yourself a glass of Pinot Noire from the cabinet (the ’74, not the ’73, that stuff is vile) and enjoy what will (hopefully) be an exciting voyage through the Digital World!