As part of this workshop we were asked to produce a 10second GIF relating to Christmas, incorporating a 'snow' element.
This was to build on Adobe AfterEffects software skills, and produce something in which could be used within the university as part of seasonal marketing.
First of all we researched quickly other GIFs popular on the internet, and tried to think of something which hadn't already been created.
Secondly we drew out rough storyboard-like sketches in order to work out what image or animation was to go on each of the frames.
Having not used many of the features on Illustrator or Photoshop, I decided to opt for a character in which i could create very quickly and easily using pre-set auto shapes. Doing this also meant that the areas in which I chose to change and animate were much clearer against a block colour, simple character background.
This was my plan.
With time only being short, whilst creating 8 different frames, i only use 6 in the actual final outcome. This adds to its childish simplicity and also means quality can be high due to not being rushed for quantity instead.
My creation is names "WetherBot" with the story being that this robot is in charge of the weather, and when selecting 'snow' from the weather option dashboard, he's suddenly smiling brighter.
After creating these 8 frames, I then used Photoshop to create a snowflake. This was with auto shapes and the rubber tool too, as not much intricate detail was needed. The background was removed and this was saved as a psd file.
In aftereffects this was opened as the top layer only, and replicated in the 10 second timeline 20 times. Each snowflake was reshaped and resized to look slightly different, and then the motion stop function was used to record the 'falling' of each individually across the background.
Then I edited how long of the ten second each of these was on for, so that the snowflakes fell randomly but consistently for the last frame of the animation only.
To fill the first couple of seconds, I imported each frame as a separate psd file and customised the length to a second on each. However the last frame with the snow had to overlap with the times the snowflakes were falling on in order to have my desired effect.
I think the finished animation is graphically simple whilst still having a touching story with the facial expressions changing on the robot when he gets the weather he wants. Its easy to recognise a stark contrast between the initial emotional-less robotic actions in comparison to the small cute smile concluding the video.
The finished result is displayed here
The clip was rendered using the appropriate settings on to the desktop, and then opened in QuickTime to view. From here I then exported the file in to 720p and as a mov.
