Tutorial: 2.5d Animation

Producing The Polar Classic Animated Music Video

The Polar Classic, by Mark Wickman, was the 1st Place winner in Videomaker's 2005 Short Video contest, in which Mark made an animated video, using still photos. We've received many letters asking "how did he DO that?" So we asked him to create a tutorial on just how the process is done. We discovered that the end results actually depend on the beginning... in the planning stage.

The Polar Classic is an annual golf tournament held the last week of February in Beijing. The client had a simple request: produce an interesting music video portraying this fun but competitive event, including footage of all the participants. I shot still photographs, and the client would later provide more than twelve hours of DVCPRO footage from the event.


I confirmed the animated stills approach after spending several hours viewing the video footage, which was not very exciting. I selected the 100 best photos and brought them to life, using a two-step process:

1. Preprocessing each photo into layers in Photoshop
2. Creating a short animation using those layers in After Effects

Pre-Production

As always, pre-production is key. One must "shoot to animate." Some keys thoughts on this approach:

1. Take good photos or hire someone to do so (after explaining to them your animation approach and workflow). You are not going to fix bad photos in post. You are also not going to add motion in post to photos that don't lend themselves to motion.
2. Think in layers. Understand the foreground and back- ground objects in each photo.
3. Understand motion. Look for shots with objects or behavior that are candidates for motion in the animated frame.
4. Shoot for a large depth of field and avoid blur in the photos. We can add this in After Effects.
5. Avoid legs. Full-body shots normally imply someone is going to walk by - difficult to animate. Shoot above the waist and simulate the walk cycle.
6. Variety is the spice of life. Almost every shot of every person in Polar Classic is at a different point on the golf course, something that was very much lacking in the video footage.
7. "Filling the hole." You are going to have to fill in the holes behind your subjects, using Photoshop before you animate in After Effects. If you have complex geometry behind a subject, take a second shot of the background only.
8. Don't forget the supporting shots: ball in a sand trap, flag in the hole, green grass, golf ball closeup. If you are shooting a wedding, shoot all the usual supporting shots: ring, ring on finger, hand and pen, guestbook, knife and cake, rice in hand.

Photos: Selection and Processing

I selected and processed 100 of approximately 300 stills shot at the event. That represents an ideal shooting ratio compared to the video alternative.

If you have some music in mind, understand its length and beats per minute in order to calculate the number of photos you need. If you are uncertain, tap it out. Polar has a fairly punchy progression: one hundred photos at three seconds for most of the animations. On some wedding videos, I have used a mix of video and longer animations to good effect.

I always shoot JPG format. With today's DSLRs, you have more than enough resolution for a beautiful PAL or NTSC image. I suggest pre-processing all of your images to the same size, orientation and file type, if they are not consistent. If you need adjustments to clean up your images, do this in Photoshop before the processing described at right.

When selecting photos, make brief notes on your layering approach and potential layer motions. A two-person approach for dividing the layering and animation work was very effective, enabling us to deliver this project quickly - three weeks from event to DVD.

Objects in your photos need to be isolated into Photoshop layers for animation in After Effects. The Photoshop work represented 35-40% of the total project hours. We used this simple process to create the PSD files for each of our photographs:

1. Open the selected still photo in Photoshop.
2. Convert the original JPG file to a layer called Original.
3. Duplicate the original layer and call it BG.
4. Duplicate the original layer again for each of the object layers which will be animated, i.e., FG (foreground).
5. Order the layers so the object layers are on top above the BG layer, with the Original layer on the bottom.
6. Process the FG and BG layers to isolate the object:
1. Select the FG layer and make sure only it is visible.
2. Use polygon lasso tool to cut out the object; zoom in on the layer to make this easier using a 1px feather and anti-alias.
3. When selection is complete, inverse the selection and erase the background. You now have an FG layer ready to be animated.
4. With the selection still in place, change to the BG layer and make it the only visible layer. Inverse the selection again to select the FG object, and erase it to create a hole in the BG layer
5. Use the clone stamp tool to fill the hole. There are various techniques to accomplish this: copying from the same photo, stealing from another pho- to, inserting new objects, using the second photo you shot of background only.
6. Save the PSD for After Effects. Turn visibility on for all your FG and BG layers and off for the Original layer.

The Polar Classic project contains subjects in front of their actual backgrounds - that is to say, we cut everything out (step 6c). If you have subjects who can pose, green screen is worth considering; you can then composite the keyed subject onto photographed backgrounds. If you haven't tried pulling a key on your DSLR, try it - it sure beats the shortcomings of DV!

Most of the PSD files for the Polar Classic animation consisted of 3 simple layers: Original, FG and BG. A notable exception was the title shot. This title animation consists of 70 or 80 layers, mainly golf balls, putted across a putting green to ultimately form the title of the video.