Rat shot / shading experiment

[sargumphigaus]

I'm working on a horror/satire feature length film jam packed with my personal ambition to see a vision done. In an attempt to develop my style, I've poured hundreds of hours messing around with different ideas and techniques and I gotta tell ya, this program REALLY opens up to you so long and so forth as you throw down the effort.

That said, i found a very interesting style of shading that you'll notice in the video below. I've used this all over my project so far, but only on backgrounds considering the harsh complexity that would entail with using it with a character rig. I don't use bone rigging very often these days and try my best to stand clear, But i'm pretty sure this will would work especially well for bones vectors more so that the way I use them.

Please excuse the um...grimness of the example. It's the only one I got so far.



So to get this look down, Every portion of the rat consists of a group layer, and in these group layers, I put in three layers. I create one for the specific shape of the portion that makes up the creature, and then I animate the whole thing out. Once the animation is complete, I create the next layer for the shading. For vector design, I use Soft Shading and turn it really high up to accomplish that filthy look, and I slather that sh*t right in there without any fear of over lapping the creatures body. And lets face it, with soft edge turned up to 100, you're going to supersede the stroke. Just get the shadows and lights where you need them to go and don't worry about overlapping. That's where the third layer comes into play. Select the first layer, the one for the basic shape and you click Duplicate Layer and position the duplicated layer underneath its origin. Not only is this the same exact image, it's the same animation cycle as well. Double click the group layer folder this is all in, and go to masking and click "HIDE ALL" then double click the duplicated layer beneath the basic shape layer and double click that one, go to the Masking tab and select "Clear mask and add this layer invisibly to it" and then click render and you'll see that you have a very specifically detailed shading job. The mask that contains this shading will move along with the animation for the basic body, so you'll just have to drag the shading layer along with the point animation or tweening or whatever, but in the end, I think it's worth it. But of course, if you're using bone rigging, you won't have to do anything.

The only downside to this is that you're limited to dark colors if you're using your basic black stroke. Contrasting colors will make the stroke less clear. To me this isn't a problem as i'm going for that level of look.

Obviously it isn't Disney quality and it probably comes down to the animators taste. I've been trying to figure out how to get this to work for awhile as i thought it would be a perfect solution. So there it is. Something to think about anyways.

[Danimal]

The shading in your videos is always really fantastic. This one is no exception. Thanks for the insight into how it's accomplished.

Also, I think I recognize a train in the background there...

[msmart]

Can't wait to see the Film awesome style!

[sargumphigaus]

The shading in your videos is always really fantastic. This one is no exception. Thanks for the insight into how it's accomplished.

Also, I think I recognize a train in the background there...

yes, Thankfully that's the last you'll see of that damn thing. Although in the future I may have my big scary monster smash it off it's rails just out of spite. Given his anatomy, he'll be a million times more difficult to animate, but you know what? I'm up to the challenge, and that train won't smash itself. You know what? I just convinced myself to bring the train back.