Day 49 - Sony Vegas - English Project (17) - Kenan's Expedition start and Dragan's totally not stationary for the whole book

What I did:
Today, I finished Kenan's chapter by making Mrs. Ritovski and also putting the milk cartons on Kenan. I know it sounds stupid but in the book, Kenan must go and get water for his family and he ties 6 milk cartons to himself so he can carry them. I also used a lot of keyframes for kenan to signify his knocking. I made a jumping up and down gesture to show his movement like how someone would do to a cartoon to show them doing something. This caused me to make a lot of keyframes. I also started and finished Dragan's first chapter as well. There wasn't much to it other than two people running across the street but other than that, there wasn't much to it.

What I learned:
Today, I learned how to make something shake and no, it doesn't use what I mentioned yesterday. The shake from yesterday did not work out in that no matter what you choose as a layer, the shake will affect the whole thing rather than just the object you have selected in a layer. So, I went full on manual and used keyframes to do it. Every few milliseconds, I put down a keyframe and moved the character up or down depending on how I wanted it to look. That's what I learned today and I'm not sure if I'll do this for every shake or if I'll only do it this one time. It does take time and I'm kind of running out of that.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to start chapter 2 of the book. There are 4 chapters but the chapters do get longer from here on out. I plan to do a chapter a day for each of the characters and hopefully I can finish chapters 2/3 by the end of next week and chapter is pretty short so it should be quite straight forward. Tomorrow, I will be learning how to do more things in Sony Vegas for this project. Hopefully, I learn a lot more than expected but that's my goal for tomorrow. I do not have a definite thing that I want to focus on but hopefully I figure it out.

Time; 1 1/2 hours

Day 48 - Sony Vegas - English Project (16) - Kenan's Startup

What I did:
Today, I started Kenan's story. Unfortunately, I did not get to finish it due to having two tests tomorrow but I wanted to get something out today. today, I started some of the parts of Kenan's story. I had to use a lot of keyframes for Kenan's movement because in this chapter there is a lot of stuff which does not have to be shown but can be shown through sounds which I will add this weekend. I also added the part where Kenan's wife comes in and talks to him but I have not added any commentary yet because I want to get the animation out of the way first. I want to get the hard stuff out of the way so I can cruise after that by doing the commentary. I also couldn't find a house backdrop so I decided to use a destroyed neighborhood one because that gives a feel of being at home and I don't 100% need it to be the exact location. 

What I learned:
Today, I did not have time to learn much stuff but I did get started on beginning to learn something for tomorrow's class. I learned where to go to get a shaky effect. A lot of the tutorials I've watched say you have to download a plug-in but I've learned that you really don't and that's what I'm beginning to learn I hope this doesn't deduct marks from mark but I plan to learn all of it tomorrow. I learned today that you have to go the "Video FX" panel and go to "Sony Film Effects" and then you go to the panel with the effects. I also learned that you need to add a lot of keyframes if you want to move someone and have them stay there and then move them again. You have to add still keyframes before you make something move or else the for the entirety of the object's runtime, it will be moving to its destination.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
My goal for tomorrow's class is to finish Kenan's chapter and to finish Dragan's chapter as well. Dragan's chapter is pretty short just like Kenan's so it should be pretty smooth. I also plan to finish learning how to make the screen shake, I'm going to use this on characters or the background. The characters will shake when they are "speaking" and the background will shake when there's an explosion or something. That is my goal for tomorrow.

Time: 50 minutes

Day 47 - Sony Vegas - English Project (15) - Arrow's escape

What I did:
Today, I finished Arrow's first chapter. My goal for every single post starting now is to get through at least one character's chapter every post. I created the falling of the soldier that gets shot by Arrow and I also made the flash to show the shells and the shot that gets fired at arrow when she tries to escape the building. I would still like to add a shake effect to this arc because of the mortars striking but I have not found a plug-in yet.

What I learned:
Today, I learned more about the animation tool. In the composition today, when Arrow was supposed to be coming out of the building. She went slow when going down but sped up when running. I learned how to do this by using keyframes. Since the amount of time for her to be going down takes longer, I gave her more time to do it but when she's running, it goes really fast. I have become a lot better at doing these keyframe things because I have used it so much in the past few days and I've learned a lot about it.


What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to create Kenan's arc. The first chapter is relatively simple for Kenan so it should be pretty easy. Tomorrow, I also plan to learn how to install a plug-in into Sony Vegas so I can give my characters a shaky look when they're scared or are talking. That is my goal for tomorrow's class.

Time: 50 minutes

Day 46 - Sony Vegas - English Project (14) - The Cellist's Plan and Arrow's Fury

What I did:
Today, I made a lot of progress towards my English Cellist of Sarajevo Project. I finished up most of the Cellist's arc and have now moved onto Arrow's. I did not fully finish the cellist's arc because I need to add one more thing which I do not have yet but that will be discussed later. Today, I created soldier sprites that I could use to have stock characters. These soldier characters were used for Arrow's story because they are getting shot at by Arrow. I positioned Arrow at the top because it shows that she has higher ground like she did in the book and I put the soldiers on the ground where they were. I also gave her a rifle and angled it so it looks like she is aiming at the guys on the ground. I also gave the Cellist is goodbye by having him walk off screen.

What I learned:

Today, the main thing I learned was how to create a gunshot effect. The way I learned how to do it was by downloading some stock "footage" effects of gunshot effects and putting them in the composition in a layer above your weapon. Then you have to go and click on the compositing button in the layer the gunshot is in and change it to "screen" which allows only the gunshot part to be shown because the black parts get screened. Then I angled the shot so it looks like it is coming out the rifle. 

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to finish Arrow's first chapter and begin Kenan's Chapter. Kenan does not have a lot of things in his story so I might just finish that tomorrow as well. I do not know what I plan to learn tomorrow but I guess we'll find out. Some of the things I learn when I make posts are things that come when I am doing the thing and not actually going to learn anything. Like if a glitch happens, I know what occurred to make that glitch and I will prevent it in the future.

Time: 1 1/2 hours

Day 45 - Sony Vegas - English Project (13) - The Cellist's Depression

What I did:
Today, I started the Cellist's Story arc. I did a lot. I made two more sprites in Photoshop (a default male and female) and I also animated the animation. I started off my having the Cellist start off from the side because the explosion happens outside with the people. I put 4 sprites in the animation other than the cellist to symbolize the group. There were 22 people in the actual line to get the bread but of course, I'm not going to put 22 people in line so I put 4 but they symbolize 22. I also added a bomb in the composition. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any mortars so I used a cartoon style bomb. I also added a flash to the animation after the bomb hits the group of people to give the explosion effect. I will be adding the sound to it later on. 

What I learned:
Today, I learned more about animating. I learned that if you move the sprite or try to adjust it when you're in the "Even Pan/Crop" section, it will change animate and form the keyframe. What I mean is that you if you want to change the size of something, make sure you are out of the "Event Pan/Crop" section. It can mess your animation up if you decide to change it when the section is open. I also learned about maintaining aspect ratio which confused me when I opened up a picture and it had black bars on the sides. If you right-click on the image and go to properties, you can deselect maintain aspect ratio and it will enlarge it. 

What I learned tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to finish the Cellist's chapter and move on to Arrow's chapter. I plan to finish the Cellist's story by recording the audio and fading away to Arrow's thing. Tomorrow, I plan to create a gunshot or maybe I will stick to the flash that I used today. I plan to learn how to use some new transitions as well tomorrow

Time: 1 1/2 hours.. 

Day 44 - Sony Vegas - English Project (12) - Starting it up!

What I did:
Today, I did a lot of things. I moved forward a lot with my English project. I did a lot of things to start up the whole thing which involved creating the first two minutes of the video which involved a lot of speaking because all of it is going to have commentary. I also had to redo a lot of speech to make it good because I am a perfectionist. I did not want a script for this because I don't want it to sound too formal or scripted. I kind of just went with the flow because I am used it since I make Youtube videos and do the exact same thing. I also added my blog url to the video because I want people to know who created it plus I would like people to see all my hard work on the blog if they choose to view it.

Adding the first bit of audio:

Adding the blog url to the composition:

2 minutes of recording audio is finally complete:

What I learned:
Today, I learned a few new things in Sony Vegas. I was mainly focusing on starting the composition so I didn't actually learn a whole lot today but I do make it my goal to learn something new every day and that's what we did. I learned that you can name your layer in Sony Vegas. I know it sounds so stupid that I didn't know before even though I've used it so many times before but there never was a need until now because this project is going to have a lot of layers. So, I learned that useful technique. I also learned that the time tracking thing that I learned yesterday affects the whole layer. I only wanted Arrow to be zoomed in but the time motion tool affects everything in the layer which makes sense since I used it by clicking the layer and not the actual image. This made remove the first image and place it in a new layer because it was zooming in for 40 seconds and it didn't look good so I moved it a higher layer and it is now a still image.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:

Tomorrow, I plan to start the cellist's story. Since he only has one chapter dedicated to himself, it will be easy to do. I already have the backdrop I want to use for this and tomorrow, I plan to learn how to create an explosion in Sony Vegas because that's what the chapter involves which kickstarts the cellist's story. It will have people dying in it and I hope to create that tomorrow.

Time: 1 1/4 hours.

Day 43 - Sony Vegas - English Project (11) - Getting everything organized

What I did:
Today, I moved forward with my Cellist of Sarajevo project. Today, I started with the Sony Vegas half of the project. I imported all the characters I made in Photoshop and now they are the sprites in the animation. I also made an intro frame in photoshop. I also looked up the music that the Cellist plays in the book so I could use it but unfortunately, I do not know for sure if I searched up the right one so I will not implement it yet.

1. I put all the characters that I made in the composition.

2. I also created the intro frame in Photoshop.

3. Then, I put the intro in. I also am choosing to show only the 4 main characters before the animation starts.

What I learned:
Today, I learned about the motion tracking tool. I have used this tool before but I do not believe I used the same settings before and before I was doing stop motion which is drastically different than what I planned to do this time around. I used the track motion to resize the sprite but I will most likely also use it to hide it and then bring it in from a certain direction. It can be used to hide characters which is really important for me because I will be using it for this animation which is basically a summary of the book.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to continue with Sony Vegas. I would like to get the audio for the beginning done and I would also like to learn some other effects like a gunshot because that happens a lot in the book. I would also like to be putting in backdrops and hopefully starting Arrow's part of the book. I don't have a whole lot of time left but I will try to do a lot in the next coming weeks. Grad is also coming up so I need to hurry it up as well.

Time: 40 minutes