The Cutting Room

The time has come to put everything together.  Learning from my mistakes animating, I have taken on the most difficult shots first.  These involve the guinea pig interacting with the drum kit, such as shot 26 (dragging the drum across the floor) and shot 38 (final shot, hitting the cymbal.)  

Composing the shots will involve up to four layers.  

The base layer involves a simple, grey block.  I did not want a defined space for the drum or the character, as I wanted it to be enjoyed for the sake of itself, without the speculations of why, where and how.

Next is the drum kit layer, which sits perfectly on top of the grey back colour, thanks to the alpha channels in the targa image file.

This is similar of the guinea pig. After going through Shake a second time, alpha channels were made in the new set of targa files. The guinea pig can then be placed over everything.

Using a technique dubbed "nesting" in Final Cut Pro, I am able to arrange the frames to my personal specification in a separate sequence, and drop that sequence into the main sequence. This means that the alpha channels on the guinea pig remain, whereas Quicktime files won't hold alpha channels. As a sequence within a sequence, I can move and resize the guinea pig to the correct specifications, just like resizing a film clip.

A final layer of foreground is necessary in two shots; shot 16 (playing the drums, with the cymbal stand in front of the guinea pig) and shot 31 (richochetting between two drums, top drum needs to be on top of the guinea pig.) However, as the top drum in shot 31 moves, masking the drum in After Effects may prove a better option.

Bron