LEARNING PARALLAX

Project Brief

The project brief was about something new that up until that point I had never done before; I was tasked with learning how to do basic parallax animation and create a parallax effect over a 2D image to give it a partially 3D appearance.

Tools

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe After Effects

Envato Elements

Research

The initial research consisted of two parts; I researched what I was creating, a parallax animation, and then afterwards I researched how to create it for myself. I had never done this form of animation before, so I had to find some references to use.

To start with, I researched "What is a Parallax" and then after watching some YouTube videos and reading some guides, I then looked up how to make them for myself.

Planning and Initial Draft

Once I had found some videos and guides, it was time for my first attempt at making a parallax animation, something which I had never done up until this point, so it was something completely new for me.

To start with, I needed a basic image to start off with; I ended up choosing this image for it's lack of colour and the prominent yet simple patterns in the image which I could use while learning how to use the clone stamp and healing tool.

Now that I had the image, I got to work cutting out the layers, filling in the background and fixing any imperfections between the layers such as rough selection edges.

Once I had it all sorted and cut into layers, I imported it into After Effects and began the process of animation; the process wasn't much different from the same process described in the Open Day I project, the successor to this original project.

The original version of the test image I used.

The original in-game screenshot.

Star Citizen 17_09_2022 20_26_52 (2).png

Production and Progression

So, at this point I'd played around with the process a bit and understood the basics of what I was doing, so it was time to move onto something a bit more complex.

To keep it interesting for me while learning, I picked a screenshot I took in a video game I liked as I like taking photographs in games too.

Screenshot of the animation process inside of After Effects, showing the layers.

Here we have the four main layers of the image; the foreground, midground, background and the actual ship.

Final Product

Now I had all my layers and all I had to do was animate the layers; I imported the original Photoshop file into After Effects and began making the animation, converting the 2D layers into 3D layers, creating a virtual camera and touching up any rough edges in the layers. I started with organising all the layers in 3D space, separating and scaling them as needed to create the illusion of depth.

Screenshot of the 3D layers inside After Effects.

After they'd all been layered correctly, I started to manipulate the virtual camera using keyframes to change its position and the size and position of the individual layers to create the parallax effect.

I went to Envato Elements for a special dust effect which I wanted to appear on its own layer and I ended up finding a stock video where the dust nearly matched the ground's colour nearly perfectly and fit in very nicely; I ended up putting it on its own layer between the foreground and the midground.

And after some tweaking and adjustment and a bit of work in After Effects, I managed to get the final export.