Leaves

This is a little spin-off post from the recent Chase post. I was trying to find out who animated the leaves for this scene:What follows is a little back and forth email conversation I had with F/X animator Graham Bebbington about the technique used to create the shimmering leaves in this and two more scenes:

Graham:
I animated a few of the shimmering leaf scenes and may have had a hand in the one shown. Basically they were painted panning backgrounds with sections of animated leaves repeated to give the impression of movement.

Holger:
Could you explain that in more detail for the blog? I'd like to understand how that worked.

Graham:
Basically it involves animating leaves moving very slightly as if in a breeze from say left to right, fixed to the same spot on a painted tree BG. Then gradually layering the same drawings slightly offset until you are happy with the amount and feel of the animation. Then you can experiment with the colours to enhance the shimmering effect and if they need to react to something, i.e the Thief falling into the branches, you can have bigger movements and showers of leaves falling down from the branches to enhance the effect as secondary animation. Above all you need patience and attention to detail as it is the repetition and variety that creates the illusion of movement and any large movements would distract from the main focus. As Dick said at the time you should “feel the wind”.

Holger:
I talked to Dietmar about this. He told me about some scenes where he reused OneEyes in the same scene by using different pegs and offsetting the numbers in the x-sheet. Since you mentioned other leave scenes I had a quick look and found 2 more in the Polo game:
Graham:
WOW, you found two scenes I definitely did… you’ve made an old man very happy. (Just kidding!) Below should clarify it a bit more and added to the previous e-mail give you a better idea. Obviously being in the same room and drawing them for you would be the best way. But this is the next best thing.

Holger:
For example I don't understand how you would use different pegs if you just want to shift the drawing an inch or so. Floating pegbar, bottom pegs?

Graham:
OK--- I meant the Bg was painted over A, B and C pegs. With the leaves animated separately on paper as a cycle of 12, 16, 20 or? drawings … whatever works. In Dick’s case more… more… more!!!. Then once they worked they could be repositioned in paint and trace SEPARATE from the pegs BUT registered to the painted tree Background. The trick is to hide the join between the separate cycles of leaves and to start the cycle animation at a different number for each section. E.G. TREE One below start on frame 1 of cycle, TREE two below start on frame 3 of cycle etc.etc.
Holger:
When you said “then you can experiment with the colours” - that would be done in T&P? Would you linetest this by shading leaves in with colored pencils?Graham:
Yep, you guessed it. That was how I did the one in the rainbow scene above. Again animating sections and changing the start point of the cycle. (this time it was on smaller sections and it meant the tracing had to be pin point or the animation would jump)

Holger:
In this scene with the Thief I also can't find any obvious repetition:Graham:
I think this may have been animated as seen and used as a basis for the other ones, as the leaves are larger and would be harder to hide cycles in. Although the longer the cycle the easier it is. (i.e a 36 frame cycle would be more convincing than a 12 frame one)