Weeks 6 & 7 (17/02 - 27/02)
Final Lenticular Prints
42 LPI
Step 1: Pitchtest
Description
On the left are the settings I used to generate the pitchtest strips to find the exact value for the larger lenticular piece. My friends and I once again split the work for the testing, ranging from 41.5lpi to 42.5lpi in different intervals. Then we printed the test strips out on glossy actual sized paper and overlaid our 42lpi lenticular piece over. From this test, we found out that the actual value for the larger piece is 42.33lpi.
Step 2: Animating & Testing
Layer panel
Description
Reference images and created graphics used to create the 42lpi animation. I created all these on Illustrator using shapes, gradients, and even the image trace tool for the background, then imported them all into After Effects to begin animating. Not pictured (i lost the asset) was a chicken drumstick that I created that was supposed to be inside the styrofoam box. My initial plan for the animation was to have the styrofoam box open to reveal food remains, then close, and head towards the mouth of the recycling bin, then gets rejected due to contamination and bounce off.
A Series of Failed Attempts :’)
V1
As mentioned in the previous section, this is my V1. Sadly, I have lost the After Effects File with the first actual animation but let me try my best to describe everything. Because I was once again overambitious (my hubris), I somehow decided to animate a whole movie, with the closed styrofoam box starting from the bottle left, the lid opening to reveal a chicken drumstick (you can vaguely see it in the images above) then closing it. The whole box is then thrown towards the bin opening, then it gets rejected due to the contamination within, and it bounces off while the ‘REJECTED’ text flashes on the opening of the Bloobin. As you could probably expect, there was too many frames, so I tried using the 600dpi option to accomodate more frames for my animation. After printing it out and trying it with the lenticular piece, the animation barely showed up at all LOL. The only animated parts that I could see were the chicken drumstick and the flashing red ‘REJECTED’ text on the bin opening. As one could tell, there was too much animating going on and just too many frames in general. Thus I began my journey on another animation, and unbeknownst to me, many more to come.
V2
I totally cut out the entire first portion from the first animation, where the box opens and closes to reveal a drumstick. Kind of sad but it had to be done. I tried to cut down the frames as much as possible. for more visibility when the box moves towards the bin. As a result, I had 10 frames left and I still stuck to using 600dpi for this animation. However, after printing and testing it using the lenticular piece, once again, I could not see the middle frames where the styrofoam box moves towards the bin. The entire animation felt really blurry and ironically, too smooth. Hence, another attempt was required.
V3
In this iteration, I cut the frames down to 8, and even changed the dpi to 300. I felt as though 600dpi animations made things too smooth and it did not look good with my kind of animation, maybe if things were more subtle it would look better. I also added some text to the bottom left which correlates with my studio project on responsible recycling, and it also fills up the space and adds more context to the now simplified animation. In order to cut down on my frames from 10 to 8, and also to prevent the same thing from happening in V1 and V2, I changed the path for the styrofoam box. In this iteration, it just moves from the left to the bin opening, then disappears when rejected by the Bloobin. When I printed this out and tested it with my lenticular frame, it looked alright but it just fell a little flat and I still felt as if the animation path for the styrofoam could be further shortened to increase visibility. Additionally, there was also a little lack of contrast between the animated items and the background. However, despite all these issues, I was happy with the change to 300dpi as it made each frame look more obvious and the animation less ‘blurry’.
V4
To address the issue from V3, I added a little orange multiply layer set to 46% opacity over the background. It looked better but I still thought the styrofoam anmation could be shortened.
V5
I reduced the animation path for the styrofoam box, starting from above the bin and moving straight down. This honestly looked a little weird to me but for the sake of visibility I had to sacrifice multiple things. By reducing the path that the box had to travel, it definitely increased visibility but now the entire thing looks boring.
Final Version (V6)
After settling on that animation path, I decided to make things look a little more interesting by slightly animating the text on the bottom left, scaling in size. This also draws further emphasis to the text which is also pretty important. After all this, I am happy with the final annimation and decided to mount it onto the lenticular lense, which was also another struggle. Luckily I had help from my friends who mounted their pieces before me and they gave me tips on how to make things simpler. From there, it was just me learning along the way while I flattened my print onto the adhesive sheet, stuck to the lenticular lense. When I was done mounting it, sadly, there was a little white line on the edge because I misaligned it by 1mm but I decided to let it go because it was not that obvious. With that, this concludes my journey with the 42lpi lenticular animation.
Reflection
I decided to create and focus on the animation for the 42lpi lenticular first, due to submissions. Through this entire gruelling journey, I found that less is more with lenticular animation. I think that is truly the key to successful and visible lenticular prints. Honestly, just the 42lpi animation itself took everything out of me, especially because I had to endure and troubleshoot 5 (might be more i lost count) animations before creating something that works and satisfies me to a certain extent. By the time I was about to give up on this animation, it was too late for me to restart, so I just tried my best to make things work and honestly, even though it was slightly underwhelming, I don’t think I did that badly. Like all the other lessons and last semester, trial and error is key to growing, and learning from your mistakes is the key to leveling up. So even though this whole activity was taxing, I would say I learned alot and I am grateful to have the chance to experiment with this medium, something that I have seen since young.
32 LPI pt.1
Layer panel
Description
Reference images and created graphics used to create the 42lpi animation. I created all these on Illustrator using shapes, gradients, and even the image trace tool for the background, then imported them all into After Effects to begin animating. Not pictured (i lost the asset) was a chicken drumstick that I created that was supposed to be inside the styrofoam box. My initial plan for the animation was to have the styrofoam box open to reveal food remains, then close, and head towards the mouth of the recycling bin, then gets rejected due to contamination and bounce off.
A Series of Failed Attempts :’)
V1
As mentioned in the previous section, this is my V1. Sadly, I have lost the After Effects File with the first actual animation but let me try my best to describe everything. Because I was once again overambitious (my hubris), I somehow decided to animate a whole movie, with the closed styrofoam box starting from the bottle left, the lid opening to reveal a chicken drumstick (you can vaguely see it in the images above) then closing it. The whole box is then thrown towards the bin opening, then it gets rejected due to the contamination within, and it bounces off while the ‘REJECTED’ text flashes on the opening of the Bloobin. As you could probably expect, there was too many frames, so I tried using the 600dpi option to accomodate more frames for my animation. After printing it out and trying it with the lenticular piece, the animation barely showed up at all LOL. The only animated parts that I could see were the chicken drumstick and the flashing red ‘REJECTED’ text on the bin opening. As one could tell, there was too much animating going on and just too many frames in general. Thus I began my journey on another animation, and unbeknownst to me, many more to come.
V2
I totally cut out the entire first portion from the first animation, where the box opens and closes to reveal a drumstick. Kind of sad but it had to be done. I tried to cut down the frames as much as possible. for more visibility when the box moves towards the bin. As a result, I had 10 frames left and I still stuck to using 600dpi for this animation. However, after printing and testing it using the lenticular piece, once again, I could not see the middle frames where the styrofoam box moves towards the bin. The entire animation felt really blurry and ironically, too smooth. Hence, another attempt was required.
V3
In this iteration, I cut the frames down to 8, and even changed the dpi to 300. I felt as though 600dpi animations made things too smooth and it did not look good with my kind of animation, maybe if things were more subtle it would look better. I also added some text to the bottom left which correlates with my studio project on responsible recycling, and it also fills up the space and adds more context to the now simplified animation. In order to cut down on my frames from 10 to 8, and also to prevent the same thing from happening in V1 and V2, I changed the path for the styrofoam box. In this iteration, it just moves from the left to the bin opening, then disappears when rejected by the Bloobin. When I printed this out and tested it with my lenticular frame, it looked alright but it just fell a little flat and I still felt as if the animation path for the styrofoam could be further shortened to increase visibility. Additionally, there was also a little lack of contrast between the animated items and the background. However, despite all these issues, I was happy with the change to 300dpi as it made each frame look more obvious and the animation less ‘blurry’.
Final Version (V6)
After settling on that animation path, I decided to make things look a little more interesting by slightly animating the text on the bottom left, scaling in size. This also draws further emphasis to the text which is also pretty important. After all this, I am happy with the final annimation and decided to mount it onto the lenticular lense, which was also another struggle. Luckily I had help from my friends who mounted their pieces before me and they gave me tips on how to make things simpler. From there, it was just me learning along the way while I flattened my print onto the adhesive sheet, stuck to the lenticular lense. When I was done mounting it, sadly, there was a little white line on the edge because I misaligned it by 1mm but I decided to let it go because it was not that obvious. With that, this concludes my journey with the 42lpi lenticular animation.
Reflection
I decided to create and focus on the animation for the 42lpi lenticular first, due to submissions. Through this entire gruelling journey, I found that less is more with lenticular animation. I think that is truly the key to successful and visible lenticular prints. Honestly, just the 42lpi animation itself took everything out of me, especially because I had to endure and troubleshoot 5 (might be more) animations before creating something that works and satisfies me to a certain extent. By the time I was about to give up on this animation, it was too late for me to restart, so I just tried my best to make things work and honestly, even though it was slightly underwhelming, I don’t think I did that badly. Like all the other lessons and last semester, trial and error is key to growing, and learning from your mistakes is the key to leveling up. So even though this whole activity was taxing, I would say I learned alot and I am grateful to have the chance to experiment with this medium, something that I have seen since young.
32 LPI pt.2
Layer panel
Description
Reference images and created graphics used to create the 42lpi animation. I created all these on Illustrator using shapes, gradients, and even the image trace tool for the background, then imported them all into After Effects to begin animating. Not pictured (i lost the asset) was a chicken drumstick that I created that was supposed to be inside the styrofoam box. My initial plan for the animation was to have the styrofoam box open to reveal food remains, then close, and head towards the mouth of the recycling bin, then gets rejected due to contamination and bounce off.
A Series of Failed Attempts :’)
V1
As mentioned in the previous section, this is my V1. Sadly, I have lost the After Effects File with the first actual animation but let me try my best to describe everything. Because I was once again overambitious (my hubris), I somehow decided to animate a whole movie, with the closed styrofoam box starting from the bottle left, the lid opening to reveal a chicken drumstick (you can vaguely see it in the images above) then closing it. The whole box is then thrown towards the bin opening, then it gets rejected due to the contamination within, and it bounces off while the ‘REJECTED’ text flashes on the opening of the Bloobin. As you could probably expect, there was too many frames, so I tried using the 600dpi option to accomodate more frames for my animation. After printing it out and trying it with the lenticular piece, the animation barely showed up at all LOL. The only animated parts that I could see were the chicken drumstick and the flashing red ‘REJECTED’ text on the bin opening. As one could tell, there was too much animating going on and just too many frames in general. Thus I began my journey on another animation, and unbeknownst to me, many more to come.
V2
I totally cut out the entire first portion from the first animation, where the box opens and closes to reveal a drumstick. Kind of sad but it had to be done. I tried to cut down the frames as much as possible. for more visibility when the box moves towards the bin. As a result, I had 10 frames left and I still stuck to using 600dpi for this animation. However, after printing and testing it using the lenticular piece, once again, I could not see the middle frames where the styrofoam box moves towards the bin. The entire animation felt really blurry and ironically, too smooth. Hence, another attempt was required.
Final Submitted Version