By Yiming Li
This project is a shorter one compared to the previous ones. I only had a week to produce it, so I focused my work on the final output of the project. At the same time After Effects is a relatively new software to me, so I spent some time on learning it.
Honestly, sound visualisation rendering is something I’ve done many times before with different software, but I never thought AE could do it. Therefore, during the research session, I intentionally focused on producing an interactive sound visualisation that featured AE.
I think of a lot of work I’ve seen before on sound (or sound wave) visualisation. I have to say it’s interesting for what they end up showing. In my previous studies on AU I’ve seen sound spectrum images, which are the different ways that sound looks in a computer. After some preliminary research I came across some work on visualising these sound images and I wondered if I could do the same in AE.
In the Workshop, I learnt exactly how sound interaction works and how to do it in AE. Later on in my own studies, I learnt about some very interesting plugins. Basically the visual presentation of this project is achieved by these plugins. I will introduce the specific principles of this plug-in below.
I learned that AE’s canvas is not a flat surface as I had previously assumed. Quite the contrary AE’s console actually allows us to do a lot of designing on a 3D level. Just like a 3D software, I can also plant a camera in AE so that I can look at it from different angles. Up to this point that’s the basic setup part, next I’ll go over exactly how I utilise the plugin.
In AE, it’s easy to get a line to follow a sound. But why do I have to use a plugin? Because this Red Giant plugin allows me to control this moving line from a particle point of view. We all know that a line is made up of points, and this operation can definitely make the whole project more controllable. The basic operation of analysing the sound is almost the same as in the original AE, but when it comes to editing the line, I can do it from a completely new point of view. Adjust the camera position to get a different viewing angle. (In fact, I can make this process a whole animation); delete the line particles on the X-axis to make the whole project more clear and concise; adjust the frequency of each particle according to the fluctuation of the sound, and at the same time create a kind of picture following the sound ‘flow’ effect. Basically, it’s all about debugging different parameters. Regarding the sound, I hope I can find a ‘ripple-like sound’ to echo with my project. So I went to the BBC Sound Library and downloaded a live recording of a wave, and did some processing on it to bring up the mid-range so that some of the characteristics of the sound would stand out.
Basically this is how this project was made. But the project was really so short that I didn’t have time to think outside the box and experiment more. I hope that if I have the chance I can think more deeply about the final presentation and expression, so that the finished product can be more interactive and interesting.