Week 11: Technical Experimentation Episode 3

To add a sense of realism to my characters, I wanted them to blink (just as humans do). However, as I want to add an 'eerie' effect to my animatic, I decided to make their blinks more random and less constant than that of a human.

This episode of technical experimentation will show how I added the blink effect.

1. Before animating anything, the first thing I did was import the 'blink' and the 'character's eyes' into After Effects.

I then placed the blink over the character's eyes as this is where the blink will appear when the eyes are closed (see below).

2. The second step involves the timing of the blink. Naturally, when the character's eyes are open I want the blink to disappear, and the same vice versa.

To do this, I had to change the Opacity of the blink. As I wanted my character's eyes to be open at the start of the scene, I changed the opacity to 0% at 0 seconds (see below).

I made sure that the character's eye and eye lid were set to 100% at the same time (so they would be visible when the blink wasn't).

3. I then had to decide when I wanted the blink to appear. I wanted the character to blink a 1 seconds so I had to make the blink reappear then.

However, it is not as simple as simply placing a marker at 1 second and changing the opacity to 100%. If I did this, the opacity would slowly appear between 0 seconds and 1 seconds. I wanted the blink to appear immediately and not gradually.

To do this, I placed a marker at a split second before 1 second and made sure the opacity was at 0%. This ensures that the opacity of the blink doesn't change between 0 seconds and just before 1 second.

Then, at 1 seconds I place another marker and change the opacity to 100%. This ensured the blink appeared immediately between 1 seconds and a split second before. 

4. The fourth step included doing the exact same thing with the eye and eye lid but with the opposite values. 

For example, at 0 seconds I ensured the opacity of the eye and eye lid were at 100%, and at a split second before 1 second it was still at 100% and finally at 1 seconds, I made sure the opacity was at 0%. This made it so that when the blink appeared, the eye and eye lid disappeared, creating the desired blink effect.

5. The fifth and final step was the opening of the eye. I did exactly the same as before, but with opposite values.

I then repeated this wherever I wanted my character's to blink!