Compositing in After Effects

Compositing a piece of animation is to assemble multiple layers of film and images together to create a final outcome. In this case I used After Effects to place a walk cycle into a new setting, taking them out of the blank background. Here are the clips and images I used:

I used my cut-out walk cycle for this task so that when I took away the white of the background I wouldn't just have outlines left, but a fuller and more finished looking character.

These are the three sheets I made for the scrolling background, keeping the ground line in the same place to ensure that they matched.

These are the trees I made for the foreground, I kept them shadowed so not to distract from the detail of the character and background.

I then assembled all the piece in Adobe After Effects, the backgrounds joined together as one image on the bottom layer, the walk cycle on the layer above with a mask around the character to edit out the flares of the lights and a linear key to remove the white, and finally had the foreground on the top layer. I kept the bottom moving at a constant pace, the character still in the centre, and the foreground going faster to give the illusion of depth.

I like how the textures add up in this composition, it could be nice to try making a background in a similar style to see if it compliments the character or washes them out. I think the clip would have looked more finished if I'd run it long enough to become a loop, so that the gif could keep running as if she were walking past another bench and another set of trees.