Blinking eyes effect

[David Bogie]

“cool” and “bad” are totally subjective. When someone blinks, they don’t perceive their eyelids moving so you’re doing what’s known as a “convention effect” similar to putting two overlapping circles up on the screen to suggest binoculars. You don’t really see those when you look through binocs but it’s the convention.

Regaining consciousness is more complicated than blinking. There are vision artifacts like blurring, color overlays, hallucinations, over exposure, double vision, disorientation, vertigo, flashes, backflashes, distortions, and more.

bogiesan

[Dave Johnson]

David’s advice is spot on so I’m not countering it in any way and would only add to his “don’t perceive their eyelids moving” comment in that the “blinking” effects that I’ve seen that looked “bad” were most often because they were too slow. As David said, there are a lot more visual cues that convey regaining consciousness than simple blinking so, for it to be convincing, you’d have to add the types of effects David mentioned and, as far as the blinking part, you might also try making the blinks progress from sporadic to evenly paced and make sure they are at appropriate speeds at each point in the progression.

[Steve Roberts]

We might not be able to perceive the eyelids closing, so consider really fast dissolves to black frames, possibly with a blur-to-sharp look when coming out of the blink. (it wouldn’t happen going into the blink, just coming out of it).

Or consider animating the Levels effect quickly so the dark areas go black first when going into the blink, and so they come up last when coming out of the blink.

Hey, try slowly closing your eyes and see what it looks like.

[Dave Johnson]

Steve makes very good points about Blurs and Levels … I’d just mention that I’ve found dissolves and the like less convincing than animating an oval-shaped mask or vignette since an actual eye blink doesn’t really involve the view gradually turning black … rather, the view is entirely obscured from the top and bottom simultaneously. Again, as each of us has mentioned in our own way, one of the key factors is appropriate speed.

I also agree with Steve that keen real-world observation is typically the best guide so simply “slowly closing your eyes and see what it looks like” is a great way to get a feel for the blinking part … for the regaining consciousness part, perhaps you should get drunk, pass out, and observe yourself regaining consciousness!? ;~)