Exercise 4 3D layers

Today we were shown a new style of doing things. By quickly outlining a rough background and filling in the colours, we can create a quick and effective background or scene.

Its handy for rough drafts, tests and if you want a quirky kind of cartoon style.

I tried one out before the tutor gave us a file of his own to try out. I quickly made a colour pallet and layered it up. Its a pretty good way of figuring out how your idea is working out, very easy to alter and switch around ideas.

I then had a play around with the lineart that was given to me. Playing around with the colours and highlights.

I then altered his scene to my own liking and put it into aftereffects. Converting the layers into 3D layers i was able to create a little 3D scene!




Here is what I ended up with. I really do enjoy the effect a lot and will have to have a play with this when i do my final piece. Operating the camera was tricky and the computer i was using was very slow, making it even more difficult. This effect only works to a certain degree though. Little movements about the scene are fine but move a little too much and it looks cheap and strange. Just because the images are still flat. That's why I haven't gotten lots of broad movement in mine, its very subtle.

Exercise 2, shapes and masks.

This week I learnt about making shapes, masks and movement. Also a little bit about 3D layers ad cameras, which got very confusing!

We were shown a video by one of the best aftereffects artists, who uses shapes and masks to earn money. He transforms something so simple as 3 moving bars into a  moving 3D structure.

While watching and listening to this lesson i began to get very exited and eegar to have a go myself. I'm really into motion graphics and this is the first taste of it I have had so far, so naturally I wanted to experiment.

I want to animate to music so i dove straight in and decided to create an animation that is timed to music! So i drew up some artwork I could have a go at animating and selected music! I used the transforming settings to alter the masks which i had put on the colour and highlights. And I also moved around the masks at one point, so that it would strike across the scary wolf face. The black lines are made up of 3 layers, which i made into 3D layers. You cant really tell though as I couldn't get the right effect with the camera. It just didn't look right.
Also tried a bit or animating the words too which was fun, I actually like the ending the most, just because its the most intense and effective.

Really enjoyed doing this! Very happy with it, I count this a my first 'Real' attempt at making something decent on after effects. So i'm happy with that!

Excersise 1

Well its my first time in after effects, a program I have been curious about for years.
This little video here took me hours! Reading through tutorials, making mistakes and discovering new things which would slow me down. This is going to take ALOT of getting used to.


Im happy with this to an extent. Being a perfectionist I cant help but hate the last part. Its so jerky and out of time. I used the graph editor on the timeline for the transforms, but I could'nt get it to work. So I left it as it was. I had learnt a lot from this exercise but I wanted to focus on my next task which was way more exiting!