REAL LIFE SASQUATCH SIGHTING! (Or, 'After Effects Multiplane Animation')

RETURN OF THE 'SQUATCH

Multiplane Animation

By Drew McCall

This is a completely legitimate Sasquatch sighting.

In this project, we chose a location in which we would create a 3D effect in a 2D animation. The idea behind it is that the farther away an object is from the viewer, the slower it appears to move as the viewer moves, while the things closest to the viewer move faster. Using the multilane (or rather, multilayer) technique in photoshop, we created this effect by animating the closest layers faster than the farthest layers. In this project I learned that this technique can make an otherwise mediocre animation look professional. It actually wasn't very difficult to do, in my opinion. All you really had to do was keep track of which layers are closest and which are farther away. I really enjoyed this project because very cool effects can be created by using this very simple technique.

"The Chase": REDUX

THE CHASE REDUX

By Drew McCall

This project seems somewhat familiar...

This project utilized the sequencing that we learned with our past two projects.

I learned a lot about the teamwork behind making videos, because we really had to work together and everyone had to be involved in what was going on. I liked how we got to use music, because the music really helped to create the mood of the video. Intense music can really make a video scary. I also learned how to use color correction to get the right look for the video. In all I really enjoyed this project.

Capt.' Ironside: A Voyage Across the Seven Seas of Character Design

The Ballad of Captain Ironside

(Or, Character Animation 101)

By Drew McCall

This is Captain J. Mortimer Ironside...

This character is one that I drew on paper, scanned into photoshop, and animated in After Effects. This was a very time consuming process, which took a lot of patience while both animating and editing the original drawing. The original drawing, by the way, looked like this:

I chose this sea captain mainly because I liked the idea of having sea captain named 'Ol' Ironside'.

After assigning layers to each of the body parts and adding some texture and color to it, it ended up looking like the character you see above. I wasn't done yet, though. I still had to animate it.

It took a while to create the background ship and sea, and I had to use the perspective tool to get the floor to look right. In the end I was very happy with the way it looked. I animated the legs and added a slight movement to the body to make the walk cycle seem a little more natural. I added a built in rain effect and... Presto! I was done. I liked this project, it took a lot of time and patience but the end result was really worth it.

"Overdue: Librarians at Work" - Experiments with the 6 Shot Sequence

'OVERDUE'

By Drew McCall

This video utilizes the 6-shot sequence that we learned about during the previous project, only this time, we had to use 2 sets of the 6 shot sequence.

The 6-Shots I'm talking about are:

ECU - Extreme Close Up

CU - Close up

MS - Medium Shot

WS - Wide Shot

EWS - Extreme Wide Shot

OTS - Over the Shoulder

I liked this project because we were allowed to make longer videos and I learned that Brendan does a great boring teacher impersonation. Some of the things that I learned are that white balance helps to keep sots consistent, and that planning and storyboarding is essential to making a good movie.

2D Inchworm: Early After Effects Project

2D INCHWORM

By D. McCall

THIS IS A WORM.

Yeah, this isn't a very good project. It was fun to do, and I learned a lot, but you really should just move onto the other projects I have.

3D Inchworm: EXTREMELY Basic Character Rigging in After Effects

3D INCHWORM TUTORIAL

By D. McCall

THIS IS A WORM.

After being instructed to by one Mr. Netterville, I completed the 3D Affter Effects inchworm tutorial posted on YouTube by a certain Australian animator whose name I am not familiar with. Nevertheless, the fruits of my hours and hours of hard labor are now posted for the world to see. Using the Puppet Pin tool, I was able to alter and shape the 3D inchworm to move just like an actual worm. I am happy with this final product.